Shadee Elmasry – Islam For Europeans Robert Dufour
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Welcome, everybody to the society podcast. And we have a unique
episode today on Dawa, right in a to a population that we oftentimes
don't really look at. And sometimes they're like the token,
Muslims in the masajid. And that is, namely, with our guests robbed
before, and he's got a podcast of his own called Islam for
Europeans. So we're looking today at Dawa, to Europeans and what
does that entail? What are some of the stories about that our guest
today Rob is from Canada. He's originally French Canadian. But he
lives now in London, Ontario. So welcome to our podcast Rob. As
salam o alaikum, warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu. Thank you so much
for having me on the show. My name is Robert. And our channel is
called Islam for Europeans, the number four in the middle. And
yet, Joe, we're going to talk to you today about our alternative
solution to giving Dawa to not just Europeans, but Muslim, or I'm
sorry, non Muslims, from from any background, where I guess, Muslims
might be the minority, or it's generally considered that these
people
are generally considered a non Muslim population. Yeah. Okay. So
we're not being exclusive to other groups in any way. But what we're
suggesting is twofold. And we believe that this is going to have
benefits for it not just converts from a European background, but
converts from all backgrounds, and also Muslims from all backgrounds,
especially in Muslims living in the West, also for non Muslim
populations.
And the ongoing 300 1300 year conflict between Islam and Europe,
all for a fraction of the price.
No, no, no small task. But we feel that these solutions have gotten a
lot of support from people from all sorts of walks of life,
Muslims that you would originally associate with the political left
Muslims, who would you originally associate with the political
rights, those on the center, those from religious backgrounds, those
from non religious backgrounds, and also the conference
themselves, their families, their communities, and also the society
in general. So yeah, piece of cake.
I had asked you for some, you know, to prepare some stories of
your experiences, but I think the most important one is your own
experience, because that's the one that you have the most detail and
color and your whole journey to it has informed how you're going to
approach. You know, your dad wants to why don't why don't we start
with that? Absolutely. So yeah, this realization took several
years, I converted to Islam in 2003. But going way back to my
early life, I was born in 1981, in a small town outside of Windsor,
Ontario called Amherstburg.
And Roseburg is a town that's 95%, white, mostly French and Italian
backgrounds there. So it was a predominantly Catholic town. I was
raised by my mother and father, and to live with my one brother.
My father was a stand up comedian. He was a French
Franco Ontarian descent, but he had lost all his French. When he
entered to an English school. My mother took care of me and my
brother and also, she was one who managed our comedy club. So they
had a bar comedy club in Windsor, Ontario.
For several years, I went to a Catholic, high school, and grade
school. But my family were never really practicing Catholics, they
were more, I guess, cultural Catholics that didn't really
practice the faith. But
even from an early age, I was always interested in religions in
general, especially when I entered high school. I know we, me and my
friends would always have philosophical discussions. What's
the meaning of this life? Why are we here? Is it all a dream? So it
was very latent, in my mind, but a couple of experiences really stood
out during that time.
We had actually gone on a field trip a grade 10 field trip to
different religious places of worship. And one of the places was
the mosque, the local mosque in Windsor, right, would end up
taking my Shahada seven years later.
So that was an early experience into that. And I wanted to ask a
question, actually, to the lady who was, you know, giving us the
tour. And a question revolved around do Muslims believe in the
Day of Judgment? I don't know why that question popped in my head,
but I never had the gun.
It's really tough to say anything because I didn't want to stand out
in the crowd.
So after I left high school, I really didn't have any direction
in my life, I was still living with my family, I only had a part
time job, I didn't pursue post secondary education, I didn't have
a girlfriend or a wife. So my life was pretty much flying by and just
going down the drain. So I'd really no direction in my life.
Cuba had to 911 events of September 11. And that really, you
know, jarred everybody's memory, created all these negative images
of Islam and Muslims.
But then a couple of weeks later, I started to look into the
internet, because I was very deeply heavily into conspiracy
theories. And I'm not gonna get too deeply into that. But I had a
very inquisitive mind and to looking into why are these events
happening in the world? You know, what's the whole cause behind it?
And why are we here on this planet as a larger question? Eventually,
my curiosity turned to Islam because it was big in the media,
the Iraq war was happening. And Islam was very prominent in the,
in the media and whatnot. So I typed up i s lm on Google, when
they all loan in my house. And lo and behold, the first website I
went to, I had a picture of an unborn baby in the mother's womb.
And I thought to myself, Do I have the right website Is this Islam?
So as I looked into it, I, you know, it explained that the Quran
has many amazing things that were written back in the seventh
century, that we're only finding out now with a technology of the
20th century. So this absolutely floored me because, you know, when
I was growing up in high school, going to high school, you know,
the, the message was always you can never prove that God exists.
You know, it's, you know, and since you can't prove God exists,
what's the point of following a religion, you know, what's the
point of this life and no one's ever going to find out the truth.
But by the grace of Allah, a lot opened up my heart to read more
and more about Islam. So I studied Islam on my own for about seven,
eight months, I didn't tell anybody about it, not even my
bosses were also Muslim. Until I, one day decided to go to the same
mosque that I went to years ago in high school. And this was during
Ramadan, actually. So I was I was I fasted a few days during
Ramadan, before I went there. But the first few times that I went, I
was absolutely terrified. I didn't want to go there, I didn't feel
like I didn't know if they would accept me. And it didn't know if I
wanted to make that actual jump to either convert to Islam, or even
converse with another Muslim. I even went to chapters, I remember
a couple of months before I converted, and it was even looking
at the section of religions. And I saw the quarter translation of the
Quran there, but I didn't actually didn't even have the guts to buy
it. Because I was thinking, you know, what would the cashier
think? So this was, you know, again, it was not a very brave
person. But, you know, gently Allah guided me to that mosque in
November, I ended up taking my Shahada.
And from there on, things just in my life just started to unfold. I
told my family week later, and humbly, loud, they were very
accepting about it. My dad actually shook my hand when I told
him that I converted to Islam. My mom was accepting of it. And back
in 2003, the mosque was a very accepting warm, integrated
community. And I noticed that you had people from all different
walks of life there.
So yeah, and so it was at the time, you know, I spent my first
three, four years learning what I could about Islam. Excuse me, my
cat is going to break my internet connection right now. So I got to
be very careful here so it doesn't get cut off a monkey.
Okay, so there's a nice little thing was that like, less than a
year old? Right?
Okay, sorry, that was Mo. Okay. All right. So anyway, okay, we
still got the internet connection. Good. Okay. That's, that's the
only guy who was allowed to be called Mo.
Okay, so anyway, um,
where was I? Okay, so, yeah, so, I saw dozens of people from
different nationalities. And what I noticed was that
a few things. One is that a Windsor is a very multicultural
society. So even though you know, we saw all different walks of life
when we went to Juma prayer, I saw
Somalis having a distinct culture, their own restaurants, their own
organization, their own get togethers, their own language,
their own culture. The Pakistani community was big and in Windsor
as well.
The Turkish community had their own Cultural Center just outside
of Windsor,
the Arab community,
they had their own organizations based on on country as well. So
there's a Syrian organization in Windsor. So but at the same time,
all of them you know, still went for Juma prayer. We all saw them
on Eid. But what I was seeing is that, you know, they were trying
to acclimate new converts, and while they were trying to do that,
you were noticing several things. And that one, there were some
converts who were very strong and ended up, you know, like becoming
very highly practicing, and kind of become the golden children of
the community. And that's basically what I was I dived right
in, you know, I made friends with whoever I could, and I basically,
you know, become became this kind of this, you know, token white
spokesperson for the Muslim community. But I also have seen
that many converts were falling through the cracks, it was
difficult for them to get adjusted, many of them had
negative experiences at the mosque, and many just felt like
they did not simply fit in.
So skip ahead, you know, my life started moving along, I got
married to another convert, you know, I went back to university,
you know, I started making developments in my life. And this
is when I started to see just how difficult it was for converts
whose family had a negative experience with Islam. I don't
want to get into too much detail because I don't want to get too
personal. But, you know, we saw many converts where, you know,
the, when they told their family, they converted Islam, their their
father, or their mother slapped them or beat them up, told them
that if you wear a hijab, you know, you're not going to we're
not going to disown you.
And just basically, even myself, I found out, you know, very clearly
that when you convert to Islam, especially from a European
background, you're basically living between two worlds. And
this is what we kind of noticed on the surface. And this feeling no
more intensive, greatly intensified, I would say
exponentially. From about 2014 onwards, when I entered to do my
master's degree.
I know I'm talking a lot here. Do you guys want to chime in with
anything? Oh, that's fine. Okay, good stories. Good. Yep. So,
you know, skip ahead to 2014 I had gone through, sadly, a divorce to
my wife who's also a convert.
But
when I re entered the to do my master's degree, I noticed that
you were CB, we're seeing a very sharp schism within the Muslim
community, and particularly the Muslim youth. What we're finding
is because of many events that were happening, many Muslims were
getting into political activism. And you saw this very intensely,
for several reasons. One, was, I guess, the the, the, the the BDS
movement, that are unpopular in universities, and, of course, the
election of Donald Trump. So this caused quite a divide in the
Muslim community, you can see a very sharp schism, you had one
group that was very political, you can say many of them, were not
practicing, but not all somewhere else. So prac trying to practice
their religion. And you could tell they felt very marginalized. Okay,
and these were, you know, like I said, the dean to them, was more
of an identity marker than anything else. And they didn't
feel like they fit in with a greater Canadian society. And then
the other side, and usually those kids ended up joining, you know,
nationalist groups on campus, your Palestinian groups, you know, the
Pakistani groups and whatnot. The other side was more on the, the
religious side. They were, you know, traditional, many of them,
you know, were practicing Muslims, they were learning traditional
Islam.
And this is where they had a split with the, you know, more
nationalistic, identitarian side of the Muslim coin. So, me as a
white convert of 1012 years, you know, this was very, I started to
see exactly why many converts felt like they did not fit in. Okay.
And I'll get I'll give you, you know, trying to think of some
anecdotal stories, more anecdotal stories, I can tell, I'm just
talking about myself right now. And I'm gonna branch off later to,
you know, actual events.
But the general consensus was these more political politicized,
marginalized Muslims really had a lot of inner resentment towards
Western society, Western civilization, Western
civilization, and just basically white people in general. And I
think this really intensify once they realize that BDS was very,
almost impossible for them to have as a movement, when they talked
about specifically in into into in terms of Israel, or Zionism, so
they tried to ally themselves with many other minority groups. And
many of these other groups had beliefs that were anathema to, you
know, traditional Islam. One of which is that, you know, this is a
common thing that we hear that it's basically it's impossible to
be racist towards white people. So, you know, the practicing
religious Muslims, you know, they were against this, you know, they
said, you know, this is not going to be good
For Dawa, in the West, you know, this is not what Muslims believe.
And you can't denigrate an entire group of people like this. Okay,
so and so this caused a lot of friction between the Muslim youth.
And you could tell that, you know, you know, there was almost like no
particular solution. And it wasn't an either or a circumstances while
you saw many of these youth, you know, they had brothers and
sisters, actual brothers and sisters on one side, but they
themselves were on the other side. Okay, so skip ahead and finish my
master's degree. And, you know, basically exited, you know, the
university and thus the political arena. I know, I entered the
workforce and had a good job.
But still, in the back of my head, I was thinking it this is where
we're headed as a Muslim community, because many Muslims
feel that they feel marginalized, they feel that they're being under
attack by the society, which is totally understandably true. I
mean, you know, there being, especially with the election of
Donald Trump,
you know, many of them feel that whenever they walk down the
streets, any white person is going to be a potential negative 100,
they're going to be a potential Islamophobe, you know, they could
potentially rip off my hijab at any moment, they could
potentially, say, a racial slur. And this is what we're seeing this
increased polarization of, of society, whereas converts, you
know, we're in a completely different situation. Okay. So for
us, you know, we're not visibly Muslim. So we don't know what
those experiences are like. But at the same time, our family, our
community, our general society,
is not Muslim. So for us, I guess the threat for ours is more
internal, where as the
the, for these important for born, Muslims, especially those who feel
marginalized, their foot of Islamophobia is more external and
not and I'm saying this, not to say that one is worse or better.
But I want to feel that we can move past this.
And say that, you know, instead of pointing fingers and saying who
has it worse or better,
proposes solution that is going to be beneficial for all sides. So in
2019, we know we formed Islam, for Europeans, with these general
ideas in mind. And we're finding that we're starting to get support
on all sides. So that's basically my story. In a nutshell, I hope
that wasn't too long or too short. But to hopefully we can expand
expand on some of these, you know, I guess these anecdotes or stories
that I've saw that I've seen in the Muslim community,
that, you know, sort of helped me help us come to these conclusions.
Okay. What's the solution then? Because I pretty much agree with
your categorization of the active youth are either going to be more
on the political side, more on the knowledge side, right? The, you
know, piety and knowledge and our moral standard. Everything truth
comes from Quran and Hadith first, right? The political side may
adopt a different view, that's more of a political paradigm, in
which that, you know, sometimes they don't have they're not all
false. The ideas there are all false, but they take up a larger
space in their methodology and in their head than let's say, the pie
artistic and knowledge track. Okay. And so I yeah, that divide
is there and you find that sort of converts are in the middle, or not
in the middle, they're just there. They don't, actually, if anything
there, there's there's more diversity in the pie in the
knowledge and piety. Camp. Right. There's what's much more diversity
there. But in any event,
so given that your premise is pretty much agreed upon that view,
Alex, Would you concur that pretty much for sure. Yeah. That's the
playing field. And you've described it pretty much
accurately without denigrating anyone
or misrepresenting them. So tell us about your solution. Yes. So
our solution is that
converts to Islam. We're from a European background, just as our
African American brothers and sisters and just as our Latino
brothers and sisters have done so in the past with enormous success
is to
collectivise and band together into sub communities, while still
being an integral part of the Muslim community. You have to look
at it in this style of a Venn diagram. Okay. And again, this is
a very, these are very, very delicate, delicate topics. Because
we don't want like, I know, the religious
side of the Muslims. They're very afraid that this is going to
descend into nationalism, and that's not what we're suggesting.
What we are suggesting is that as converts of European background,
we have a responsibility
to lead the the Dawa efforts to this to our families, to our
community.
teas, but that is almost impossible to do as a single
person. So that's why we need to form collectives and focus our
efforts on giving Dawa to our own people. And this is going to, and
this is not an a zero sum game. And this, this is going to have
benefits for the more political side of the Muslims, because if
you if you ask them, what their complaints are
visa vie, white converts.
They don't like the fact that we are appropriating other cultures,
they have issues with us trying to become white saviors. They feel
that when a white person converts to Islam and enters the mosque
environment, we're given all these gifts, we're given all these high
statuses, we're given all these marriage proposals.
And instead of accepting that and becoming this kind of tokenized,
white convert that is coming to save the society, we're instead
going to focus our earn our efforts on giving Dawa, to our own
people. And they're also one of their biggest complaints is that,
you know, many people from European backgrounds who are not
Muslims, they're the ones who are protesting at mosques. They're the
ones who are throwing pigs heads in mosques. They're the ones who
are ripping the hijabs off her sisters, they're the ones spray
feeding, spray painting graffiti on our mosques. But what our
suggestion would do is that these are ants, these are uncles, these
are our fathers, these are our mothers, these are the people that
we play tennis with. And
us more than ever have a greater in more social capital,
with these people, and thus, by, you know, not even if they don't
accept Islam, if we can allay their fears of Islam, and show
them that Islam has many benefits for mankind, this is going to,
you know, these people are going to think you know what, maybe I
won't go to the mosque protests, maybe I'm not going to get angry
at Muslims. And that way, we can do the best for our part, to lower
Islamophobia in the West. And then if we look at the more of the
religious side, I guess, the more religious traditional Muslims,
this has benefits for them as well. Because when you look at
mosques and organizations, many of them only have a little limited
amount of funds to spend. And I'll dive into an anecdote here, we
have we I remember, there was one convert to Islam. And, you know,
he had been an alcoholic before. And he was just trying to, you
know, you found Islam and you wanted to dive right into it. And
we were going on an ummah trip, and the Imam of the mosque,
offered this guy a free Ummah trip two weeks into being Muslim, okay.
And this, this must have cost at least $3,000. Right. So he went on
the trip, and he just didn't know any of the monastic, he didn't
know any of the rituals, he was in a completely different
environment. And, you know, this guy was just fresh, new converts.
And after the whole experience was over, we never saw him again,
until I found out later that he had, you know, when back to drink
alcohol again, and the Muslim community had just given him so
much, not just uma trip, but free gas cards, to go to the mosque and
all these,
you know, like incentives. But he felt that he had let the Muslim
community down because they were placing him on such a high
pedestal, and it was almost like setting him up for failure. Okay,
so that's, that's just one anecdotal evidence as if we were
to have a Muslim community, it would just be a lot more
financially feasible. And just from a practical perspective,
let's say for example, if you have a lot of people converting to
Islam on mass, let's say 100 people convert to Islam on mass in
any city, Muslim organizations, mosques, they simply do not have
the resources to house these people, especially if they're
sisters, and spend all this money on them when they're, you know,
they just, they have to spend money on other things as well. So
this is a much more leaner model, what we're, you know, in our
alternative solution, you know, if, you know, conference, one,
they can they have their own spaces, they have their own
apartments, their own houses, you know, they can, you know, have
their own events where we don't need to rent really rent out these
things. And another point that I might point out is that
a lot of mosques will try to have every single event at a mosque,
okay, so in their head because in their head, they think, you know,
if we have it at the mosque there would be more baraka and Ed,
there's more angels here. And, you know, any thing outside the mosque
is sort of, you know, like, you know, you know, there's things
there that are haram. So in their mind, they think, you know, we
build this, this is our space and let's have the solution for
everything at the mosque.
But for converts, especially converts for a European
background, many of us are hiding our Islam from our family.
And they don't feel comfortable going to a mosque because they
don't want to be found out. And some of them just don't feel
comfortable going there. So, you know, having events off mosque is
definitely more important. And really, when a lot of us convert
to Islam, the main goal is many of our family and our community
members.
You know, they have varied reactions when we convert to
Islam. And I'm gonna use a scale of plus 100 to minus 100. So minus
100 is like your total Islam hater, like Robert Spencer, plus
100 is like someone who's really, really positive about Islam. Okay,
so when someone converts to Islam, you have all these varied
reactions, some are minus 100, some are minus 50, some are zero,
some are plus 50, some are plus 100. Many of them just do not feel
comfortable going to a mosque, or any type of Muslim environment.
Even my father, when I converted to Islam, he had a very positive
image of Islam to begin with. But it took me years for him to
actually drag him to a mosque environment. So even if, you know,
for most of our family members, it's very, very difficult to even
for even for them to even come to a mosque or any type of Muslim
environment. And in our alternative solution, you know,
we're going to provide an alternative, where if they don't
feel comfortable going to a mosque, you know, you're going to
network with other converts, as particularly those of European
descent, but again, any car from any, from any background, where
they may feel comfortable with, where you can actually have those
conversations and establish those relationships with those people.
And then you'll gradually help them allay their fears about
Islam. So that's my long winded response for those two particular
groups. But there are other stakeholders. So So in essence,
your your model is more like the Islam and Spanish model. Right? Is
that something along those lines? Yes, absolutely. And yeah, and
then look at the enormous success that they've had, because they
realize that, you know, we have a lot of commonalities, converts of
European descent, and converts who are Latino or Latina, because a
lot of their families are very heavily religious, especially in
the West. So a lot of them had a lot of fears about Islam, you
know, and they didn't feel comfortable going to a mosque, but
if they're talking to, you know, other people who are Muslim who
are, you know, Mexican background, or Puerto Rican background, you
know, they feel more comfortable, because they again, they also
speak the language. And that's an important part too, you know, in
languages, it's, you know, if you want to talk to someone's heart,
you speak to them in their tongue. Right. And that's one example, in
which Assam Spanish has been successful. And another thing that
Islamic Spanish has done is that they've created a positive
Latino or Latina Muslim identity, right? So they're always referring
back to Andalus. They're always referring back to the fact that
Arabic and Spanish have many cognates Yeah, right. So for them,
this gives them more of a safety net, and feeling that they do
belong. Okay. So, you know, and this has helped a lot of people
keep their Islam. Now, when it comes to, when it comes to us, you
know, we're, you know, and again, it's, it's, it's right in front of
us, Islam as Europeans, white people, the West are generally
seen as seen as the antithesis to Islam. And we see this a lot. I
mean, we see Muslim spokespeople, saying that, you know, basically
using the terms white, or Western, or European as antonyms to Islam
or Muslims, or being synonymous with non Muslim. And, you know,
and again, it's not that they're intentionally doing it, but you
see, you know, a lot of Muslims liking social media posts such as
these, and no one's really questioning it. Right. So, and
again, I can understand where they're coming from. I mean, you
and I, we know that there's a lot of animosity between
the West and Islam. But I guess that's nice of you. I can't
say but I really don't understand where it comes from. I have I
think it's a completely inexcusable well interrupted.
Well, yeah, I mean, again, that's there are people who believe that
the winning again, I'm the the frontman of this organization,
surely they're gonna believe different things about it. You
know, when people bring it up, you know, I like to say that it's an
internal discussion.
Me, and that, you know, just lets people talk about those things.
And again, I mean, people who are going, you could say that it's
unacceptable. I mean, it certainly does it then doesn't help us.
I mean, and that's why, you know, we need to, I guess,
I don't like to get involved in it too much. You know, I used to and
then, you know, I just thought okay, my blood pressure is getting
weighed.
too high. And if I keep talking about it, I'm gonna have a heart
attack.
One of the, one of the reasons that I brought dimension this time
in Spanish model is because the other the other group that you
mentioned, have spoken Americans,
their spirit, their communities, their sense of community kind of
grew up more organically, right? So it was just that there was a
lot of people, African Americans converting to Islam, especially in
the 60s and 70s. Some of it through the Nation of Islam, some
of it directly to Sunni Islam. And I mean, their communities grew up
just simply because they lived in,
in communities that were mainly divided along race lines. Yeah. So
you know, you set up a masjid, it's going to be in your
neighborhood, and everybody, all the Muslims in your area gonna go
to it. And so they're all going to be people from then from the
neighborhood. And if the neighborhoods are racially
divided, that's what you're gonna end up, like, where you said that
you were that you grew up the town that you grew up in, if somebody
started a mosque there, because there was, you know, a dozen or
two dozen or, you know, 50, Muslims, you'd all end up being
white Muslims, because that's all that's in the town, or that's the
majority of what's in the town. Yeah, so there are geographic
factors. And I guess the biggest macrocosm of this example would be
Bosnia. Right. So, Boston is a European country. I mean, it's, I
think, 70, at least 70% Muslim, but they're Europeans. And it's
generally seen as, you know, the heartland of European Muslims. So,
you know, for us, I mean, it's, again, it's a very delicate
subject, because, you know, the,
I guess, the knee jerk reaction
to an alternative solution like this, is that, you know, this is
when you think, white people collectivizing for any reason,
it's going to end up bad for Muslims. Right. So I mean, that's,
that's, that's one of the challenges that we're looking at.
But, you know, we've gotten a lot of support from many African
Americans. And, you know, they say, Yeah, I mean, you know, you
should be giving Dawa to quote unquote, your people. That doesn't
mean that we can't work together.
You know, actually, Malcolm X mentioned this in his
autobiography. And he didn't say it in the context of white people
converting to Islam, because, you know, I guess none of us had
converted at that point. But he did say that, that white people
should form all white groups and work on anti racism in the white
community. And we will give them full respect, and we will be
working together, but we'll each be working on our own communities.
Well, one of the things the premises that you said here is
that
the summary is really like attracts like, and they're Hebei,
from the battery from Yemen, they traveled so all throughout the
world, it's like, a certain countries are blessed with
resources. And you know, natural reasons like Egypt and India,
those people tended to travel the least, people used to come to
their countries to migrate to their countries and no one ever
left. Certain countries like Yemen, were bereft of such natural
resources. They always had to travel to trade. And they usually
found those countries be better. I mean, England's another example.
England didn't have much going for it. So they wanted to leave,
right? There are reasons they become explorers, etc. So it's
it's much more attractive, other parts of the world. So Yemenis
travel to western India, Yemenis travel to Indonesia, Malaysia,
they traveled to East Africa and now they travel all over the world
now that they're, you know, the transportation different, but they
traveled for trade and dower they intermarry more than anyone else.
Right? So you go to East Africa, and there's a whole half Yemeni,
half African, you know, type of person where it's like millions,
right? Indonesia, they call them Arab, Malay, Malaysia, Arab
Malays, right. Western India, same thing. So, but interestingly, and
everyone thought that the battery, they came to America, they're
going to promote intermarriage. Well, one of the bad are we and
that's, and obviously, that's totally fine. And it's not, but no
one expected one of the Hebei when he was in America doing Dawa, when
he was asked about marriage, he actually gave the answer, no one
expected. And he said, Look,
you here are in a setting that was different from what we you saw in
the history books. And he said, your setting is very challenging.
So I recommend you decrease the number of differences between you,
right, so everyone expected him to say the opposite, because that's
the history of the battle. He actually said, decrease the number
of differences between you. So they you have less opportunities
to clash for reasons to clash. So he actually promoted that
regarding marriage. Now, the analogy being that in any
situation when there are less factors that are different amongst
people, it just allows them to focus on the one factor which is
at hand, which is the theology or the religion itself, right. So
your dad doesn't want to go into a mosque. It might not have anything
to do with Islam.
All right, it has to do with culture. Right? Actually Denzel
Washington talks about this a lot. He says so much about what's
talked about in may not actually be even erase its culture, right.
So it's what people are used to. And it's jokes that they make to
each other that you feel left out, they never intended to leave you
out, you just don't get their joke, right. Or it's little, you
know, things like that. So it's culture. That's the premise. Now,
the other point, so that's an agreed upon. The other point is
that you have to give doubt to them as an obligation not that's
not even a strategy. Right? Remember, her dad has a book deal
with Tim. Everyone has to give Dawa to himself his family than
his neighborhood than his countrymen, right his people, then
after you finish that, you may go out to another nationality and
give them dough. Right? So you actually become obligated to do
that. And it's not not just a strategy. And it would be silly
for you to leave your people who know you, etc. And then go give
Dawa to some other group, and then even know you, right, and you
don't know their culture. So that's one thing. Now what people
think about it is really irrelevant, honestly, and even
they don't have to, it's nice that you actually thought about, you
know, how everyone benefits from it. But you didn't even need to
think about that, from what I look at the perspective, I look at it
this way, you're my obligation, I have to give them down. So that
leads me to another question. Have you ever had any positive
experiences flipping someone who was, you know, inspired to, you
know, throw a pig's head at a mosque? You know, maybe that's too
extreme. Have you had? Have you had positive experience flipping
someone like that, at least, to not throw a pig's head out of
moss? Yeah, I mean, again, this took a lot of effort. But when
you're in a marriage, in which you're in laws are opposed to
Islam, and they don't want to hear about it, you know, they don't
want to hear the word Islam, they don't want to see it, they just
wanted to be out of sight out of mind, the only thing you can do is
try to be, you know, follow the Sunnah. And, you know, be the best
person you could be. And, you know, they will see that they had
posit that, that Islam does have benefits
for not just your son in law, or your daughter in law, but also,
you know, the greater society that they belong to. So even near the
end, when, when it did when it when, you know, the the marriage
itself fell apart. They were asking me, you know, how was your
trip? I want to know more about it. You know, like, it's really
fascinating to hear about it. And, yeah, I guess at the end of the
day, I did my job, but it took a lot of inching forward and doing
those, those little things. So yeah, I mean, that but you know,
those, those are ways that it can turn around now. So, you know,
like,
Yeah, I had an experience where, you know, one of the comedians on
my parents Comedy Club was telling jokes about Muslims. And, you
know, he was complaining about Muslims at the bar. And this was a
good friend of my of my mom and dad, you know, and
I mentioned this to my to my mom, dad, you know, that he was doing
this? And then my mom that was like, No, don't worry, don't
worry, we'll take care of it. And, you know, the next time I saw him,
he didn't say anything. He didn't say anything. Oh, hey, I'm sorry.
I said those things. He basically just shook my hand and said, hey,
you know, Hey, Rob, how's it going? Right. So I could tell
that, you know, that this, you know, that this was the, you know,
that my family was was looking out for me in that regard. So, it does
happen. But again, in many of these situations, it takes a lot
of, you know, a lot of patience and a lot of trying to be the best
person that that you can be, right? What's the day to day
interaction that you have with that population that you can say
like today, you know, we did this, you know, this week, we did that
you have dinners? Do you have what's due to COVID? Absolutely
nothing. But so now we're into the online world, right, where, you
know, people's, you know, we're in the social media world, you know,
where it's just the garbage dump of people's thoughts. Yeah. But
we're seeing a schism, I guess, within,
I guess, nationalist movements, in which you're seeing,
I guess, white people who are pro Islam, or at least inquisitive
about Islam, and those who are very anti Islam. So it's very
fascinating to see, even though you would think both of these
groups, you know, are just, they just hate Muslims and they just
want them out of the west. You're starting to see an actual schism
because the side is more pro Islam or more inquisitive about it. You
know, they see that Islam has solutions for the problems that
that that the West is facing, alcohol abuse, *,
degeneracy, low birth rates,
you know, indeed
Digitalism liberalism, right.
And they see Islam as a strong bulwark against those problems.
The problem is that side is not getting any media attention, all
of them has been cancelled out. And the one the more anti Islam
side are, they're getting all of the media attention, right? So,
you know, so you'd have YouTubers like Stefan Molyneux and Milo
Yiannopoulos, who just until recently, were given a huge
platform, were given all these, you know, all this money. And, you
know, they're seen as sort of like the face of, I guess, against
white supremacy, or Magga, or whatever you want to call it.
And this, in turn is making is getting, I guess, Muslims to
believe that every single white person has it in for Islam and
Islam as their main antagonist. So, you know, again, these are
very controversial subjects. But it's interesting to see that, you
know, they're starting to become inquisitive about Islam.
So, but again, this is on the this is in the back of our of our minds
right now. It's not our main focus, because we don't want to
get cancelled.
Do you deal with them? Do you talk to them? Yeah. Is there any
dialogue open with that side? Because I want to
hear why. Close it off. I mean, if you could possibly talk, and we
had just an example that a guy in in in in Europe, sent out okay,
moron, check out there, McKee Murad, may Allah preserve him and
all the work that he's doing an email. He wrote him back a book,
basically. And that led to the man's conversion. Right? We've all
seen this in the news. I can't remember his name, right. But
we've learned Jarvan Klopfer. And we actually interviewed him a
madman looks. Yeah. So I mean, the idea of dialogue with these
groups, it's you're not, you're not, you know, consenting to what
they're doing. You're just talking to see if there's going to be any
opening and made my defang them a little bit. That's success, they
don't have to convert just pull out their claws a little bit. And
even if they, you know, they end up you know, not changing their
opinion on Islam, per se.
They have some of the same misconceptions about Islam, that
the anti Islam right has. But the interesting thing about it is they
they take those anti Islam, things that are generally considered anti
Islam, and then they put a positive spin on it, for some
reason, even though it's wrong. Yeah. Like, what? Give me an
example? Oh, I mean, they'll say,
let me see, I guess, like, saying that, you know, like, a wife
should obey her husband. Right? So the anti Islam, right, you know,
they, they they say this all the time, you know, or things like
anything that just basically keeps women down.
But again, they're not seeing the whole nuanced, they don't
understand the whole perspective on Islam and the relationship
between the wife and the husband.
But, you know, the, the anti Islam, right, they put another
spin on it, they take the contrarian approach and say, Yeah,
that's gonna lead to higher birth rates, you know, so, or the idea
of couverture, right? So, you know, they take a very, they look
at the sort of like the, you know, the,
what's generally considered bad things about Islam, and then they
put a positive spin on it without, even without understanding the
nuance.
But again, our goal is to try to, you know, say, okay,
yes, I mean, they're, some of these are non true, some of these
are half truths. But, you know, let's give a little more.
You know, like, how do I say, like comprehensiveness, but to what you
see a lot of the times it's cultural, you know, you know,
they'll, they'll say, Well, cousin marriage is a reason why, you
know, this lowers the I lowers the IQ in the Muslim population, but
at the same time, it increases ethnocentrism, and this is why
they have such strong families, this is why they feel involved.
This is why, you know, they have such, you know, strong
communities, just asking who is doctors, your cardiologist?
And talking about IQ afterwards?
No, I mean, they, they look at it it ranges though, so, they look at
it from a range perspective, right.
You know, so when it comes to cousin cousin marriage, I mean,
this is something that happens in some Muslim communities.
It's not a prerequisite to converting to Islam, you know, but
okay.
Go ahead. I said Imagine if it were
Yeah.
It'd be a big barrier. Now tell me what's their what's their their
what are they revolving around these groups? Just because if we
can know what they revolve around, once that collapses, there's going
to be a big opening. Right? So they're, it's a racial group,
obviously. Right? And they, you know, when every time I look at
this, I sort of like shrug it off. Because the numbers the
statistics, just indicate that you're going to you're losing that
battle, so they're fighting a losing battle.
The youth could care less in my from my experience, like, you
know, youth are there or you know more into pop culture and pop
culture is preaching the opposite message, you know, diversity, etc.
So the guys who are in that world, they, they're fighting a losing
battle. Once that battle is lost, a lot of times people's identities
in their hearts are are vacant, right? You know me and I think
when Trump lost, when he won, they got hope, when he lost, I think
it's sort of back to that trajectory downward in terms of,
you know, their agenda. In the same way, the Soviet Union when it
collapsed, there was so many people who don't know what they
believe. And I remember one of the things that said Jose Nasir said
in class, he said, we missed a huge dollar opportunity, right, in
the Soviet Union, or in Russia after the Soviet states collapsed.
So likewise, these guys are losing out there, they're fighting a
losing battle. Yeah, they know that, they know that, there's
going to be an opening where there's a lot of these people are
going to, you know, not know what to believe. And that's the type of
person that you're able to talk to, and that's the person who's
going to be open to a new idea. Yeah. Yeah. Like, they mean, their
main contention with Islam is that, when I if, you know, if I
would actually choose it, it would cause a lot of, you know, turmoil
in my life, and my whole family community would be against it. But
there's also the idea that I'm going to lose out on my culture,
right, so I'll be basically joining the enemy. And I'm going
to have to wear a job and he biryani and, and, you know, like,
you know, marry into, into a Muslim family. But, you know, what
we're proposing, you know, is that, you know, especially for the
Muslim youth, if we take this approach, and you know, again,
you know, whites, they're going to be caught between two options,
basically. And we want to provide a third option. So the first
option is basically self flagellation, where they're
joining, you know, the, you know, the minority groups, and, you
know, they're sort of rejecting their identity in order to gain
kind of social capital and basically join the winning side.
And this is why you see a lot of, you know, like,
whites on the left, especially in universities, you know, who are on
the forefront of like, you know,
you know, exposing groups espousing beliefs, like, you know,
Robyn D'Angelo is white fragility, you know, saying that you need to
completely destroy yourself destroyed community, like, it's
been nothing but a disaster. And then you have the other extreme,
where they're going to join angry nationalist groups, whether that's
going to be Republican groups like Magga, or it's going to be like,
the more extreme, you know, like, you know, white nationalist
groups, keh, keh, keh, or whatever, because they're going to
feel threatened. So I guess, for us to write a third option is
going to have to be right, and, you know, going to be neither
extreme, but it's going to be right in the middle is that look,
you know,
you've converted to as if you convert to Islam, all of your
previous sins are forgiven.
And we want you to keep your identity, you know, and, you know,
joining your own sub community, you know, you'll keep the slang
you'll keep the culture, you'll keep everything about you only
dropping the things that are not acceptable in Islam, right. And
then in this way, this will solve a lot of the, of the problems that
they say that probably about 80% of their complaints, so, you know,
like, their main issues are, you know, are people are dying out,
you know, due to liberal nihilism due to not having kids anymore.
You know, you know, due to all these things, you know, and,
you know, and again, we see that, you know, like our culture is
dying out as well. Yeah. So, but again, there again, you're not
gonna get everything out of this. And again, the Muslims are kind of
in the same boat, because, you know, a lot of Muslims have
visions that, you know, like, we're going to reestablish the
Leafa. You know, like, you know, like, the whole his baton or your
attack or your crowd, you know, in a lot of the times, you just have
to realize that, you know, what, we have to think practically we
have to think years down the road and realize that, you know, there
are some things we're going to be able to accomplish, but not all of
them. I mean, go ahead. No, finish what you're saying on. Yeah, I
mean, they're their main complaint is is mass immigration and
demographic change. You know, I mean, like in Britain, for
example, they say that, and, you know, we can see the trends and
2050 like, what the white British are going to be a minority in
their own country. Well, yeah, I mean, I think that this is, Quran
says that Moodle course, you know, monarchy is a Duda between
civilizations. It's been 500 years right.
The Sun King, you know, was, you know, shall never sets over the
British Empire. British Empire has been 500 years from when you go
back to the Hungarians.
Were the first you know, rivals to the Ottomans that gave the
Ottomans a headache. And then it shifted over Austrians, you know,
over over over than British than Americans. Right? So they, it's
going to end every everything ends for everybody, right? Yep. Oh,
that's there's a, there's a book. There's a book I think a British
guy wrote his name is Sir John Glubb. Yeah. And it's the fate of
empires. And he basically the deuce that every empire goes to
the exact same phase, you know, they start up, you know, they have
great expansion, and they expand so much that they just become
super weak, and then it just completely falls apart. And that's
what we're seeing with the American empire as well. Yeah,
it's just like a lifecycle of civilization. exact question for
you. And you talked about this sort of third option, that is
Islam, but it's at the same time, it's neither of those two other
extremes. But the thing is that that's an abstraction. Is there a
way for people to see that, for example, if you had like, a place
where people could come and eat every Friday night or something
like that, where a random dude in London, Ontario could pop in, you
know, sit around with a bunch of other guys, you might not even
know they're most of them? Right? Well, it will know their most of
them. But it's not going to be doesn't have to be a talk, right?
And this is our way of sort of doing Dawa, in a sense of like,
it's slowly like, oh, okay, those guys have been going to having
dinner with them for like, five years. Now I have a problem. Maybe
they could help, right? Or I'm actually curious. Right? So I
think Dawa is the best way of doubt is that which is so sort of
non doubt, right? But you just become part of people's lives.
Right. And we've actually are witnessing it now that we have
such a good,
you know, reaction reputation.
With thee in New Brunswick, with the predominantly Latino
community, Hispanic community. And we're not even Hispanic, I was the
only one here who's he's not even like, from Central America. He's
from Argentina, and Spain originally, but we're just Arabs
and daisies who are doing it. And we got a great relations with them
already, as is. So imagine if we were right, we should probably,
you know, hire someone who is from Central America, or Mexico, as a
Muslim and, and just show up, that's it. But
that's my vision of Dow that I think is going to work. So do
before COVID, did you have some node like that, where people could
actually cross pollinate and talk and just see each other? Because I
think that's where that's going to be far more than a theory, because
there'd be able to see it with their own two eyes.
Yeah, I mean,
just trying to think here.
You know, we have ideas about where we could actually kind of do
this sort of thing, because it let's say, for example, if I had
all this money, and we didn't have COVID going on, and I opened up,
you know, like a center for Islam, for Europeans here, downtown
downtown London, 99% of the people going in, there are going to be
you know, most born Muslims, you know, because there's no moss
downtown, right. So it's not that they're doing anything wrong, it's
just that the main goal that we're trying to achieve is not going to
be reached. An alternative suggestion that I was thinking of,
and this is, it's gonna take some time, but especially in Canada, a
lot of these European clubs are just dying out, you know, like,
they just can't pay the bills.
You know, and a lot of some European and you have to look at
the European countries that I guess, are the most pro Islam
among the list. So your Irish club, your German club, the
Swedish club, the Dutch club, you know, that might be a place to
start not to say, you know, you know, we want to, you know, turn
into a mosque, but even just to have an event, you know, even if
it's for a wedding, you know, and then have like a non alcoholic
wedding of those places. And then that might be an option to have,
and then even just, or just having, let us come in, and, you
know, and give a talk, you know, on Islam, and you know, I think
that might be a place to start. But again, we go off for free
cardiologic here, oh, you know, medical, anything like non not
Islamic, because you want to take the focus off of that and let you
know that there's some stars that you can only see them from the
corner of your eye. But if you look at them, you can't see them
anymore.
That's what it needs to be because it's too much. It's almost like
this is too heavy of a topic. It's too but if it only happens to be a
Muslim, right, then at that point, I feel that there's more of an
effect. Right? And there's got to be sometimes you can have a center
where the Born Muslims show up the most. But if the leadership and
the predominant people who are
running the operation are of a certain culture, you will attract
a lot of those people. And we have Allentown. You know, now we're
away from us, where it's predominantly Pakistan,
if I'm not mistaken, but the percentage of whites because the
leadership, our whites should, yeah. And
he has, you know, the top guys with them are whites. Right. And I
don't think that he,
you know, I think they just happen to be whites, right. They're the
guys who accepted the job right away. And there was a time where
there were, it was tricky out here and two supporters. Right. And one
of them was a white guy, one of his Afghani got, right. So that's
not something that he purposely chose that, but
it's a comfort, it's a place where people who are white will relate
more, it just common sense, because they see the leadership,
there is white, even though the majority of people are not white.
So even though you may have that issue where Although born Muslims
come in, but you'll still attain your objective, I think, you know,
I'm just trying to think here of ways in which there's regular
cross pollination with actual human beings. Yeah, the thing is,
you know, when we look at every single Muslim community, that's,
that's, that's come to the west, they have a very visible sub
community, right. And they have, again, they've kept their own
culture, they've kept their own spaces, they kept their own
organizations, and they also have their own marriage networks.
Right. So and this will we're finding with conference in
general, and I'm sure Alex can can reiterate this conference in
general, you know,
I guess, you know, when they came, a lot of them when they came to
Islam, you know, the mosque for was proposing as an as a catch all
solution is that let's get you married, you know, to a to a
Muslim family. So basically, the, you know, like it because a lot of
them, they fall out with their families, you know, like, they
don't get the support that they need, and they end up turning to a
Muslim family. Now, I'm not suggesting that that's not a bad
idea. You know, there are, there are successful marriages between
converts and born Muslims. But it's, I would say that it's not
for everybody.
And the reason why I say that is that, especially for the sisters,
they're placed in a very vulnerable position. Because
again, as you know, in Islam, we don't date and they want to follow
the religion strictly. And that's normally how you find out if
you're compatible with somebody. But at the same time, we don't
have a Muslim family to look into potential spouses and screen if
you know they're compatible, or see if they have all these other
problems. And again, and also a lot of convert women, they don't
ask for anything for a bar. So unfortunately, a lot of these
conference, especially women, they've gotten taken advantage of.
And a lot of these marriages end in complete disaster, even if, you
know, you have convert and avoidable some I've seen
personally, where there are two great people, you know, like, you
know, the guy was a born Muslim, like his family was great. And
even then, it fell apart. Yeah, stakes are very high. You know, I
think that there's one new nuanced point, that happens in that too,
which is, it's a, there's a big difference between a Muslim
convert, marrying someone who is from overseas, basically, right,
who's been living here, if they've been living here for a really long
time, but they were born in a foreign country, and then came
here at some point in their life, versus someone who's been here was
born here, or maybe even one or both of his parents were born
here, and they happen to culturally be originally from
Egypt or Pakistan or something, those two people are going to be
completely different marriage partners for that convert person,
I would say generally, that that's a better situation.
You know, and, and again, I'm not suggesting that converts marry the
same conference from the same background in all situations, but
I'm saying that we don't even have that option. Right. So you know,
like when, you know, like, I've been to these marriage.
matrimonial
guests like, I don't call it dating events, but you know,
they'll have it at the mosque where you try to look for a
potential spouse. And they went there before and it's like, my dad
wants me to marry a Pakistani my dad wants me to marry a Pakistani
my dad wants me to marry an Arab. And it's just like, at the end
you're just so frustrated, like, you know, but then you start to
realize like they have these networks and for them again, if it
doesn't work out again,
this is you know, it's common in liberal society that like yeah,
like anyone you should marry love.
If you marry someone from another background, if it doesn't work
out, you're in you're not in you're not Muslim, and you're just
dating. You can just basically move on to the other person, but
for the converts, if it doesn't work out. A lot of the times the
I've seen the Congress Islam, they actually leave the Muslim
community and sometimes they end up leaving Islam altogether. You
because it had such a negative experience with it. So, again, I'm
not saying that it can't work out between a born Muslim and you
know, I mean a convert and a first generation Muslim. But what I am
saying is that
if we had a sub community, a lot of people, they're just not ready
to marry into another culture.
Again, even Muslims from adjacent countries, like I know, Muslims
who are Somali, and they say, I don't want to marry an Ethiopian
because the culture is too different. I've seen if even
Muslims from the same country who living in different cities, like
we had one marriage between a sister from Nablus and a brother
from Gaza. And you know, on the surface,
crowd, you're thinking, yeah, they're both Palestinian, whatever
it's going to work out. And then you know, the community, both
sides, the most extended family is like, no, no, no, don't do this,
the culture is way too different, and that it ended in divorce. So
and those cultures are 50 to 90%. Similar. So if you think that, you
know, what makes you think that someone marrying someone from a
totally different culture is going to work out as well. And, you
know, what I would sell tell to these to the nationalists, you
know, right, anti Islam, right, is that your anger towards Islam is
actually making your situation or your grievances worse, because
what happens is, when we convert to Islam, right, we get so much
flak from our family, you know, they disown us, they kick us out,
they kick it, you know, they write us out of our will.
So, yeah, we're gonna marry a born Muslim, you know, and then you're,
you know, you want us to marry another convert and have to deal
with not just an Islamophobic family, but Islamophobic in laws.
Yeah. Right. Like, I know, Mike, my one friend was Italian, you
converted to Islam. And you know, he didn't want to marry into it.
He didn't want to marry another convert, basically.
And I asked him, like, you know, you know, people are even born
Muslims, like, Yeah, you should marry another convert it just be a
lot more compatible. And I asked him, like, why don't why didn't
you think about marrying another convert? And he said, basically, I
have enough Islamophobes up my my butt.
So if they really want to, you know,
serve. And this problem with Democrat or not either people
dying out or demographic change? Yeah. Islamophobe, if you're going
to be a summer phobic, you're headed in the wrong direction.
You see what I mean? So again, it's a very controversial subject.
And again, I'm not saying that, you know, conference from the same
background should all marry each other. But what I am saying is
that the more the people embrace Islam as a community, the more
their culture stays together, let me just throw something out there
that has nothing to do with, you know, this topic, in particular,
but it does have to do with the marriage element of things.
When you reflect on Allah saying, and sort of a room, how the lamina
shape analogy moving at, from his science, and gyla that he placed,
being a coma with dorama.
Loving and compassion, what are the beliefs that the a lot like a
belief on this issue is that the more people themselves, two people
try to make their marriage work,
the more they're going down the wrong route. Rather, Allah says,
it's one of his signs. And if it's something is described in the
Quran as his signs, that means it's something you can't do,
right? yourself. So there needs to actually be in general, for
everyone, for born Muslim converts, everyone, there needs to
be a constant understanding that
when a husband wife get together, Muslim husband and wife are
getting along, that is one of the miracles of Allah. Right? Whether
regardless of same culture, different culture, right, it
doesn't matter. It's one of the miracles of ALLAH SubhanA, which
Allah that you can ask that Allah continues, and if you take your
eye off of it, you could lose it, right. But that's an important
part for everyone who goes about marriage, and maybe someone's in
their 20th year of marriage, and they're like, you know, they're
going through some weird funk in their head. And they're like, oh,
man, I could have done better and I want to do better, etc. And
because I do hear that a lot, it's almost like
something of a midlife crisis for some people. I don't know if that
term is even real, but it sounds like
malaise. But you have to realize that all you a person has to do is
ask for it and Allah will put it there. He just has to ask for it.
And one it because it is true that the Tafseer of that area is that
the loving mercy and compassion between husband and wife is
something from Allah, it makes, don't try to make any sense out of
it. It could be stronger in year 50 than your 20 Right. Whereas you
think it should be boring and, you know, done with, but it could be
some people who are completely opposites, right? And everything
in looks in
In status in racial background and social, everything, but it's from
Allah, right and all personality. So just that, I think we should
talk more about that, because that'll simplify matters. That
also explains why so many grandparents that, you know,
people from the East have their merit manner of going about
marriage and how they had a 60 year successful and happy marriage
was that they saw like a black and white picture of his wife. And the
mom and dad sitting next to him and saying, is next week.
Marriage is next week, the poor kids and okay, oh, by the way,
what's your name? Right. And they and their six years, and you're
wondering what the heck happened there? Are you crazy? It's
irrational. But it Love is something that is super Russia's,
from Allah. So anyway, just wanted to throw that in there. For anyone
listening, talking about marriage and the seeming like difficulty.
But if we look at it from that, and if both parties are headed in
there with their hearts in the right direction of love, we'll put
it there. Well, that's just a little side doesn't mean don't
take precautions. And because I said earlier, right, I said the
battery we said he said take precautions to make culturales
similar, which is something similar to what you're saying as
well. Yeah, I mean, you know, I want to ask, you know, I want to
ask you about Kufa, and, you know, after I'm done talking about but,
you know,
I would say that in general, and
marriage is just one of many issues where,
I guess for those of us who, who not only thought that Islam was
the truth, but actually joined the Muslim community, all the
ingredients basically have to be right. So, you know, like a good
family, you know, openness, extraversion, you know, like,
feeling that you can dive right into a totally new community and
get to know everything. Whereas some people, you know, I know many
people that, you know, you know, they think that Islam is true, and
it's something that they would like to follow. It's just that,
you know, like, it would take such an enormous jump, and, you know,
going into a totally different new community. That's just their
belief in Islam is kind of latent. And they're just not the kind of
states people that we are, we just dive right ins, I got an idea for
you. And I Sorry, I keep going back to this issue. Because, you
know, ideas to me are really there. They need some practical
execution. I was just thinking, if I were in your place, what I would
do is after the COVID thing is over, every Friday night, at the
same exact time, at the same exact restaurant, I will get 234 guys
who have the same vision of you, like let's say from the
organization, it's time for Europeans to eat at the same
restaurant, right? Yeah. Time after time. You invite one guy,
invite another guy, right? Invite a third guy. And you don't even
have to talk about a slump. This is what some guys how many? How
many guys don't have anything to do. Right on a Friday night. They
would love to eat out somewhere. And a lot of guys, you know,
they're not married. They don't have responsibilities. Right? They
may be divorced, they may have different situations. Hey, we're
just eating talking. You're not we're not have talked about a
slump. Right? And I think that's like an inroad to start meeting
new people and Sit Eat. You don't want to come back. No, come back.
You want to come back? We're here every Friday, seven o'clock.
Right? Yeah. No, I think that's a great idea. I mean, yeah, I mean,
that's basically how a lot of these things start, ya know, like,
but it has to it definitely has to start somewhere. Yeah. But, ya
know, I would definitely be up for that. I think we've covered a lot
of the things that I wanted to talk about, but there's definitely
so many other things that we can try to address. Some of the other
topics that I just started jotting a lot of these things down here.
Good.
So we talked about, so communities in the West division or strength,
I guess we can dive a little bit into that more. Because, again,
like you said, you know, you know, you have your vision, Rob, you
should just do it and not worry about what everybody else thinks.
Yeah, but I mean, I think in your in agreeing with me, and saying
that, you know, you know, communities and cultures are
different. And they have, you know, they sort of bind together.
And it's not, when all this big one melting pot, but
some of the criticism of this idea comes from the idea that we're all
one Muslim community, we should all be united. But at some point,
like symptoms go to the other extreme, where it's like, okay,
like, we should just get rid of culture altogether and just just
Islam as our only culture. I think that yeah.
I mean, you know, the answer to people like that is, that's
fantastic humbler? Start with your family? Yeah. change their diet.
Tell them to not subscribe to the satellite channels from back home.
And name your kids something from a Muslim background. That's not
your Muslim background. So no, no kids named Javid. Yeah, right.
Whatever it is.
I think we're all in agreement with that, I think okay, so yeah,
I mean, again, we're starting to realize that again, a lot of this
was a reaction to nationalism in the Muslim world. You know, they,
you know, saw the division, and when they came here to the west,
you know, when they saw that different Muslim
cultures were opening up their own cultural centers, you know, and
their own places and having their own organizations, then they just
had this visceral reaction to it, like, you know, they're gonna
think that we're not united. But again, I think Muslims are
starting to finally see that that's going to, is too much of an
extreme.
Yeah, the mosque, I guess, the mosque approach and saying, you
know, like, the, the one example that I use is, you know, I use the
phrase ijazah or bust, you know, in saying that, a lot of these
mosques, the learning curve is just far too steep. And this goes
across the board for all converts, and a lot of board Muslims, you
know, like first gen, a second gen kind of express the sentiments to
in saying that, you know, a lot of the
things that are happening at the mosque is just, it's kind of just
high level, even for people who've been Muslim their entire lives.
And you see this too, with our families. I mean, I go back to my,
you know, my Italian friend, he brought his family, he was able to
bring his family to an open house at the mosque where the, you know,
like, Imam was giving a talk, right. And he would this talk was
what he thought was catered to non Muslims. But at the end of the
speech, he asked his family what he thought and he said, and they
said, I couldn't understand any of it. And the reason though, because
even though it was an English,
most of the terms were in Arabic. You know, there was a lot of
Arabic terms that we're familiar with. But the terminology is just
so above their heads. Yeah. But at the same time, I guess, going
forward and looking at a mosque itself, a lot of these times it's
too hot to ask them to change. The way they do things. It's just
really beyond our scope, like there's one mosque in Chatham,
where it's a dark room
99% of the congregants are from a South Asian background. They all
wear the Topi. They all wear the shalwar kameez. And the women when
you do see a woman, like once in a blue moon, they're wearing all
black niqab robes. And this is in the middle of like, an all white
neighborhood.
So like, it's the whole, it's like stepping into Karachi, you know,
England, is England, like that a lot? Yeah. A lot. So, one, and I
used to think, why aren't these people changing? You know, like,
they're in the West, they should change for the West. But really,
it's just some of it is just beyond our scope. And I talked to
the amount about this, like, you know, like he and he admitted,
like, their culture that we have is totally different from the
culture there. And it's just a barrier. So at what point do we
say, you know, what, instead of trying to change these mosques,
and you know, the way that they are, you know, like, why not have
no our own office space? You know, you know, away from where this
mosque is designed for,
you know, people from the backgrounds of the people, the non
Muslims in that community. Yes. So Rob, you wouldn't know this, but
locally, the masjid, the community center that Dr. Shetty is, is the
religious director of is.
It's it's sort of that concept, I think, happened more organically
than then planned out in that, in that sense.
It's multicultural. It's not it's not a it's not geared towards
anyone ethnicity, there's people from convert backgrounds, from
Arab Pakistani, but the majority of the leadership, if not all of
it is American born. And everything, everyone speaks
English. And there is not one culture represented at all, in any
of the leadership and any of the programming in any of the I mean,
the closest we come to having one uniform culture is the fact that
Dr. Shetty is Maliki and he has an army of supporters
who insist on the Medicare welfare but other than that, I mean, it's,
it's, it's, it's, it's an American experience, right. And one in
which people from from the neighborhood or people from the
locale will come in not feel like this is completely alien, just
completely. Everybody dresses differently. There's not a genetic
style, there's not a uniform, there's not a uniform facial hair.
It's not a uniform way of the women covering.
It's a it's a much more American experiences, because everybody
that's running things and making decisions about things is
American, regardless of their cultural background. And I think
that that's, that's really helpful. And it's why NBS is such
a big deal, even though it's small community center in a small Muslim
community. It has a huge reach. And I think I think without people
knowing it, I think that this is this is why we have a great cover
program to mashallah, yeah. And
the way it happened just by itself, is that the Imams position
the mic is, is is is Desi in particular the line of buses,
right? It's
Imam and his son in law, no one else touches that make the mosque
the groundskeepers in the building maintenance is North Africans.
Right. The education the classes is medical. Because me and Ali and
Haroon right. Who cover we all? That's where all medical, the
social programming and the community outreach is what? Well
half white half Bosnia, right. Well 100% White
American
just as an aside, I try not to use white as much as possible. I mean,
you look at you know, European peoples you know, you know, like
you look at Spaniards and Portuguese you know, they're
darker than than many Arabs but it's inevitable that it's,
I mean, Bosnians or some I think I once I've sent me Catterick told
me statistically, the blondest people
on Earth are the Bosnians right? You won't find like a brown or
black haired Bosnian he told me this one time, and the Serbs are
the opposite. They're darker hair features. Right. And in that case,
the Serbs the darker hairs were or mutilating the the later, right.
Yeah, I mean, I've created several memes about that. Some pretty edgy
memes. You're here, but you can look at my Twitter feed. But yeah,
that destroys the arguments of the the anti Islam, white
nationalists. The thing is, yeah, the thing is, at the end of the
day, if we were to if we were all to be one people again, right?
This is about belief before the at the time of the Prophet knew there
were all one people in the Quran, you are one people, we are one
skin, one language, etc. You go to Egypt, they don't differentiate
between your your thing you didn't differentiate if you're religious,
some people hate you, period. Right? Yeah, no matter what you
are, and they're all Egyptian and Pakistan is the same thing. So
even if we were to get over all the cultural problems, okay. If
people's hearts are not with the deen, they will find, you know,
reasons to be an absolutely have animosity, no, I completely agree
with you. And, you know, that's, you know, it's important to keep
our, my intentions pure, you know, and, and all the people in my
group, you know, because at the end of the day, like, Islam is the
most important thing.
You know, and, you know, we always want to keep that at the at the
forefront.
But, yeah, I mean, you know, we're in the right in the playing field,
it's very, you know, it's, it's a struggle to, you know, like,
you know,
I guess I don't want to get caught in anything here. But, ya know,
you're absolutely right. I mean, Dinas is the most important thing.
And, you know, the great thing about Islam is that, you know,
even if you take people or two groups of people who absolutely
hated each other, right, and they, and those groups of people convert
to Islam, you know, like, that's not going to be instant fix,
still, I mean, there's still going to be, you know, lingering
animosities there. But now you're in a totally different situation,
once you become Muslim is that you're trying to avoid * and
get into paradise? Yeah. Right. And you also want your brothers
and sisters to avoid * and get into Paradise because they're
going to pray for you. And you're going to pray for them. And Allah
is going to judge all of us fairly. Yeah. Right. So I mean, if
you to think that you're actually you know, better than this group
of people mean, you're only hurting yourself at the at the end
of the day. Question. Do you go into the prisons and give Dawa
there? I've never been to a prison. No, I mean, even before
COVID I guess, me like I'm, I guess I'm kind of, I'm not the
strongest in terms of like going into bad environs.
You know, I guess it's not really my history.
So no, I've never been to a prison to give Dawa. That'd be a tough
sell. It was very tough. Very tough. Yeah. I mean, like, talk
about, so when people convert on the outside and have cultural
issues and they have family rejection? That's tough. That's
very difficult. If, if you get rejected from your racial group in
prison, that's, that's the end of you. Yeah, it is. It's not if you
if you had to associate with, you know, either the black group or
the Hispanic group or the or the white group, and now you're out
because you convert to Islam. Well, that's you just took your
shahada and you became shaheed. Yeah. Well, I mean, like I said,
the, there's, it's very bizarre to see that there is a growing group
of, you know,
Europeans on the far right, who are very pro Muslim, and believe
it or not, and it's, it's it's very bizarre to see but they refer
back to the, I mean, they're big on the traditionalists, which I
kind of see as like a stepping stone to you know, you know, real
Islam
Islamic beliefs because let's some of their beliefs are outside
Islam. So it's kind of like I think it was like an noi for
Europeans basically. These are far right intellectuals. Yeah, so
there's like the maggot crowd. No, I mean, these are very anti Maga.
I mean, I don't think any of them are who are pro Magga they
absolutely hate Trump. Because they're so these are like,
intellectuals professionals white collar. Yeah, they voted either
for Biden, or they didn't vote at all. They saw that Trump, you
know, basically sold them out, you know, sell them this platform in
2016. You know, where they think that they're going to be the Trump
is going to represent them. And then you know, once the you know,
the the riots are happening last year.
He didn't respond to any police basically let you know, these
cities burned to the ground. And you know, you can see they they
basically canceled all of these anti Islam outright.
You know, like, YouTubers, you know, they just dump them on the
side of the road. You know,
when you say traditionalist, you're talking about like the guy
eatin. Yeah, Rene. Rene, no thoughts you on? What attraction
to that.
You know, they, you know, like their traditionalism, you know,
they see they were Europeans. Who saw like that the that liberalism
and the industrial revolution, basically destroyed Western
society destroyed the soul of that, basically, if you can read a
great book to read on it is Rene gunnels.
Oh, what's the name of it? Oh, my gosh, SubhanAllah. I forgot the
name. It's on my bookshelf. I'll be back and
I had to look it up. Sure. I'm talking about modern.
I know, I know which notes reference and what you read. It's
the book where he discusses modernism. Right? And yeah, he
discusses modernism. I'll be right back, and probably nobody better
than him on it. I'll be right back in 30 seconds, you guys.
No problem.
So, the perennial list, there's almost nobody who has a better
critique of modernism, oh, their critique is about, yeah, their
critique of modernity and modernism and liberalism. And
there it is, let's say,
the crisis of the modern world.
So So you want to read? No, but yeah, so? Yeah, I mean, that's
basically the core of they say that,
you know, the West lost its soul, you know, was basically the
Industrial Revolution, you know, just it's a brushed aside,
religion, brushed aside his sense of eternal importance. And it was
basically, you know, the West was just basically dying out. And
that's why, you know, the traditionalist looked toward the
east, because, you know, they saw that, that Christianity was not
the solution, and that it was causing so much division and, and
violence, that they needed an alternative. And you can see this
also with European philosophers who were pro Muslim as well. He
said positive things about Islam. Frederick Nietzsche talked about.
Yeah, you know, so he talked about how Christianity, you know, ruined
Europe, basically. And then he was calling for peace, peace with
Islam.
You know,
Gertz actually, there's some reports that he actually converted
to Islam.
You know, so, you know, they, and that's what they see. And, you
know, and even Rene, you know, like, he gave Dawa, like, sent all
these letters to Europeans, I think, like, many of them
converted to Islam as well. So that's part of the angle. I
actually saw like some, someone on the far right, who was pro Muslim
made a rap about renagel, like him arguing on Twitter with like, anti
Islam people.
One of the reasons that I tell Muslims that don't, mainly Arabs
and Desi Muslims, don't jump up on this phrase of Islam, Judaism and
Christianity, and want to be lumped into that because it's
because of the, the cracks and the flaws in those two theologies of
Judaism and Christianity, that lead to atheism. Right. We want to
be as far away from that as possible to show we have something
different. Right? It does not lead to atheism, as you know, this
thing led to loss of religion. Right. So you got two groups that
failed.
When you were given the chance that you failed, why would you
want to link up with that with them? That's so I get it from the,
from a certain perspective that you want to, you know, put that
list together, but from from a higher perspective, that if you
look at any average guys, like I'm not Christianity, something that's
the last right, Judaism lost your religion in general, last, why
would you want to lump up and team up with that? So that's the first
point, you know, second thing I wanted to ask Who are some of the
lead
users in this group
you're gonna get me canceled.
Why would you get canceled and that's just there. Maybe you have
other things maybe they have other things safe so the anti so you can
divide this into the anti Islam pro Maga. Sometimes they're not
exactly well, I guess you call them the pro Maga types. So on
that side you have your YouTubers like Milo INNOPOLIS Stefan
Molyneux
I mean Ben Shapiro and again a lot of them then you within that
strain there's also like just both focus specifically on on you know,
on the criticizing Islam like a lot of them are ex Muslims like
have your yes mean Mohammed Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Tommy Robinson is another example of that. So that's we have on the
anti Islam right, the ones who are more, I guess, neutral, maybe even
see the virtues in Islam or Richard Spencer, Keith woods,
Edward Dutton.
Who else Tyler Hamilton.
You know, just to clarify Richard Spencer, not Robert Spencer? No,
yeah, exactly. Very different.
There's an anti Islam specialist. Yeah. So, but, again, these guys
are getting cancelled left and right. I mean, so it's very
difficult to be able to converse with them. And again, even if we
were to on Islam, for Europeans, we mean, we will be canceled in a
heartbeat. So this has to be will have to be done very carefully.
And I don't think that we would be able to be the best people for it.
And that's why we're collaborating with other groups from first and
second gen Muslims who have their own podcasts.
Because again, we're not going to agree on everything, and they're
willing to talk to others. Oh, you mean? You mean literally the
platforms? When you say cancel? Oh, yeah, these guys are getting
the platform left and right. I thought you just criticized
silenced.
You know, Muslims will be will be will be attacking, calling your
names. I didn't realize that you meant actually like the platform?
Oh, yeah. Like, the the the the big tech is going really going
after these guys.
And yeah, I mean, even you know, you look at historically like,
again, and these people are very anti Zionist as well. So that's
probably
what is sorry to interrupt. What is Richard Spencer doing these
days? How's he paying his bills? What's he up to? I don't know how
he's doing it. I haven't. I haven't conversed with him.
You know, but again, I mean, you get on CNN once in a while.
But again, it's not it's not just about the, you know, the the
figures themselves. It's just about the, you know, guess the
people I mean, they're, you know, some people are going some people
are going to follow that crowd the other people are going to follow
the the the the anti Islam Deus Vult crowd.
So it's more of a of an overall Zeitgeist than opposed to just one
particular person, right? I mean, if all these people who are gone
tomorrow, there would still be other people that would that would
spring up, and then these conversations would still go on
between them. Yeah. But from a data perspective, you, you look at
individuals, right? And you look at, you know, what kind of words
are coming out of those individuals. And if someone's
starting to say something positive, then we look at that one
specific individual and talk to them, and we're able to get it
done on the madman, Luke's we interviewed him about his book.
And again, we didn't have to agree on everything in the book.
But he had some, you know, negative things to say about
Islam, positive things to say about Islam. But he was looking
at, at a perspective that I didn't agree with, you know, I didn't
100% agree with the thesis. You know, like, for example, his whole
thesis was that, you know, Muslims are successful because they're
high in ethnocentrism, but that's because they're doing practices
that are, you know, reducing intelligence, like cousin marriage
and things like that. So I didn't agree with the premise. And, you
know, we made that clear on the madman, Luke's
you know, and he said, like, you know, for example, and we didn't
agree that, you know, for example, waking up Professor not getting
enough sleep was, you know, actually factored into reducing
intelligence, you know, and sim, you know, very astutely pointed
out no like Muslims don't they don't wake up for factor.
But, but this is like, you know, totally there is you have a
concept of evidence of who he's talking about. Right. You can't
possibly prove who published you again, yeah, it was publicized.
No, it was published.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, again, it's, it's, I look at that book as it's not an
anti Islam book, but it needs to be a philosophical exercise. You
know, like, I'm sure there are some Muslims on the left. Who
would say just cancel this guy cancel the book, you know, like,
it's
Giving a bad image toward Islam. But these are things go ahead.
Those people also go off and support like trans Imams. So yeah,
some won't. I mean, like, I've talked to people, you know, that
know, personally who are, you know, they're into political
action as Muslims, but they don't agree with those, as you know,
these issues that Muslims are aligning themselves with.
And, you know, they and again, I, they I understand where they're
coming from and that, you know, you don't want to, you know, give
a platform to people, you know, who expressed these other
sentiments that are, you know, like, seen as very radical.
But I guess, you know,
from a safety perspective, I, you know, you know, like, I can't
interview these guys. Yeah, but, you know, Muslims who are first
gen second gen, not white, I mean, they may be able to get away with
doing it. Because, you know, like, it's not going to seem like be
seen as either creating an alliance. Yeah, it's, it's
interesting, because I didn't, you know, I didn't really follow tabs
on keep tabs on that whole world, you know, of uniform. I think for
most of us, all, that group is just one crazy group, right, or
one group that doesn't like us, and we don't really split, you
know, or know even the details about them. So it's actually
pretty interesting to me to know that there's different groups. And
I mean, to be honest, there's, this is an interesting, this is an
interesting, I guess, side conversation, I would have their
skulls within African Americans, there's groups within Hispanics,
and really, basically every ethnicity that you can think of in
America, that for racial, ethnic, cultural reasons, dislike Muslims,
besides the logical ones, right? There's, there's there's strong
anti immigrant strain in the African American community. And
nobody's saying don't do that with black people, because they may
bring anti immigrant feelings in that they have like a cultural
base, like nobody's nobody's saying that. Right. And so
there's, there's no basis for saying it to don't do the hour to
wipe you evaluate. They don't say why conservatives, or right, white
people in the right, people who have seen on Twitter, which I'm no
longer on Hamdulillah. I mean, I still have the account, but I
don't go on, been on in a long time. Those people there are
actually say, like, one of the concerns is that white people are
going to bring their white supremacist ideologies into our
spaces as when they convert to Islam. Like, you're the one that's
being racist right now. I've heard my detractors say that? No, I'm
going to be no, we're going to be very clear. I mean, you know, we
don't promote, you know, an ideology of white supremacy. You
know, we don't want to rule over non whites, we don't want to
oppress anybody. And if these people from these groups, you
know, they're going to try coming into Islam, and you know, we're
going to make it very clear. And again, we don't need to explain
anything. I mean, in Islamic self, like I said, I mean, you're coming
into Islam, you know, like, it's, it's a different worldview. Now,
you know, now you realize that there's a purpose to your life,
you're going to be called to accounts by a law.
You know, you know, like, how much pride you have in your heart,
which should be zero. You know, you can keep your culture, you
know, you can keep everything about you, you can marry someone
from the same culture. But again, I mean, you're by default, you
know, like, you can't be racist towards other people or think that
a law is going to look, you're going to give you more leeway
from other backgrounds, when you get judged on the Day of Judgment.
So sure, no, well, my my, my real contention is, don't tell me that
your concern is that if if White people who are conservative come
into Islam, all of a sudden Muslims are going to have a racism
problem, like go look at your own uncle. Yeah, right. Like, we don't
need theirs. We don't need anybody else to teach us as a community
how to be racist, like very lately racist, like calling people
literally calling calling black people slaves to this day, right?
Like this is we don't need this. There's there's no lack of racist
and cultural supremacy going on in the Muslim community, where we
have to worry about white people in the West, which is generally a
less racist environment than a lot of the countries where Muslims
come from a lot less cultural, culturally,
culturally narcissistic or chauvinistic than a lot of these
Muslim countries. So like, don't worry about it, it will be fine.
And no matter how many white people come to this level, I mean,
I don't care about you know, the my leftist detractors and stuff. I
just don't want to get canceled here, you
know, but I know I mean, these these guys are, you know, it's,
and again, you know, before Spencer was David Duke, and Duke,
you know, he left the clan. He went to Syria, he went to Iran.
You know, like he made alliances with Muslim communities.
Yeah, and, you know, like, but again, I mean, people think that
he's just an irredeemable person.
You know, and, but again, like they see that, you know, Islam
has, you know, like, they see the the IHSAA of it, you know, they
see that like, wow, like, these people are united. You know, they
have strong families, they have strong family values. And, you
know, they're, they're, you know, they're, you know, they got some
good things going on with them.
But again, I mean, it's gonna be some of the challenges. I mean,
even the people who I think would be our greatest detractors, and I
know, we're our greatest detractors,
which would be Zionists. I mean, theoretically, they should be
supporting us as well, because, you know, the way that we look at
the bene asstra Eel is that they used to be the best nation.
You know, they lost it. But still, you know, like, Allah says that,
you know, there's some people in the people the book where if you
give them a whole hoard of gold, they will readily, you know, pay
it back to you without any interest. So that includes, you
know, some Christians and Jews, and there are Jews who are going
to be rightly guided, right. So, you know, that's much more nuanced
position that some of these other white nationalists who just
straight up hate them.
No, like.
So I don't know if these are very controversial topics, and I don't
want you guys to get D platformed. as well. But in your effort of
myself, so it's,
theoretically, theoretically, I mean, even you know, the Ben
Shapiro crowd, you know, should be supporting us.
Oddly enough, yeah. So that's all I have to say about that.
Alex, any closing statements? Yeah, I think it'd be tough
because just on an individual level, I if I was ever in the same
room, what am I? I think I'd deck I'm so
well, he's already been decks. Oh, you're talking about Ben Shapiro.
Ben Shapiro. Yeah, Spencer.
Shapiro is going more and more mainstream and less and less
exciting, though, over the over time, right. Like he's on Radio
77. You know, the other the other issue is getting into these spaces
as well. Which would be extremely tough because they're the the anti
Islam sentiment is so strong, it's tough to wiggle your way in and a
lot of them just won't even have any Muslims on like, you look at,
you know, like Sargon of Akkad. Like, he says, a lot of he has a
lot of anti immigrant stances. But he's never had a Muslim on anti
immigrant who, who is this is a character or named Sargon of
Akkad. He's a, he's a YouTuber. Oh, that's, that's a character
name that he gave himself. That's a character name that he gets. I
think his real name is Benjamin Olin. But no, he's well, he's well
known in the YouTubing. community.
You know, like, like, these are high profile, you know, like,
faces, you know, like your BEN Shapiro's, and your
you know, like, it's gonna be almost impossible to be able to,
you know, find find dialogue with them. I mean, even Joe Rogan, I
mean, he's had Muslims on before, but the they don't talk about
Islam. Really? Yeah. Let's talk about Islam. Yeah, the only the
only practicing, like, serious Muslim. I think he's ever had on
his for us. Yeah. And that was about me that he's an MMA coach.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we expected Mike Tyson. Yeah, yeah, he said
Tyson, Dave Chappelle, you know, so I mean, like, suited, suited to
us, it tells us you're gonna have enemies, don't pay attention to
them, forget them. They don't want to talk, don't talk, but there's
going to be some people who are open. And that's what we have to
find. Who's, you know, heart is, and mind is and attitude we can
tell is open to discuss and that if that person is the least
influential doesn't make a difference. That's who we're
looking for. And that's who's going to give us the energy to
keep going, right? To look at those types of people who are, you
know, they want to talk and anytime I go to a crowd, or a
masjid or anything, or in a room,
I only look at who wants to talk and who is having a favorable
attitude to me and I give them my attention. You create energy like
that you create momentum. Yeah, there's haters over there. Nothing
I could do about that. So why even bother bother with it? And you
expect, actually, the more haters that means this thumb is doing
something, right, because, like, what's, what's his name?
What's his Mr. October? I can't remember his name for the Yankees.
I think it was Reggie Jackson, when some kid got booed from the
Yankees. Or they got he got booed, right. He said, well, in New York,
they don't do nobody, right. They're booing you because you're
somebody.
Right? He got booed. And he's fantastic, right? They're only
booing you because you're somebody's not going to boost
them. No, no, Mashallah. So that's good to see that you have haters.
You have to have some haters. So but we got to look at our energy
and get something going some momentum going go with people who
are open and that's all we have, should think about, you know, and
that's all
We got to get
in shape. You know, we've said this numerous times on this
podcast that the conservative, the white conservative or even just
the conservative, Western, non Muslim is ripe for Dawa, it is a
really important area that's often overlooked. And if people don't
pay attention to that you're missing out on people who have a
natural disposition. You know, a lot of the things that Islam
brings in all you have to do is just open up the door.
Yeah, I mean, hamdulillah you're doing some of that work.
Inshallah. But again, I mean, like you said, like, you're gonna get
haters, but in a in every crowd, I mean, I can see, you know, the
people, the Muslims who don't feel comfortable with these people, you
know, like, I have a lot of resentment towards them. It's
understandable, like I said, and I'm not here to say, you know,
like, try to convince them
that, that, you know, like, there are people out there that, you
know, like, don't hate Muslims, you know, who are on our side, or
at least neutral about it.
You know, again, I mean, that it can't convince them otherwise, and
I understand where they're coming from, you know, I haven't lived
their experience, I'm not a visible Muslim.
But, again, that's why our mandate is different. Our mandate is to,
you know, we have an in with these people. So it's our responsibility
to give Dawa to them. So, I mean, I'll give you Sophia, and,
you know, thank you for coming on. It's like every morning, you know,
important. I love talking about Dow and seeing what's going on,
and what's happening in different segments of Dow. And that's what
we're Safina side is all about. And that's what we want to keep
doing. And so hopefully, in the future, we'll have you back on and
hear about the progress and the stories that you got. Well, I
mean, yeah, if you want to have one of these guys on I mean,
you're in there that I don't feel, well, I'm already got a guy for
that. I'm gonna get we got, I got McCain and madmen, Luke's you
know, they're willing to, I'm willing to talk to anybody who
wants to talk about Islam. You know, and I don't debate I just
you bring up a topic, I'll tell you what, what should he says
about it, what our theology says about it. And I, sometimes you
have to have a confrontation. But in general, when it's actually
face to face, I don't want to be confrontational. I just want to
talk, right? Well, like if you have someone, you know, I'm
willing to have him on, you know, that type of person, if he's
interested in learning what the Dean says, I have no what what?
Yeah, what are the, I guess one of the things I'm posing to you now
is, you know, you have their religious knowledge. And for
religious Muslims, you know, who have like the done their
education? Who knows, you know, like, the Quran or Hadith, you
know, like, very well, I guess the challenge is now getting the
information out there and disseminating that information to
the general public. Because, you know, a lot of the times they get
frustrated, because they'll say, you know, like, we're trying to
give this information out, for example, female genital
mutilation. You know, like, you know, we keep saying, you know,
this is what Islam says about this, you know, and give a good,
big comprehensive answer. But to the general, lay it, you know, the
Muslim laity, like us who don't have as much education, it's
tough, we need something that we can refer them to quite easily and
quickly.
You know, and that's why I think that's going to be one of the big
challenges, because, you know, there's so much anti, you know,
misconceptions about Islam that are really out there. And if you
read Duttons book, you know, like, you probably got the information
from Ayaan Hirsi Ali and all the people who have all that media
attention. Yeah, so the challenge is going to be getting the
information to us who actually talking to them and also having it
available at the click of a button to, to, you know, just for our own
information, look, if any of these guys wants to to learn, right,
I'll talk to you doesn't have to be on a pocket. It could be
podcast, I don't mind. Right. But if they want to actually know
what's going on, I'd love to talk to them. And Alex will talk about
and beyond and, and if we were to make it a podcast don't doesn't
make a difference to me. But if he wants to argue, no. Yeah, I just
have to say one thing about the point that Rob brought up, which
is it's an important point. I think that resources like that are
useful and valuable and needed.
But one of the things that I've learned over my time as a Muslim
and working with Tao organizations is that
when it comes down to discussing fic with people that are
interested in Islam or people that are antithetical to Islam think
you can go back and forth forever and never make any progress
whatsoever and change anything the best the best hour is Alright Do
you believe in God or no? Let's get over your atheism if once we
get over that okay, you believe in god yeah, let's talk what's the
best monotheism Okay, good. We don't believe in idols. We don't
believe in multiple gods. Now that we're a monotheism, what's the
best expression of it? And of course, it's much more detailed
than that. But it has to go through belief first, long before
you get too thick because when you when it gets to the point of thick
light unless you're a Muslim with strong
Amen, there's things that you'll never get over. Like, if you need
to be comfortable with all of the wounds of religion before you
convert, you'll never convert. It's the complete wrong,
something's gonna bother you. Exactly. It's there. It's the
wrong starting point, the starting point is, is the source, even true
or false? Right? Is the Prophet true or false? That's the real
question. Yeah, that's the real question. And once you have that,
once you establish proofs from, from whatever kind of logical
arguments you use to arrive at with his Kalam because
cosmological theory or whatever, once you arrive at the fact that
this is true, and this is a real religion, and this is the
messenger of allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, after that, you
just you have to accept anything that comes right, grow a beard,
shave your shave your head doesn't matter. Right. Those are just,
those are ancillary to the core issue. It was a great lesson I
remember from Dr. Omar actually, Farooq Abdullah,
he was in a medical appointment. And one of the workers there said,
you know, I'm actually this close to entering Islam. And lo and
behold, you're here. It's like, well, what's holding you back?
Said I drink. Right? So you believe what he said. He said, so
drink.
But It's haram. Right? He knew the word haram. He says haram. So yes,
haram doesn't mean you can't be a Muslim and commit haram. You don't
think all Muslims can be haram? So you believe it's wrong? Deal with
it later, has nothing to do with you entering Islam or not. So this
poor guy thinking, Oh, I gotta make sure I'm not an alcoholic. I
don't drink anymore before entering Islam. Right? And he
said, No, you don't let that be a barrier. All you have to know to
enter Islam or not is is God who was the prophet Muhammad true?
Right. That's it, they had a 101. And they got to chat on the spot,
literally in that conversation. And you probably gave up drinking
really soon. Yeah, because once the man comes in,
right, you become stronger wills? Ya know, for sure. And, you know,
I guess the most one of the Yeah, exactly. One of the most important
things to know when you you know, when talking to people who are
close to converting to Islam, or just converted to Islam as that,
you know, like, you know, no matter what sins you commit, you
know, you're still a Muslim, you know, there's always a chance for
repentance. You know, like, you know, you you have a chance to
pray five times a day, and it's like taking a bath every day, you
know, so there's always that opportunity, you know, to have
your sins forgiven.
So, you know, if they don't understand that facet, you know, a
lot of them are going to, you know, drop off very quickly. Yeah.
So I'll just say one last thing before, before we sign off anybody
watching this? The hat and the shawl? I'm not abandoning my
culture. It's just cold in my house. We had a major blizzard.
What for Canadians is probably like a dusting. I know. I know. We
got like nothing
did you get storms this year? Yeah, a few. Yeah, London's in the
snow belt. So that's good. Yeah, we're in the direction of buffalo
so it was snow Yeah, I love the snow and we got two feet today
nice Alright gentlemen, does that come up again it's from Hanukkah
Lahoma we shouldn't
enter in the stock we're going to go in a courthouse in an insert
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