The Deen Show – Greek Muslim becomes Historian accepts Islam

			If they made all our young boys janissaries Then how come we still have a Greek nation? How can we
Greeks are still there we still speak Greek and we are still Greek we should one God's
straightforward simple. Basically, nationality stays the same. I will die Greek inshallah. So that's
also for my parents that they know that I will die Greek in test. If you want to know how do I know
you create a this guy? Maybe?
		

			You just fake okay. Okay, let's get back study later Islam.
		

			How you guys doing? We're in London. And look, we found.
		

			Dr. Steph, get it? That's correct. Yes. And you're
		

			from the background? He accepted Islam. 20 years ago, he accepted Islam. Right? Correct. And guess
what? He's from a Greek background. And some people out there like, oh, he became a Turk. What do
you say to that? You know, in the Balkans like this, when people identify the religion, they put you
actually together with a nationality. So as soon as you become Muslim, you become a Turk. But that's
a very important point. We need to realize that when you become a Muslim, you become a Muslim. You
don't change nationality, but you change religion, or actually way of life. Let's call it that way.
Because Islam is actually a Deen. It's a way of land guys. It's not just
		

			a religion, you know, there's much more to it. And everybody who's practicing Islam, Allah says,
what I'm what I'm saying what I want to say with it. Basically, nationality stays the same. I will
die Greek in sha Allah. So that's also for my parents, they know that I will die Greek. So I didn't
change nationality. And I still have the same skin color. I haven't changed that. So Alhamdulillah
Alhamdulillah what changes by way of life, which has become better hamdulillah. And I become a more
fulfilled person, until I got married. I have seven children or hamdulillah. So I'm quite happy
		

			with my way of life, and this chosen way of life since 1992, which is, how is it 2626 27 years ago,
isn't it? Yeah, wow, this is amazing, because we have what's important now is we have so many people
who are coming to the realization that there's a purpose in life, I want to live it, you had to go
through so many challenges, because now you're not just going to accept Islam for the fun of it. So
you really put it to the test. safe to say, I mean, three years you were investigating three years
ago, yeah, it took me three years to come to the point to say Shahada, three years, I mean, you have
to understand again, as we said, from the region where I come from, we come from Mexico from the
		

			Balkan Peninsula. people identify themselves with you know, religion and nationality is one thing is
the same thing for them. So we've done I think changing religion means also changing nationality,
according to them. But that did not happen. That's not my idea. Of course, I'm sorry. We became
Muslim. My family's Muslim, Angela, my wife, by the way, is also a revert.
		

			She is from South America. So also for her it was like accepting for them down there. It's more
being an Indian. Yeah. So you're not you're not you don't become a Pakistani you become you don't
become because you're Muslim. You're kind of Arab. You know, just the same way. If you become a
Muslim, you don't become a Turk. No, you just become someone who has submitted to look it is this is
this is turned on to like light bulb, turn on the brain. Muslim is one who submits to the will of
the Creator, not the creation. That's what a Muslim is. That's why you chose to do that, after deep
contemplation research based on proof and evidence. And you're here on the dean show today of
		

			hundreds. And actually, now you actually you you're a historian, so you really talk to us about
that. Because you have to, you know, there's a lot of these myths that are perpetuated, you got some
truth in there, and you got to mixed in with half truths and lies and all of a bunch of hodgepodge
in a big buffet. Right? And then it brought you to where you are today. That's the point is, I mean,
many people find Islam through the, through the Koran, or through many, many, many, many things. But
what happened to me was, I became a historian Actually, I accepted Islam through history. And that
made me a historian that made me a Muslim Muslim historian Mashallah. So hamdulillah nowadays, I can
		

			proudly say that Islam, and history goes together for me, history brought me to Islam, and Islam
brought me further hamdulillah. So 26 years later, I have realized that a lot of myths and a lot of
lies were told to us the time I was going to Greek school, Greek primary school, and the same lies
and stories that we're telling them that time they're telling them even nowadays, but the difference
is that many have woken up and many have seen that yes, not all of these things they're telling us
at school were true. And not all of these things are telling us even nowadays are true and are to be
believed. So please be careful. That's all I have to say. Please be careful what they're telling you
		

			at school, look deeper into it, find out what actually happened in history, as difficult as
difficult as it might seem. In the end. Allah showed me the way Alhamdulillah so I can I just say
that 100 rely mean, here's the here's the truth of history led me to Islam, to the truth of our
life. And that's what's more important actually that history itself, you know, but that
		

			Like me to the dean, I interviewed a former NFL alumni. And he's also from the Greek heritage Greek
background. And his name is Tim and inshallah this show. So I guess to him, where he comes from the
Greek background, he's been hanging around with some Muslims. And he's really liking me. I've gifted
him a Koran, and some of the other literature are talking about the purpose of life and you know,
the miracles, in Islam prophecies, all
		

			the authenticity of the Quran list goes on because we don't just blindly surrender in Islam is based
on authentic evidence, facts, proofs. Alright, so now he's actually been given about six, seven
months to live. He has a, I believe it's some form of leukemia. And they died, they pretty much
written him off. And now he's been exposed to Muslims. But now he's also at this crucial point in
his life, what advice you come in from a Greek background, you can connect with him, but the
pressure is now the pressure. He's, he's, he's gotten us into some programs with him. He's talking,
you know, on behalf of all the good experiences that he's had with Muslims, but not deaf is
		

			approaching and he's in a battle like, Okay, my Greek background, Christian, orthodox, Christian,
and now this is coming to him. What advice do you have for him? Very simple, one of the most
important thing, you have greatness, whatever you feel that you are, you're a Greek you will stay
agree, you will die Greek guy, whoever you are, whatever you, you will you believe is in the end,
you will be Greek you are you will die as a Greek. One important thing is you're going to stand in
front of your Creator, the creator is not going to ask you why you are good Greek, you know, how did
you live your life as a Greek, but the Creator is going to ask you how did you worship Me? How did
		

			you worship God? Do you believe in God? Who is God? What do you believe God is actually Who do you
believe brought God to you who was a messenger and so being Greek has nothing to do with finding
		

			the death angels later who will be waiting for you on your bedside so be careful of that. Really
look at that you that your life is coming to an end and new life is starting and it can be happy or
it can be very sad, you know, and being Greek has nothing to do the end is very important and
hopefully in sha Allah look into the deen look into what you create that told you to do forget if
it's called Islam or Christianity or folksy or Catholicism look into who is the creator What did the
creator tell us to do? Look at the authentic sources and find out actually what an end a good end
would be for you. So that's my advice actually look into it and forget what people say forget
		

			everything that your surroundings telling you. That is not going to help him no surrounding no
weakness No, nothing gonna help you except one thing we're leaving a crater and you will see him
inshallah you will inshallah meet him later. Do you speak Greek speaker Yes. Say something
greetings. How you doing? God
		

			how would someone respond to that the Connie said Nicola Gala. Yes, the gun is color so how do we
test people want to know how do I know you Creek a this guy maybe?
		

			Just fake okay. Okay, let's get taxed at later Islam kitakata de la dee da vida que me gusta mucho
en su Prosser HIPAA minako de de sus lns Atlanta Atlanta para metea Atlanta me through Selena semoga
Oscar Prosser.
		

			Okay, we did the authenticity test. All right. Tell us one minute but tell us tell us one more thing
tell us one of the myths that that was perpetuated in the schools growing up and what the reality
was the Ottoman Empire, the Ottomans coming to Turkey to Greece, as they say the Turks as they call
them coming and * our women taking our children away, making them all janissaries. Now the
question that I had was, if they made all our young boys janissaries Then how come we still have a
Greek nation? How can we Greeks are still there, we still speak Greek and we are still Greek we are
Greek nation, and * all our women. Well, what happened to all of them they still after that
		

			there was a Greek nation still as it was a Serbian nation as it was a Bosnian nation and Albanian
and so on, and so on. So again, they exaggerate history is
		

			sometimes is nothing else, but a bunch of lies, you know, put together. So we have to be careful, we
have to be careful. Just look at it from a neutral perspective, try to look at history from a
different perspective for a more neutral one, if you can. Otherwise, history is a very biased thing.
You know, Churchill said,
		

			history is written by the winners by the victors through Churchill. Churchill. Yes, yeah, basically,
that's very true. If you want to really make sure it's history, not as we say his history. Yeah.
		

			You had this tragic terrorist attack that happened just recently by this person who came into a
house of worship, people are worshiping the one God, the Creator, connecting with their Creator
trying to have peace together.
		

			comes in and massacres was 50 innocent human beings, women were killed you had children also, what
would you because you've also helped through this history, D radicalize people, because this
national nationalism, and then some people they try to hide behind a religion a certain religion,
but you educate them through history to give the facts to de radicalize them to help, you know, stop
people like this who are out there. How does your work? How would How would your work more people
been exposed to it, and Islam help to stop people like this who have these twisted, deranged, crazy
psychopathic ideas to go and gun down innocent human beings? Well, it's
		

			a big topic that you mentioned in our very big one, we should not forget that. People like him, you
know, the terrorist of New Zealand Basically, there is many people have this mindset. They believe
that Islam is a problem for the west or for certain countries, the Muslims come here to invade us.
But again, what I'm trying to rectify is not only our past history, but also our very
		

			our present basically, it is all true is really like this. Muslims are here to eradicate the Western
culture and Western civilization. What is a Muslim actually, because believe me, she had asked him
or if you ask him, what does it mean Islam, he won't be able to tell you, I'm sure that he wouldn't
be able to tell you what Islamic terrorists would have no idea. They would not they would just say,
terrorists, but he himself is a terrorist, basically. So
		

			there is education is very important education on the right path is very important that that's the
most important thing. And don't lie to our children are like the youngsters Don't lie to them. I
heard something crazy in Greece 2012, a documentary came out. And there was a bunch of academics,
Greek academics who came together and made this documentary, an excellent documentary, The first
time that I saw something like this on Greek TV. And they admitted that indeed, all these decades,
we were lying to our children. They admitted this openly. And when they were asked, why, why is the
system like this in Greece? Why do we have to lie to our youngsters? They said, Listen to that,
		

			because we want our youngsters to love their country. And my question is, if you need to lie to your
country, your youngsters in order for them to love your country, then there's something wrong with a
contract. So it's crazy. Yes, it's crazy. So yeah, this is this is very sad state because you see,
like, with this hate, it perpetuates more hate. And then that leads to violence, like we saw in New
Zealand, what had happened? And do you do you see that this is because we don't obviously blame
Christianity. And like people will go ahead and as soon as someone somehow anyhow connected to Islam
now produce something? Yes, yes. And then they'll right away 24 seven media coverage, that's even an
		

			old fact that, you know, someone who's connected to being a Muslim, or Muslim, or whatever the case,
five times more media coverage, it's pumped out and the fear machine starts to push all the
propaganda. But you didn't see in this case, you know, this guy making a pledge to the Templar
knights, you know, he was chanting, you know, this chetnik Serbian song, they committed this word
genocide, they were on a crusade to eradicate Muslims. So when you see that as a historian, what
underlining for what's going on behind the scenes that many of the people they're not aware of, that
you think they should be aware of? Yeah, history, indeed, it brings you back to history, it brings
		

			you back to a twisted idea of history, by the way, because this is what you just mentioned, what
what his idea was his history was a twisted mindset of history, and misunderstanding and, or,
rather,
		

			yeah, misunderstanding of history and of,
		

			of myths again, as we just explained, the idea of myths and, and, and lies that have become the
truth to him, and to everybody who was following him basically. So in the end, it is very important
to get a clear education, a clear understanding of what it actually means, what history means, what
the truth is in history, and what allies and we have to start distinguishing that the truth that the
lie and that is that can be very difficult for certain individuals, okay.
		

			But it all goes back to your mindset How?
		

			How do you understand your surroundings? How do you understand people around you? And I mean, this
individual obviously
		

			has a twisted mindset and, and, unfortunately, is not the only one. There are many more who have a
custom mindset, and we have to try to correct them try to find out what can we do? What do you think
because we we ourselves, anyone in let's say, the community of Muslims, as soon as somebody has
these twisted ideas, these mindsets. We as a collective community, we've become like professional
conductors. Yeah, right. People who do some things that are just totally opposite to Islam, foreign
to Islam. There's no sanction whatsoever in Islam.
		

			We're the first to call them out, even though we don't have a platform to be like, you know, out
there on a microphone constantly with the media. But now what about these, these these radicals,
people who are hiding, we don't believe these people represent Christianity. But now is it a duty of
the good Christians out there so many of them to go ahead and call out when they see some of these
zealous, these radicals coming out, and they try to hide behind their religion to go ahead and call
them out, because that's that growing threat, they say far right. But when you look at who these
people are, they're actually they will be connected somehow to Christian. We don't again, we don't
		

			blame Christianity or Christians. But you have to come out and
		

			like Muslims do to go ahead and call these black sheep out. What does that mean? What do you think
about what
		

			to do? Right? I mean, what happens as soon as it's somebody we saw in lay some years back in, in
Belgium, some kind of diluted person, I don't know what it was, was a criminal who was in prison, a
Moroccan guy or with a Moroccan surname. He went out there and killed some people. And suddenly, it
was a Muslim thing. Again, it was a terrorist attack by a Muslim. So you're absolutely right. As
soon as it's somebody with a Muslim name, or somebody who has a Muslim background, it is Islam that
has to be put on the cross. But here there was they didn't check into what kind of church he went
to. They didn't ask for any white leader to apologize for what this person did this terrorist and
		

			nobody asked any specific organization where he went to what he did, but there would have been a
Muslim it would have been Of course all over the media. She said five times more coverage. It would
have been
		

			they would have looked into what masky has been to who has radicalized this person who made this
person believe the things that he believed so absolutely right. I mean, what can I say on this one
that is unfortunately, the sad state of affairs that we're in now the moment
		

			we have to and I still believe we should not just go out and condemn every time when something is
happening like that, especially as Muslims Why do I have in the UK in Greece in Germany have to
condemn somebody did something in in in Asia or in America? Why why Yeah, so that's a good point. So
just like Christians don't have to come out condemn every time some lunatic like this does the same
thing they shouldn't hold Muslims responsible for some some deranged lunatic psychopath who does
something opposite to the teachings of Islam. Absolutely. Yes. A couple more points before we come
to a close now that you have many colorations and being almost at the point we're going to be
		

			visiting bosnia inshallah soon you have I heard a lot of great stories that will capture inshallah
God Willing of Serbians accepting Islam. And again, you don't change your DNA or become a Bosnian
because you became a Muslim or has submitted their will to the creator curations accepting Islam
they don't believe in Trinity worshipping a man or these things are confusing God three and one, no,
just worship one god straightforward, simple based on proof and evidence. Now, the challenge that
they have, you know, just like you had, but you look, you're you're an example of courage. Are you
an example of someone who transcended that? What advice do you have for them? Very simple. Look into
		

			what the message actually is. What is the message? Is it forget the name Islam, Christianity,
everything else? Just look into your Creator, you are created. That's a clear fact. You are created
by somebody. Okay? This somebody is who this creator is who How do you find this creator? Now? Let's
forget all names, calling name calling and forget the you know, religion, Islam, Christianity, let's
just look at the Creator. Wouldn't the creator want us to? To recognize him? What the creator wanted
us to worship Him? How do you worship Him? Now we all know if you look at movies about Jesus, how
did he worship? Didn't he fall down on the ground like we do as Muslims? Didn't he worship is a
		

			large part of that. God, the way that we see Muslims worshipping them? Didn't Jesus look like
Muslim? We look nowadays. So I mean, at least a clear factor. There is not there's not a lot that
you can say about it. It's very clear if you want to, and I'll tell you one thing. I was actually
even fighting against it activity for a moment. There was some times that I thought no, it cannot be
you didn't want to you want to submit in Islam? Absolutely. You didn't want to accept that. But I
looked into that the way that Okay, forget Islam. So just say, forget that this is called Islam.
Look into the facts if God wants you to submit to Him. And this is the way that you know that others
		

			have submitted to him that you know that Jesus is admitted to him. So hey, you might call it Islam.
But in the end, that's the truth. So it doesn't really matter what you call it. In the end, it's one
God and you worship is one creator. And the way you worship Him is also very clear. The Quran is
very, very clear. The chorus is proven that it has never changed. The Quran is out there. And it's
always stayed the same. There is no difference in the Quran. As we have different Bibles. We know
that. Yeah. So I mean, what more can I say? Don't get caught up in the names look at what really
what the message is and that's calling the human being to worship the Creator, not the creation. I
		

			always say if you can dig that you will be able to dig the rest it will all fall in place. Now. Tell
us about this book. As a historian, you have this. You have another book coming out on top of the
		

			that you already have and where can people there is the I wrote the textbook while actually the last
two, three years, I have been busy with gathering sources here left and right and up and down and in
any kind of languages. And there's a textbook coming out and Shannon and I Milan in May. And this
textbook is about Islam in Europe. How did Islam enter Europe? How has it become part of Europe? I
call it actually, and we're looking into the three routes it means Al Andalus, so Spain, Portugal,
Italy and so on the Ottoman Empire and the Tatas so these are the three routes as well as we look
into the Vikings there has been there was it's proven that there was connections between the Vikings
		

			and the Muslims, especially in Orlando's. They have been Viking so accepted Islam.
		

			And the last issue is the English version will focus on the British Isles as well. You would not say
that Britain and the British arts in general, had have a history of Islam law long before in the
1960s and 70s, when many Pakistani guest workers came over here, so it is not necessarily something
new for the British, for example, not at all. So yeah, this is the one textbook with regards to the
English textbook. The German textbook focuses on the German speaking countries of Germany, Austria,
Switzerland, as amazing history is absolutely unbelievable. And amazing. And this book is called the
history of Islam in Europe. Yeah, it's a textbook you will find it from Ramallah, from my whoever
		

			wants can contact me how they how can they contact you info at Steph Curry's dot com. So my name
info at Steph Curry.
		

			And you got so much so many gems here from this program. So many things that you can benefit from we
cleared a lot of these misconceptions, Miss notions. And go ahead and leave some of the takeaways
that you are able to take away from this episode of share someone's struggling also from ethnicity.
A lot of false propaganda is perpetuated against Muslims in Islam, we said put the name tags really
see what Islam means look at the meaning and the message behind that and know that the truth will
always be resisted. Every time there's a true vote, it's going to be fine. So go ahead and if you
like what we had to say, continue to tune in read the book. And there was one interesting gentleman
		

			scholar who was actually from from Britain in the book that you talk about what was his name that
accepted Islam? Yes, I do like William William. He accepted Islam in the 19th century. He's a well
known figure. He is a well known figure in the British name again, Abdullah William William Yeah, he
became the chef and Islam of the British Isles by the Ottoman Empire. And he was living in Victorian
England and he established the first mosque ever in this country in Britain, Britain. And he was a
white solicitor, you know, white guy who accepted Islam so not Pakistani, not from outside, not
Asian, and African. And through him actually more than 100 people accepted Islam if not even more. I
		

			mean, that's amazing. That's amazing. We covered a lot. So this is another gem that's that's in the
book. If you like the idea of worshipping only one God, to know your purpose while you're here,
where you going when you die and is based on evidence and proof. read the Quran. Connect with us
continue to tune into the deen show. We'll see you next time. Until then. Peace be with you and I'll
make him