Andrew Tate vs Salman Rushdie Free speech Islam

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Oops, there'll be laheem No shade on your Reggie. This Mila here Aurora Manuel Aurora he where people talk about freedom of speech, availability of free speech, there was an attack on freedom of expression.

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Him because He recently got canceled pretty much but when they go to cancel you, ladies and gentlemen, it comes hard and fast. He said, You know she'd you're Muslim, right? And he said he said yes. And I said you know I want to become a Muslim. Say that to him. What would you what advice would you give to Salman Rushdie? La ilaha Allah here we see that more than $200,000 spent we've been told that they're out to kill us all. Salam Alaikum. Brothers and sisters, we went to the streets to ask Americans about Islam. Here's what they said. Do you know anything about Islam? No. Do you know anything about Islam? No. Sadly, do you know anything about Islam? Not really. Do you

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know anything about Islam?

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No, sorry. You know what Islam means? Islam?

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No, we've been told that they're out to kill us all. That's what you've been told that Muslims are out to kill you all.

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Well, that's it to say on TV. Anything. I know it's in the Middle East. Whether you're gonna have four wives, brothers and sisters, as you can see, there are so many Americans who don't know about Islam. We need your help to change that help us to build the deen center, the first Mega data center in America we have $500,000 left and we need your help to finish click the donate right now may God Almighty Allah reward all of you.

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Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salam alikoum greetings of peace. Welcome to the D Show. I'm your host go ahead and subscribe if you have not already hit that notification bell so you don't miss out on exciting shows just like this one that's coming up with my next guest. Michael Abraham. Michael Abraham is a public school teacher and author has a degree in political science. And he was born and raised to a Syrian Orthodox Christian father and a Roman Catholic mother. And as he spent time learning about Islam from the orientalist in the university. While he was observing Muslims, it led him to believe that there had to be something more to being a Muslim than what the media would have

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had him believe. So let's bring out our next guest. Michael Abraham. A salaam aleikum y comma Salam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. How you doing? Eddie, thanks for having me here. Hum did Allah so I will say this, you know, but just being reminded for the listeners out there who just heard you say something in Arabic, so they don't have to take an Arabic class. What did you just say?

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I said, peace and blessings of Allah be upon you and the mercy of Allah be upon your man Satan set her back so much almost translated, you know, beautiful. You see, that's the message of Jesus, that greeting of peace. And you are actually named after one of the prophets that we believe Abraham. It's a beautiful name. Yeah. And Abraham is actually my last name. And you mentioned that my father is a Syrian Orthodox Christian. And a lot of people asked me why I chose the name Abraham upon becoming Muslim. I didn't actually choose it. Exactly. It's my birth last name. So he had an ancestor who came to this country whose name was Ibrahim. And it got changed Abraham and made his

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last name when he came here. So your father, let's start with there. So he was a Syrian Orthodox Christian, and your mother's Catholic. So you're kind of mixed in the middle, which way were you more geared towards coming up following father or mother? So my father, his his grandfather's who immigrated to this country in the early 20th century, when you probably have some idea there's an increase in immigration from people from Eastern Europe, you know, including Shem, the Levant area, or the area of Western Asia, that's now Syria, Jordan, and Palestine. So my father is grandfather and grandmother were Syrian immigrants during that time they came from New York State.

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And, you know, by the time we get to my father's generation, you know, him second or third generation, you know, that that generation of immigrants really, they strove to assimilate very quickly into American culture, essentially. So, you know, my father, he did not speak Arabic, and he grew up going to Orthodox Church, but he really was not a very religious guy. He wasn't he believed in God. He's not a very religious guy at all. Whereas my mother, my mother has longer roots in the country. They you know, have been together since they were in high school and she went to Catholic private school growing up. So through most of my childhood, she was a pretty strong Catholic and she

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took us to Catholic services, and Sunday school and this type of thing growing up. So I was more raised heavily Catholic, but you know, knowing

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That being Arab was a part of my identity, but sort of not really knowing what that means very much. Because by the time again, like by the time you get through the assimilation process through a few generations, a lot of it's disappeared.

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We saw your mother she was remind us again, so she was also wait, she's Catholic, but she's American. She's American, you know? She's mostly Anglo Saxon background.

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Irish, Irish American. Just so ancestor has been in the country a very, very long time. Okay, so you're a Syrian Irish? Yeah, kinda American. Sorry, Mary. You have an American what they say, you know, but you were born and bred in America. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It was born. My parents from New York was born in the state of Minnesota, and mostly grew up here. Oh, okay. So they were in New York. You're raised in Minnesota. Beautiful. I heard you can hear that down out there in some places in Minnesota. Is that true? Yes. So there is a neighborhood in between downtown Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota campus called the cedar Riverside neighborhood. And that neighborhood, it is

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really the epicenter of the Somali diaspora. There's these there's these large towers there. There's all Somali people living in it. So the city did reason the city Minneapolis did recently pass a ruling. And actually during COVID, they let them do it during Ramadan, to have the event play out loud. And they've since passed, so they can do it year round to pass the event. To do the event out there. Yeah. So where were you at that time in your life? I mean, most people nowadays, if you want to bring up the Bible, most people don't understand the Bible, don't know the Bible. Some people identify culturally as being Christian, how did you identify when you were coming up? Mother's

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Catholic, father's Syrian Orthodox Christian? What would you identify with more? You know, I would say growing up in the West late like Christianity is it's kind of confusing, you know, and going to church every Sunday. You know, I always grappled with the fact that it was hard to get a grip on on the history of what this religion was that we were learning and what it was, you know, let like I can I can remember, you know, it's part of Catholic service, they read an epistle of Paul, like part of the New Testament that Paul wrote, and every service, so they'd always read the letter from Paul or whatever. And it's like, well, who was Paul, you know, just just just all these types of

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questions. And, and you know, all that stuff, oh, well, Jesus is God, but he's the son of God, it's like, well, then, who is Moses, there's all those types of things, you know, and, you know, my father would not go to church with us growing up. And that always kept me sort of feeling one foot out of the church in a way. And also to not identifying Christianity as a masculine thing at all, I actually can remember explicitly from a young age, as kind of feeling like Christianity was not really something meant for men, because I didn't see my father, practice it so much, because he would just stay home on Sundays, you know, from my mother, the moral teachings of Christianity were

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very important to her. So like, when we would come home from church and this type of thing, whatever was talked about, she'd really focus on the moral aspects of it. And a lot of those things is, you know, they're things that correlate with a slam, you know, being good to one another, you know, being conservative with your, you know, interpersonal relations with the opposite gender, all that type of stuff. And, you know, she was actually fairly heavy on talking about those, those values and their benefit in a secular way to us. So I did inculcate a lot of those values that my mother taught me over time, you know, honesty was such a big thing with my mother. And she was a mother, who,

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she's the type of mother who could always tell when you were lying somehow, and she'd always find out. So, you know, my mother did a really good job raising me in this regard, and bringing me up with those values. Now, you know, you might know, some people might know the process of Catholicism. You know, Catholicism has a process to it. So you're baptized when you're very little you have first communion when you're like seven or eight. And then about the time you're a teenager, you go through something called confirmation. Now, by the time I was 13, and about to start taking confirmation classes, my older sister had really gotten into Marxism. And even though it was only an eighth grade

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at this time, she was teaching me about Marxism. Of course, Marxism has all these anti religious sentiments, and you know, teaches you that Religion is the opium of the masses, just something to manipulate you. So I have an older brother and older sister while my older brother had gotten confirmed while he was in high school my sister chose not to, and because she was doing all this learning about Marxism and teaching it to me and she was kind of teaching me all these criticisms against the Catholic Church and stuff. I chose not to go to confirmation classes and chose not to get confirmed as a Catholic when I was in eighth grade. Now that was that was a it was a contentious

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issue with my mother at the time because my mother was actually the teacher of the confirmation classes I was supposed to go to. And I went to the first one and then didn't go to any other ones after that. So I mean, you know, looking back on

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had this was I mean, I knew at the time too, but somewhat of an awkward thing for her to be the teacher at those classes. And then after the first class, it's like your son isn't even coming. However, at the end of the day, my mother did respect that it was my choice at the end of the day. And and she was she really encouraged me against it, she told me, You're going to regret it somewhere, the, you know, somewhere down the road, your life and this type of thing. But you let it be my choice. You know, I can remember at that time, and it was another thing I held on to in life to later on. Like that feeling these criticisms I had and confusions I had that made me not want to

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go through with being confirmed being Catholic.

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You know, it wasn't that I felt a discordance with the values that my mother taught me a lot of those core religious values a lot of people have, and I can remember being tough trying to communicate that to her at the time, that you know, a lot of what you've taught me, like, I still believe that stuff is right, I just don't really think this is the route to it, you know. And after that, you know, I, you know, something I never, I never disbelieved in God in life, I never became atheist or this type of thing. But I did you know, in my teenage years develop these Marxist types of criticisms towards religion, that type of thing, I can remember discussing that. But you know,

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when I eventually embraced Islam, I saw it as a natural conclusion to living out a lot of what my mother had imbibed in me from a young age, but the values that you didn't teach me, can you say, Marxism is synonymous with communism? Yeah, I'd say so, you know, the kind of Religion is the opium of the masses, you know, the Catholic Church is, has been manipulated people and taken over people throughout history. And, you know, it just religion is a tool of control that type of criticism. But there is some truth to that statement as far as far as religion being used to manipulate people, because you have man made religions, and people can do that. Just like they can do that with

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communism or any other system, would you say? Well, absolutely. And you know, when you grow up, I mean, at this time, I knew nothing about Islam, I had hardly heard about Islam at this point in my life, you know, this is as a teenager in the 1990s in America. And you know, when you have that experience, and you get exposed to those types of criticisms, at a young age, the tendency you have and what you do is you just associate those, that's all religion. And that's kind of what Marxism itself did, you know, it just tries to put all religion in one basket. So I mean, all of that sets the stage for later in life when I actually learned about what Islam is, for it to appear very

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profound. Before we go that help the audience understand the the main difference between your father's religion to orthodox Syrian Christian, what, what they believed, and it seemed like your father really wasn't practicing, right? And then your mother Catholicism? What's the main difference there? You know, I'm really honestly, I'm not the best person to speak on that, because I wasn't into the Syrian Orthodox practice a whole lot. Growing up, you know, I just like some of that stuff. Are things that I don't know. Totally.

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So would you say, what would what I understood is, you know, when you study comparative religion, you see that Catholicism you have more and more of the conflict. You have confession box? I don't think you have you don't have confession box with the Orthodox Church. Yeah, no, that's a difference. That's one main difference, right. But you're praying to the rosary, this type of thing? Yeah. So you have a lot more saints. But you also have some, do you have some saints in or Orthodox Christianity? Well, I know the church fathers are a big deal. Yeah. And the Orthodox Church. Yeah, they make a big deal about the bishops and this type of thing. I know that. Yeah. But core pretty

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much Trinity is in both of them. Correct? Yes. Yeah. And then the Catholicism making marry a mother, where she's, she's the mother of god, this is really emphasized, right? I believe so. Yes. Yeah. So when you come now and you start to look into well, before you get to looking deeper into Islam,

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you got to spend some time learning about it through the orientalist? Yeah, that's correct. That's correct. So you know, knowing before so you're, you're talking about you're in a university, you don't have a Muslim who's practicing Islam. And this is very common, right? Someone who's living Islam, and teaching you Islam, how it should be you have someone define this term Orientalist who's teaching you Islam?

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Yeah. So you know, when I went into college, I ended up pursuing a degree in political science with a focus on Middle Eastern politics. You know, I was a senior in high school when 911 happened. And so you know, as well as Desert Storm when I was in early elementary school, you know, those are things that happen in life that made me wonder about the Arab world, and just, you know, Syria is part of that part of the world. And I wasn't really connected to it in any way aside from just some of the food that my father would eat. So you know, when the war on terror happened, I really felt a pressure to actually learn about what it was all about and learn more

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was going on. So I ended up pursuing a degree in political science with a focus on Middle Eastern politics. And when you do that, it starts to become pretty apparent that there's this religion that everyone practices in that part of the world. And through certain media channels up here, it'd be talking about after 911

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that you have to learn about. Now, you're correct, especially at the University of Minnesota, the University of Minnesota's political science department and their cultural studies department is really, I would say, not a great place for someone to learn about Islam, at least. At least that was 1516 years ago when I was there, you know, no, the why did they have the topic then? Well, I mean, it's Oriental Studies, you know, an Orientalist. I mean, that's a term given to Western academics who study and characterize the Muslim world, especially the Arab world, but the Muslim world and will and generally characterize it in a way to suit the agendas of the West. So this is kind of what

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you term. Again, it's an item is someone who's an opponent to Islam who has, you know, you know, it's some kind of bot bias there, I would say, so it's, I teach it, you know, as a martial arts teacher, if I'm, let's say, I don't like a certain martial art. And I'm over here teaching, let's say, Shaolin Kung Fu, right? That I'm not really a fan of I don't. And I've studied a little bit, but I'm not actually a master. See, foo in Kung Fu is like I should I should stick in my lane. No, absolutely, you know, something you see, there is a big thing you see as a real hesitancy to get to the meat of what orthodox Islam actually is, you know, even like with these professors who they try

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to feign being unbiased in this type of thing, and a lot of the read material they give you, it really overly focuses on the sectarianism in the Muslim world. And it all really emphasizes that a lot of people who only study Islam and that sort of thing. So then they come out with a lot of people will, they will think that the population of Shia and the population of Sufis, the population of secularists, in the Muslim world, are in way larger numbers than they actually exist. That's just one crux of the kind of confusion that you get, you know, and again, it just focuses you studied political science as a pseudo science. So anything you do there, it focuses on crafting just these

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characterizations of things, to you know, fit a culture of critique, and it's modeled in the western world that doesn't really fit into properly understanding this land very well. But you glean some things you glean some things that make you curious is what happens.

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I can't tell you how many times I've spoken to actual Muslims. So someone who will be a Muslim, not really practicing Islam, then when you want to share Islam, because you'll see them let's say something very basic, like not praying five times a day, for instance. And then you'll try to explain some of the basic things you don't know you don't have to tell me. I took Islam, in the universities, I know Islam, but they're not living it. And then when he started talking about it, it's like, you know, there's a big, there's a

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big conflict with the to an area see that now, as you know, I do education of public school, K through 12, educators now about Islam and about the needs of Muslim students, and about many different things in certain K through 12 curriculum. You know, I always get social studies, teachers in high school, they always come into my trainings, thinking that they already know about Islam, because they studied history, this type of thing. And you can teach them some of the most basic stuff about Islam, especially basic things about the everyday practice and how it affects someone's life. And it's all new to them. It's exactly, I find the same thing with them. They really have

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overblown notions, you know, especially about the place of non orthodox practices, I would say. And that actually really affects those teachers because they oftentimes assume that religiously their student bodies of Muslim students are more diverse religiously than they really are.

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So that's where I want to take my next question and spend a little time here, did you while you were studying in the university, learning from the orientalist did this name Salman Rushdie come up

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amid decay in the availability of free speech to American freedom of speech is one of the most fundamental, important universal rights at all and his work. You know, I can't recall that it came up in university specifically, but, you know, I learned about Salman Rushdie, actually from my sister when I told you about that was at high school, you know, the whole Salman Rushdie incident. That was one of the few things that I had actually learned about Islam or about the Muslim world

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at that time, and I remember I can remember it being characterized to me,

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via her and it being characterized by Salman Rushdie. That's me

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Muslim populations of people, they don't read books, or they don't read this type of thing, you know. And actually, in both my mother and my sister, they were very big. They were English literature major. So they were very big into literature, this type of thing. So I can recall my sister having a fascination with with that whole incident when I was younger, and being one of the first impressions I got about the Muslim world. We wouldn't even be talking about it. But as you know, it's it's been brought up again, it's in the news, you know, because someone went and took the law into their own hands, you know, obviously, you know, this is something that Islam condemns, you

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know, going vigilantism right now. So someone did that. And now his name now this guy again, he's brought up and he's like the epitome of freedom of speech. What do you thoughts on that? When you hear that?

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Well, it's really something, you know, I mean, the whole experience I had of coming to a slam in college, and it's, you know, studying politics, and it's the war on terror in this type of thing. I mean, that really made me reflect quite a bit amongst about how the media affects people's perceptions of things, you know, and something I went through too, and it became a slam was really seeing a contrast between what the university would say about Islam, what the media would say about Islam. And then the very prominent Somali community that we have here in Minneapolis, because it especially at that time, some of the classmates I had at university, people at sea, in my

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neighborhood, the shops, I go to this type of thing. Let's see a lot of community a lot of good behavior, this type of thing from them. But you know, kind of let me know that there had to be something more to this religion than all that. So I mean, I think the Salman Rushdie affair going on. I mean, it really just upsets me that it's just another thing that we have to be reacting to. And I think as Muslims, you know, we need to really be developing strategies on how we proactively educate about people about slam in a comprehensive way. And comprehensively ambient education has really made me think about that. And that's why I've put some of the projects that they have

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together to do with it.

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Do you find it hypocritical when now he's championed? As someone who is where people talk about freedom of speech, there was an attack on freedom of expression and someone who was probably just the luminary in the world

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the symbol of free speech, just what is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend? He said, it ceases to exist, you know, but then you have others I've recently we've, he's kind of been some, someone who we had on the program, and we don't obviously endorse, you know, people whose behavior outside of Islam, people who do things, obviously not according to you know how God wants you to live, but the person is not not a Muslim. But there's some things that he said, and he came on the program, and he's very respectful and whatnot. We pray that God Almighty Allah guides him that he comes to Islam, this gentleman by the name of Andrew Tate, have you ever heard of him? Yeah,

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I've heard of him. But I can't say I've ever really listened to his stuff. Yeah. So that was interesting, just what it asks you when you see someone like him, because he recently got cancelled pretty much. But when they go to cancel you, ladies and gentlemen, it comes hard and fast. You lose your Facebook and your Instagram and your Gmail and your discord, your bank that like, it's just like, in real time, you're watching your phone and apps just exploding, boom, boom, boom. And I'm like, Okay, people are wondering what happened to the freedom of speech, when it's geared towards the Muslim, it's kind of like, say, whatever you want, and then people use this as the, you know,

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get out of getting canceled card. But on the other side, you know, there's certain restrictions to freedom of speech, just when it's not against when it's not against the Islam and Muslims.

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You know, yeah, I personally, I think hypocrisy is sort of integral to Western culture in a way, which might, you know, that might sound like a harsh thing to say, but, but I really do think that you see that all over. And I think it is our part of our job to point that out to Western society, you know, in a constructive way, but also in different ways in different means. So you really just see it all over, all over the place, you know, certainly with freedom of expression, certainly with some of the ideals underlying liberal education, because you know, ostensibly, a liberal education is supposed to be one, ostensibly, where you look at all different opinions, and then you analyze it

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objectively to determine which is the best one or things. But when you actually look at how, how liberal education takes place, you actually see many different world perspectives are explicitly suffocated and oftentimes the system itself, it's not even really ready to take opinions outside a secular liberal paradigm. So I mean, just that itself is hypocrisy. You know, working in education. The student body population in the United States is going through a big transformation.

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In the last 20 years, with 2000, to 2010, being the highest period of immigration, the United States, certainly the highest period of Muslim immigration, you find all these schools having talking a lot about diversity and how they value diversity, and they value multiculturalism, and they evaluate the culture of students and families, and the home culture and all that type of stuff. But then when they do that, they only want to talk about that in ways under certain constructs that the academic departments in Western culture have already put together. And then when, especially when the schools they have Muslim populations of students that they're serving in them. You cannot

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honestly authentically talk about Muslim culture and respecting Muslim culture without talking about Islam and without knowing and learning about Islam. And without respecting Islamic perspectives of viewing the world and viewing any issue that could come up. But there's virtually no place for that. There's no There's been no place to vote for that in the education system.

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Now that you're someone who spent some time also you went to Saudi. Yeah. And you are teaching there for a few years. Is that correct? That's correct. The Saudi is actually where I started as a teacher, so I did a degree in political science. But the first thing I did out after finishing my bachelor's degree was I ended up working at an elementary school in Jeddah. It was a Saudi private school that was trying to implement an American style curriculum to Saudi citizens. So I ended up getting thrown just thrown in to the profession of teaching. And I was in Saudi for three years, a lot of brothers have gone, you know, to the college to the to the Arabian Peninsula, and done

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various forms of teaching English. I'm one of the few who I ended up coming back, and joining the public education system here. And I got a teaching degree here, master's degree in education. So I work as I've been working as a licensed teacher in the United States for nine years now. And again, I developed a professional development education program and wrote a book called Engaging Muslim students in public schools, in an effort to begin educating the education system here and the society in general better about Islam. I mean, were you nervous before you went, I mean, with all the propaganda and people that are thinking that, okay, if I go to that part of the world, as an

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American, they hate us, you know, I might get my head cut off.

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I was afraid. I mean, I had already become Muslim before I went to Saudi, I've been Muslim about I've been Muslim for three years before I went to Okay, so this is before you accept, correct, correct. So so I knew brothers there, this type of thing. You know, I knew people from there, all that type of stuff. Now, the family on the other hand, you know, and my wife also, she was my girlfriend before I accepted Islam. So she's also from non Muslim family. So getting all of them to feel settled about out as a little different thing. You know, that was that was just every stereotype in the book coming out with that. So so that was more of the issue that I had to overcome

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before going to Saudi.

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Now, what were the key leading points? That had you determine that okay, look, Syrian father, Catholic Mother, you know, a lot of culture involved here, I'm taking a big step forward, you know, to look into Islam. And now I'm going to probably go up against the odds here with my family and society, what had you push through all of that, that you were like, Man, this, this is very powerful to have you accept it, to have you accept Islam submission to the Creator, not the creation? What did it for you at the end?

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It will show you know, it, it's a very deep question. And you know, I'll just, I'll just say this, because it's a lot to talk about, you know, ultimately, when I decided to become Muslim was when I went, I went to a Somali bookstore and that same neighborhood, I was telling you about cedar Riverside, which was right by the University of Minnesota, I went into a bookstore there and told them, I needed an English translation of the Quran. Because it It bothered me taking classes in university and studying, like, Islamist politics, as they would call it, or this type of thing, or the Israeli Palestinian conflict or, and they never had us read the Koran, and it just becomes

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clear, it's like, when are we gonna read this?

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So I went and sought it out myself, you know.

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And, you know, even just leading up to that, you know, my acceptance of Islam was a very strong journey in intellectual conviction. And the family I grew up in overall, like, like, politically, they were more liberal than they were right wing, if you want to call it that growing up, you know, as you study politics, university, and I was always told to, you know, have an open mind and, and learn and that type of stuff.

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So, you know, as you grow up, you explore different perspectives from kind of both sides of the political spectrum, if you will, you come to learn that, you know, there's an intellectual foundation to conservative thought as well as liberal thoughts. And as I looked at those things, I had the different things I found myself agreeing with were kind of a mix of the two, you know,

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but, you know, and also to just just living in the city, and I'd walk around and yeah,

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I post a lot and talk to people on the street and this type of thing and, and seeing things that just go on with your own friends in American culture and the things people get caught up, caught up in.

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And again, you know, having that foundation of my mother's own religious teachings that I told you about, like, you know, when I was at that age is in my very early 20s, you know, I was really beginning to see the value of, of religious teachings and religious moral values overall, and that there needs to be a foundation, and a slam to the extent I learned about in university, and what I could glean from it was, it was appealing to me, something that was a big appeal to me about it was the prohibition of alcohol, prohibition of alcohol. Because it seems so many people in my life fall into that vise, and it ruin their lives. Of course, every American families had someone touch that.

00:30:50--> 00:31:26

But you know, something that I never could get a grip on, when I was studying Islam in university, I actually didn't know whether or not it was a religion, someone could accept and just join, that wasn't something that was made clear. And that was something I felt was evading my studies. It's like, well, you also see when you grew up Christian, the next religion outside your own, you maybe know something about his Judaism, and you know that Judaism belongs to a certain tribe of people. So you know, you're starting to slam it's like, well, it's not just a religion for the Arabs, because there's all these Somali people who who practice this type of thing. So I couldn't get I didn't have

00:31:26--> 00:31:40

a full grip on whether or not Islam was something that you join by birth, or something that you accept. But when I read the, you know, honestly, I think when I read, like, when I got the translation of the Quran, I actually have it right here, the one that I read,

00:31:41--> 00:32:25

I got about five verses into sort of buckler, before I knew I was going to accept this religion, five, only five verses I, in the verbatim Word of God Almighty, the Quran, your five verses, it was the second chapter of the Quran. And you're like, I know, this is the truth. That's all it took five verses, that's it. And you knew the crown was the truth that was that had such a powerful impact on just those five verses. And you know, when you as you read, and this was, this was the summer of 2007. Edie, I spent that summer with my face in that, that translation of the Koran. And you know, when you have this type of confused Christian upbringing that I grew up under, you know, when you

00:32:25--> 00:32:36

read the Koran and everything, it says, it really just makes everything makes sense. It just makes everything makes sense. And, you know, that summer, and even the moment when I knew that I had to accept a slam.

00:32:37--> 00:33:16

It's a lot to explain, but I felt like every moment in my life had led up to that moment, at that moment. And I tell people, you know, this was 15 years ago. Now, I've never had doubts about Islam. Since accepting it, I've never had any doubts about it. Some people, you know, we all struggle with trying to be the best Muslims, we are all that type of thing. You know, of course, have those types of struggles. But I've never had any doubts about Islam, and core to it also, you know, studying politics, and analyzing society at that age, you know, you very much want to find solutions for people and solutions to the problems of the world, this type of thing. And, you know, sometimes you

00:33:16--> 00:33:55

look at it, and you think, like, you know, maybe there is no solutions, there is no answers for mankind. And then when you discover a slam, you know, you realize that God did not leave mankind alone without any solutions. And just just the gift of having discovered that is something that I will never let go of how strong that feeling was at that time. And since that time, you know, obviously, I've had a whole journey within the Muslim community and different Muslims, this type of thing. And a lot of times Muslims, were talking about our Inter community issues in this in this type of thing. But but I've always held on to it as being part of my own purpose and something that

00:33:55--> 00:34:36

I have to do, to partake in educating Western society better about Islam, because it will solve so many of the Muslims issues, it will solve the West issues. And of course, when you read the Koran, you read about Prophets, peace be upon all of them, who were sent to their own people and sent to their own nations to give them this message. So that is what I've tried to live out as best I can, and strategize around since I became Muslim. Subhan Allah, I'm really amazed that it just took five of those verses, obviously, your heart was open, you're seeking the truth at that time, you're looking you're yearning. Yeah. And you know, the thing is, Eddie, those those first verses are sorts

00:34:36--> 00:34:53

of Bukhara, and for people for people don't know, it may be the second chapter. But the first chapter is only seven verses. So this is very early in reading it. You know, what it describes is who the book is for. That's what describes so for those who believe in the Unseen and those who

00:34:54--> 00:34:59

believe those who fear a loss pediments to Allah and those who believe in the

00:35:00--> 00:35:38

Revelation I will those who believe in Revelation. So you know, you know once I read that, I mean I realized it was a religion that was open to anyone who will accept it who wants to accept its message now before that you got you obviously went through the first chapter of the Quran right can you go outside to put you on the spot can you for those non youth Not Yet Muslims non Muslims are out there never got to hear the Koran. It's so beautiful to hear a new Muslim going and reciting a language that you never spoke you didn't speak Arabic right growing up. No. American born bred in America. Can you go ahead and recite The Opening of the crown please for us?

00:35:40--> 00:35:52

Oh, man, give me do this. Well, you know, first of all, I read the whole translation that summer I read the whole translation summer. And you know, it's taken me a while to get into Tajweed classes are recycling wrong, but

00:35:53--> 00:36:06

please, okay. Okay, our UI there'll be laheem in or shape on your Raji. This Mila here or manual or he

00:36:08--> 00:36:10

Alhamdulillah he'll rub

00:36:11--> 00:36:13

me in.

00:36:14--> 00:36:19

Otter rock man Yoda Rohi.

00:36:20--> 00:36:30

Maliki Omid Deen E. Bu, E. stying.

00:36:31--> 00:36:41

Deena Dena Sirota? alomost 13. So you're all done Lavina and Ali him while you're

00:36:42--> 00:36:52

moving on at him? One more knee in

00:36:53--> 00:37:35

beautiful Mashallah. MashAllah beautiful. And just to hear it coming from someone, how long? How long has it been now since you accepted Islam? 15 years, 15 years. And this is something that every Muslim, learns it recites it every day, in the five daily prayers minimum. And just to hear someone like yourself, you know, reciting it, this is this is a living miracle, the Quran and just for someone to think, you know, this is something that the Quran has a challenge, a test is preserved, tamper, free, tamper proof, we have it in its original, and you're a living testimony to that. So may Allah accept from all of us. I mean, so this is something that is just it just amaze, mind

00:37:35--> 00:38:11

blowing for anybody, like Salman Rushdie, if he would, he's sitting there writing about, you know, Islam and the Quran. And if what do you think's missing here for someone like that someone who's, you know, I've heard that he's not even really a great writer, but they elevated him so much. So because of this, you know, someone like him now, now he's got a chance to, you know, he could turn his life around also, with all the harm that he's done to himself and to others and to, you know, trying to do harm to Islam, but it just at the end of the day, I mean, it's like spitting up at the sun is going to come right back at you. So now, I think he's, you know, he's in the last phases of

00:38:11--> 00:38:24

his life, and he's gotten, you know, what, with recently what happened to him? What do you think he's missing? He could, you know, let's say he sees this good chance he might right. What would you what advice would you give to Salman Rushdie?

00:38:26--> 00:39:12

Well, it's probably unlikely he isn't a my advice. But I mean, he's old, you know, one way or the other, he's getting to the end of his time. So he has, you know, no one will avoid death, normal way death, and you have to make this. Yeah, the thing is, this dunya it distracts people. And that's the big temptation of the West, you know, it uses the dunya to tempt people, and manipulate them. And, you know, make them forget about where they are going, eventually, all of us are going to die. We know that. We all know it. And because we all know we're going to die, we know that this life is a preparation for the next life. So if we choose to neglect that you choose to sell the next life, for

00:39:12--> 00:39:52

a miserable price and this life, then you you've incurred a punishment upon yourself. That's simply the reality of it. So my advice to him would be to take the testimony of faith in a slam and to accept a slam before he dies. There What's that testimony of faith? That's the one that you took to enter into submission to the Creator not the creation Islam. Yes. Yeah. Shut doing La ilaha illallah wa shut the window, Mohammed and up the hood. Rasul Allah. So there's no word. There's no deity worthy of worship except God alone. And Mohammed is the servant and messenger of God. Let's spend a second on that. It's so beautiful. It's a negation first that you're not going to worship anything

00:39:52--> 00:39:59

in creation, nothing that you can see touch or feel you're not worshiping it, except the Creator who created creation, the One who created Jesus, amen.

00:40:00--> 00:40:36

or ham, what your name is named after he created Muhammad peace and mercy be upon all of them to Sun the moon everything. You're not going to worship a nationality, your ego, your desires, nothing but the one who created it. That makes so much sense, man, it's so simple to understand, isn't it? Absolutely. How did you feel when you took your Shahada? This describe those moments now where did you take Shahada? It was in a masjid was it was Yeah, so you know that summer I spent that whole summer reading the Quran now even after I started reading it knew I wanted to become Muslim. I didn't actually know how to become Muslim, because because I hadn't learned that. And I ended up

00:40:36--> 00:41:13

taking Shahada. You know, I was working in restaurants at the time. And there was an Ethiopian brother who ran a chiropractic office behind the restaurant that I worked at. And I told him, I remember telling, I was serving him coffee. And I said to him, you know, Rashid, you're Muslim, right? And he said, he said, Yes. And I said, you know, I want to become a Muslim. Like I say that to him. So at this point, if at this point you want to become I spent, I spent almost three months knowing I want to be Muslim, but not know how to become Muslim. And on Africa, I said that to him, his face just lit up. He is in his I just got so live when I said that to him. And he had to go like

00:41:13--> 00:41:51

after that. Basically, he's like, wait, wait, I'm gonna come back to you. And he came back like a week later. And, you know, he, he didn't quite understood understand how much I had read already, I think and he told me, you know, like, you know, it's, it's a big decision. You have to make sure like it's right for you. So what he did, he brought me actually to one of our local Somali malls we have here with there's a few malls that are run by the smaller community. And he actually bought me this book, Islam and focus, which was this is by like, some some professor from Princeton, the 70s.

00:41:52--> 00:42:32

And he gave that to me. He said, like, like your read this. And he's, I'm going away back to Ethiopia for a month because I'm getting married. And when I come back, you know, I'll take you to a mosque. Like, I don't know, he didn't want to give me the shahada for some reason. So he gave me that he also gave me a DVD. This is back in the days he got me a DVD at that mall of Kadia seen a classic dollar DVD. Of him given a lecture entitled What do you really know about slim. And that was my first exposure to any type of Muslim personality, di e type figure. I hadn't had any exposure to that, before I decided I wanted to become a slam on become Muslim. So So I watched that, and I

00:42:32--> 00:43:10

actually learned this book. Through this book, I tried learning how to pray. Like it has pages in it, where it tries to teach you step how to step how to do it, this type of thing. So I tried starting all that type of stuff. But anyway, when that brother came back, it was the first night of Ramadan. It was the first night of Ramadan in September 2007. It was September 12. I remember the date. The first night around when I came in, he took me the master luda on Central Avenue in Minneapolis, across the street from Holy Land restaurant people in Minnesota know it. And it was Sheikh Jamal bin amour, who is still around here. And also to that masjid, was kind of the center of

00:43:10--> 00:43:25

the Islamic University of Minnesota, which some people know to know. And it was from the sheikh, that he led me in the shahada there, and there is young brothers and older brothers sitting around we did it. You know, some of them who I'm still connected with, and still no, and then I prayed Maghrib

00:43:26--> 00:44:08

in the GEMA with them for the first time. And it was the first night of Ramadan. And I can remember the sheikh explained to me, the Hadith at that time of how on the first night of Ramadan, all the shayateen are locked up and all the angels are set free. And and then I began fasting right away. And that same brother who ran that chiropractic office, he sent me to Tata, he picked me up and took me to Tata. We at that masjid, every night, my first year, becoming Muslim, it just amazing man, just hearing all this. Just taking it back to something that just so simple, if a human being is searching for the purpose of life, and they're like reflecting upon our departure day, we're all

00:44:08--> 00:44:45

going to leave this life sooner or later. And then just doing a simple investigation, looking at, you know, the different claims that are out there, and way Islam next to it. And what captivated me really is the simple message and the pure monotheism to Tauheed what we call it that stands out from everything else, because in every other man made religion, you got some form of creation worship, or, or associating God to being a man in some way or less of a god but Islam just and you know, making that clear distinction that the Creator is the creator and the creation is the creation and you don't worship anything in creation, but you only worship the one creator. Go ahead. Well, we're

00:44:45--> 00:44:59

gonna say he was gonna say a big thing about for me to Eddie, with Tao heed is the fear of a loss prenowitz And the definition that the Koran gives to a loss upon which I was being all seen, and all hearing it

00:45:00--> 00:45:40

and that you're going to be held accountable. You know, like, you know Americans are so are so political that like, like political identification, I think it's superseded religious identification in the West. And you know, certainly having some exposure to Marxism and this type of thing growing up, but but also even just coming from a family that was like more liberal in this type of thing. You know, sometimes people, they look at like things like the government, as if it can solve everyone's problems, or do everything. And it simply cannot eat no matter how much it tries. You know, even if we have a technological overhaul super big brother state like China's trying to put

00:45:40--> 00:46:19

together where they have a camera on everybody, it will not be able to stop everyone from doing wrong. So a realization I had was that to really have a just society and to have a wholesome society, and to keep people from falling into these devices that people fall into, such as alcohol and drug addiction, amongst other things. People really have to have a fear of God, they have to have a sense that God is watching them. That is an idea I developed again before I read the Koran. And that was part of the first five verses of sorts of bhaker that hit me so hard, that it talks explicitly about the fear of God in it. You know, and of course, the word Taqwa it is more

00:46:19--> 00:46:56

encompassing than the word fear, which is what's used in verse in the verse. But but but that was a big part of what hit me so profoundly as well. Yeah, that's interesting. You mentioned the communist state, their communist country, and then then putting cameras all over the place, to have you fear getting caught, looked at, you know, and then exposed. But when you have the taqwa, the God consciousness in your life, and that fear of God, you love God, the driving force is love. And then you live between the balance of fear and hope. But now you you know that there's an angel on the right writing the good deeds. There's an angel on the on the left writing the bad deeds, you know,

00:46:56--> 00:47:19

this is ingrained in you. You don't need no cameras who's a Muslim, you leave them alone with $1 or a million dollars. He fears God, you can trust them with some You'll get your money back, right because that's definitely Taqwa. That's absolutely that's amazing. And you got behind you let's a few more things I want to ask you you have because people say is that the box you guys worship behind you? What's Kaaba back there. And that's

00:47:20--> 00:47:50

right behind you got the picture. There's some people that believe that you guys worship a black box in the in the desert. Yeah, and I can remember I can remember hearing that stereotype before it became Muslim. Like I remember hearing and it's, you know, of course, you know, Muslims will call it beta law, which which means which can be translated as the house of law, and some Orientalist back in the day tried to say that that means that Muslims think that God lives in that which of course it is not, you know, it's it's just

00:47:51--> 00:47:52

it's the central

00:47:54--> 00:48:04

it's the thing it's the direction towards which Muslims direct their worship when they pray. And you know, the building of it is told in the in the Koran, the story of Abraham, and the story of Abraham with his son, Ismail,

00:48:05--> 00:48:46

their first house of worship built by Abraham and his son Ishmael to commemorate the worship of one and only one God. And isn't it there's also it's mentioned, in the Bible, you have Mecca, called DECA actually looks quite nice. Yeah, that's, that's the house. And then the other thing is, you also specialized now as a teacher teaching for all these years, that's, I want to spend a little bit of time before we conclude, ask you some questions about this. Because it's becoming very tricky for teachers now. Now, how are you handling this? With all of the New Age stuff that's happening and all of this confusion that's out there? You know, public school teachers now are really in a dilemma,

00:48:46--> 00:48:50

especially those who hold to a higher moral ground?

00:48:52--> 00:49:06

Well, I'm glad you asked about that, Eddie. And you know, the public education. And the opportunities that exist for us as Muslims, as well as the challenges is really something that I've gotten online the past year about how to try to educate Muslims more about

00:49:07--> 00:49:08

and

00:49:09--> 00:49:45

there are definitely challenges. And to be clear, I don't recommend to Muslims that they send their kids to public schools, if they can homeschool or send them to an assignment, private school, they should do that. But the reality in the United States is most Muslims are choosing for one reason or another to send their kids to public schools. And many Muslim families don't have another choice for you know, especially our families who've gone through a refugee background. They're of low socio economic status. Maybe mom and dad are working both working two jobs. They don't have another choice. So advocating for our kids in the public schools is something that we have to do and it is

00:49:45--> 00:50:00

something that we can do. You know, there is competing pressures in public schools. There's competing pressures, but the American education system is also unique. It's unique in the respect that it is designed to be local first, it is

00:50:00--> 00:50:38

is not a top down structure. The 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution actually prohibits the federal government from creating a nationwide school curriculum. So school curriculum is at its largest done at the state level, but it's really more done at the district level. And schools nowadays to public schools. As far as families are concerned, they have competition, stiff competition, to get families to come to their school, because almost all states have some form of school choice now, between district schools and charter schools, as well as private schools, and homeschooling be an option for families as well. So this is something this is actually an untapped

00:50:38--> 00:51:18

source of power that the Muslim community has an America that they have not properly utilized. The schools, the public education system needs our kids, it's dependent on them. And even if we don't send our kids to those schools, we are still taxpayers in those places. And the fact that we don't send our kid to the local public school cost that school money, so we have an opportunity to educate them on why, and the schools are opening to listen to this. And the field of professional development in education is an opportunity to do this. And this is where I've been working for the past six years nonstop. As far as the pressure is being a teacher, you do get pressures from all

00:51:18--> 00:51:58

over the place. However, teachers unions are a highly influential force nationwide in the public school system. And I belong to a teacher's union here. teachers unions can be good or bad as far as how we see it. But something that they give teachers, they give teachers a lot of protection. They give teachers a lot of autonomy. They also shield teachers from accountability in a lot of ways. So a lot of times people have a misperception over, you know, if a district says to do this, then all the teachers are doing it or if someone you know, at the state government thinks this is a good idea to do in the schools than all the teachers are doing it. It's really not that way completely.

00:51:58--> 00:52:40

Teachers actually operate as independent agents in a lot of ways. And the single biggest factor that plays into what goes on in American public school classroom is the choice of the individual teacher in that classroom. And even if a district puts together a curriculum or something like this, because of teacher union contracts, typically, that curriculum doesn't have any authoritative weights with what a teacher does in the classroom, beyond being a recommendation. So this can be good or bad for Muslim families, it can be good because there's an opportunity for us to educate educators about our desires, as a Muslim community, and what we want for our kids, and the knowledge that they need to

00:52:40--> 00:53:15

have to properly understand Muslim children, Muslim families in the Muslim community, and we can offer them resources to learn more about that. And even resources they can learn in the classroom, that they can use in the classroom to respect our kids more. On the flip side of it, it can create a conundrum for Muslim families. Because if our kids are put in a classroom with a teacher who decides they want it to do this, or they want to do something like that, or teach about this, or ask the kids about that, which is something that we may not want them to the accountability mechanisms that we can put on those teachers might be limited, it might be limited, especially if they belong to a

00:53:15--> 00:53:52

teachers union, because the teachers union is ultimately going to protect them. It's even going to shield their own administration from how much they can go into that teacher's classroom and even observe them and find out what is going on in their classroom. So we have to understand this aspect of teacher autonomy going on in the schools, and any Muslim family who sends their kid to public school. They have to try to proactive, proactively educate that teacher, and the school in general and the principal at the school, about Islam, and about what we want and what is needed for Muslim children and families. And I hope you'll give me an opportunity to plug my book and training program

00:53:52--> 00:54:29

here, Eddie. Yeah, absolutely. I have written a book called educating Muslim students in public schools. And I run it it was first a training program that I did in Minneapolis. I've educated people from every school district in the Twin Cities area, as well as greater Minnesota, as well as every people from every school district. Not every member, but at least some people from every school district in the Seattle metro area, in the Columbus Ohio metro area. And I've had and now doing it online now after COVID stuff I've had, I've had over 2000 educators take it take the full training for over 20 different states and have sold over 500 copies of the book. So it is work that

00:54:29--> 00:55:00

is spreading if people go to Abraham education.com they can refer educators to that to take my training, where they will learn authentically and comprehensively what Islam is and what that means for Muslim children and families and how to not step on that and how to actually honor that in their classrooms and school environment. And Eddie, it's really an opportunity for us to go because since I became Muslim, I have reflected upon how we can cross barriers to educating a

00:55:00--> 00:55:33

American society better about Islam. And too often we are stuck in certain echo chambers in how we try to get the non Muslims aware about Islam. So, you know, we can do things through media. And that's great, and we have to, but the elite of the reach of that will always be limited. You know, I really respect brothers who do street doubt, and everything like that, that is very important. But the people who are going to approach a booth like that are limited. The public education system, there's over 3 million licensed teachers in America, it is the most licensed profession, in the country.

00:55:34--> 00:56:11

public school teachers, they may not have a personal interest in learning about Islam, but they do have a professional interest because they're teaching Muslim kids, and they have these families in our community, and we have a young population of kids, we have more kids aged K through 12 in our community than we do people older than that. And these public schools, they feel that they know that there's more kids from the Muslim community than you see in the community more broadly. So that is a point of leverage that we have in the society. And oftentimes, especially immigrant families, they're intimidated, oftentimes, they feel a sense of accountability themselves to the schools, and

00:56:11--> 00:56:43

they're worried about how schools are gonna look at them. But a lot of people in America, they don't treat their local public school that way. A lot of people in America, they treat the local public school like The school serves them. And it does serve them, it's meant to serve them, because you're the taxpayer, and you're the one who sends your kid there. And they are dependent on your kid going to that school, for that school to exist. So I've put together these resources. So Muslim families can have an efficient way of going to their school, emailing the principal, emailing the teacher, and saying here, I recommend this training for your public school educators or I recommend your

00:56:43--> 00:57:22

school study this book. So you can actually learn about the needs and wants of Muslim families. And all teachers have to get continuing education, credit hours to maintain their teaching license, and they get that for doing my training. So a lot of them wants to do that. And again, in education, there is a big emphasis on on respecting diversity, and respecting multiculturalism and all this type of thing. But as Muslims, we have to call people out on their hypocrisy, or we have to challenge them when they're being hypocritical. And they don't realize it, because they can because they can talk about diversity all day long. But if that doesn't mean actually learning about Islam,

00:57:22--> 00:57:55

for all intents and purposes, you're not respecting the diversity of the Muslim community. And therefore, they're not authentically trying to serve our kids, as they say, is their mission to do? We're almost out of time, but I just want to touch upon this, just don't indulge in this a little bit deeper. So I hear what you're saying. And I agree what you said earlier, that it's very dangerous. And it's a great chance to lose your child sending him to a public institution like that, if you're not debriefing them every day, not just not just

00:57:56--> 00:58:37

are they learning sometimes a very different language than they're learning at home. You know, and, you know, the kind of profanities that a lot of times go on checked. The drugs, a lot of times, the dating promiscuity, you have even and I'm sure you know, you've been exposed to a lot of it, you know, young girls becoming grandmothers, you know, you think of grandmother, you think of someone old, you have young girls becoming grandmothers now, you know, and this is not in marriage. So you have the disrespect towards not only teachers, but they pick up the SATA to bring that back home, you know, to set up the celebration of pagan holidays. And the list goes on a lot of the evil vices

00:58:37--> 00:59:13

that we tried to it's unless it's unless you understand that I don't have to educate you on that you see what's going on. But now it's becoming even more alarming. So what do you have to say now when you have a system that is teaching that a boy can be a girl girl could be avoid this gender fluidity. And I had a teacher say that, look, she's thinking that she's not going to be able to teach anymore, because usually what's happening is that during the beginning of the school year, they're dividing the boys into girls. So now because the boys are a little bit more rowdy, so you kind of have this many boys as many girls, but she has been told that she can't even call the boys

00:59:13--> 00:59:14

boys anymore. Yeah.

00:59:15--> 00:59:52

Yeah, you know, this, this stuff is on the increase. You know, it's not everywhere. What is mandated regarding this thing, these types of things, is different from state to state. It's certainly probably at its worst on the West Coast state of Massachusetts is not great as well, as far as what's mandated. But again, let like even, even if it's not mandated, you really just don't know. And especially younger teachers who have gone through Teacher Education recently. They are really getting a heavy dose of this type of stuff and teacher education. They're being told the respectful thing to do is when you have a class on the first day class, you've got to ask everyone what their

00:59:52--> 00:59:59

pronouns is, and all that type of thing. So there is all kinds of movements with this and it's core to the reason Hold on. They're told what

01:00:01--> 01:00:40

Yeah, it's become a common practice in teacher in the teacher in the universities that are putting to student teacher candidates, people getting their teaching license. They're telling them now that it's very common that you should ask kids their pronouns at the beginning of school year, and their class and this type of thing, you know, so that that gives an opening that the boy can say, yeah, yeah. And even even even there's districts who have they've, you know, you have to officially register the kid. And it's always been you identify whether they're male or female, you know, they've put in like a neutral category in a lot of these districts. And generally, the more liberal

01:00:40--> 01:00:54

the place you live in, the more you're going to see this type of stuff, you know, without a doubt. Well, I mean, it just it highlights the need to proactively educate people. And again, I don't recommend to send kids to these schools like because even if that stuff is not there, let's make that clear. You're a public school do you don't

01:00:56--> 01:01:35

look any other last, the last place they want to be, and I think I talked about at length in my train and book is practices in school, that get the kids to do shirk. It gets them to adopt habits that are shirk, tip partake in learning activities that are shorter in the public institutions, and the teachers don't understand this, let like, you know, it's an even bigger issue than this. And it's, and it's, and sometimes it's laced into the curriculum, this type of thing. So I mean, all the issues you mentioned, I go over that stuff in my book, and my extended training. I'm not saying that a teacher doing that, well, you know, fix everything like that, but at least reveals the problems to

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them, and then leaves it at least gives those people an authentic education about slam it to someone who wouldn't get it otherwise. Yeah, I don't, you know, I don't recommend families send their kids to public school. But you know, we do have many families who they don't have a choice, and they're stuck. And especially if you are a young adult, and you grew up here, you feel competent with the English language, you know, you should contact your your, your old school, and tell them as an alumni here, I wish that my teachers have learned this, while they while they were there, and you can refer them to my website, or Abraham education comm or referring to my book, certainly, if

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you're a parent in the district, even if you homeschool the kids, which you should explain to them, I want you to learn why I don't send my kids to your school, and why and why I can't send my kid to public school, that type of thing.

01:02:25--> 01:03:09

One more thing. Why would a public institution here we see that more than $200,000? Spent? This isn't taxpayer money, I believe, on drag queen shows at New York schools. I heard about that. You heard about that? What? Why? Why are they having male strippers coming and read books to children? Well, look, you know that whole crowd, they have a lot of money behind them, they have a lot of activism behind them, you know, and actually the organization you really should analyze Eddie is Gleason GLS II, and if you haven't looked at them, I even I did a podcast with a YouTuber called Mr. middle path where I broke down some of their documents. They are a nonprofit organization, they've

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been around since the early 90s. But they are heavily corporate funded, funded by target YouTube. You know, all these different big companies for Disney, Disney, they just have a direct partnership with Disney.

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And, you know, they create all these model policies, they will call them of how you treat transgender, high respect LGBT kids, all this type of stuff, you know, the big area that they will really get into and that they've gotten into is actually the field of counseling, in education, that counseling and social work, which is heavily linked to the fields of psychology. So a lot of times school student counselors who are very often the student, a school counselor is a licensed psychologist, a lot of times they have been put through professional development programs, or they might have learned it in their licensure program in the university, that it's a proper approach,

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that the proper protocols of how you respect LGBT kids, or a kid who thinks they might be that or this type of thing is exactly what this organization Gleason tells you that they should. And they have a whole bunch of research that I think could be very heavily criticized to ostensibly back that up. But that creates the problem where, you know, like people have heard about, you know, there's a story in Canada where a father in British Columbia, I think he got, um, I think he got like arrested or something for child abuse, for not allowing his daughter to identify as a son in this type of stuff. So a lot of places in the public school system in America, it's not that there's laws that

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are that way yet certainly in California, they're trying to push for that type of thing. But you might have people who they see it as a best practice in their profession to treat it like that. And I have had school student counselors contact me

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Who told me they had a Muslim student who was an elementary school, who was a biological female identifying as a male, and was coming to the counselor to talk about this counselor themselves identified as LGBT, they were encouraging that upon the student. And I challenged them to tell the parent they would they would not tell the parents about it, they I told that they would not tell the parents about the counseling they were giving. So you can't you can't counsel them away from anything, but you can counsel them towards it. I mean, I would say that it's very common that school counselors are taught explicitly that these days, it's very explicit. And again, if you look at this

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organization, Gleason GL Sen, you will look up their model policy framework for transgender students, or model policy framework for LGBT students, they will say this explicitly, they will say explicitly that if a student is at your school, and they identify by a gender different than their biological birth, the parents permission for do it for the school, the parents permission is not a prerequisite for everyone in the school identifying them that way, they will say that, now I have to emphasize that organization has a lot of money behind them. They have corporate America behind them, they have Disney behind them, but they don't have the weight of the law behind them. So this is the

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kind of games that are being played. And again, it's something to fear as a Muslim parents it is. But at the same time, we can't be so paralyzed by fear that we don't proactively educate ourselves and proactively advocate ourselves, we cannot be that way. And I will tell you to Eddie, your average public school teacher, and there's actually research that shows this and surveys that shows this, the average public school teacher in America is more socially conservative than the average American, they might vote Liberal. But when it comes to social values, it's been found through long term research, that the average public school teacher is more socially conservative than the average

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American. So there is without a doubt, in my opinion, a silent majority in the field of public education, of people who want more pushback about this, especially I'm having an increase. And people in California doing my training, a lot of those people explicitly tell me that they want the Muslim families to speak out more about what the district is talking about, you know, doing making the bathrooms, gender neutral, and all this type of stuff. You know, they can tell that the Muslim students and Muslim families are not okay with this speak up. Because more Yeah, they're actually looking for families to speak out about this more. I will say too, I do know families, a lot of

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families.

01:07:40--> 01:08:16

You know, in closed door channels, a lot of our families actually are speaking out about this, but not in a public way. And that might be the right way to do it. But too often to that is it's reactive. And we can't always be trying to educate people about ourselves in a reactive way. Yeah, we have to be proactive. We have to put people through an educational continuum, where they learn about Islam the proper way, because I'll tell you something, Eddie, when you when you talk about how we don't agree with this, we you know, this is against our religion, when you say that to someone, you say this is against my religion, or our religion, you know, the way the Western mind construes

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that as well. It wants everything to be individually subjective. So it says, Well, okay, that's your religion, that's you. So maybe if we just talk about it in a different way, we can finagle things. So now you interpret your religion in a different way. So one of the first things I focus on teaching people about Islam is that it is a text based religion. And its jurisprudence is entirely based on texts, and someone who tries to teach about, without reference to its text, they lose legitimacy in it. Now, when you teach that to people on the front end, then when you're having a conversation about your religious needs as a Muslim, the whole conversation is on a different

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different platform, because the religion is not what I say it is not what you say it is. It's not what I interpret or want it to be. No, it's about what the preserve texts say it is. So there needs to be different to that. And when you educate people about that on the front end, then you have that understanding built in so the whole conversation is different now. Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing. We're out of time. People can we see it? What's the book again? Yeah, engaging Muslim students in public schools. You can find it on Amazon. Please refer people to Abraham education.com Refer educators to that please. God Almighty Allah rewards you sharing your story with us. We went

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over a lot. Next time we can go deeper into this subject very interesting. A lot more questions. Hopefully we'll save it for next time. Because a very important topic, but we're out of time until then I said I want to come Peace be with you. Like what's up sorry, Mark.

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And I want to thank you guys for tuning in a lot of scary stuff out there. But there's hope there's light at the end of the tunnel even for someone like Salman Rushdie. Yeah.

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Yes, there is if he turned his life around if you got this message, and he changed his ways, and he turned to the Creator of the heavens and earth, God Almighty, the creator alone, like our brother did here, his heart was open. And all he had to do is read five verses from the second chapter of the crown. Why don't you take that upon yourself to go ahead and get a free copy of the Quran. If you're in the United States here, go ahead and visit the deed show.com. And we'll get you the book that helped Michael Abraham to change his life around you saw where he started off where he's at what made him

01:10:38--> 01:11:16

that he's on the show, reciting the living miracle, the Koran in the original language here with you on the D show. And he's living the way of Jesus of Moses of Abraham, who is named after his last name. They were all they weren't Jews or Christians, none of them. They were ones who submitted their will to one and only one God. And this is Islam worshipping the Creator, not the creation. And we got to take this matter serious because enough a wish wishful thinking you thinking, I'm going to live forever. They're going to make some pill or something scientists evolving. And I'm going to get a new body and go ahead. Yeah, that's wishful thinking. But you got to prepare for death and it's

01:11:16--> 01:11:28

coming. So take the matter serious, and look into a SNAM. It is the way of life comprehensive, simple to understand, and gives you that light at the end of the tunnel.

01:11:29--> 01:11:33

What else can I say? Tune in here every week. Don't forget about our project, the deed center

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and support us there and we'll see you next time until then. Peace be with you a Silla Morley calm this is your brother Hamza and drought disease. And I want every single one of you to support Eddie from the deen show, financially and otherwise, but in what way? I want you to support his new project. The dean center is going to be a transformative experience the center why because it's going to be a masjid, it's going to be a place of worship is also going to have fitness facilities. And it's also going to be a Dallas center to call people back to Allah Subhana Allah to Allah Muslims and non Muslims and we trust Edie completely. I for one will take 1000 bullets for Eddie, he

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has a vision. He has more than 15 years of experience in the dollar. He's had a huge success with the deen show. And he had the support of many dua 10 preachers and scholars from all around the world. He's going to be an amazing project for everybody. Go to the Dean center.org Donate now

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and if you liked this episode of the D show, like this video, share this video far and wide and support us on our Patreon page so we can continue this work. Thank you for tuning in. Peace be with you. A salaam aleikum