Texas Cowboy does something amazing after reading the Quran

We're gonna hair they are done here in Texas from Cowboy Muslim.

On,

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everybody. You ever met a Muslim cowboy before? Well, if you haven't,

I'm not going to met this church, anyone go into this cowboy church where everyone wears their cowboy hats and, and everything else. We don't have any Muslims where I'm from, I had never met a single Muslim. So this point in my life and I'm 20 Don't, don't do like the Muslims do and never humiliate yourself and put your face on the gun. He's like, we're Christians. We get on our knees and we ask God, this is your brother Hamza and dress jerseys. And I want every single one of you to support Eddie from the deen show, financially and otherwise, but in what way? I want you to support his new project. The dean center is going to be a transformative experience dissenter. Why? Because

it's going to be a masjid is going to be a place of worship is also going to have fitness facilities. And it's also going to be a Dallas center to call people back to Allah Subhana Allah to Allah Muslims and non Muslims, and we trust Edie completely. I for one will take 1000 bullets for Eddie, he has a vision. He has more than 15 years of experience in the dollar. He's had a huge success with the deen show. And he had the support of many dua 10 preachers and scholars from all around the world. He's going to be an amazing project for everybody. Go to the Dean center.org Donate now

it's Milan Hamdulillah. Assalamu alaykum greetings of peace. Welcome to the show. And I'm your host subscribe hit that notification bell if you haven't done already so you don't miss exciting episodes like this one coming up with my next guest who says he was born in the Corpus Christi translated Body of Christ in Texas. He was very active in the Methodist Church and did many missions and retreats so I believe as a missionary, he was also being mentored by a Catholic youth minister who did them wrong due to this he became an alcoholic went into rehab in 2010 got active with AAA and even started his own chapter at the First United Methodist Church in Conroy eventually, he got a

hold of the verbatim Word of God Almighty the Koran. So he read and read and read until he started crying and crying profusely didn't know what to do. So he calls an old friend, and he finds out that front end is up ended up also accepting submissions to the Creator, not the creation, Islam, he ends up at a mosque or Masjid with an old friend of mine who went MIA years ago Kamal el Mekki. So let's find out what happened in between in the middle at the end with our next guest, Brandon. Estes. Salam aleikum. Wa Alaikum salaam wa Rahmatullah betta katsu brother Eddie, how you doing? Hunter? Did I hit up a lot? I mean, how are you, Brandon? So you're the You're the son or nephew of use of

Vestas Hamdulillah I get this message a lot. This question a lot. But it's interesting. Our ancestors go back to Spain and de Lucia right. But the the closeness we're not, we're not exactly close. Except in that I've had the pleasure of hamdulillah with traveling with him with learning from him being able to, you know, benefit from his his wisdom and a lot of the things that he has gone through and his personal experience as a river as well. But no, I'm not a son. And it's funny to is because we both are from the same area in Arlington, in my wife is from the same Masjid that he converted in. So whenever I travel with him, and people know about all this stuff, they're like,

Oh, you're fibbing to us. You know, you're not. You've got to be his son. And I'm right now we're just evil twin step neighbors, as we say in the South.

Okay, so we got that out of the way. Let's start off with this Corpus Christi, saying that you were you were born in the Corpus Christi. What does that mean? So corpus is one of the most well known cities they're in here in Texas. And it translates as a Latin word that translates into English as the body of Christ. So the body of Christ like whenever you're a Christian, and you take the take the communion, you are eating and drinking the body and the blood of Christ. And so the City of Corpus is considered the it's called the body of Christ.

And then you also ended up doing many retreats in missionary work as a Christian. Yes, sir. Talk to us about growing up my my parents had really spent a lot of time in stealing a lot of love for God in me. And what's interesting, even though I did a lot of retreats, they were always really God based. They weren't as crisp as

Jesus base as you would think, but I was very active in going to different places where you would go to more rundown areas that needed a lot of fixing up older houses that were 7080 90 years old. And they needed a lot of help fixing up in the community, they didn't have the money. So we would go to areas. And this isn't because people do this in other countries. Well, there's a lot of that in Texas itself. And so we went to one city called Jewett, which is by buffalo, Texas. And what that was one of my most,

I guess, my most memorable trips that we took, and we would go and we would help, you know, people fix up their roofs, if they had leaky roofs or if they didn't have proper stairs or wheelchair ramps, if they were becoming you know, handicapped in their old age, to fix all this stuff up just different kinds of household projects, and even one of the houses that we went to go fix was a complete reconstruction. Right. And then, you know, required a whole bunch of teamwork and crew members, and we would go out there we do our, you know, prayers and everything and to try to, you know, build camaraderie and, you know, also give quote unquote, Christian dower right, to the people

who were who were in need. So you're born in Texas, I visited Texas one time and I got to experience some of the work there they call it with the southern the southern hospitality people down there were pretty, pretty nice. hamdulillah that's one thing that I'll you know, I'll always miss anytime I go anywhere else, is that anytime I went anywhere in Texas, I mean, you're gonna get treated real well, unless you're gonna treat people you know, wrong at first. But the the hospitality is very similar to the Muslim hospitality. And it was one thing that I really loved when I when I saw Islam, that there was a hospitality that was equal, if not better, than the southern hospitality that we

had. So we do like to, you know, pride ourselves on the good treatment of others and just being friendly. You know, saying hi, like, you know, where I'm from, you couldn't go, you know, anywhere in your car without waving at another person in another car. You don't know who they are just another person, another car, just hey, how you doing in Texas is like that. Yes, a lot. A lot of places. I mean, unless you're going to Houston big cities. I mean, you're not going to have it as much. But you know, in Montgomery, where I'm from up there, north, Houston Lake Conroe. area. It's, it's, it's pretty much like that and everyone kind of has this, this good feeling of closeness to

each other. Now, you grew up in Texas, did you grow up on a ranch? Were you involved with cowboys has the cowboy hat. So i we i always wanted to live on a ranch. And my grandfather, my mom's dad, he actually had a ranch down there. And it was called the name of the cities probably, you know, it's countries you guys called Ronnie. And Ronnie Texas is where my my grandfather had, he had over 100 head of cattle. And he had I had my own heifer, we and we were in the Beefmaster breeders united, the BBU, which was a it's a different type of cow, you got Angus, you've got the Kobe wagyu all these other different types all over the world. But Angus and beef master are two of the more

popular ones in Texas and we raised beef masters. So every time my heifer would have a calf, and it was a you know, good calf, we put it up for sale at at the at the auction. And so I was involved with this kind of, you know, work from a young child and was a member of the Beefmaster breeders United but never lived on a ranch we always lived like when I lived in Missouri, so it was a small town of about 3000 people. So you know, you knew everybody in town and everyone knew everyone and everything about everyone. But when we moved to Conroe, which was close to Houston, it was more of a bigger city, you know, close to 45,000 people and we always lived in the suburbs after that. So I

was raised you know from a real you know, country family we'd always been around horses and cows and all that stuff. But when I went to school you know, growing up I was going to school with people from you know, the city and whatnot. So I kind of had both exposures.

Now growing up, we did you ever jump on the back of a on a bull and do some was a bull riding. I never jumped on the back of a real bull. The only thing I've done was a mechanical bull. And I've read horses since I was a kid. Horses okay. That was that was one thing I never I never. I never got into rodeo as big as a lot of other my friends did.

I was I was more into sports. I really love baseball and football. I mean I played baseball since I was as soon as I could throw a ball I remember my dad really you know put the love of baseball and sports into me. So and then football once I got into high school. So tell us the million dollar question Why are you going through all this from your story? What I know is that you were from what the audience you're born in this corpus Christ you active in the Methodist church going on these missions as a missionary, but there's something going on in your home

Aren't you're still seeking to know the truth? I mean, if you're upon the truth, why are you seeking truth?

So, you know, as like, as I got a little bit older you get you get my question because you perceive Okay, all right, I got it. I'm doing missionary work, I believe you believe you're on the truth, but then you're still struggling besides, like, there's something missing there like yours, you feel like, okay, there's something out there. This is not it.

And not happened to whenever I got out of high school, I was exposed to different aspects of, you know, without going into it too much the truth movement, right. And I'm sure you're familiar with it, they call them truth or whatever. And I started questioning, like, the, the, the main narrative of everything, not just of 911, but just of different things in life. And I started reading through the Bible over and over again, and going through a lot of things. And a lot of things started not making sense once I started looking at it critically. And so it wasn't, it was a year until years later till things happen. But at this point in life, when I was 18, and I started getting in trouble

with with my alcoholism is whenever I started recognizing that something wasn't wasn't right, right. And I promised myself that until the day that I died, I was going to be someone who sought the truth, no matter what, no matter if it, you know, if it, you know, changed the way that people looked at me if I was gonna, you know, go against all, you know, whatever, I was gonna, I was gonna seek the truth no matter what. And so I kind of made that promise to myself and to God, that when I was 18, I said, God, I'm gonna seek you in whatever religion that you're in, or if it's a different form of Christianity, because like I was said, I was raised Methodist, and I was like, well, maybe

there's a different denomination that's closer to the truth and this one, or whatever. And that's kind of where I began.

That's a great quality to have to be a person because some people might get stuck in a community, a culture, maybe a certain cowboy sect, whatever the case, our group, and their friends or their, their livelihood is there. And then the truth kind of gets canceled out. But that's really nice that you were firm on and you made this commitment with your Creator, that you're going to seek out the truth no matter what. Before I go on to my next question. You talked about alcoholism, do a lot of people from Texas, especially cowboys, do they drink a lot? You see the Heinekens and beers or whatever other alcohol beverage they consume? Is that just kind of common? It's very common.

Unfortunately, it's something that you know, you're around since you're a kid, you know, you go you go to family meetings and gatherings, and there's gonna be people there. And I remember having, you know, my first everyone, even the little kids there, you know, maybe six, seven years old, or getting sips of beer from them.

They're, they're flirting with it. They're like, Oh, hey, tastes this, you know, little kid and they think,

you know, they're like, it's so gross. You know, you don't like the taste because it tastes disgusting. And so kids with the natural fitrah they're not going to like it. But it's just something that's just, it's there. It's everywhere you go, you turn left, it's here, it turned right. It's there. It's I mean, it's you know, it's in communion. When you go to the church, you drink wine, some places serve grape juice, now, but alcohol is just so permeated within society, that you don't go anywhere without it being a part of the culture. It's it's a cultural thing, right? You know, bourbon, whiskey and beer, right? And especially beer in the south. And it's it was

you couldn't escape it. Right? And actually, that was one of the things that, you know, later on, that people just associate, they're almost more shocked that you don't drink, then you know, other things, because it's just like, well, how are you not going to drink? You know, this is? What are you going to do? You just gonna sit there, you don't have something in your hand to hold. It's, it's hard for people to imagine because they don't know anything else. Right? That's that's all they were raised around.

So then what happens next? Now, you ended up in AAA, Alcoholics Anonymous. I mean, many people there just become function functioning alcoholics, what made you take that step, to actually start going to rehab and because it's just common, like you said, so many people, you'll say, people won't even admit that they're alcoholics. They just like this is just part of my life.

So it was a couple years later, and I had will just say, I gotten in trouble a few more times, and had some issues with my drinking. And, like most people, yeah, you're not gonna you're not gonna address it, but me I had to, I had to face it. I was, I was my parents. You know, my dad. I remember one time he came to me. And, you know, this was in 2013. And, you know, he told me, Brandon, he's like, we love you. You know, you're a great person to be around. We love being around you. But when you drink, he said, You're You're a miserable person. You know, no one wants to be around you. You're he said, You're a different person, man. He's like, so you know if you're not going to stop

if you can't stop this then no one wants you

around, and that, that I, something hit me so all the way to my soul. And I'd realized that this was, you know, I couldn't go on anymore if I was going to have meaningful relationships with those who mattered to me. And so, you know, whenever I was going through my issues and you know, going through a, I ended up going to a, you know, a place to get treatment for my alcoholism. And because I wanted to tackle it on and that was actually where I had developed this idea not being exposed to any other religions yet. I had read through the Bible again, I had to smile and Septuagint to which was the Greek next to the English.

And I would, I would read through this, and then one day, it just clicked, and I started crying. And I said, Jesus is not God. I said, from everything I'm reading, and everything that he's saying, with what I've looked at, through the Old Testament, in the New Testament, all together, I said, for, you know, I made this promise with myself, you know, not not a Muslim, just someone who's reading this on his own, I said, Jesus is my brother. And I'm going to follow Him and do everything that he did, but I will never worship him again for the rest of my life. And it was just this promise I made to myself. And this was in 2010. And so I started going to AAA meetings, and to the point where I

really saw a lot of people being helped with it. But I noticed because in AAA, you have to have like a higher power, and a, quote, unquote, spiritual experience, to really get that help. And I noticed a lot of people they would pick, you know, because you wherever you go, you can pick anything as your higher power, you can pick your mom, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, whatever it is, as your higher power, and a lot of people would pick Jesus. And I noticed a lot of the people who were picking people, including Jesus or other things as their higher power, they were the ones who relapsed the most. Wow. And, and I will tell people, you know, as an I'm a Christian, right, I'm

like, don't pick Jesus as your higher power, I would have them one on one. And I'd be like, Hey, pick the father, pick the Creator, as your higher power because he doesn't die, he doesn't get tired, he's not weak, he's not a human, right. So if you want the thing that to really be that one who can keep you under control, you pick the creator, the heavens in the earth, pick the guy. And, and this was kind of my my dour early on. And so I started my own AAA group in Conroe, at the Methodist Church, and this is kind of what I would do with people that would come in, and I'm inside of a church actively preaching people don't pick Jesus as your higher powers. That's kind of a

little funny story. This is not taking nothing away from Jesus, you're doing what Jesus did himself. He's the one who called upon the Creator alone, and he didn't commit what people were committing was associating partners with God in this by picking another higher power, you were picking the ultimate one higher power, the Creator of the heavens and earth, the only one. So Jesus would have called to also and he did. Exactly. And, and there's peace in that, right. And people would tell me that this was, you know, that it makes more sense. And it makes more sense. At the end of the day, this is what eventually led me to where I am today. It was, you know, kind of when I wasn't going down that

path. So what happens now so before that, were you believing in the what's the Methodist Church the articles of faith that people have to have is it's the Trinity believing that God is three and one died for your sins? What this is what we're believing it that that time before this? Absolutely the Methodist Church is the closest of the Protestant denominations to Catholicism. So we're we don't we have a few things that are different but many of the things that you would find in the Catholic creed you're gonna still find them in the Methodist creed and Doofer except for maybe a few things here and there that they have in the Catechism but Methodist is very you know, you do that's heavy

on the Trinity and heavy on on communion and different other acts of worship that you have to do and also within Methodist, there, they are focused they are of the branch that do believe that works do matter, because you have Calvinist and non Calvinist right so some half of Protestants believe that works don't matter whatsoever. And then the other ones believe that works do matter. And so Methodist, we believe that you know, works do play in to your to your salvation as well.

And not just what not just the belief because most evangelicals today I've gone to the direction of works don't matter whatsoever right? They completely deny that works have anything to do with your salvation. It's just 100% you know, your your belief completely just to believe that Jesus is safe for you. So Methodist, we were we did have an aspect of works in there. So you would find Methodists were you know, pretty, you know, practicing right? They would at least try to stay away from some of the cupbearer sometimes obviously, you know,

Without a really rigid system like, you know, Islam and there, you're still gonna have people doing things, you know, you shouldn't, but it was more conservative, I guess you could say then what you would find in many other evangelical sects. So hence, this is what will make the differentiation difference between someone being an evangelical and Methodist as a modification there of believing Methodist believing more just one example, more in works rather than just faith. And now someone who doesn't agree with that would jump over to the other denomination or a sect and become a an Evangelical, for example, is that correct? Correct. Yeah. Okay. So then you go and start doing

research. And you start reading Old Testament, New Testament, what else did you read? And then you concluded from your reading and studies that Jesus is not divine? Correct? And what were you is that that's from the Old Testament, New Testament itself, from everything, looking at the whole thing in one complete whole? Because I mean, as a Christian, we accepted both right? We weren't New Testament, only Christians. And even if you did just look at the New Testament, I mean, you're still going to find very explicit statements, you know, from Jesus, like in John 17, where he says, the only true God is the Father. Right. And, and so, you know, statements like this, you know, when you

look at those, it puts in context, the ambiguous statements, like Whoever has seen me has seen the Father, this is an ambiguous statement. So I would look at the, the, the clear and explicit statements, and I would use those to interpret the ambiguous statements, which is pretty much what we do in Islam as well. Right? You take the clear the Montcalm, to explain them with the shabby.

So what happens? Okay, so you got this is one aspect of your life, many people as young as you are, I mean, other doors start opening up, friends are calling you who aren't even not even thinking about God, let's go to the nightclub, you got parties, you got more drinking with drinking comes other recreational drugs, like so you got that whole life of desires, calling you that you go through a stage at this, that you had to kind of fight with yourself to kind of stay away from that, and all those temptations that open up as a young man. So that was, that was where I was, after I had actually gotten out of out of rehab. I was sober for a couple of years. And then I started, I

was working in the oil field, after I left, Texas a&m University. And so whenever I would have time, on the weekends, I ended up you know, getting friends and girlfriends who were like Brandon, you know, you're really not an alcoholic. And I still had my AAA group that I had started that cowboy cowboys party a lot, don't they? There was a bar drinking. Yeah, yeah, we did. And I mean, I would every single weekend, I would, you know, go with my I started back, you know, again, going with friends, you know, I would go and I just wouldn't drink, right? And so this was kind of one of the funny things was, I would go out with my friends and you know, on the weekend, and they'd be like,

Brian, what are you doing, not drinking. And so I'll get to the point where, you know, I would hold the beer just so I could hold one so that people weren't asking me questions, right. So I could still at least have a social circle. Because I didn't, I was really, it was really important to me to you know, have my buddies and my pals and everybody and whatnot. You're the odd one out, huh. And so I was the odd one out, so I had to start, you know, faking. And then I had, you know, like I said, I had this one friend just one time, and they're like, Brandon, you know what, you're really not an alcoholic, you're, you know, if you were you'd be struggling, you're not even struggling. And

so the devil, you know, Shavon tricked me and was like, Yeah, you're not an alcoholic. And I was like, Yeah, I'm not, I can start drinking again.

Right. And then Hamdulillah, I never got in trouble with it again. However, it started leading me back down the same thought processes and the same, you know, holes. And I got to this point, I was with one of my friends one night, and we were going out, we were talking about, you know, what we're going to do when we're 40 were like, Okay, what are we going to afford, we were going to save up to where we can have a yacht and we can be going traveling on our yachts around the world. And we're going to start up businesses together besides our, you know, nine to five or eight to five jobs that we had. And I stood there and I told them, I was like, man, we do the same thing. Every week. You

know, we go to work, then we wait for the weekend. We can't wait till the weekend comes and I come down here to come meet you guys. Because they lived, you know, 45 minutes to an hour away from me. And I drive out down here with you guys and then we go drink for two nights. I feel really bad about myself. Then I go to church, to feel better about myself and then rinse wash and repeat. I said I feel like I'm a hamster on the wheel and we're not going anywhere. I don't see any anything changing from what what is, you know, there's no purpose in any of this. It's just day in day out. There's nothing that I feel fulfilled with. I had this complete emptiness with it. And I told him I said

there's got to be another way and I'm gonna have to find out what

This. And it was pretty soon after this where, you know, one day I finally had enough. I couldn't I couldn't take it anymore. And so I went and opened up my Bible. And it was in the morning and I was sober That morning, I hadn't been drinking or nothing yet. And I opened it up and it was the part where Jesus peace be upon him, he prostrated in the garden where he fell on his face. And he was praying and begging to the Creator, right? To, to not take this cup from him, you know, and so on and so forth. And I told myself, I said, You know what, Jesus fell, it was like, hit me really clearly. I was like Jesus, he fell on his face, he prostrated like the Muslims do. And I remembered

a couple weeks before I was at this point, I'm going to a cowboy church now. So I'm an I'm a non denominational, I'm not going to Methodist church anymore. I'm going to this cowboy church where everyone wears their cowboy hats and, and everything else. And I, I listened to the preacher and he never because we don't have any Muslims, where I'm from, I had never met a single Muslim to this point in my life, and I'm 2026 years old or so. And he brings up randomly Muslims one day, because we're out in you know, in the country. And he's like, you know, don't, don't do like the Muslims do and never humiliate yourself and put your face on the ground. He's like, we're Christians, we get on

our knees and we ask God, we don't put our face in the dirt. And we're not and that was a couple of weeks before. And so this that day, when I had finally just, you know, gave up and I was like, You know what, God, I don't know what the truth is. I've been looking in the Hindu scriptures. I've been looking at Christianity throughout all these sex and all this other stuff.

And, and I was like, I can't find it. And when I opened up and I saw Jesus prostrating there in the Bible, I said, How dare he say, humiliate, because, you know, even though I don't worship Jesus, he's my, you know, my role model. And he said, humiliate, I would understand if he said, humble yourself, but he said, humiliated. So I had this like, feeling of kind of rebellion, like, you know, not to Jesus or to God, but to the pastor. I said, How dare you. So I was like, You know what, I'm gonna do what Jesus did, I'm gonna put my head on the ground, I'm gonna ask God to guide me. And so I did. And every and when it happened, everything was clear. I can't explain it to you, Edie, except

that there was no doubt in my mind, that God was one it was it was kind of like, I just, I had what we call Europeana had certainty. And something was telling me to follow Muhammad for the rest of my life. And so I told myself, if this was real, you know, I got up, you know, had a dream or whatever. But I got up and I said, if this is real, I got to find out about it. So I actually had a CT scan on my shelf, because I had a big library in my house, and with books from all over, but you know, it was just sitting there collecting dust, because I like to be, you know, I like to look at myself as someone who was, you know, really intelligent, I had all these books and stuff. And I was like, you

know, what, this is one of the books I haven't read. And so I'm gonna actually read it, you know, and next week, and as soon as I opened up the book, Edie, that first page I started reading, I could not stop crying, you know, I read from factory hat. And then I would go to a, you know, open up to another part. And every single word that I read, even though is an English translation, it's called the resonated with me of the Quran.

It I couldn't I couldn't stop. I wish it was like a hunger. It was unsatiable I just I kept reading and reading, then I would go online and watch the YouTube videos like what is this that I found? I cannot believe this, who is this prophet muhammad sallallahu it was seven, and peace be upon him. And I was just over the moon. I was like this, I found it, you know, and what, But why me though, because I was still thinking, you know, my parents are, you know, they're, they've done so much for me, I'm the I'm the black sheep. And I've gotten in trouble with alcohol and all this other stuff. You know, why did God you know, guide me of all people, you know, I was like, I've got 1000 other

people I can think of right now, who were more worthy of God guiding than me. But I still was like, You know what, I'm going to still find out. And so I talked to my friend that I knew that was this Palestinian guy. And I was like, maybe he'll have some answers, right? Because we were in college together. And he, he had he had, you know, party just as much as I did, right. And I was like, What do you know? And he had told me that he had, you know, he had actually converted, and it was actually, you know, you gotta go do this thing called the shahada, right to testimony of faith. And so I was like, Well, I mean, I already believe it, like, whatever I gotta do you tell me. And so I

drove all the way down to Houston, to go meet his brother in law. And he's like, Well, you have to give shahada at a masjid on Juma. So come back on Friday. So I drove all the way back to, you know, Montgomery back to my home, and waited till Friday. And then I drove an hour and 15 minutes that Friday to go to go get my Shahada at the masjid, too. And, and it was actually pretty interesting, because I told my parents and told everyone about I was like, Man, I'm really excited. You know, all this was going to be, you know, life changing and, and people were like, Brandon, you know, because it was a winter storm. There was ice on the road, and it was below like 33 degrees. It was like 31

degrees, like below freezing. And so they're like, it's going to be dangerous on the road. And so

You know, I still went ahead did I was like, Look Satan, Satan, he doesn't want me to go every, all the forces of evil gonna stop me. I was like, I'm gonna go get my Shahada today. And so I ended up driving an hour and 15 minutes and even though like roads were closed on Houston that day, I remember that, like, every time I would try to like go somewhere, like a road that was closed with happen to just be open for just a little period of time and ended up making it exactly at the masjid right when it was time for for Salah and Hamdulillah. It was, you know, the most amazing day of the rest of my life and Hamdulillah you mentioned now that you are going to be following problem

Muhammad, what came to me was a statement authentic statement by him where he said don't do as the Christians done, had done to Jesus peace be upon him, they elevated him to a god Don't praise me like that. I'm but a messenger, a slave servant of God Almighty. So by following the last event of Mr. Prom, Muhammad, you're also following the way of Jesus who predicted Mohammed would come. And Abraham and Moses and all the other preceding messengers, so they were just the messengers who called you to connect you with the one God and they were examples of how to live your life, morally, righteously. So that's all it is. It's not choose Jesus or Muhammad because that's how people they

have an affinity, they have a love, they paint this picture in their mind of Jesus. And now they have a connection to a lot of times, it's just a fairy tale. They put in their mind, blond hair blue, if they're white, if it's another nationality, another color. And now they've painted him to be what they want an imaginary person in their mind. But it's really not what it is. It's your So explain that part that this is very important for people to know that is, it's all you're doing is now, if you love God, you're gonna love the messenger that God sent.

Yes, that's, that's 100%. The, the one thing that was made super clear on that day. And I really want to stress and emphasize how true that is that when even grazed as a Christian, when I saw the way that people talked about Jesus from where I was from 100%, he is to them in their mind, a, you know, a white Jesus, right. And I mean, I'm sure some people even thought that Jesus wore wranglers and cowboy boots and horses, right. You know, and I talked to, you know, Black Hebrew Israelites, you know, today, and they do the same thing. They see Jesus as this, you know, black man, even though we know, he was Middle Eastern, he was something in the middle, but all these people from

different groups, they want to see Jesus the way that they want to see him, right. And they want to make God you know, like them, this this, this, you know, this kind of a huge, like, they want to make him similar to that to have something that they can comprehend, right? But But Jesus and Muhammad, and Moses and Abraham, it hit me so clearly that they were just men like us, however, they're much more greater than just men, because you don't want to say, you know, just men, they were the best people ever to walk the face of this earth. They were the best of society, the most truthful, the these people, you know, people talk about Steve Jobs, and all of these influencers,

people who have completely changed the world with their inventions, and people who met them, we'll talk about how it was to be around them, if you're in the same room, they were people who just influenced people, just by being there, they had this aura, the profits were lightyears even above these kinds of people, their character was such that if you just sat with them, your character would change being around them being around the Prophet Muhammad and the Prophet Jesus, peace be upon them. They, they, they, they they lit up the room, and the way that they spoke would make you feel comfortable. These are people who are true heroes, right? People who are our real role models, and

there's no one else on the face of this earth that is like them whatsoever. However, they still ate food. And when you eat food, something's gonna have to happen to that food. Right? They're not God, they they were men who who did you know have moments where they would forget things they have, they have bodies just like us that get old. And and as such, nothing, I realized was worthy of worship, except for the uncreated Creator of the heavens in the earth. That's very deep. So you ended up let's wrap it up here, you end up with an old friend of mine Kamal and Mechi, at the masjid and you take your declaration of failure, shahada describe that that moment, what you professed, what you

truly believed you already been talking about it worshiping the Creator, not the creation, talk about this, and then we'll come to and

so after the football was over, which was the lecture then on every Friday, you have a little extra kind of like a sermon you have at church but

You know, it was really different from everyone sitting on the ground, right? And I'm like, where's all the pews you know, but it was comfortable. It was like, Okay, this is some nice carpet and it smelled really good. I was like, Man, I haven't smelled something like this before. And everyone was like, so happy and you know, happy to see me. And after it's over that he calls me up. I'm like, Oh my gosh, what's gonna happen you know, even though I already I was like, God, whatever you want, I'm gonna do it. And you know who called you who called who called you come out and shake him out. He called me up to the front to the front of the masjid because I was sitting you know, halfway in. And

I stand up and I at this point, I still don't know what I'm supposed to say no one had like, prepped me on the shahada, right, I didn't even know the English part of it. I just knew that I believed in God I believe in Muhammad was His Messenger peace be upon him, right and God was one and that Jesus was not God and all this and so he when he calls me up there, he's like, we're gonna you know, say it in, in Arabic and in English, some people do it English and in Arabic. But as soon as the words left my mouth,

Edie, I don't know how to describe it to you, everything like went went white. Like I had this experience that I was just surrounded with, with lights. And it was like washing me from the inside out. And, and the Prophet Muhammad, he talks to us about how whenever a person, you know, accepts Islam, that the all of their sins are completely forgiven from what they did before. But this was almost like a, you know, a manifestation of that. And just I, you know, had goosebumps in this euphoria that was better than any thing I'd ever drank or taken or done before in my entire life, that feeling was better than the most blissful moment times, like a million. And, and I couldn't

stop crying. And it was crazy. Every one I've been through a lot of Chahat is but everyone, the whole audience, all of the other brothers and whatnot, we're all crying together and come out and Mackey's crying. And it was it was it was it was IG. And I just, I knew in my heart after I said, the testimony of faith, which is I testify that there is no God worthy of worship, except for Allah, The God, the One True God alone. And I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of God, the moment those words came out of my mouth. These words, I knew it, it was like it was written that this was truer than even my own name. If I would have said I am Brandon, you know, the son of Todd, the son

of Alfred, like that wasn't even as true as that statement that there is no god but God like it was, there was the ultimate statement ever made in my life. And so, you know, I live by that statement now. And hamdulillah it's so powerful to hear this amazing, hence the Muslim one who submitted to the will of God. So a cowboy can also be a Muslim like you now.

What some cowboy, I tell you what the anyone can be a Muslim and this is one thing Allah subhanaw taala says and the final revelation in the Quran, will not also NACA, Ihlara Mata, Lil Alameen, we have not sent you talking about the Prophet Muhammad, except as a mercy to all of mankind and not just mankind, but all of the creation He is a mercy has been sent to even the animals to have mercy to them and to everything in existence. Right, he is the universal prophet, and it is for everyone to accept into their life and there is no difference between an autumn person who is from the Middle East or from Asia or whatever there no one is better than the Prophet sallahu. peace be upon him

said, between an Arab or a non Arab or a black and a white. They're only better in Tukwila, which means God consciousness. And that's something that only God knows what's in your heart, right. So there is no difference between any single person in Islam and it's open for anybody, no matter your background. It is not some religion for those people over this part of the world or that part of the world. But rather, no matter where you come from God wants you to submit to Him alone without partners without statues and and intermediaries and angels. We don't worship angels. We don't worship people, no matter how amazing and great and much of role models those people are. They're

still things that are created. So we tell you, as God has told us, worship the Creator alone and do not worship the creation. Brandon, thank you very much for sharing this amazing story worthless. May God Almighty Allah continue to bless you preserve you, and may so many other people benefit from this amazing story. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure. I'm very honored. I ask a lot to accept all of this from us in sha Allah, we we don't meet in this life and inshallah we'll meet in the next one. God willing. Insha Allah. Allah thank you so much, my brother, why Yak, welcome, salam, they come to look at why they come Salam rahmatullahi wa Abeta. Kathy, what

an amazing story with the Muslim cowboy starting off as a missionary and from their partying, drinking, becoming an alcoholic. And what's amazing is look, people go through so many rehabs and they end up not being able to make it they fall back to it.

But that's the beauty of this way of life Islam a gave him the fortitude to give him the strength of relying on no other superpower, no other human being when he had that choice in the AAA Alcoholics Anonymous to call upon any other person besides God, he said no. And he was calling other peoples not to call upon the messenger, the mighty messenger Jesus, or your ancestor, or this person, Buddha or this person. No, he said, Just call on God Almighty, the creator low and this is why he got guided this how you can get guided by doing this simple step. Praying like Jesus prayed. Now, like the pastor said, no, no, don't do that. Don't humiliate yourself. Oh, no, that's how you honor

yourself is by doing what Jesus did. He put his face on the ground and he went a little further. It's in the Bible, and he's fell on his face. And he prayed to himself, no, he prayed to the Creator of the heavens and earth. So why don't you start off by doing that? Do it Brandon SS did. The Muslim cowboy creator, the Creator of the heavens and earth, God Almighty Allah alone, ask for the guidance. And that is how you can fill that void in your heart. And we can get you a free gift of one made him read over and over and then cry profusely when he recognized the truth. That was the verbatim Word of God Almighty. God will give it to you for free, go to the D show.com. And if you're

in the United States, we'll go ahead and ship it to you free and that's our gift to you. Thank you very much for tuning in. Subscribe if you haven't already hit the notification bell so you don't miss exciting episodes like this. And we are so close. We got to go ahead and get the remaining for the Dean centers support us go ahead and in the description you can contribute towards the building of the de show, the first Mega Dawa center a masjid athletic facility. Go ahead and do your part be a part of this history so we can help educate the closest 300 million Americans who know nothing about this beautiful way of life that our brother here accepted and so many people are searching for

purpose. They want to know purpose and inshallah you can be a part of this work by contributing towards the building of the deen center. We'll see you next time. Until then Peace be with you. Us. Salam aleikum. Do you know anything about Islam? Now? Do you know anything about Islam now? Nothing. Do you know anything about Islam? No, I don't. You don't I don't wake up. There are over 300 million Americans that don't know what Islam is. This is why we are opening the Dean center. The first of its kind 35,000 square foot data center and Masjid to show America the beautiful message of Islam inshallah with your help and donations, we can close on the property launch nationwide, our programs

a state of the art production studio for online content and an on site dollar center to show what true Islam is. Donate right now may God Almighty Allah reward all of you