Experience Of A Minster Who Converted To Islam Pt 2

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Bismillah Alhamdulillah Salaam Alaikum peace be unto you what a beautiful greeting. This is a greeting that Jesus greeted his followers with Moses, Abraham, all the messengers of God. And the last and final message of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon them all. They greeted their followers with this greeting of peace. And we're greeting you here today with that same greeting of peace. Now, we're, I'm very excited. We're bringing out to continue

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the story of one man's road to Islam, who graduated with honors from the Harvard University. He was an ordained minister and a deacon who started preaching the Bible at a very young age. And he was filling the churches, people excited to hear him speak, going to seminary school, he's a Muslim. Now what happened? Did he take a wrong turn? Or he took the right turn? Tell us now. We're actually he's gonna tell us how he accepted Islam. When we come back here in the deen show. You don't want to go nowhere.

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Mohammed is His Messenger.

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Jesus was his messenger.

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Why did that maybe maybe it's just to break the ice. A Salaam Alaikum alaikum Salaam for those people now. I wish you peace you wish to back upon me? And I told him that's the greeting while the prophets. Yes. And we also mentioned something about the beard. Last week. You want to just fill in the blank. Well, Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him instructed us to have beards. Yeah. And also in places instructed us to just let them grow. Yeah. And so I've let my beard grow. And we addressed this last week if you didn't see last week's show, that was part one to why Dr. Gerald Dirks accepted Islam. And I had mentioned that some people can can get past one time, I guess was wearing

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a What do you call it a poofy? Not a coffee, something else on the top of the head and, and I had to have him address it. And once he addressed the people, you know, they just start to understand a little better, and then they can appreciate it. And what we said in the first show is that Jesus most likely had a beard. And then the picture you see, supposedly they try to paint Jesus, you'll never see him without a beard or all the prophets is a pious way of trying to emulate not the movie stars, but the best of humanity, the prophets of the Creator of the heavens and earth. Yes. All right. So now we talked about, and you can see this in part one, how you went from at a young age,

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teaching preaching the Bible, finishing and getting a divinity degree and going to seminary school. And then from there, sum it up, along with what I just said. And then we'll go on to the rest of the story how you actually came to Islam?

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Well, as we mentioned, last week, in 1974, I graduated from Harvard Divinity School with a master of divinity. I was an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church.

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But at that point, I spent three months in that summer, filling pulpits into rural parishes in Kansas. And then in September of 1974, I left the parish ministry for good, I was still an ordained minister, I still believe very definitely in God. But coming out of my seminary education, as we talked about last week, I had no belief in the divinity of Jesus or in the concept of the Trinity, etc. So I started a path that a call my path of being an A typical Christian,

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believed very much in God. Pray, read the Bible, studied new archaeological finds as they came out on the Bible and other Christian texts.

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But again, no belief in the divinity of Jesus peace be upon him no belief in a trinity. And I basically continued in this line as an A typical Christian from 1974 until 1993. But the turning point actually started a couple years before I became a Muslim. It was 1991. And my wife and I, for several years had been doing research on the history of the Arabian horse. And we had some Arabic documents. What's the Arabian horse? The Arabian horse? Well, yeah, well, so for the for people who

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know the Arabian horse is a horse that was bred for centuries by the veterans of the Middle East, okay. They typically have one less vertebrae.

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They're back and one less vertebrae in their tail than other horses. And they are the pre eminent endurance horse. Yes.

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So we'd been studying the history of the Arabian horse for a number of years and been writing about it. And we had some Arabic documents, yeah, colleges, that it accompanied a shipment of horses in 1906 to the United States. These were the Arabic testimonials of purity. And about the origin of these horses that came over in that year. We wanted to get them translated.

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And they hadn't been translated up to this point in time. And this brought us into contact with a portion of the Arab community in Denver, Colorado, that happened to be Muslim. And our first such contact occurred in the summer of 1991. And it was with the brother Jamal, and he came out to our farm, looked at our horses, glanced at the Arabic documents and said, Sure, he'd be happy to translate them for us. And we began that process a little bit here, a little bit there. But along the way, a very close friendship developed. Yes. And before long, we were spending we're getting together on a weekly or bi weekly basis. Just socially, you weren't a little nervous, skeptical

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thinking like you know, had some preconceived ideas or notions that you know what you might have seen on TV that, you know, I gotta be careful. This guy might be some kind of terrorists or some kind of, Well, again, we're talking 1991. So it's a little before a little before. Yeah, but no, I didn't have any such feelings whatsoever.

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Along the way, and it's important, I think, to point this out. Jamal never proselytized He never said, this is the way to believe Yes, he never said you ought to become a Muslim. However, that first time he came out to the farm, before he left, he asked if he might use our restroom to make ablution

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before praying, and he came out of the restroom, and then said you may borrow a piece of newspaper to put on the floor so that I can pray. So this is the ritual Washington, one and then we gave him the the newspaper and he

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laid it out on the floor and he did his prescribed prayer. Now, again, he never said anything to us about, Hey, are you Muslims are Why aren't you Muslims? Yeah, you should be doing this. Is Dawa, or his preaching was in his behavior, his actions? His example?

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He prayed. Yeah. A very powerful form of preaching. Actually. Yeah. describe this prayer for us, please, for those. That was the standard Islamic prayer, it had the different postures, you begin standing. And then

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there are some things that you say this was during the day, so he was saying them to himself. Yeah. And then you, you bow. And then after bowing, you stand again, and then you prostrate, and then you kneel and then you prostrate. And you go through this

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cycle, called a rock. Did you think he was praying maybe to a moon God, or did you think Oh, of course not. What do you What did you think he was praying to God to God? Yeah. His understanding of God. Yeah. So anyway, social contact continued. We were getting together once every week, every two weeks.

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And as he continued to translate stuff for us, occasionally, he would begin to share with us knowledge about the history of the Arabian horse in the Middle East. Yes. And along the way of doing that, he began to, quote different verses from the Quran, or different sayings of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, different aspects of Islam, not to proselytize. But to give us a way of understanding the Islamic context of the history of the Arabian horse. Yes. So again, it was all presented not as proselytizing. But as you're interested in the history of the Arabian horse, I will seek to meet your needs. But in doing that, I'm going to have to explain this context to you so you

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really understand it. Yes. So this continued on, and over the next 16 months our contact expanded not just with Jamal but also with Wel, l and his family, with

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Amr and his family.

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man and his family. It's just other Muslims. The other Muslims were getting together socially, again, no

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active or direct proselytizing going on. Put in the process of observing these Muslim brothers.

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I became increasingly impressed with their behavior. I mean, they were living a very moral and ethical life, bending over

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backwards to do it as a matter of fact, yeah. I remember Jamal who ran at that time sort of a mom and pop grocery store in Denver. Yeah. And I was at the store once when the state weights inspector came by, to examine the scales. Yes. And he examined them and came told him well, you know, they're within tolerance. And Jamal said, Well, look, this is what I want you to do. I want you to turn them against me to the limits of what's tolerance in the state. Yeah, because I want to make sure I'm not shortchanging my customers. Wow. So this is the sort of behavior I was observing. And wasn't just ethics in terms of their business line. It was the ethics in terms of their family life, the way

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they interacted with their wives with their children, etc. Very powerful behavioral example. And I observed this for about 16 months. And finally, oh, I must have been in December of 1992. I got around to asking myself the sort of the fundamental question, which is what separates these Muslim friends of mine, from me, in terms of belief, but where's the difference? Now, I had studied Islam sort of superficially, or briefly back at Harvard, and the comparative religions courses. And but this question was eating at me, I mean, here are these people living these very moral and upright lives. My wife and I have been trying to do that as well. But we felt that we were sort of doing

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that within the context of a moral vacuum. Yeah. What separates me from them in terms of actual religious beliefs?

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I suppose I could have asked them. Yeah. I didn't want to. Okay. I didn't want to impinge on our friendship. Yeah. And so I went downstairs, began dusting off all the books on Islam I had acquired back in those comparative religions courses. Yes. And they were all written by non Muslim Western scholars. And there's probably half a dozen or more of them. And I took them down, I reread them, I took down two different translations of the meaning of the Quran. I had acquired back in those courses, read them. And the more I read,

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the more I said, Wait a minute, you know, this is what I believe, starting to connect. Yeah, very much starting to connect. And the other thing that eventually happened in that process was, as I continued to read in the English translations of the meaning of the Quran,

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especially where it was talking about biblical history, yes. And biblical concepts.

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I saw within the Quran statements

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about these things that I knew could not have been known by any illiterate seventh century Arab.

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And of course, Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him was illiterate.

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He didn't know how to read write the history confirms this. Yes, yes. And he was known as the truth. Yes, yes. And so now I'm left with the question. Yeah. Where did this come from? So you're looking at this and you're like, Did he can't he could come from it from this man, or any man? Oh, no, he couldn't have not. Uh huh. And so that left me with with the conclusion, you know, this had to be inspired. Yeah. However you want to define inspired? Yeah, in some sense, this knowledge was inspired by God. Wow. And, quite honestly, brother, I was uncomfortable with that conclusion. Why I didn't like that conclusion. Uh huh. Because that raised questions about my own sense of religious

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identity. Yeah, you know, I still continued to call myself a Christian, even though I was an A typical Christian. And I didn't like that challenge to my sense of identity.

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So this is where things started about in December of 1992.

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And in late December of 1992, my wife and I were talking about this all the way through, we were filling out our passport application forms for a proposed trip to the Middle East, do some research on the history of the Arabian horse. And one of the questions on the passport form was religious affiliation. I didn't even think about it. I just wrote in Christian and went on. Yeah. And a few seconds later, my wife turned to me and said, How did you find out the question on religious affiliation?

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And I said, Well, of course. And I laughed, just as you're laughing right now.

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And then went on to say, you know, I'm a Christian, not a Muslim.

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Now,

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is it time to at the same time as she doing her own research with you along with Yeah, we're talking about it all the time. Oh, yeah. Okay. Now, the thing is, in terms of this story, you know, I was trained I have a doctorate in clinical psychology.

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Yeah, you know, as a practicing psychotherapist, I knew that laughter is often a release of psychological tension. And I had laughed at this question. Yeah. Oh, what was the psychological tension that needed to be released? Yeah. When my wife asked me this innocuous question. Furthermore, why did I need

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to immediately follow it up by saying I'm a Christian, not a Muslim? You know, a person does not defend against an accusation that has not been made.

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Now, my wife hadn't said, Did you write down Muslim? In fact, her response when I said, I'm a Christian, not a Muslim, her immediate response was, but no, I was inquiring whether you wrote down Christian or Protestant or Methodist.

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So the accusation did come from my own unconscious mind. Uh huh. You know, there was a part of my own unconscious mind that was saying, You're a Muslim. Yeah. And my conscious mind was like, Oh, no, I'm not. It's a battle within. Yeah, it's a battle with him. And this battle continued. You know, by January of 1993, I was now reading my third different English translation of the meaning of the Quran. You know, because again, I wasn't going to trust these first two. You know, I didn't like that conclusion I had come to that Muhammad peace be upon him had been inspired by God. Because this raised issues in terms of my own identity. Yes. Well, I continued studying now. And in January of

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1993, I began experimenting with saying the five daily prayers of Islam, alone in private and of course, in English, because I didn't know the Arabic to do why. And I found this very spiritually rewarding, very spiritually gratifying.

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But again, I'm an A typical Christian. I may be in a typical Christian who doesn't believe in the divinity of Jesus, who doesn't believe in the Trinity, who's reading the Quran every day in English translation, and is saying the five prayers of Islam every day in English, but I'm still in a typical Christian. Yeah. Well, late in January, in 1993, it was my lunch hour at my private practice, I went to an Arab restaurant, I started to frequent. And I took with me my third translation of the Quran that I get some reading done over lunch. Yeah. And so I walked in, I sat down and I started reading.

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All of a sudden, Mahmoud, the owner of the restaurant, who is from Damascus, and Muslim, came up to my table to take my order. He glanced down at what I was reading, but he didn't say anything, took my order and left. And so I continued reading. Well, when my order was ready, instead of Mahmoud, bringing it back to me, he said his wife to bring it to me who was an American, and a convert to Islam. Oh, she had accepted it. Oh, yes. Yes, and wore the hijab scarf that I'd come to associate with Muslim females. And so sister Yuan came, and she brought me my order. And she glanced down, said, Oh, I see you're reading the Quran. Are you a Muslim? and the word was out of my mouth before

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it could be modified by any social etiquette whatsoever. I said, No, about that way, brother. And she said, Well, that's okay. And she turned around.

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And I said to myself, my goodness, what is going on?

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You know, I answered an innocuous question, rudely and aggressively. This isn't like me.

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And I started stewing over it, then as I ate my lunch, you know, I'm going to have to make some amends to sister my mom, when she comes back to bring me the check meal. And so I thought about it, and I thought about it, and I thought about it. When the meal was over, she brought me the check. And I said, something to the extent of you know, I think I answered your question a little abruptly,

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when you asked me whether I was a Muslim, if you were asking me whether I believe there is only one God, yeah, my answer is yes. And if you were asking me whether I believe that Muhammad peace be upon him, though, I didn't say that at that point, was one of the prophets of God. My answer is yes. So this is from researching now, looking into his life and reading the crisis. You're coming to this conclusion? Yes. But you just didn't want to the identity now. is an issue. Yeah. And I knew at that point that in my own English words, I just said the Shahada. Yeah, or the Islamic testimonial of faith

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and so on very nicely smiled and said, That's okay. It takes some people a little longer than others, and left me to stew on it a little more. Now, again, I knew I had just said the Shahada.

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But I was still in a typical Christian mind, you know, now I'm an A typical Christian has reading the Quran in English translation, saying the five daily prayers of Islam in English and Dr. It

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is willing to say the Shahada in my own carefully parsed English words but

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I'm still in a typical Christian, I'm not a Muslim. Yeah, if somebody else some Muslim wants to take what I've said, and say you're a Muslim, that's their label of religious identity just was not mine define what a Muslim is really quickly, just and then continue on please. Well, I'm Muslim is one, by definition, by definition linguistically, one who submits. And that's one who submits to God.

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But typically, one says a person becomes a Muslim, when they say the Shahada, or the testimonial of faith, and that just made easy some book with one word in Arabic, right? That's, yeah, simple. Okay. So

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I'm still in a typical Christian. Yeah. And I think I've started to sort my way out of this challenge to my sense of religious identity. If someone asked me whether I'm a Muslim, I'll go through a long five minutes song and dance, and which I'll say I don't believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. I don't believe in the Trinity. I do believe there is one and only one God, I do believe that Muhammad peace be upon him, was one of the prophets of God. And yes, I'm saying the five prayers every day in English at their appointed times. And yes, I'm reading English translation of the meaning of the Quran every day.

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But I'm an atypical Christian.

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And so that's sort of where things were for a while. How do you get past this now? Well,

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around the start of March of that year, Ramadan started, yeah. And this, of course, is the month in which Muslims fast from dawn to sunset. Well, I have all these Muslim friends, and I spend so much time with these Muslim friends. And it would be very rude of me to eat or drink in front of them while they're fasting. So I won't do that. But if I'm going to spend that much time fasting, anyway, well, you know, why don't I just go ahead and fast from dawn to sunset, like they're doing. And I sort of rationalized and half convinced myself, I was just doing this out of common courtesy for my friends. But again, I found it very meaningful as I began to do it. So now I'm an A typical

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Christian, who is willing to say the Shahada in English, reading the Quran in English, saying the five prayers in English fasting during Ramadan, but I'm still in a typical Christian, you're kind of driving the car, the Porsche be not calling and that's about where we're at. And again, I thought I had it all worked out. Yeah. Other people could call me a Muslim if they wanted to. But that wasn't my you weren't ready label of religious identity. I wasn't a typical Christian. And I thought I had it all worked out. I thought I had it planned out perfectly. You know, I could believe as my Muslim friends believed, I could practice as my Muslim friends practice. But I could keep my sense of

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religious identity being a Christian.

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Well, that lasted for quite a while, but it was late in March in 1993. And my wife and I were now in Jordan doing that Middle Eastern trip. And we were staying with the extended family of one of our friends in Denver.

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And one day, Uncle omelette, motion for me to come with him. Uncle Hi, I would I would. That was his name, Ahmed. And he spoke down a word of English, elderly, Palestinian Muslim brother. So I got in the car with him. And we drove off and he took me to a Palestinian refugee camp. And we got out, we started walking down the narrow lane of the camp. And as we are walking down that lane, another elderly person came walking towards us, who also it turns out, spoke not one word of English. And we met there and we exchanged a Salam alikoum or Peace be upon you, and shook hands. And then he turned to me. And he asked me a question in Arabic, in Arabic and Arabic, because you spoke no English.

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Yeah. Now my Arabic was limited to a few simple words and phrases. Yes. And that was about it. I certainly couldn't hold even an elementary conversation in Arabic. But I knew just enough Arabic that I fully understood this question. Yes. And his question was, are you a Muslim? Oh.

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And, you know, my five minute verbal jam gymnastic out the window and out the window is utterly useless. You know, I knew just enough Arabic that I could answer mom for Yes, or law for now. And those were the only two choices I had you got set up, set up set up by someone Far, far greater better, is far better planner than Hi. Yes. And I'll hamdulillah Praise be to God. At that point in time. I said not or Yes. But it took all of that before I was willing to give up that sense of religious identity that I had.

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And I think this is something that people who are involved in sharing the message of Islam often fail to appreciate. Sometimes it's much easier to get a person to change their religious beliefs than it is to get them to change their sense of identity of who they are. That can be very difficult. Yeah. And you finally with the help of the Creator of the heavens and the earth, in Arabic, we say Allah, that it finally happened. And now you're writing books on Islam and helping people understand this beautiful way of life trying to help clear the misconceptions. Could we briefly they're signaling that we're almost out of time. Tell us now, you mentioned that before you

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accept it that okay, I'm a Muslim. I'm one who's chosen consciously to submit to the one God.

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You said one God, what what do you believe? Now? What do you mean when you say I believe in the One God but you don't believe in these other things? That the divinity of Jesus sonship crucifixion, but you said you believe in one God, what does that mean? Can you elaborate a little bit about this? What do you actually mean when you? Well, I believe in in one God, there is one and only one God. And that one God because some Christians will say we also believe in just one God. Well, and in point of fact, to be fair, yeah, they do. I mean, if you properly understand the notion of the Trinity, it is monotheistic. Yeah. However, from a Muslim perspective, yeah, they are adding

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partners, partners.

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So they have their Trinitarian formula three persons in one substance. Yeah. And for us as Muslims, it's the unity of God. Yeah, there's no three persons in one substance. There is only God.

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So it's just purely absolutely one guy. No co equal no partner. No one alongside with God. Yeah, no three persons in one substance, no sons or daughters or any kind of family bloodline DNA, No, none of this with God. No, no. Okay. No human qualities associated with God. God is far above that far above any of these human deficiencies. Okay. Talk about the five pillars now that you practice so someone can get a sense of, you know, is this something essential is something way far fetched that, you know, goes against my nature is is something that if you can understand this, then you know what? This is like the engine, this is what you know, makes it run? There are basically five pillars

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of practice. Yeah. The first one is saying, the testimonial of a

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Chateau La ilaha illAllah, Muhammad Rasulullah, which basically means, I testify that there is no god but God, and I testified that Muhammad, peace be upon it was one of the messengers of God. Now, does this exclude like Jesus, Moses and all of them? Absolutely not? Absolutely not. In fact, the Quran tells us we have to accept those profits as well. So is your relationship now with Jesus? Do you feel like stronger? Do you feel like you've lost the connection with him? No, I don't feel like there's any loss of connection at all. No, no, of course not. What do you believe about Jesus now? Basically, what I believed about him during my years as an A typical Christian, which was he was

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inspired by God, he received a revelation from God, but he was not God. Yeah. So he was like the other messengers. Sure. Doing what?

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Sharing the revelation that God gave to him. That's it, a teacher teaching us so is it safe to say that he was during his time, the way the truth and the life just absolutely Abraham roses, and in terms of the message he preached, in fact, the word prophet Yeah, comes from the Greek. And that's a translation of the Hebrew word. Naveen, which in turn comes from the Acadian language. And if you go back to that Acadian language and look at what it means, it means one who speaks for Yeah, and in a religious context once mean speaks for Yeah, it means one who speaks for God this is what a prophet is. Yeah, one who speaks for God by definition that doesn't make sense Okay, so the belief in one

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God that there's no god yeah, no deity except the one god yes. And Mohammed is his last message and that confirmed all the other messages that preceded him. And then very quickly the other four pillars saying the five pillars of Islam every day, third pillar of fasting during Ramadan fourth pillar pangs, a cot or obligatory charity on once economic surplus and fifth pillar making the Hodge once your adult lifetime. Now, the last three of those are conditional based upon your physical and financial well being what is what is this changed your life now by implementing this this like a complete blueprint on how you need to function from A to Z throughout the day? In many respects,

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yes, in some respects Now, tell me in terms of know many of the things I was already basically practicing Yeah, you know, I you know, before I became a Muslim I did you pork. I did eat pork, that wasn't

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One thing I had to give you like a little jack daniels, or did you like some? You know, I dragged you can't drink now obviously. Yeah, I drink maybe once a year? Uh huh. One drink a year. Yeah. So I mean, giving up alcohol that was basically goes, Yeah, giving up pork that took some getting used to. But those are changes. But

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in terms of living the sort of ethical life, etc. That's not a change, and terms of much of what I believed is not a change. Now we talked about that main pillar that one, he acknowledges that there's no God besides the one God. And this is something that just goes with your nature that you worship god alone, you don't set up a co equal co partner, you don't pray to Jesus, but you pray to the one Jesus prayed to. Yes. And now the prayer Did you feel like now that since you're implementing because that's the second pillar of Islam, this prayer was is having a positive influence. And you like us who can reject I mean, prayer, this is when you ask them is prayer. Good?

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He's like, yeah, so you pray now? Five times a day? Yeah. Well, the prayer of worship five times a day. Yeah. You know, there's personal prayer anytime, anytime, anyplace, anytime, anywhere. Yeah, basically. But yeah, in terms of the prayers of worship, the five prayers of worship every day, as I mentioned before, even before I was willing to call myself a Muslim, and I was saying them in English. Yeah. In private, you know, I found them very rewarding. Yeah. You know, I found them spiritually rewarding. Yeah. And I think a big difference brother would be this, you know, in terms of my belief structure, not that much changed. Yeah, from going from being an A typical Christian to

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being a Muslim.

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So my intellectual approach to religion didn't change that much. Yeah. But the spiritual approach, that's where the change, I see, you know, because I found this spiritual gratification,

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this feeling

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that, it's very hard to describe, but is a very, very meaningful thing, very comforting thing, a very enriching thing. And by following the five pillars, you know, I found this spiritual gratification, a sense of spiritual reward that I was not finding, as an atypical Christian. Okay, we just reverse for a second, and then we're gonna come forward and finish things up. And then we want to talk a little bit about your book, but tell us, was it as far as Can someone say, or did you feel that it was a kind of back then it was an esoteric say, thing, where only now you had to someone can say you weren't maybe feeling the Holy Ghost, you have to be full of this, to really

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understand it, and you didn't have it?

00:32:47--> 00:32:51

I don't know that. I want to use the word Holy Ghost. Yeah. But

00:32:52--> 00:33:32

you know, the spiritual side. Yeah. There's, there's where the change was not so much the intellectual understanding, not so much the the morality and the ethics. But in terms of the spiritual, the spiritual gratification and enrichment. The sense, maybe this was a better way of putting it, the sense of being close to God. Yeah. And is this something that everyone? As I said, Do you have to get something that just overtakes you, and you're just on cloud nine? Or is it something that you use just your good old common sense and your intellect and your sincerity and asking God to guide you that someone can come to that feeling? Well, I think different people come

00:33:32--> 00:34:19

to it in different ways. And if you were to interview 20 different converts to Islam, you probably would get 20 different variations. And so I think for each convert, they have in some ways, their own unique path, whereby they reach God and reach the truth of God's religion, Islam. Okay, so you had the five pillars. Tell us now that you have some books that we had discussed, you have the easy understanding of Islam. You have the Abrahamic faith. You have Muslim history in America, you have letters to my elders, you have a lot of books here, brother, we have understanding Islam, the crossing the crossing, where can someone if they want to, they're intrigued by your story, they want

00:34:19--> 00:35:00

to learn more, where can they go to visit and to pick up some of your books? Well, I have a website, yes. Dirks online books.com. And they can go there and order any of the books that they want, as well as contact me by email if they choose to. Okay, and that's right there. Derek's online books, calm your emails there. Somebody wants to invite you maybe to come speak to a public lecture. You're available for those. Yes, yes. And again, they can contact me with the email that's available on my website. We got to come to and give please, some sincere advice. You've been through a lot in life. You have now come to this

00:35:00--> 00:35:44

realization, this is the truth. Not everybody has to agree with this. That's right. But for that person who is sincere, he is having the same issues with the identity. He doesn't want to leave possibly the identity of being a Christian or Buddhists or this or that he has his inner circle his status and fears, maybe a laws, people gonna look at him funny. What advice do you have for this person? Well, I, the advice I would give if you're wrestling with this issue of religious identity is don't compound, the conflict. Becoming a Muslim does not mean that you give up your national, or your cultural identity. I'm an American, I was born in America, I was raised in America, my national

00:35:44--> 00:36:03

cultural identity hasn't changed at all, I'm still an American. And to become a Muslim, you don't need to give up your national identity or your cultural identity. The only identity under consideration is your religious identity. And so if you've studied the Bible,

00:36:05--> 00:36:20

and the Bible is one of the paths to Islam, I would maintain, if you studied the Bible, if you've done your research into commentaries, if you've come to the conclusion that there is one and only one God, and that God is unity, not Trinity.

00:36:21--> 00:36:45

If you've come to the conclusion that Jesus was inspired by God, and God gave revelation to Jesus, but he was still a human being, then please take a look at a slob, because we're really talking the same language here. And again, you don't have to give up your national cultural identity to be a Muslim.

00:36:46--> 00:37:36

Thank you, this is some great advice. And thank you very much for being with us. God willing, we're going to have a special section, because we're going to look forward to God Willing doing some more topics with you picking your brain. So we can learn some more from this in depth knowledge you have of the Bible, and some of your experiences. So more of us, including myself can benefit. Thank you. My pleasure. And I'd like to thank you for being with us again on a dish. I hope you got the benefit from Dr. Dirk story and his way to Islam. And I hope that you continue to come back visit us here at the deen show. And we hope that inshallah God willing, that God Almighty guides us all to the one

00:37:36--> 00:38:14

truth, that He guides our hearts, our minds, our bodies to accept that he is the only one to be worshipped. He is the only one that we should turn to that we should revere that we should love. The one God that God who Jesus prayed to whom Moses prayed to Abraham in the last and final messenger sent to mankind of Prophet Muhammad, who he prayed to these were the best teachers, people who we should emulate because they were showing us how to praise God to worship God, and be close to God and get to paradise. Because life is short. This life is very short, transitory, is passing quickly. And they all taught that there's a better life. There's a paradise waiting, and that's what we're

00:38:14--> 00:38:24

trying to get to. And we need God and we need God's help to get to that paradise. We'll see you next time. Thank you once again. Until then as salaam alaikum, peace be unto you.

00:38:25--> 00:38:29

Nina Shay banyuwangi

00:38:33--> 00:38:36

me

00:39:25--> 00:39:27

see what everyone's talking about.

00:39:29--> 00:39:31

Allah, Allah, Allah.

00:39:34--> 00:39:36

But the argument here is that God out of this love

00:39:38--> 00:39:45

because in all honesty, if you really want it to do something, you're gonna find a way where there's a will there's a way Absolutely.

00:39:47--> 00:39:59

There are a few problems here. Why were people of generations and generations and generations being told to worship one God? ask God for forgiveness, ask him for for salvation. See?

00:40:00--> 00:40:02

His mercy, no one else's.

00:40:03--> 00:40:09

So he picked up the crown, which is the last and final Testament, the last and final revelation.

00:40:11--> 00:40:14

I was 16 years, eight years inactive reserves and eight years.

00:40:16--> 00:40:24

But bottom line is that I'm an ophthalmologist. I'm a specialist and cataract and refractive surgery. I'm the medical director of a major ice.

00:40:26--> 00:40:36

We have a question from a Christian who says, I was born a Christian. I was raised a Christian wants to take a look. It challenges the reader.

00:40:37--> 00:40:40

Find one contradiction, it can't be from God.

00:40:42--> 00:40:54

But the rational idea, the rational explanation is you do your best to obey your Lord, you will fall short. Nobody's perfect. All of us make mistakes. You do your best, and then expect from God's mercy.

00:40:56--> 00:41:31

What's the purpose of my life? Why am I here? Is it just to play have fun, go to the nightclubs, kick it on the weekends, earn some money, have a good time, and then I die. She's really not looking to get into a relationship, just to kind of you know, Wham. Bam, Thank you, ma'am. And walk away from it the way that men are, why do I have to convert to Islam? If God made me a Christian, if God made my family a Christian, then why should I change that way? Because God is the one who created me in that way. And most atheists, when they pray, they pray this way. They say, Oh, God, if you are there, you know, because they're not quite sure.

00:41:33--> 00:41:48

Via messenger, so start with Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Sunni, mine, and Jesus and we say peace and blessings be upon all of them. I made a promise to my Creator. On that day, I promised that he would save the life of my child

00:41:50--> 00:42:20

and alone, running this universe, that he doesn't become born, he doesn't die, he doesn't eat and go to the bathroom. He's not a man that has an area code a zip code. Now you can fingerprint him take his picture in the girl cell. He's cute. A lot of you out there know exactly what I'm talking about. A lot of you out there are in the exact same position. He said, I would never give up for spring guidance. I will never give up spreading this message and hope that you take the necessary steps. You don't know if you're gonna live till tomorrow.

00:42:25--> 00:42:29

You got to find that urgency to do the right thing right now.

00:42:32--> 00:42:34

illallah wa has

00:42:36--> 00:42:39

just clarified everything for me. That's what I did.

00:42:43--> 00:42:45

Mohammed, Mohammed

00:42:46--> 00:42:52

will have majority people you talk to Yeah, they know they got to change. They know they got to do good, but they don't do the good. Why is this?

00:42:55--> 00:43:01

The ranking of the 100 most influential men in the history of the world, laziness

00:43:02--> 00:43:13

is the reality of life. Usually that sink in until tragedy comes you know, this is when you'll find people. Yeah, okay. Tell me about it. Yeah.

00:43:16--> 00:43:21

You got a few bad people. The media grabs a hold of that and spends it the way they want to.

00:43:23--> 00:43:29

And in it, he puts Mohammed as number one. He said no human being had more influence.

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One of the amazing things about Islam that everyone should know is that we're the only other religion that is a tenet of faith that you must believe in Jesus Christ in everything that he did or you cannot be able to see if that is missing. If you say that you do not believe in Jesus, you have stepped outside of Islam you cannot be a Muslim and attended our faith to to believe in in love Jesus Christ.

00:43:52--> 00:44:01

These are not God. God is the one who created everything in this universe. That's the one I'm going to worship and prostrate to how can you go wrong doing that?

00:44:03--> 00:44:13

Don't believe in Him, you're out of Islam, and I'm in the top 10 reasons why Jesus cannot be God. Let's get right to it. Number 10 number 10.

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So

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we'll

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be glad you did.