In Defense of The Qur’an – Deen Show

People of course called the gospel books, Matthew, Mark, Luke and john. Well, they call them Matthew, Mark, Luke and john because we don't know who wrote these books and there's no point calling them Sam, Fred, Jerry and Harry. I mean, they're, they're written by people we don't know they were written by, they are anonymous. Can you make any comparison with that in the Quran?

There were many Christians who began to question the doctrine of the Trinity they now to the question, did you as someone now who attain his doctorate? Did you have some of the same struggles when you went because you went deep? You took a deep dive, you went a father went to the Philadelphia College of Bible, and I definitely wasn't convinced that that Christianity was correct. Why? Why weren't you convinced of Christianity? This

is a published academic, experience entrepreneur and instructor of Islamic Studies and comparative religion. During his 21 years of studying and teaching in Saudi Arabia. he attained several degrees, including a doctorate in theology. He was also the only American ever to be appointed to teach in the Prophet sallallahu Sallam mosque and Medina, the second holiest site in the Muslim world, Dr. Taha currently lectures both nationally and internationally at mosques, universities and other institutions of learning. He serves as the executive director of the United Muslim machine in Philadelphia and is the president of the Quran, Arabic and reflection Institute. And he's here with

us on the dean show. salaam aleikum.

How are you doing, sir? How are you?

I'm doing well. It's very nice to finally meet up with you. It's been I think it's been a few years we've been trying to catch each other. And hamdulillah allows the best of planners.

Now in this part of what I was reading, at the end, what really caught my attention also was the reflection Institute. This is part of your, your Academy, What had you in a state of reflection where many people are in a state of all sorts of other things beyond what they really should be reflecting on on the purpose of life? Why am I here? Why have I been created, but you started to deeply reflect that you actually left Philadelphia, ended up in Saudi Arabia, and became a doctor in Islamic Studies.

Well, 100, Laos,

began with the praise of a loss and the peace of blessings upon His messenger Muhammad, the final messenger sent to mankind.

So there's a few things to kind of unpack that question, right. The first is, what do we mean by reflection when we're talking about Quran Arabic and reflection? The reflection is actually what what Allah calls us to do

with the Quran, right? He says FMLA at the buena el Koran, do they not reflect over the grind? And then that ponder and contemplate? So the issue is not just that we read a book.

It's understanding what we read. And then after that understanding, comes the next level which which is contemplation, right? Because if you can understand what somebody says, but if you're not thinking about it, and really contemplating over it, then your understanding may be somewhat superficial, right? So the reflection part is of the Institute, right? When it comes to the name of the Institute is that we're trying to teach people the language of the Quran, which is Arabic, we're teaching them the recitation of the Quran and how to memorize the Quran, which is the Koran part. And then the reflection part is a little deeper, because that goes into various Islamic sciences

that would allow somebody to be one who better ponders The Book of Allah. What what led me to the second part of the question, which is the the reflection part that kind of led me on my journey to learning more about Islam was a reflection about life in general. And that was, believe it or not, I mean, looking back on it was somewhat of an early age, because I guess I was about I was 15, when I accepted Islam. And it was at that point, that I began to ask myself, those, what they call the big questions, right, what philosophers call the big questions. And one of those questions is what is life really about? Right? I mean, you get to a certain point where you've done you've accomplished

certain goals that you've had, or you you begin to ponder about life as a whole and you look at the society around you in people's lives in front of you and, and people that are older than you and then you start to ask yourself, wait a minute, what is this really all about? And, you know, I'm the lead. There were other circumstances that led to to an accelerated pondering. if you will.

Alhamdulillah you know, finally entering into the deen of Allah subhana wa Tada. And then, you know, pursuing my studies overseas, I compare it to being on a plane, right? Or you just popped up on a plane. And then you know, there is some entertainment that you can be indulgent in on the plane. But, you know, someone would want to know, like, How did I end up on his plane? And the plane is about to land? Where am I about to land? I mean, that's the example of land. Yeah, and then yeah, no, no, it really is. You can kind of compare life's journey today. Right? Especially for some people that the problem is, in use that analogy of entertainment, some people are actually drugged

by entertainment, right. I mean, it's it's a narcotic, or it can, or it can become once so much so that it takes people's minds off of the journey as a whole. And they get caught up right there in the entertainment phase. And they don't think about life as a whole. You know, at that point. In my life, I was, I was in Philadelphia, which is where I was born and raised.

Not not to sound like a Will Smith. introduction, right. But literally, I was I was raised in West Philadelphia.

And at that point, you know, after high school, I went to Temple University, for in Philadelphia for a few semesters, and then I got a scholarship to study at the University of Medina. And that's where the journey took another, another turn, right? Because the more you learn, and the more you

become, let's just say the more you are exposed to the Islamic sciences, the better chance you have to reflect over the Quran and about life in general, where your family mother father with a Muslim? No, no, no, what was your background before Islam? So

it was an interesting journey. I wasn't I was, to be honest with you, it's it's the, it's the American story, a lot of us just grow up without religion. And that's kind of that was kind of my story. I grew up without religion, I think at one point, considered myself to be an atheist.

Though, looking back on it, I'm not sure how convinced that was that there wasn't a guy, which is what atheism is. And I probably was more of an agnostic, which was, which is to not really be sure. And to not really care, to be honest with you. So I think that that was my journey was very typical American journey of not really caring too much about religion, as a whole. And then, but I was to be honest with you, I was not convinced of Christianity. So I had a lot of members of my family who were Christian, not my parents, but many, you know, other members of my family. And I definitely wasn't convinced that that Christianity was correct. Why, why weren't you convinced of Christianity?

Because Christianity rests on the concept of the Trinity. And the Trinity really is I mean, for people who who do any type of deep dive into the Trinity, it really does not make sense. And in fact, there are many Christians who themselves came to that conclusion.

And you know, what the Protestant Reformation

is, in the 16th century, and Christians beginning to have more access to the Bible and begin to read the Bible for themselves and not depend on the, you know, hierarchy of interpretation that existed, you know, within the Catholic Church, and to some degree, also within the Eastern Orthodox Church. What happened was, there were many Christians who began to question the doctrine of the Trinity, they still believed in the messenger ship of Christ, they still believe that he was an exceptional human being that he was sent from God and so forth. But they did not believe that they did not believe in the concept of a trinity or a Triune Godhead. And so they that actually, you know, there

were several Christian, you know, sex that were formed after the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, where they did, they just didn't believe in the Trinity. And they base that on doctrine. They base that on the scripture that they had with them, you know, specifically the New Testament, but also taking from what they would call, you know, what Christians would call the Old Testament, and what Jews would call a Hebrew Bible. How did you get exposed to Islam?

Um, I mean, it was it was through individuals, specifically one individual who just, you know, kind of gave me some literature, books to read about Islam. That was my major exposure. I mean, I think that at that time, we're talking about the early 90s

Islam was definitely not in the media the way that it is today. You know, wasn't just like

All over the place, it stands right now.

for somebody to say they never heard of Islam, that would be far fetched, not that they've heard the correct message, but that they've never heard of the term or they've never heard of Muslims, that would be far fetched, but back in it back in the 90s, it wasn't necessarily that far fetched back then. But also, I think, in certain urban populations,

you know, Islam was, you know, somewhat known. And so it wasn't like I had never heard of Islam. I'd never read anything about Islam. So there was there was particularly one person who, you know, introduced me to certain books. And through those books, I began to my heart began to open up my heart to the to the idea of becoming a Muslim, we see how important Tao is sharing if you really care, like this individual did, he cared about you? And he shared, he shared some educational materials? And look what happened from there. It's amazing, you know, you know, I think that I actually think that there was a lot more sharing

in the 90s. And, and then when 911 happened,

I think a lot of Muslims kind of shied away from dow only because,

you know, there was a big push to kind of paint all Muslims with one brush, and all Muslims a terrorist and this type of thing. Yeah, a lot of good came out of that. Because, you know, Muslims began to understand the importance of being a little bit more proactive, you know, and being kind to the neighbors and engaging people. But I think that also what happened with that was a desire to, I don't want to call it a simile, but a desire to placate to, you know, to kind of just be like, Hey, we're all the same. And it wasn't like that, before. You know, we, I think we were a little bit more confident about Islam being the true religion, right. And later, it became it changed, that message

changed, because we felt this huge rejection from from society as a whole, we felt this the, you know, alienation. All of these people are terrorists. And I think we wanted to counter that narrative. And and so in countering that narrative, I think we lost, which is important, by the way, I mean, I do think it's important that we, you know, show people the beauty of our religion,

but, but not to lose that message of the oneness of Allah, the oneness of our Creator, his uniqueness, and his right to be worshipped alone and the finality of the message of Muhammad Sallallahu wasallam? What were some of the things, a few things about Islam, that had you so enamored by it, that obviously took you to a whole nother level that you got your doctorate in Islamic studies? Well, I mean, that was that has a real long journey there. But I would say that the initially, what made me

interested in Islam, is that it made sense.

You know, the concept of one creator, that the creator created us with a purpose so that he's a wise creator, that that purpose was communicated to us through messengers, that the final of those messengers was a name, a man named Mohammed bin Abdullah, made peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. And that he,

you know, he revealed to Muhammad Abdullah, a book, that book is called the poor,

and that that book would remain preserved and untampered with until the day of judgment, and that there is a day of judgment and that we will be accountable, like all of those things actually made sense to me.

And that's, that is what initially led to me, you know, becoming a Muslim. Of course, we believe that Allah is the one who puts that guidance in our hearts. And so but in terms of just from a, let's just call it a cognitive perspective, and my own mental abilities, that made sense. Whereas there were, you know, several other religions that I read about, including, as I mentioned before Christianity, where I wasn't able to connect the dots if it didn't work for me,

did you I've interviewed him to lie, I've had opportunity to interview a lot of people over the years, and people who have also taken that journey in life to search for the purpose of life and they found all the evidence and everything that captivated them, and convinced them that Islam was the truth, but they had to go through a journey. A lot of times it's like the Creator God Almighty, Allah had them taste a little bit of this little bit of that until they finally came to the truth tasted the truth. And they're like, this is 100% it. Some of them were from the Christian background, and many of them and this is not to to belittle anybody's religion or anything. But the

truth of the matter was that when they went deep into the studies of

And they studied textual criticism and they went deep into the text, they found that there was different, there was problems there. And this actually had them at a crossroads. And many of them relate their stories that they had to because there were certain things in the Bible that were not in some of the earliest manuscripts. And you being a student of comparative religion, you also know about these things that I'm discussing. So they were the crossroads, either they're going to start preaching things that are not in, in the some of the earliest texts, not to mention that there was no original text. And this led them away from what they were upon. Now to the question, did you as

someone now who attained his doctorate? Did you have some of the same struggles? When you went because you went deep? You took a deep dive, you went deep into studying Islam? Did you come across anything with the Quran? Anything? Anything that you know, was, you know, put created doubts in your heart? Or did you just the more you studied? Did your Iman and Islam increased to a whole nother level? So let me just say,

two things. inshallah, number one, I'm glad that you began by talking about some of the people who you've come across, who have done their own deep dive in Christianity and then wound up, you know, not believing

that the, that the text was from God directly, right? really questioning the what we would call the cadenza or the the holiness of the of the Bible. It Now, let me because there's two things there. Number one, it stands out in my mind is Dr. Gerald Derrick's may Allah have mercy on him. Well, I know you've had the pleasure of meeting in person. And I've I've had, you know, conversations with him in the past, and I've benefited tremendously from his books, to be honest with you. I think that

you know, his first book that I can remember coming out the crossing the crescent, it's a, it's a great read. Let me let me let me just for the audience that don't know, this was also someone who had a master's in divinity finished from Harvard University. He was he was a Christian. preacher. Was it a deacon, Deacon, he was a deacon. And he accepted. We accepted Islam in the same year, you have three amazing milligram gender? Yes. I mean, so. So I want to tell you also, my father went to the Philadelphia College of Bible he was he was a youth minister, your father? My father? Yes. What's the Philadelphia College of Bible.

And

I guess this was the late 16th. And,

and then, that is actually when he began to study the Bible, and the history of the Bible, and its compilation and so forth. That's what my father left Christianity. So remember, I told you I wasn't raised as a Christian. I had a lot of Christians in my family. I wasn't raised that way. And from a very early age, you know, my father, you know, shared with me his experience with the study of Christianity, and why he left Christianity specifically, because he had problems with the with with the Bible and how it was compiled.

For, for me, as you mentioned, doing a deep dive. So I think there's a there's a couple of things I like to say here, and I hope you just if you bear with me, the The first thing is that Islam has sciences and disciplines and speciality. And just because a person has a doctorate, does not mean that they are a specialist in everything. So I want to qualify that. my doctorate is in theology, specifically, my doctorate was on the Unitarian movement and their critique of Trinitarian doctrine. So which was done in the Arabic language, but was a was more a study of Christian movements. And then there was obviously a big comparison with the the Islamic viewpoint on many of those topics. So

I want to qualify that I'm not a the the Quran, and pure acts or the different modes of recitation, and Tafseer, and so forth, that has its own its own science. It has its own sub categories and sub disciplines, if you will. And there are people who spend their whole life studying that I'm not one of them, but Alhamdulillah Allah hands out have blessed me obviously. I mean, when a Muslim studies no matter what they study, even if it's, you know, far away from you know, even if it's fifth, or how do you do whatever, because the Koran is our basic text that is our basic source. It is the speech of Allah. Obviously, we give it a lot of attention

and

The other thing I want to say before I answer your question is that I think it's also very important that people realize that these type of interviews that you and I are doing are to raise awareness, right? These are not educational seminars where people themselves are going to be able to, you know, go deep and should not expect us to go very deep, you know, because we're dealing with an interview setting, and the education should not be limited. And I'm saying this, because we live in an era man, where a lot of people cannot read more than 140 characters at a time, you know, it's like, Man, you know,

more than a tweet is very difficult for them to read, and we have to get back to, to our literacy, you know, the first thing that allows pantalla revealed to the Prophet was it cannot read, right? Or, I mean, another translation, probably more accurate, is recite, but the point is that emphasis on knowledge and, and, and literacy is very important for us from the Islamic perspective, and we should not get caught up into the mainstream culture, which is really dumbing down,

you know, who we are by this information overload, and changing the way that we receive information? And and so I think it's, I just want to put that out, put that out there right now, because I think it's a it's an appropriate point to mention, to get to your question, which is good, my deep dive in the sciences of Islam or my study of Islam?

Did that cause me to doubt? Or did it raise my faith? And I would say, with out a doubt, it has increased me in Amen. Well, Hamdulillah, the the knowledge that we get, actually erases doubt, it doesn't create doubt. And even even when you expose yourself, let's just say to some of the critics of Islam, because every religion has its critics, for various reasons, but even when you expose yourself to, to some critique, for a person who is well grounded and reads those critiques, and ask Allah for his length and for his guidance, then I'm telling you that the majority of the time you will find an answer that is very clear of where you end up. And that makes the road clear. So I will

say this, my study of the Quran, and the sciences of the Quran has confirmed, you know, what we have what we know and believe to be the truth as Muslims, which is that the Quran that we have today is the Quran that was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu wasallam. I'll tell you something. And then if you have specific questions we can you can go through

in

about a decade ago,

my mother visited me in Saudi Arabia. And

my mother is not a Muslim. And we were riding around and in Jeddah,

and at the time of prayer, so above that of time, a sad time, if we were out, as you know, everything kind of stops, right. All of the stores shut down. Even if you're in a mall, everything shuts down.

When the event is called the call to prayer, and then we go and we pray.

Okay, the reason why I mentioned this is because my mother not being a Muslim, she was sitting in a car, right? Although I sat to the masjid and pray, but the there's loudspeakers outside the messages. So you hear the Quran being recited outside the masjid. My mother really liked

the recitation, and you know, she would ask me about it. And then it really hit me. And I said, so Pamela, this, this Koran has been being recited like this, allow three prayers a day, we pray five times a day, but three of them are loud, right, the fudger prayer, at dawn, the mother prayer at sunset and the shadow prayer, which is, you know, at night.

And I'm saying to myself, look at how law preserved his core and not just the physical, written copies of the Quran, but it was preserved in the hearts of men and women. And it's been being recited out loud, it's a public book. See, if you look back at the history of, of the Bible, the New Testament and the Old Testament, these were not public books. They were reserved to a certain religious class, right, that would then read and interpret it for the layman to you know, the rank and file of that particular religion. But the Quran was never like that. The Quran has always been a public book, it's always been recited out loud. And that, to me is amazing, because that is part of

the preservation of the Quran. So somebody makes a mistake when they're reciting somebody else's, you know, and I'm sure you know,

Most of the Muslims here have experienced this prank title where, you know, in Ramadan when the man makes a mistake What happened? Somebody somebody behind him correction. And so this has been going on for, you know

1500 1400 and you know, 40 years, right? I mean this this to me was it hit me at that moment it's and it's not that, you know nobody else has ever had this reflection, but I was saying to myself, Wow, my mother is here listening to the Quran. And this Quran has been recited every day, allow for the last 14 140 years. I mean, amazing, man. I don't know. That is something that is truly amazing. It's a miracle. It's something that has convinced so many people that Islam is true because you have a living miracle the Quran recently you you've had and this is nothing new. You've had nefarious attempts, by by some missionaries to try to attack the Quran. And this is something that yesterday I

had, I had a I had a nice talk, I met some Romanian Christians, usually, Romanians are Orthodox Christian, but yeah, but these are Pentecostal, they're here in America. And we almost spoke for like two hours. And they were really engaging I had to go I was I really had to leave but but they were really, you know, excited about speaking and trying to share their faith with me. And I was really trying to not offend them, but at the same time to get the point across of the true monotheism, the true message of Jesus peace be upon them. And, and I and I didn't, because it becomes sometimes like, you know, okay, the ego gets involved a lot of times, like, back and forth,

and you you feel like, you have to prove your point. And sometimes you offend someone, and they offend you, and back and forth. But at the end of the day, it was like, let me let me share the truth with them. And I actually even got a Romanian I called that we have a brother who's Romanian, he accepted Islam, I don't know, if you you know him, brother gibreel. I got him on the phone to talk with them. He's from their culture make a long story short, the point was that I relayed the truth. And I left them with a good experience of a Muslim. So even at the end, I said, when I said, I said, I want you to remember one thing before we leave that a Muslims believe in one and only one

God, we worship like Jesus, we're not terrorists. And I want you to speak for Islam, even if you don't accept it tomorrow, even though I've, you know, I've relayed all these truths to you. We had a great time we departed not as enemies, but actually as as, as decent human means would.

So there was no evil and nefarious attempt on my side to try to smash someone put someone down. So now when I share this next video with you,

leading into this, it's not my attempt, nor I'm sure it's not yours ever to try to create enemies or to try to

depict Christianity or in to insult any Christians. But this is our humble attempt to try to share the truth with people. So I'm going to share this video with you. And then we can contrast that with some of the deliberate attempts. And you when you look, a lot of times at what many of these people are doing, they twist the truth. They lie. And this is something that we can we can learn from that we don't fall into these traps because we have the truth. And when truth comes against false suits, it's bound to perish as God Almighty says, so let me let me get into this video, I want to get your reaction. And then we'll connect it with this topic that we're talking about. The Quran, people of

course called the gospel books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and john. Well, they call them Matthew, Mark, Luke and john because we don't know who wrote these books. And there's no point calling them Sam, Fred, Jerry and Harry. I mean, they're, they're written by people we don't know they were written by. They are anonymous, you might not think so because they have the title. The Gospel according to Matthew, whoever put that title on it was an editor later, the followers of Jesus were Aramaic speaking peasants from Galilee, lower class men who were not educated. In fact, Peter and john in Acts chapter four, verse 13, are literally said to be illiterate. They couldn't read and write, of

course, not. They were fishermen. They didn't go to school, the vast majority of people in the ancient world never learned to read, let alone write. And their native language was Aramaic. These books are written in Greek, by highly educated rhetorically trained writers who are skilled in Greek composition. Okay, so now the whole purpose, you got to see that, yes, the whole purpose of my kind of semi long introduction was that as I was talking to these Christians, I had to because sometimes you get timid you have to relate the truth and you feel like okay, am I going to offend him or whatnot, but I try to show that my intention is not to offend you, or nor do I have a nefarious

agenda.

But it's just because I care about you. Now here we are sharing this why I share this is not like oh, our team, your team, I got one on you, you see, but these are just these are this is an academic, we're sharing things that are very clear, this is not some hidden, it's out there. And because I care about you, I'm sharing it. Now on the flip side, we've had some controversy now, regarding the crime. And we we've had some people start to attack, the very book that we say is a miracle that has been preserved, because there was some reading into some statements that another scholar said, and they deliberately went in and they look for, you know, like God, Almighty, Allah

tells us there are clear verses in the Quran clear, then there are some verses not so clear. But the people whose hearts are twisted, people who have evil intentions, they go for this unclear. So there was some unclear, vague things that Islamic scholars said, but in no way did he ever discredit the Quran, being authentic and having it preserved as we have it today. But they capitalize on this. And now you have people who already have some shaky faith, maybe they're left with some doubts. And now who knows where their faith can go from here and be shattered? So do we have let me ask you explicitly, when you watch this video, is there any comparison that you can make when you went deep,

and you dwell deep, and you dove as far as you know, very far into Islam, that you can now like this academic here, that he he's coming out now and saying what he's saying, you know, that these books from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and john, they're not actually from them? We don't have a copy of a copy of a copy of anything original. Can you make any comparison with that in the Quran? No, no, I mean, it's, it's two totally, totally different realms of of study.

And that is because as I mentioned to you, before, the Quran was not just preserved. Look, the the New Testament as we have it today.

No Christian claims that it was written by God. That's not that's not the claim of the Christians. The claim of the Christians is that the authors and they recognize that the New Testament has several authors.

So stay with me, man, because I want us to really get this point down, because we first have to even look at the claims of both sides before we say Okay, can we compare? So, so Christians, I'm saying scholars and non scholars alike amongst the Christians, they do not claim that God is the author of The New Testament, the New Testament has several different books, and he pistols, half of them almost written by Paul who was,

was an enemy of Christ. Right? And did not write these epistles until after the alleged crucifixion of Christ. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and john, whoever they may be, right, whoever they may be.

They they are not God. I mean, I'm saying even according to Christians, they were inspired. According to Christians, they were inspired by God to write their accounts, their Gospels.

And so, so we're not talking about the authorship here, of the Creator Himself. I think that's very important to put to the side. And then we look at the clear distinction between

you know, john, is it's almost, I mean, most of the Christian scholars, you know, will tell you that john did not meet Christ. And I'm talking about the author of the gospel, or the one that's attributed to john, the point being is that that's one side with the Quran, we are claiming as Muslims that this is the verbatim speech of the Creator, that was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed through the angel jabril. And that that was done if we talk if we look about the, if we look at the compilation of the Quran, we're talking about three main stages, right? The compilation that was done during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam himself. And so the

Quran was revealed to him, he recited it to his companions, he had over 20 scribes, one of the main one of his you know, the main scribe was aided by the alongside and who, but he had many other scribes.

They would write down the Quran as he recited it to them.

The other thing that we have to look at here is that there was a written text.

And there was the oral tradition of that text, which is amazing, because even the Greek So you saw that Bart Ehrman there

how he's referring to the fact that

The followers of Jesus were, you know, Aramaic speaking people, and that the Bible, the New Testament that we have today, or the oldest manuscripts are Greek. And so, you know, there's a, there's a discrepancy there. But even the Greek that is written, we don't know how to pronounce it. It was not passed down in oral form, yet you understand? Yes, this is the difference between the Quran the Quran was written down, and it was memorized. So it was, it was preserved both both in its written form. And phonetically. Right. Which is amazing because the science of phonetics didn't reach the the English language until the 19th century, right. I mean, so we don't even know how

Shakespeare spoke. Like, that wasn't passed down to us. So it's, it's quite interesting. So, that being said, we have this first stage, which was during the lifetime of the Prophet himself. Okay, this, nobody claimed, Christians, nobody claims that any of these were written during the lifetime of Christ

amongst them, okay, so now we take it a step further. After the profit, some lie there was some past.

The first Khalif for the first Caliph, who was the leader of all of the Muslims after the Prophet Mohammed, his name was Abu Bakar in Sydney,

May, May last month, I will be pleased with him. And what happened was, there was a battle the Battle of Humana It was called in the 12th, year after the digital and so the province I sent him died and the 11th year after the digital, and the 12th year after the digital, there was this battle, it's called the Battle of the amendment. And many of the people who were known to be the whole file, those who had memorized the entire course, many of them were killed in that battle. And so Roma, lovely Allahu Ayan, who happens to be the second Khalifa, he went to Apple bucket. And he says to him, you know, I fear that the Quran, you know, we, in order to preserve the Quran and keep

it from being lost for generations, and to keep it for posterity, we need to compile the Quran, in a written form into one book. So during the lifetime of the prophecy, it wasn't compiled in one book, the different scribes of the Prophet had, you know, had it written and they obviously they weren't writing on paper at that time. They were writing on you know, leather skins, they were writing on bones, specifically the shoulder bone of the of the camera, which which is a long, you know, bone to write on. So the point is that it was it was scattered in the lifetime of the privacy some of and it's written for him in terms of it being memorized, but many of the companions who have memorized

the prion from sort of confetti hat until sort of the next the first chapter to the 114 chapter,

during the time of every bucket, it was compiled into one compilation, one codecs, you know, hear from cover to cover.

And then the third stage, if you will, of compilations the crime happened during the caliphate of Earth man, while the loved one.

And the reason why is because when some of the companions came back from what is now called Azerbaijan, and maybe it was called back then I'm not sure.

But what happened was many of the Muslims from the various

human rights if you will, so you have the caliphate, right? Which is the whole thing and then under that there are different governorships, we can call them, right, just kind of like, I mean, if you wanted to compare it to today, there's like this federal, and then there's like, you know, state level so you know, you have Muslims coming from Damascus, Muslims coming from Kufa, Muslim coming from different places, and they all come together. And what they found was that there were variations in their recitation of the Quran. Okay. And that is because the Quran was revealed to the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. Allah said it I hope Okay, so these are what they call the seven

hearts of the Quran. Now, what is the heart? Well, it's different ways that you can translate that but let's just for the sake of ease, let's call them dialects. Right? So the Prophet sallallahu wasallam when the Quran was being revealed to him and he's caught up, right, there are Arabs of other places who have different ways of

expressing themselves. Like if we kind of looked at it like the English is of the world in America.

If you want to buy something to play basketball and Edie What do you call those things that you put on your feet? jumpers not know which What do you yes sneakers sneakers? Yes, make jumpers right.

I thought oh man, that's deep. I see I never heard jumper so so in America as far as I know, we call them sneakers, sneakers. Yeah sneakers. But but in England, they call them trainers, trainers, jumpers, trainers sneakers, right? Do they mean anything different? No, no, they're all synonymous, but they are different words. Right? They are different words, but they're all synonymous. And so the Arabs likewise, they had different, you know,

ways that they express themselves. I think this is important for us to kind of understand. So for I'll give you another example. In America,

we buy our baby's diapers, right? Yes. And in England, they call them nappies. Yeah, tomato tomahto not necessarily tomato, tomatoes, just pronunciation, okay? Right? These are actually different words here that we're talking about. So I'm gonna I'm gonna call them diapers. In England, they're gonna call them they're gonna call them napkins. So, likewise, the Quran was revealed in different dialects to the Prophet sallallahu wasallam, because his, but it was all Arabic. But it was revealed so that various tribes would not find difficulty in the Quran. What happened after the lifetime of the Prophet is selected with Sudan. And this is what happened when the Muslims went Azerbaijan. And

then they came back to this man and they said, Listen, we fear that there's going to be some contention amongst this oma, and that we are going to differ over our book, the way that the People of the Scripture before us have differed over their book. So let's standardize the Quran. We need to standardize it, put it on one heart, and that will be the heart of Of course. Okay, because the prophet Isaiah selected was sent in was from Codex. And so this idea was something that the companions came together they agreed upon and zaytoven savitz, who was described of the prophet Isaiah, so it was sent him who was also a memorizer of the Quran by heart began to bring the

compaines together, who also known to be scribes of the Prophet sallallahu wasallam.

And they standardize the Quran under the guidance of men while the Allahu taala and who also was a scribe of the Prophet sallallahu wasallam and who was virtuous. And so, what we have now is the Quran This is why they call it there with many Koran, right? Not because it looks man wrote the Quran, but because he standardize the language, all of those, what was revealed to the Prophet, it is selected with sin. Now, again, the scholars of Islam have talked about this from the beginning, this is not some new Western criticism of the Quran, the scholars of Islam in the past have different over exactly what does a heart entail? Because we don't, we don't actually have the

knowledge of what existed now before the the compilation that was done during the lifetime of Earth man. So some of them said that there was, you know that some of the Arab tribes prefer to speak in singular terms, and others prefer to speak in plural terms. I'll give you example, today. If I said, for example, if I was to translate the Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu, wasallam, whoever believes men can have, you know, belay, when you're an acid failure, Paul, Heyman only

ever believes, whoever believes in a law in the last day, let him say that which is good or keep silent. Okay, if I was to translate that, as those who believe in Allah and the Last Day, should say that which is good, or speak, or, or stay silent, that's me saying who, whoever, and those does that change the meaning it doesn't change the meaning, right? But some people may prefer this way and other people prefer that way. So it was known. You know, this is one of the opinions that it was known that some of the Arab tribes prefer one way or another way, and a lot of times it revealed to the Prophet somebody was selling those different ways. Okay. Now, again, what we can confidently say

is that the Quran that was that was revealed to the prophet Isaiah Salatu was so that was the Koran that was man compiled, there wasn't something in the Quran that it was man compiled, that was not revealed to the Prophet it is selected was sent in the campaign's themselves agreed that this was the standard version of the Quran. This was done during the lifetime of it with me, which was only 20 years after the death of the Prophet is allowed to say that.

And then Earth man told me told zeta metabo to make five copies of that and that would be sent to the different

you know, governance you know, Mr. Right of the of the Muslim oma at that particular time. So once a Damascus when the coup for and so forth.

And then it was man

told the rest of the Muslims who may have had their own copies of the Quran that they began to write down themselves, right, because we didn't have a standardization process. At that point, there was no publishing house, right, where you can just print 3 million copies and send them out that didn't exist. And so he told everybody else to get rid of their personal copies of the Quran, so that there wouldn't be any, you know,

contradiction with the standardized version.

And so some of them got rid of it by for example, because with that ink, you can take it down to a river, you can take it down to the ocean of ink will go off the pages out of respect for the book of Allah, right out of the respect for the words of Allah, like, even today, you don't just find a Muslim, if if even if you're crying, you know, you've had it was hot for a long time and it gets rid of it, you don't just throw it in the garbage with the, you know, with food scraps, we don't do that.

Out of respect for the book of Allah. So at that time, he told them to get rid of it. And so some of them burned the Quran, right? So I'm only mentioning that because some of the orientalist, they say you see he ordered with you know, it's man ordered that the Koreans be burned as some as if this is some kind of show of disrespect, the opposite is actually true. And it's wise understand, you know, it's important to understand cultural context that the Quran was being burned, the pages were being burned out of respect for the Quran, so that it would not be you know, that the actual words of Allah would not be mixed with, you know, other forms, like I said, food scraps or other just

garbage, right. And so some of them burned the Quran, some of them took it so that you know, down to a to a river or ocean so that the ink would

wash away. The The point is, from that point on until today, we have had that one standard version of the Quran, the issue of El Kiera act, okay, which is, which is where, for example, the majority of the people today, were accustomed majority of the Muslims were accustomed to hearing what is known helps an awesome, anybody could shout to be heard.

And these variant readings of the Quran

are different. We talk about before when we talk about the concept of the heart,

or the dialect, so the variant readings of the Quran, the actual must have that we have today. If you compare it, for example, with the oldest manuscripts of the Quran, which which which dates to the first century, right, so we're talking about In fact, I'm sure you're aware of five years ago, approximately, they found a manuscript at the University of Birmingham, Birmingham, England, right. Right. Yes. And, and that manuscript, they carbon dated it back to the lifetime of the Prophet. So the lighting was something Yeah, people can go check. This is a perfect, yes. Yeah, this is a fact. So if you look at that one, and you compare it, and you can do it, you can actually do it online,

like you can actually pull up that manuscript online. And if you compare it to the mishap that we have today, it matches letter for letter to and that is the only mishap there is no other most, there is no other core and that is out there. So what happens is the sometimes you know that missionaries, whether it's they're being disingenuous or they really just don't know. They'll come and they'll compare

the most half of NAFTA and watch for example, which is commonly read in North Africa, like Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia.

And then I'll compare that with Huff's analysis right Don't try to make that as if there is a different version like King James Version like RSV version and it is not so that the skeleton what they call the the Continental skeleton right the consonants of the Arabic language because as you know, the Arabic language is it has consonants and then it has what we would call diacritical marks, so to have a cat, right, so the consonants all remain the same, sometimes the dots are going to change, but the skeleton of the Quran does not change cannot change has been the same. Okay, the dots may change, and that may may offer somewhat of a different meaning from a variant reading to

another variant reading but you know, again, these are these are very, I'm not even gonna call them discrepancies. Because they're not discrepancies. These are just different variant readings of the Quran. And there's there is only one Quran, no versions of the Quran as it was revealed. We have it today. We have it today. This is no doubt about it.

I mean, we have to emphasize

This point the Quran is every cited book, that is the, that is the origin of it right? The, the prophet Isaiah select was sent and did not read, read or write. he recited the Quran. And it was memorized and it was passed on.

You know, in an oral tradition, in fact, just last night Alhamdulillah we have a young brother 17 years old, he's not an Arab, I want you to look at this. He's not an error. If you try to have a conversation with him in Arabic, we would not be able to hold a conversation with you in Arabic.

He finished last night. His his memorization of the Quran with ijazat, meaning

a testimony to his mastery and proficiency of recitation with a chain of narration that goes back to the Prophet Mohammed to gibreel to rob Bellamy, right? So he shed rent to his shade, who rented his shade all the way back to the profit center. And he's 17 years old, and he's not an error. Now. So what I'm saying is, is that

I'm saying this is just last night, I mean, as you know, we we have karate competitions throughout the United States throughout the world. But the reality is that this book is preserved. And there is no doubt about it, it was passed on through oral tradition before we worried about the written text, and the written text is clear. So it's been passed down both with the written text, and we know how to recite that written text. And that's the difference even even if we were to, you know,

hypothetically, you know, assume that the Greek Bible as it is today, right?

Or would they have in their manuscripts was somehow you know, what? What was written by the followers of Christ during his lifetime? How would we say?

That's the part I think we take for granted as Muslims. Yeah, we take for granted that we actually know how to recite the Quran, because there's a whole science to that, right. Yeah. But no, no, they don't they don't have that. But um, so you, when you when you compare, because some people may get attached so much, and put so much emotional investment into say, let's say, a watch, that's actually not gold or counterfeit bill, and then they want to convince themselves that 100% This is real, it's real, but we're just sharing to the person who's saying, look, take the test, it's not it's not really what it is to be. And you have something over here that it is 100% from your Creator from my

crater so this is out of love and concern and, and and want to help humanity the Christians, agnostics, whoever, were pointing certain things out, and and also directing people to examine what we have here, that is indeed from their Creator, this is the creator of the universe is the creator of all mankind, you have it here, there's no doubt about it. How does someone deal with the doubts we're almost out of time. But for someone when these doubts come, because shaytan is the one who wants to put these doubts out to confuse people with confused the masses, how should a Muslim or or human being you know, this is thrown out. So they put themselves on their brain on on hold, or they

go and they follow their desires. So I think it's very important for us to emphasize that for those who believe in a creator, they believe that they are created,

that they must have good thoughts about their Creator, and know that if they raised their hands up to God, and they call upon him, and they asked him for guidance, that it is not known throughout the history of mankind, that somebody calls upon ahead. He's the one who guides the Creator of the heavens and earth, that one calls upon him with sincerity. Truly asking for guidance. And then they're not guided.

That it may be a like you said before, it may be a winding path. But guidance will come and so asking ALLAH, asking the Creator of the heavens and the earth for guidance is essential. Do not rely on your own abilities or your own intellect rely upon the one who gave you those abilities, if those abilities and who gave you your intellect and who gave you your ability to reason rely on Him, and He will guide you to the truth. One of the the prayers that the Prophet Mohammed some of it was someone would make the most, in fact, his wife on selama or the Allahu taala and said that this was the this was the prayer that she heard the Prophet make the most. Yeah, mocha libelle kulu that bits

can be added in Allahumma Yeah, mckinleyville kulu that bits can be added in IC, O Allah Turner of the hearts, make my heart and keep my heart firm on your theme on your way on the way that is pleasing to you. This is something that we should do frequently and often in emulating our profits.

One other point just quickly, do you do we have to we know that God Almighty Allah

As promised to preserve the verbatim words of God Almighty, the creator law, this Quran, we have it memorized by millions to this day, if you were to burn all the neurons, you lock them up in a vault somewhere you would get those people memorizers of crime who fires you'd come together, like no other book in the world, if you threw all the Bibles in the oceans, all of the texts, every other book out there, you would not be able to bring back any of those books like you are able to bring back the Quran. So that and that is the promise. That's the promise of Allah. Allah Subhana. Allah says in the 15th chapter of the Quran, in nationalism, advocate, we're in Nana hula, having been in

that level, have you known indeed we have sent down to you in nationalism that we have sent down the advocate. That is the reminder, the Quran itself, what Nana hula, have you done and truly, indeed, we will preserve it, we are the ones who will preserve it. So that is the promise of Allah Subhana, who was added and his promise is true. We see that promise being fulfilled, we see not just that, but we see a blueprint for life, the purpose of life, you have everything there to be successful in this life in the hereafter.

It's there in the Quran, do we as as Muslims, do we have to fall in this sometimes from the western academics? Do we have to? How far do we go that we have to sometimes just deconstruct everything that we have to you know, take everything apart and know all the nuts and bolts and we have like you just went eloquently and you explained like for every person you had two witnesses coming you know, you had the chief scribe, you get all of the, the the main body the meat potatoes is there. But now Can a person get lost? When you go into all of the intricate nuts and details in all of the housing you try to where do you put your mind? Where do you say your mind is like, at a point where Hold on,

it's like a balance between now trying to put together every single thing from just like, for example, like for example, you take a car, you're not an expert area, and someone just takes apart a car engine or anything else. And for the layman say okay, you try to put it back together, when it's already been put together for you, I'll put it together for you. And it's been the promises come true. And that's that's exactly what I was going to say that for those who are well versed, well grounded in the crime, they don't need to listen to me, you tell them how to how to study it and so forth.

But, but for those who are not well grounded, it should be enough for them, as the law says about himself in the crime of him that he should you have any doubt about a law, you know, let us let us you know, we should innately innately we have a desire to, to know our Creator and, and to and to submit to Him that is actually part of part of our human nature.

And so we don't need to go around being these you know, radical skeptics who, you know, who just doubt everything about life, because that that is a very

slippery slope. And it will lead to, you know, basically, the, the philosophers dilemma about, you know, life in general, and not even knowing whether they exist or not, or whether they are, you know, part of the imagination of some alien creation, and basically, like, we're all just living in a video game.

Because if you go down that road, there's no end to it. I think it's pretty clear for those who have some basic understanding, especially Muslims, who have some basic understanding of how the Quran was compiled, and how it was preserved from the lifetime of the Prophet it is selected was sent, and that should be enough for us to know that Indeed, Allah Subhana Allah as he promised, that he would preserve that book. And indeed, that is what he did. Let's end with this advice. Now, you came from Christian background, you became an atheist, agnostic. You went all the way out of your love for the truth. You went down, you got your doctorate. So with your life experience now, for advice for the

skeptic, for the missionary, for the Christian, for the agnostic, for anyone who's tuning in, and they're scratching their head, they still haven't figured out the purpose of life, death is around the corner, what advice do you have for them? That that is my advice, think about the inevitable, and prepare for that day, that death is inevitable, and there is life after death. And the preparation for life after death, is to know what this life is about. And to totally know what this life is about. We have to have revelation, there has to be the creator of life has to have communicated to us that purpose and that purpose is communicated eloquently in the Quran. Allah

Subhana who was atta tells us in the Quran, women hold up to general inset allele I will do that I have not created Jin hoo

Mankind except to worship me. The concept of worship is a very deep concept. It does not stop at ritual worship. But what it entails is that we dedicate our lives. And we devote our lives to the one who has created us. We fulfill His commands, and we avoid his prohibitions. And with that, we will attain happiness and success in this life and salvation in the next. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for sharing your time. And your advice with us. Thanks for having me, Eddie. Oh, hi. Thank you Mila blushing rewards you and you to me, Salaam

Alaikum. So then what I have to lie over a cat, and that was our special guests shake Dr. Tahir white, and inshallah this has been a benefit

is beautiful that over the years, all the people that I've interviewed, the more that they have engrossed themselves into the study of Islam, they've gotten well grounded in the deen. So this is really important takeaway. You got to get grounded, well grounded in the deen people who have gotten grounded or tried to get grounded in other man made religions. And usually it's the manmade religions that even just push these ones shakedowns traps to push people away from the right way the direction that they need to be on to get to their Creator. But when you really call upon the one who created you homework number one, if you're tuning in, and you want guidance, you got to ask for

guidance. You got to humble yourself. And you got to ask the Creator, the heavens and earth and everything we say a lot is is God Almighty, the creator the most loving, the Most Merciful, the most compassionate, you ask the one who wants to guide you. guide me You asked him. He's not a man. He's not a woman. He's not a statue. He's not a stick. He's not a stone. He's not a dead person in the ground. No, this is the ever living without beginning without end. The self sufficient doesn't eat sleep, go to the restroom. No, it doesn't walk the earth. But he created the earth.

He is the Creator. You worship Him you call upon the Creator, not worshiping the creation. Very simple, pure monotheism, start with that. Start with that, and then

start to look into Islam. And then when you start to really look into Islam and those who are Muslim, you have to get grounded in the deen. So then you're not shaken up by anything that Shakedown throws your way. So this is the interesting thing the most, this is the amazing thing that our guests, the more he looked into Islam, it drove him all the way to Medina look to study it. And then he took a deeper dive into it. And now look, that did drive him away. No, it gained him more conviction in it. He was more the he was more enamored by it.

The sublime beautiful teachings and all the proofs and evidences that are there. So of course, they're going to be some attacks that come they're going to attack the Quran, but there's nothing like it. There's nothing like the Quran, it is indeed the verbatim Word of God Almighty. Read it, put it to the test. But most importantly, get grounded in it, live it, you have all the answers that you need to get you through life because it's the blueprint for life in the Quran, and the Sunnah, where else you going to go? If you abandon that, because death, as we close with is around the corner. And Islam. Clearly, the Quran clearly gives you the details. And as soon as I give you the

details, what is to happen, as soon as your soul starts to leave the body as soon as death comes, like no other book like nothing out there. And then the great rewards of Jenna. So you're going to sacrifice genda to follow your desires, and hit the back door because Shakedown put some doubts out there. And now you use that as a scapegoat to go ahead and run to the clubs run to to the party that you are suppressing yourself to as you were being peer pressured to go to and now because that's what it is at the end. Usually, it's about following your desires or following the right path. We all go through those struggles. So to conclude, this is just another testimony of an individual,

someone who was sincere and went into studying Islam was convinced to that so much so that he went all the way to Medina to get his doctorate. And he was here just another witness to express and to share those facts that the Quran as it was revealed. Back at the time of the last and final message of Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. We have that exact same code on verbatim today being recited the blueprint for life for the missionary for the agnostic for the atheist, you could try to throw it behind your back. You can try to fight against it, but you're fighting against your own cells, you're fighting against

your Creator. You're fighting against the truth. So don't fight against the truth except the truth. Except this Deen accepts submission to the Creator, not the creation Islam. And we'll see you next time. Go ahead and subscribe right now. Hit the note

vacation Bell support us, support the Dean's show at our Patreon page and share our videos like subscribe. We'll see you next time peace be with you.