Responding To PBD Podcast Attacking Islam After The Bishop Mari Mari Incident
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of helping Muslims to take action against drugs and crime, as well as the dangerous discussion of the use of Islam as a means to stop evil behavior. They stress the importance of learning about Islam and its benefits, as well as the importance of respecting people's opinions and building bridges with others. The speakers also touch on the history of the Christian world, including the rise of gay marriage, the loss of Christian Muslims, and the importance of learning to respect one's own views and trust in the message of Islam. Finally, they emphasize the need for dialogue and building bridges with others to allow people to share their faith and build bridges with their friends.AI Generated Transcript ©
Tyson been to my master a few times.
One time he came to your mosque, Mike
Tyson. Yes. We were at the UFC fight
in Miami, and you walked up with Trump.
Typically, rarely, nothing good happens after you hear
Al Akbar. It's never like flowers and roses
and bunny rabbits. It's
A lot of Akbar.
The Sharia law was one of the conversations
that if a country is being ran under
Sharia law And if you study historically, Muslims
always
want the best for their country.
It's crazy. Tell us a little bit about,
Ahmadinejad.
So this Christian missionary got stuck into an
Arab Shia day in and day out, preaching
to him that you're wasting your time, Yahshayah.
Pray 5 times a day up and down
up and down. We need the the deal
standard to be here. We are blessed.
And contributing towards the cause of your creator,
we are here hard at work. You know,
we need a lot of work to get
this, where we need to have it. We
can't wait to have it finished. Working hard
to get the educational
Dawah Center open so we can educate humanity
on the most misunderstood way of life out
there, yet the fastest growing Islam. So do
your part and
contribute, donate right now.
Greetings and peace. My next guest,
imam Suraj Wahaj, is imam of Masjid Al
Taqwa in Brooklyn.
He's a prolific lecturer, community activist, the leader
of the Muslim Alliance of North America,
former vice president of ISNA,
and he became famous
for his successful
efforts in fighting drugs and crime in his
neighborhood.
In 1991,
he became the first Muslim to recite, get
this,
the opening prayer of the Quran.
Mister speaker, it is an honor for me
to welcome the house chamber's guest chaplain today,
the man of Rashaal Kapoora, Shiraz Wahaz of
Brooklyn, New York. Close the line to the
unknown, oh god.
The Lord in charge of all the worlds.
Praise the line to be.
He shaped us and covered us in the
wounds of our mothers.
Colored us black and white, brown,
red and yellow,
told the lion to be,
who created us from years and few years
and made us in commissions and trials
that we know one another.
Most graciousness
merciful,
all knowing all lies just God. He's here
with us.
Where did I recite it?
At Congress. Congress. There you go. You had
to let the people know where in congress
in the United States. How are you doing?
Too good. I'm grateful to Allah. We just
finished the fast of Ramadan.
Yes. And I am really grateful to Allah.
But I'm have to be honest with you.
My my traveling is nonstop. Mhmm. The month
of Ramadan,
I was
in my Masjid maybe 3 or 4 times
non stop, hamdulillah.
We were just talking and you had an
interesting story. You used to walk the streets
of New York, even here in Chicago with
Muhammad Ali?
Yes, yes. Well,
more in New York. New York? Yeah, Muhammad
Ali, may Allah bless him, he was
really
the people's champ.
You know, I remember one day we were
walking, we're going to the United Nations, right?
Everybody stopped him, even the police. Mohammad Ali,
can I get your autograph?
And,
went into the United Nations, everybody
hugged him, and
he was the people's champion,
and he was very, very much loved. And
by the way, he was very, very funny.
One day
he was on a plane,
and the flight attendant said, mister Muhammad Ali,
please put on your seat belt. He said,
Superman don't need no seat belt.
She said to him, Superman don't need no
plane.
So he put on the seat belt. She
came back good,
And we were talking about, so you knew
my first teacher,
Doctor. Amir Ali.
He used to print
the
old brochures
and the
dua brochures. I know. I got them. I
got 1,000 from them. And Muhammad Ali used
to come get those and pass pass them
out. He wasn't shy about doing that. No,
no, no. But I want you to understand
about him passing it out. He did. People
asked for his autograph.
So he signed them and then gave that
to them. So Muhammad Ali was not,
not shy at all about that. He was
the people's champion. Mhmm.
Yeah. Amazing.
I wanted to,
I wanted to go ahead and take this
opportunity because,
you're
somebody who's
got a lot of experience.
The tempo now and the atmosphere has kind
of changed now with what's happening friend of
ours,
Patrick and David.
You,
I don't know if you probably haven't heard
about it. No. No. Right? But, a lot
of Muslims are upset.
This is one of the bigger podcasts,
and
he did go in a direction of wanting
to work together with Muslims.
Great. And we were very elated to to
be a part of that. I actually met
him, went down, and they had this program
with a couple Muslims, a couple Christians
and dialogue
with the at that time. But I wanna
go ahead and play this clip here Please.
Okay. And get your reaction to it. Okay.
It's got people that are radicalized
by a certain faith, and that faith has
at its core the extinction
of others.
And anything that is an infidel is subject
to extinction.
That's the simple the way it is. Just
to give you some more context here. So,
a week prior to this, you had another
person who went into a mall. He killed
6 people.
5 of those were women. Even a child
got injured,
12 in critical condition. They labeled this mental
health issue. This guy was, obviously, he had
some mental health issues. Now They labeled him
as a Muslim?
No. The first one wasn't a Muslim. Gotcha.
2nd one,
nutjob, goes and does something opposite to Islam.
This has nothing to do with Islam. He
went out and he attacked
this bishop,
but now conveniently now they labeled it he's
a Muslim and he gets the sticker, it's
terrorism. Anyway, we we You know what? If
if people just read read the book. Read
the book. Let give let give an example.
Right? There are
about 8,000,000,000 people on the planet Earth. Before
you go on, look. So his main thing
here is anything that's an infidel
is subject to extinction. He's pretty much saying
anyone who practices who's outside of Islam who's
not Muslim
This is what I'm gonna I'm gonna address
that, right? Yeah.
So my question to you please, I'm sorry.
My question to you is you're a veteran.
You're one of the original
imams of America here.
Is this guy
what religion is he talking about? Is this
what Islam teaches you? -He's not talking about
my religion. Okay. Alright. Alright. He's not talking
about the religion of 2,000,000,000 people on the
planet. Alright. This is the point I'm gonna
make. Right?
We share this planet, 8,000,000,000 people, a 196,940,000
square miles,
2,000,000,000 Muslims,
2,000,000,000 Christians,
1,100,000,000
Hindu, 500,000,000
Buddhists, 25,000,000 Sikhs, and about 13,000,000 Jews.
And every one of them have the right
to practice their religion as they seem fit.
Allah mentioned Quran,
If it was God choice,
everyone
would have the same religion.
So that's number 1.
What does the Quran? The Quran is our
book list. Go to the Quran.
And we sent down the Torah
in its guidance and light
and gave him, him who, Jesus,
to Injil the gospel.
In its guidance and light. Check out the
check this verse out.
Allah speaking to the Muslim men,
permitted for you to marry
are the chaste women of the people of
the book,
number 1. Number 2, permitted for you Muslims
to eat the food of the people of
the book. Why? Because they were given the
same commandments.
Why? So you It's it's crazy. I can
I can marry a Christian woman or a
Jewish woman?
I'm I'm permitted to marry them. And you
have Muslims who have?
But he's saying, look, if she's not if
they're not Muslim, you gotta you gotta annihilate
her. So you gotta hate your wife and
say, oh, it's
crazy. I mean, either
he's crazy or he knows better. I think
he's repeating
the
Islamophobia,
the talking points that are put out there
by the hate industry. What do you think?
Let me tell you something. Absolutely. You know,
it was something interesting, right?
We as Muslims believe that the day of
judgment will not come until after Jesus returns.
Mhmm.
And it's him, Jesus, who will destroy the
antichrist.
That's what we believe
in. You go and ask the name of
Muslim children, Muslim male children.
It's not, oh, Mohammed. Yeah. Beloved Mohammed,
we are Muslims with the name Moses and
Abraham
and Jesus and all the prophets because we
believe in all of them. We believe that
prophet Muhammad was the last prophet. That's it.
Hogwash like what you said. Hogwash.
Mhmm.
Yeah. Let's move on to the next one.
Okay. So this is,
But you see, I don't think, Eddie, I
think it's important to note that
we should be about dialogue. Oh, boy. We
should be about go ahead. Having discussion and
and,
and I think this is dangerous, though, though,
because you have a Why is it dangerous?
It's dangerous because it's misinformation.
You're gonna start thinking that this is the
way Muslims think about you. Think about this
1400 years ago
when
Islam started with the Prophet Muhammad, peace and
blessing be upon him,
people were very hostile toward Islam.
Mhmm. And the Prophet, peace and blessing be
upon him, and his companions, they they they
they taught to people. They talked to people
Islam. They had they had dialogue,
and this is what we're talking about. We're
talking about
having discussions,
and listen, certainly you're gonna find some radical
people anywhere.
Whether they're in Islam, or Christianity,
Hinduism,
Buddhism, you're gonna find people like that. But
is that the religion? Mhmm. And that's what
we make a distinction.
There's a verse
from the Quran.
When I hear this, I usually go back
to this verse. It's chapter 60 verse 8
that God Almighty Allah is saying the creator
that Allah, God Almighty the creator, does not
forbid you from dealing justly and kindly with
those
who have not fought you because of your
religion and have driven you out of your
homes? Right there, this kills this argument right
here, doesn't it? This nonsense that's being spewed.
I think we give them too much platform,
to be honest with you.
I agree with what you're saying 100%,
but
I don't think he speaks for the average
American.
Even those who don't accept Islam.
Even historically if you look at it, if
you go back from let's say
history. If you look at, for instance, from
Saladin Ayubi
to Omar Radiallahu An to the Medina Charter,
if you look at when Muslims ruled Spain
when Muslims ruled, okay, now Spain
or or even, Jerusalem.
How was it between Muslims, Jews, and Christians,
the relationship? Muslims had the upper hand at
one point.
If this was true,
you know, I mean, historically, what what do
we see happening?
I think that
one of, you know, if I have one
complaint Yes. To most about Muslims
is that we're not out there talking to
the people. We spend a lot of time
talking to ourselves, but we don't talk to
the people. If the American people understood what
Islam represents, what we teach,
they would
be shocked. Mhmm. It's not what it's not
what they think at all,
and, you know, we can we can live
in peace with everybody. Now, listen, I have
many identities.
Right? Anna
Mhmm.
I'm African. Yes.
I'm black.
I'm a Muslim.
I'm an American.
This is my country, and I want the
best for my country. And if you study
historically, Muslims always want the best for their
country. I like that. Yeah. Absolutely. Let's go
to the next
part of this interview or this podcast
with our friend Patrick and David and crew.
And these are the cohosts there.
And this is the other one. And let's
have a look at this and, get your
reaction to this.
This 16 year old boy who they believe
to have said Allah Akbar That's what there's
that's what Australians are messaging me that. Just
gonna come out and say, typically, rarely, nothing
good happens after you hear Allah Akbar. It's
never like flowers and roses and bunny rabbits.
It's stabbings and shootings and bombs, but no
disrespect. I'm just I mean, that's kinda what
it's associated with. But this 60 You know
Allahu Akbar means god is the grace,
You know?
And I think, you know,
there may be
some Muslims do some bad things.
There's some Christians and Jews,
black people, white people do some bad things.
Right?
Don't blame the religion of Islam.
So what they're doing
is they wanna, you know, take a few
incidences,
and they wanna color
all of the Muslims, the 2,000,000,000 Muslims the
same way as if this
is what we teach. And they they need
to be honest and say, by the way,
this is not this is not the overwhelming
majority of Muslims. The overwhelming majority of Muslims
are peaceful wherever they are, whatever country they
are in.
And let's be honest.
Are there
some Muslims who do bad things? Absolutely. Are
there some Christians who do bad things? Absolutely.
Are there some Jews who do bad things?
Absolutely.
But you don't condemn the religion.
You used to be a Christian. Yes.
And in the church By the way,
those of us who converted
from Christianity to Islam,
we have an advantage over our Muslim brothers
and sisters in disrespect.
The Prophet, peace and blessing, be upon him,
says,
Whoever believes in Jesus and then believes in
me will have a double reward.
Mhmm.
You
used to say hallelujah, didn't you? Of course.
I still say hallelujah once in a while.
Isn't that synonymous like hallelujah would be praise
God? Yeah. So Allahu
Praise God.
So what's this guy talking about? I have
no idea. He said nothing. He need to
be on your show and you need to
talk to him. Would you talk to someone
like this? 100%.
We need to have these but see the
thing is like there's no one there to
give this pushback
and they're out there and then people are
listening to this stuff
and repeating it, and then people have developed
this fear now. They get start to fear
Muslims, and then this leads to you now
hating your neighbor, violence can happen, and they're
fueling this. This is
and so how many The prophet came 1400
years ago.
The time that he would and he lived
is called Al Jahiliyah. Mhmm. Time of ignorance.
Yes. And he transformed
that whole society,
and and he did it. You know, sometimes
the people fought against him, and they fought
back.
But the the point is that there's no
compulsion, la'ikurah fiddin. There's no compulsion in religion.
You can't make people to believe. Mhmm.
So
do we
proselytize?
Do we invite? We certainly do. It's called
the Dawa. You know better than anyone else
inviting people
to at least understand our religion,
what the religion is all about. So when
someone makes a statement like that, I mean
Muslims,
like,
he's good friends. He's met Mike have you
ever met Mike Tyson? Are you serious? Yeah.
So he's had Mike Tyson on his show.
We were at the UFC fight in Miami,
and you walked up with Trump. And that
place lost
their mind when you guys walk. I don't
know if you People don't like what Trump
is the man. Trump is the man. He
had this fan base. He had this support
it, and they're gonna stick with him to
the end. How has he been to you
over the years? I never had a bad
moment with him. Did he? The same guy?
The same, yeah, the same show. Mike Tyson
been to my master a few times. Mike
Tyson. One time he came To your mosque,
Mike Tyson.
Yes. He came to me after the kutbah.
I said, imam, can I talk to you?
I said, yeah. He said, I really enjoyed
the kutbah.
And one time he came and said, imam,
I can't find my shoes. Mike Tyson, he
couldn't find his shoes? I couldn't find his
shoes.
Yeah,
so
Mike Tyson says Allahu Akbar when he prays,
right?
God is the greatest. God is greater.
He's had Khabib, another Muslim. You know, Khabib.
Of course.
I can only imagine if somebody just sees
you, maybe they don't recognize who you are,
and they had one too many drinks, and
they try to pick a fight with you,
and what you tell them? Has that ever
happened? There's somebody who doesn't know who you
are. They're A couple of times happened here
in the US. I mean, this is a
disrespect,
but he said with all due respect,
but this is a big disrespect. We're still
laughing.
I don't
pay a lot of attention to them. I
think that we should have
reasonable pushback. Yes. Reasonable pushback. Reasonable pushback. We
should you know, don't get overly angry Uh-huh.
Because either they're ignorant
or they know exactly what they're doing. Mhmm.
Right? And and I always try to give
people the benefit of the doubt. Yeah. So
some people, they just don't know.
I didn't know about about Islam until 1975.
I really learned about Islam.
The death of mister Elijah Muhammad, I was
in a Nation of Islam,
and got a chance to really to to
learn. So most people, they don't know. Most
Americans
really don't know about Islam.
They're beginning now Mhmm. Because they have Muslim
neighbors,
Muslim teachers,
Muslim fellow students,
and they're beginning to see Islam. They say,
oh, wow. This is really and you have
a number of Americans that are converting to
Islam, like me,
like yourself, and like others that are converting
to Islam. We didn't know what Islam was
really about.
Let's go on, so we covered 2. We'll
go do one more, one more from this,
PBD podcast.
We're going straight to one of the top
imams in America, imam Siraju Waaj, to see,
are they on to something?
It's something that we don't know. The Sharia
law was one of the conversations that if
a country is being ran under Sharia law
Yeah. You would be killed because that's what
the laws are.
And here's one of the most open honest
guys that's being interviewed and the interviewers almost
blown away. This isn't Canada, I believe. Yeah.
And he's like, wow. I actually appreciate the
fact that you're being straight up honest. Watch
this right here. Go ahead, Rob.
What happened to a gay couple in Palestine,
sir? What? What happened to a gay couple
in Gaza? Executed according to Islamic law. Islam
doesn't in endorse gayism. Islam doesn't endorse homosexuality.
Just like Canada doesn't endorse a lot of
things. So would you like to see Sharia
law in Canada replace Canadian law? At some
point, it will. Know, because we are we
are happy, happy families. We are making babies.
You're not Wow. Your your your your population
is going down the slump. Right?
And by 2060 by 2060 according to Pew
Research Institute,
your research, by 2016, Muslims will be the
biggest religious group the world over. What are
you going to do then? Actually post Sharia,
is it even that? Well, you know what?
I'm very
appreciative of the honesty. We don't usually get
that. One day we can have a Muslim
majority nation here in Canada
right in your face.
Right.
Seems like they found some guy on the
street and they paid him.
They always do that. Yeah. You know something
interesting. Right?
You know, we, oftentimes, we talk about Muslims,
you talk about the Sharia, you talk about
law. You know, it's interesting for the first
16 years Allah never even mentioned
alcohol.
Right?
If in fact, when Allah first revealed was
first revealed in the Quran,
the way he put it,
They're asking you the people asking you about,
you know,
intoxicants.
And Allah says, well, say there's some there's
some profit in some things that's not and
the thing is not so good.
And then,
finally, one of the companions was drinking alcohol,
wasn't prohibited at that time, and he led
the prayer and he messed up.
And then Allah said, do not approach prayer
while you're intoxicated
until you know what you're saying.
And then finally Allah reveals,
leave it alone.
It's haram. It's not permitted.
Aisha
the wife of the prophet said, if Allah
had first revealed,
thou shalt not drink alcohol, the people would
have said, we would never give it up.
See, I think sometimes Muslims make a mistake.
Let the first thing you invite them to
is the oneness of God. That's what you
you're not you our religion is not a
religion of thou shalt not do, thou shall
not do. Certainly, there's things that's prohibited. Yeah.
That's not my point. But my point is
when you go on to you're talking to
a new person
about Islam,
you talk about you're talking about God, made
him make him have an appreciation of God,
Allah.
And that's not
you can't you can't do this because
Aisha said that if Allah had first revealed
that, they will say, I never I'll never
give it up. I'll never give up. Invite
them to the absolute pure monotheism.
Yeah. And then after a while, then you
you you will stop. You you will stop
because once you understand,
once you appreciate
what what that this is not good for
you,
drugs is not good for you, alcohol is
not good for you, committing adultery, fornication is
not good for you, and then because of
your love for Allah god, then you give
they give these things up.
Let's go ahead and shift now so we
clear this up. Okay. Well well, wait. Let's
touch upon this. So he's pretty much saying
and, I like to give the example of
that Sharia because they make it seem like
this is the boogeyman coming to get you,
but we know the 10 commandments that's god's
law. The could we say, Sheikh? This is
the Sharia Sharia and the Arabic you have,
I believe, like, 200 some times it's mentioned
in the Bible, Sharia. Right? This is God's
law. Of course. Yeah. But people, what they
do is they take what is, the penal
code is, like, 1, 2% of the whole
what is it? Around that that much? You
know better than me. Yeah. So then they
focus on that just like, if Martians came
from outer space and then they wanna know
about America and you're telling about electric chair,
you're telling about gas,
you
know, death by lethal injection. You know, you're
you're talking about the penal code Right. Instead
of talking about all the other beautiful things
that the constitution has to offer. Exactly.
So, I mean, this is not being
genuous. This is not being
correct with people. I think to be honest
with you, I think we give too much
attention to these kinds of people Yeah. To
be honest with you. Yeah. Because, you know,
they're on the fringes,
you know, and,
they're trying to make a lot of noise,
and you find out that many of these
people don't have good intention.
Yeah. See, with us,
see, we can respect
the the religion of Jews and and and
Christians Yes.
And and Hindus and Buddhists and and the
rest.
And we can we can live together in
peace. You know? We we're not gonna, you
know, we're not gonna force you to accept
our religion.
There's no such thing. There's no such thing
in Islam as you making someone,
become become a Muslim. Crusades inquisitions did that.
Yeah. Right. Wasn't it? And then, you know,
one of the things that's interesting,
Ayesha,
peace and blessing be upon him, Allah be
pleased with her, said that,
she asked her husband,
was there a day more difficult than the
battle of Uhud? Uh-huh. Uhud was a battle
where the Muslims were winning
and,
but they disobeyed
the commandment of the Prophet peace and blessing
be upon him. So what was going to
be a victory became a defeat
and 85 Muslim
men lost their lives including the Prophet's,
uncle Hamza.
Right? So you have 85 Muslims that died,
and the prophet's uncle died. And Aisha is
asking her husband, the messenger of Allah, has
there been a day more difficult than that?
He said yes.
When he went to an area called what
was he doing? Inviting people
to what was gonna benefit them, the oneness
of God,
and they threw stones at him, ran him
away, he was bleeding.
And when he was going away,
it was a sunny day, and all of
a sudden, there was a shade, and he
looked up, and it was the angel of
the mountain.
He said, I'm the angel of the mountain,
and the angel of Jibril,
and said, here is the angel of the
mountain,
and God has seen what your people have
done to you. Just give the way way
the word, and they would bring down mountains
on them. And the prophet said no. He
said I pray
that someone from their loins will become Muslims
and or who believe in God the on
the Almighty.
So here was a time
that these people in the battle of Uhud
when the Muslims lost.
Look who became Muslim.
Right?
Abu Sufyan,
who was the commander,
he became Muslim. Khalid ibn Walid, the commander
of the right flank, he became
Muslim.
Abu Jahili ibn Ikram ibn Abi Jahili, command
of the left flank, he became Muslim. Ambar
ibn al As, the command of the cavalry,
he became Muslim. So these people fought against
the Muslims who defeated the Muslims.
Many of them became Muslim. Once they understood
and appreciated what Islam was. They became Arabs?
No.
They became
Muslim. What does that mean, a Muslim? Muslim
is one who submits their will to do
the will of God. Can you say that's
the Lord's the Lord's prayer where you have
our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be
thy name, thy will be done. Yes. Is
that Islam? One God. Yes. Yes. Of course.
Submitting your will to the will of God.
100%. That's what a Muslim is. Yeah. I
think that it's this,
you know, that that period was called
period of ignorance, and I think most people,
they just don't know. I think I always
felt that when when people know better, they
do better Yeah. By and large. Alright, man.
The next clip I'm gonna show, we're gonna
take a turn and we're gonna talk about
Jesus. We're gonna let the, bishop talk about
Jesus for a second. Okay. And then I
wanna get your reaction
and what you now believe about Jesus
contrast to what
you believed before while you were Christians. So
let's watch this clip. Okay. So,
before I show this, just give you some
context.
The
bishop was the one that got attacked. And
again, we condemn this. This was done The
same bishop here? Now this is the bishop
that's actually criticizing the bishop that got attacked.
You'll see why. Oh, okay. This is one
of the head of Syrian bishops in Australia.
Oh, okay. And the other one's also from
Australia. So this is what he he has
to say about the bishop. Oh, okay. And
men much of what he's gonna say, you'll
probably be like, we agree with it, and
then you'll see why he's saying it, and
then we'll contrast that with our belief in
g. I think I I'm using this as
a teaching,
refer to him as Bishop of Assyrian Church
of the East,
be careful.
Don't commit that mistake because we'll come at
you
legally.
I can promise you we'll come at you
legally.
I have no habit
of talking about people,
but only I talk when I see someone
talking ill
about Christianity.
This man, his name is he calls him
himself Marmarie,
but his name is Robert Schliemann.
He is not a member of the Assyrian
Church of the East. He's never been member
of the Assyrian church of the east. We
do not recognize
his teachings.
We completely
forbid him from entering
into any of our churches.
He was ordained
by the ancient he
was suspended from his church. Now, he was
suspended
from his church.
Now he doesn't belong to no church.
It came to my attention, He used the
word Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the
East.
Immediately, when I saw that, we send him
a letter through our lawyers. We said,
hey. Be careful.
You do not belong to this church. You
cannot use this church.
Now let's see
what he's going to say here.
I just want to hold the baby Jesus
in my arms
because
I wanna pinch
this fat thighs.
You know the baby when, he's so cute.
Especially when they are a little bit fat.
So,
you have layers of layers of layers on
their on their thighs and the arms here.
I wanna hold them as a baby because
I will definitely make him cry
by pinching him, kissing him, and spoiling him,
and
and everything.
And then I can
if I go to hell after that, that's
fine.
I carried him as a baby.
And then he would make a poo poo,
and then he would go like that at
me.
It's okay.
I'll wash man, if I could wash him.
He tried
to lower Christianity
to
unbelievable
level that has never happened
in the 2000 years of history of Christianity.
You talk about him
in this way that
he wants to pinch him,
to make him cry.
This description
of the child
is abhorrent. It's just
unacceptable
in
today's
society.
No one even can pinch a child to
make him cry. You'll be arrested
of abuse.
But for him,
it doesn't
matter. He wants this child,
this Christ,
god
to make him cry.
But the worst of all,
he says,
even if I go to hell,
it doesn't matter.
He spoke about
hell as if he's going to a picnic.
Eddie, to be honest with you, I think
really
we pay too much attention for for silliness.
It's silly.
Silly. To make a a lecture about that
silly man,
Just teach the truth, you know. I think
He's become one of the most popular
bishops in Australia. Which one? The one he's
talking about. Are you serious? They are making
him a living martyr now because of what
happened, this attack weakened them obviously.
So now you have this Christian
and he's the head of Australia and the
bishops there, they're condemning this.
So now
how do
you view Jesus?
And I think Islam solves this
debate, like, you know, between them, they're making
God into a human being, and then he's
talking about washing
washing Jesus, washing pretty much God. It's too
silly for me. It is. It's it's very
silly. Right? You know, we believe,
in Jesus.
You know,
absolutely one of the great prophets. We don't
believe in the beg God or the son
of God.
We can argue about that in another day.
Yeah. But I think that
to give
this man a platform,
I think, really is a waste of time.
I think that the bishop can do other
things. You know? They can teach the people
the truth.
And, again, we have no problem with,
people preaching what they believe is to be
the right religion. It's fine.
We're different in some areas.
To us,
God is 1.
He's neither born nor does He have children.
So that, you know, so we can have
an honest discussion about that, and we can
agree to disagree, but I think that really
that's
silly to me. So now when you were
a Christian, did you at that point,
what was your belief at Jesus at that
time? Because many Christians,
they struggle with Trinity,
they struggle with like okay, you have God
the Father,
God the Son, which one am I praying
to? How were you? Where did you fit
in at that time? It was funny, right?
I remember I was 7 years old
and living in Marcy Projects, right? Sunday morning,
getting
dressed to go to church. Uh-huh.
And I said to my mother,
why we gotta go to church anyway? Uh-huh.
So my mother took a belt,
and she hit me a few times.
They said, now you understand? I said, yes,
ma'am. But I didn't understand.
So that was the theology
that Jesus was the son of God, and
we believed it only because it was said,
right? Now my mother
made me and my brother go to church.
Me and my brother got an award for
100% attendance to church. What does that mean?
It means
52 times a year, Sunday, we went to
church. You know, I go to the Masjid
almost every day when I'm in town, almost
every day, all day long.
So
most people don't have a real foundation
of what what religion is.
And that
that because Islam came and came to correct
the mistakes that people made, some people made
mistakes,
theological mistakes, and and one of them we
believe
in making Jesus to to a god. Mhmm.
No doubt about it. Jesus raised the dead
by Allah's permission.
Cure those who were blind and and and
the leopards.
Jesus did all of that, but I think
sometimes
people maybe they went a little bit too
far and called
actually Jesus, praying to Jesus. Mhmm. There's only
one we pray to, and that's that's almighty
God. We we say Allah in Arabic language.
So I think that there's some room for
discussion.
Many
Christians,
many of them have become Muslims.
You have a lot.
Yeah. Of course. Have you seen that also
in your mosque there in New York? Of
course. Because it kind of ends this internal
struggle. You have the fitra, the innate nature
to worship the creator, but now you make
him part of his creation, you make him
a human being, and now you have this,
like you're saying, this silliness
that you're over here bringing God down to
a
level of a child
and you're describing him. It's problematic.
Once you make
human beings,
you know, gods is problematic.
Allah mentioned in the Quran, he says to
Muhammad, peace and blessings
be upon him,
I'm a human being just like you.
Jesus was a great, great, great, great man,
but he was a human being.
And and we just I I don't know
what else to say. Do you love do
you love him? I love of course. You
love Jesus? What? Yeah, of course. I love
him too. I can tell you let me
tell you something. In New York, I live
in New York, right? We have a masjid
called Masjid Isa ibn Maryam,
named after Jesus.
There was a Masjid state street called Masjid
Dawood named after Prophet David.
You know what the, you know, we have
5 buildings there at the, the Dean Center.
The Dawah Center Educational Center is the first
building.
The second building is the Masjid,
and you know what the name is? What?
Jesus Islamic Center. Okay. There you go. See,
you can't
you, you, we may have a different theology,
but you can't deny that we
love Jesus.
We love him.
And,
not just by naming our children after him,
naming our masjids after him, our schools after
him,
but we genuinely love him. But we only
worship 1 God, the creator. There's no there's
there's not 2. The same God that Jesus
worshiped.
A 100%.
Yeah.
And and and you can't how can you
be the antichrist if you love Christ, if
you love Jesus, the Messiah? Exactly, right. Yeah.
See, you can
say Muslims have a different
understanding about Jesus, but you can't say we
don't love Jesus.
You can't say that we don't respect Jesus.
That's one thing you can't say.
Be
honest.
The Muslims,
they're good people,
but, you know, they don't they don't view
Jesus the same way we view them. Okay.
I accept that. You know? In the end,
God is gonna tell us. Mhmm. He'll tell
us where where we were and who who
differed, but I think that it's important for
us to have dialogue. Yeah. That's what I
love about you,
Eddie, is that you believe in having dialogue.
Yes. Absolutely. Because
if we don't,
we fight,
and there's no reason to fight. Yeah. And,
come talk with us. I always say often,
come talk. Read the book. Like you said,
read the book. Pick up the Quran. Read
it. Right. We actually give it away for
free. You go to the deanshow.com
and people can go there. We give it
out for free. We have we have a
number, 1-eight hundred-662
Islam for Islam 52. Ask your questions.
How many of these Qur'ans have you given
out? Oh, man. This is,
1,000. I mean, over the years. I mean,
we've been doing now since, 2006.
May Allah bless you, brother. I think that
what you do is incredible.
Alhamdulillah,
and you're one of our first teachers,
so Alhamdulillah.
I'm the little guy. Yeah. The little guy.
Sheikh, so tell us before we conclude, so
what was it at the end going from
being a Christian,
then the nation of Islam,
then to Islam? And then you had also,
you were friends with
Muhammad Ali. What about Malcolm? Did you meet
Malcolm? No.
Malcolm
I love the Malcolm, by the way. And
my mother would tell you that when I'm
when I'm in the
house as a teenager,
14 years old, I'm quoting Malcolm.
Back during slavery, there were two kinds of
slaves. There was the field Negro in the
house Negro.
So when Malcolm was assassinated,
I think it was something like 14 years
old.
So it wasn't until, interestingly enough,
when I was a freshman
in college, New York University,
that's I had my first experience with the
Nation of Islam. Some of the brothers from
the Nation of Islam came to my school.
It's interesting that no Muslim ever came to
my school,
but the brothers of the Nation of Islam
did. And they would sit down next to
us in the cafeteria, how you doing my
black brother? And then they would talk to
us about
Islam. Me and my best friend, a young
man named Andrew, we came to New York
University together, and we both joined the Nation
of Islam at the same time.
So I think
that, the Nation of Islam did some great
things. Malcolm did some great things. And by
the way,
according to the FBI, every year 350
1,000 inmates become Muslims.
350,000.
350,000 every year, and they in, you know,
we have Muslim chaplains. I know a lot
of them,
and, I've been to 50 states.
You can probably guess the 2 states that
I didn't I didn't visit. You can probably
guess
Hawaii, you would say Hawaii. And Alaska. Okay.
That's the 2 ones you were thinking of.
Right. And every one of them, I went
to every one of those prisons that I
went to, every one of those states that
I went to,
brothers would say, imam, we
listen to your tapes in prison.
Ask me how many of my tapes did
I put in prison? Not even one. Mhmm.
How did I get there? And I think
that
I learned the lesson
that we have to engage the people. Yes.
The Nation of Islam,
I personally knocked on thousands of doors,
inviting people
to what I thought was Islam,
thousands of them.
So the brothers in the Nation of Islam,
maybe, you know, we have some differences in
ideology, how we understand the religion,
but they were committed. Mhmm. I would like
to see the Muslims as committed
as the brothers and sisters of the Nation
of Islam were committed. So I didn't meet
Malcolm,
loved him,
and the rest is history. And then you
made that transition, Christianity,
Nation of Islam to Islam. Yes.
What was the thing that finally did it
for you that you actually crossed over
and you accepted? And Malcolm did the same
thing, Hamed Ali did the same thing that
you One of the things, you know,
I played basketball. Yeah. I played for my
junior high school. I played for my high
school and I played for college. Yes.
And when I played for college, I was
pretty good.
I wasn't great, but I was pretty good.
Right? I was known for 2 things,
prolific
defender and outside shot. You know, the shot
in the corner, for me, is like a
layup.
Right?
But interestingly enough, when I went to NYU,
the captain of the basketball team was a
Muslim,
Jerry Tenex,
and so we we sat a lot, and
we spoke, and once he explained to me
what what, again, what we thought was Islam,
but I think at the at
the
the root of that was the love of
ourselves. Mhmm. You know, if you look at
the movie Malcolm X, in the beginning,
the,
the actor who played Malcolm X,
his hair was we call kunt,
straight hair.
Black men used to straighten their hair. And
and why? It was an imitation of white
people.
But in
1964, 1965,
James Brown had a song that said, Say
It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud.
And black men no longer straighten their hair.
They had Afros. Me,
when I joined the Nation of Islam, I
had a big Afro.
It was so big you can land a
helicopter on it. That's how big it was.
Right?
Men wearing dashikis,
black men wearing dashikis,
black women changing their hair, not looking like
white women,
and even the names
at that time took on African names, took
on,
Islamic names and things like that. So it
was like a revolution for me. I still
respected the Christianity, still respected the brothers and
sisters from the nation of Islam,
and yet Alhamdulillah,
Allah has guided us
to Islam.
I'm grateful.
I'm mad at nobody,
you know, but I'm willing to share
our religion with with whomever.
So what would you say in conclusion now
to our friend Patrick and David
and the, people who are fans, who've watched
this program now, they're listening to us and
we have one of the main Muslim imams
here of America.
We refuted some of these,
blunders,
a lot of these, false
statements that they were making.
And in an essence of building bridges
and, talking dialogue, what would you say to
our friend Patrick, Anthony, Mike, and the fans
out there? I do think you know, one
thing I've learned to do over the years
Yeah. Is to respect people's opinion. I just
I differ with you, and we should have
dialogue. That's how we grow. And, I love
what you do, you know, and I think
others should,
have some have some dialogue. And I think
that sometimes, Listen, maybe one day they become
Muslim, you don't know. You have people
who used to criticize
Muslims in Islam, now they're Muslims themselves.
So I'm saying, and I'm not naive to
think that everybody can become Muslim, everybody's not
going to become Muslim, but it's fine.
That's why I started at the beginning of
this talk when I mentioned what Allah says
in Quran
permitted for you to marry. You're married. You're
permitted to marry the chase women of the
people of the book. That's enough to say,
oh, okay.
Oh, yeah. You can't eat any food because
our book said the same thing. And people
will be shocked once they read the the
Quran and compare it with the bible. There
are many things that are very similar. There's
some things different here and here and there,
but I do think, Ed, that is important,
Eddie, that is important
dialogue,
you know, and and argue in the best
way, not in a very negative way, but,
you know, say, listen. I get it. I
understand your point. This is what we say.
In the end, we we learn to respect
one another. And you gotta remember doing and
and as I alluded to earlier, during the
time when prophet Mohammed was here, there are
a lot of people who were hostile to
Islam
became some of the best Muslims. He said,
the best of my Ummah is my generation.
This is a generation that was called Jahiliya.
So that should be a it should be
a hint for the Muslims that what we
should do is not going around
beating people,
but going around sharing our faith with others.
And I think that if we do it
in the right way, you'd be surprised.
People, some of them will become Muslims, some
of them won't, but at least they will
say, Oh, okay. Good.
You know, there was a Jewish rabbi
years ago.
He used to come visit me in my
masjid Mhmm. Every week. Jewish rabbi? Jewish rabbi.
Right? Prominent.
I never said his name publicly.
And he said one day he said, Imam,
I told my Jewish friends about you.
I said, Rabbi, I told my Muslim friends
about you.
Had a very,
very good understanding. He come to me
in in when I went to go get
my haircut at the coffee shop a couple
blocks from my masjid,
and we we spoke.
And I asked them
once.
I said, Rabbi, I'm gonna ask you I'm
gonna ask you a frank question.
How could
you justify
taking
the land of people who
already occupy it.
He said, Imam, I have to be honest
with you. I can't.
I just can't do it. Wow. Some people,
they know.
Some people they they won't say,
but they know.
So what I think that how our responsibility
is to to have frank conversations with Mhmm.
With people
and,
and leave it like that.
I've heard this hadith. You've, it's an authentic
statement from the last of the final messengers
unto mankind, Paramaham, peace be upon him, comparing
himself to a brick.
And I've heard you,
often
share this hadith. You gotta remind me because
Where I'll start it off and you finish
it. I like how you go into it
where the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him,
he was making reference to a beautiful beautiful
ah, yes.
People go around looking at this building and
it's beautiful, and they say, look at a
building, this building,
he said, but there's one brick
that's missing. And the prophet, peace and blessing,
said,
my similitude
and the similitude of the prophets who came
before me is like a man who built
a building, perfectly built together,
beautiful, but one brick is missing. I'm that
brick.
Right? So, really, it's to teach us again
how very similar we are, and I think
that's that's that's been my theme today Mhmm.
That the theme
of the,
of the religions
in essence,
the same, especially
the,
you know, so called Christians, so called Jews
and the Muslims,
you know, we are called People of the
Book. So we have we have a book.
And and the book that they have, we
also respect
and love.
We call it the book of Allah, the
Almighty, the Torah, the Injeel,
the gospel,
and the Torah,
especially because that's the Quran talks about it.
The prophet spoke about them, and, and then
he says,
he uses the word sometimes,
which means I hope.
He says,
I will have more followers than any other
prophet
on the day of judgment.
He said to his people, I hope that
you have the people of Jannah. So there's
not a, you know,
a
paradise for the Jews and a paradise
for the Christians and a paradise for the
Muslims.
Is one paradise.
We believe that. We understand that. We accept
that, you know, and and I think that
there has to be more dialogue.
And kudos to you again
for all of your your efforts Humble the
law. Your sincere efforts. You know? Appreciate it.
You don't beat up people.
I mean, some some of us Muslims
beat up Christians, like some Christians try to
beat up Muslims, you know? But I think
that we have to have a, you know,
a better spirit, and I wanna commend imam
Wala Fadde Mohammed. He was like that. He
was very good
in interfaith
and discussion. You know? I don't know. Some
Muslims don't like it. Some Christians don't like
it. Some Jews don't like it. I always
believe that we should have dialogue always. Absolutely.
100%.
Yes.
Shay, thank you very much. Thank you very
much for spending some time with us.
When I'm looking at you,
I remember,
and we can end here. I just wanted
to ask you this question.
You had me thinking about the time you
were moderating
in Ahmed Diddat. You had a My guy.
Tell us a little bit about, Ahmed Idat.
So this Christian missionary got stuck into an
Arab shayah day in and day out, preaching
to him that you're wasting your time, you
shaykh. Pray 5 times a day, up and
down, up and down. You fast for 1
whole month and you straight jacket your life.
You don't think. You don't gamble. You don't
eat the pig and on and on. Allah
is not hungry for that. You want salvation?
You believe that he sent his son into
the world and he died for your sins
and salvation is yours. God almighty, he came
down to earth and he died for your
sins.
Believe and be saved. And the chief began
to cry
like a woman who's lost her husband. He's
he started to cry.
Acting. Actually he's acting. So he said you
know I just got the sad news that
Achi Jibril
Jibril, a s lam, the archangel Gabriel, he
died.
So the priest says, you fool.
Angels don't die.
So the Arab sheikh says, and you fool,
you're telling me that God died?
You you spend a lot of time with
him. Right? A lot of time. Yeah. Yeah.
In fact, every once while, every almost every
year, I go to back to South Africa.
So people that was dealing with Ahmed Diddeh
invite me from time to time, but Ahmed
Didot was a bit beta. Yeah. That wasn't
my style. Yeah. But he was he was
very good. He knew the Bible
very well. Mhmm. And,
he converted a lot of people, a lot
of, even a lot of Christians.
But again,
we have a different kind of style. Now,
one of our sheikhs, Doctor. Jamal Badawi,
he don't recall a debate when he'd have
discussions with Christians and Jews. It's different from
Ahmed did that. Ahmed did that hard hitting,
you know, where he hits you hard. And
the Muslims loved that. Oh, Ahmed did that.
But I do think one one thing that
I've learned over the years, I appreciate differences
of opinion. I have no problem with that.
I have no problem with people
not accepting what we say. In fact,
I I welcome people to criticize us to
to take take a look.
Muslims may do
a lot of things wrong,
but Islam is right. Yes.
You know, Christians may do a lot of
bad things,
but the message of those prophets were right.
And so I think
we're trying to get it together,
and,
hopefully we can live together.
The beautiful thing about America
is
that people of different faith
can live together,
One block.
You know? We have we have
people in all kinds of persuasion, all kinds
of religion,
and that's a good thing.
And that's the, I think that's the strength
of America,
that it can accommodate
people with different faith. I think that's a
good thing. Thank you. Thank you for spending
Thank you.
Thank you.