Why I Accepted Islam
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Hello
Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa Salaam Alaikum peace be unto you. Welcome to the show, which is
helping you understand.
And we have a special guest on the show today.
Thank you for coming.
I thank you for coming out How you doing? It's my pleasure. It's good, everything's fine. I'm traveling around and stopped off in Chicago and found you under the law. So we brought you onto the show today. We want to ask you a few questions. We heard that you weren't always milonga, have you? How long ago did you set this? I became Muslim 15 years ago at the age of 20. At the age of 20. Yeah. And before this, you were I was a Christian. Were you a practicing Christian? Not really. But I was raised in that environment. I was somewhat of a practicing Christian as a Christian, would you believe? I believed in the Trinity. And you know what this was? Yeah, definitely. Moses. You know if
you ever hear the Bible, yeah. My grandfather was a preacher. He founded a Christian cottage. So okay, as far as knowledge, I had a lot of knowledge of Christianity. So you believed in the Trinity? Yeah. The whole nine yards. Original Sin. Okay.
Yeah, the Lamb of God, the whole nine yards. Okay. So somebody was saying, like, man, from a point of view of literacy, I was very literate. Yeah, this is my issue is I didn't believe it. So I didn't practice. So could somebody say, look, this brother didn't know his Bible. This brother didn't know.
I went to church three times a week, three times a week. Yeah. Okay. So at what point in your life did you make a turn? I would say early on as a youngster when I first started learning about the concept of the Trinity, and just not being able to digest that God could be three or one of three, that there was a Lamb who had to be sent to die for my sins. This is lamb. You're talking about Jesus, Jesus, when I had studied even in, in the church, basically the Old Testament, that God Almighty is the one who forgives sins, and he's the all powerful, magnificent, awesome God. So I was like there two gods. There's a God of the Old Testament. And there's a new Pauline type God, which
appears in the in passages in the New Testament. So this started to not make sense to you. Yeah, immediately. It didn't make sense to me. As soon as I heard it, it didn't make sense. Did you go up to your higher ups, some of the priests, I went to my mother and I asked her, you know, we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, He died for our sins. He's the sacrificial lamb. She said, Yes. And I said, and that's the key. That's the key to salvation. Baptism is the key to salvation. And she said, Yes. And I said, Well, what about the prophets who preceded him who didn't believe in Him? They didn't. You know, they didn't you know, Abraham prayed to one God, Moses prayed to one God,
Jesus Himself didn't, didn't ever acknowledge that he was God, he prayed to God Himself. So what's the deal? And she couldn't explain it to me. Okay, now, from here. What role did you start to lead? Did you leave Christianity? Did you go and start to investigate? all that? I mean, most definitely, we can say all religions have a lot of beneficial things about Yeah, especially in the area of character and so on. So anyone who turns his back from any tradition, religious tradition, is it gonna it's gonna collapse ethically, for the most part, so I wanted to kind of a gang lifestyle, hip hop lifestyle drugs, or DJ or DJ Yeah, DJing and so on and so forth. And became really immersed into
that that subculture at that time, hip hop was definitely a subculture wasn't you know, like, you see it now everywhere. So tell me this okay. So we got away from the concept of of God being a trinity. Okay, this didn't make sense. And the whole thing was a difficult because you had a one way ticket, a ticket now, as Christians believe if I take Jesus as my Lord and Savior is finished, I got a free ride. How is some for some people it's hard to dis attend because it's like a lotto ticket. No, no, no doubt that it was a tough decision to make theologically because I was raised that way for so long. So I actually took three years to become I didn't become Muslim in in like, you know,
in a fly by night thing, I sat down and read the poor and read a few books about it. How'd you get a hold of the Quran? I went to the library and checked it out. But was there something because was there a stigma at at that time, like there is today about Islam, that again, because of hip hop, I was pretty culturally literary. You know, I knew what the Quran was by listening to hip hop. So I knew that it was who Muslims and I just wanted to go read something just, you were certain there was always a feeling in the streets that Muslims were right.
There was a feel unfortunately that's changed now because many Muslims are engaged.
In bad things, yeah, in all areas, especially in the bad neighborhoods where they're selling pork and beer poison to people, that image has been kind of hurt. But in those days, we because of Malcolm X, specifically in this conversion, we saw Muslims as like our last anchor for, like salvation and to get ourselves correct. We always said, Look, man, if you want to get yourself correct, go with the Muslims over there. Yeah, just straighten you out. Uh huh. So this What happened? You wanted to get straightened out? Are you looking to get straighten out or I mean, it was kind of a mess. I had success as far as material success, but internally, I was very empty. So I
was, you know, asking myself why do you feel depressed? Why do you feel sad? If you have, you know, girls, the money to DJ in the clubs, the Bloods, the gang I belong to? Everything is going well. But why internally? Do you feel this emptiness? And then I realized that the only way to quench that spiritual thirst was to race and discover who the creator was? Can God Be a man? Is that possible for God to be a man? No, not at all. Why is that? Because God is unlike his creation, if we make God like his creation, will start to warp is what worship is creation. But the one who has the right to be worshipped has to be unique, different than everything else, he can be like his creation, because
Allah says mccrane wollemi, akula, Hakuna does nothing like God, you cannot make God's image. That's why in the Old Testament, it says do not make my image Don't try to make the image of God. So if we make him creation, the first color his question is, excuse me. The first question is, what color is he? What does he look like? So you go to church, for example, you see, Ricky Martin is God, you go to another church, it's, it's, you know, very white, you go to another church, and it's Axl Rose, who's God? So when we make God a man, we immediately create injustice in society by making one man better than another man. And tell me now, you said that God can't be a man.
That's quite simple. And Islam, it clearly differentiates God from his creation. Okay, how about God having a son? Can God have a son? No, he cannot. Because the same argument applies if he has a son, that makes him like his creation, then what color was the sun? What did he look like? What was the shape? What language did he speak? Okay, so immediately when we throw that into the mix, we allow other human beings to be in just two other human beings. That's the whole doctrine of Sham that you see in the Old Testament where people say that the black man is cursed, or the white man is cursed, because they were the sons of Noah. And then Jesus came, and this led basically to some, you know,
some very sick ideologies and philosophies. A few more points, and then we'll come to a close tell us what is Islam? But before that, real quick, you mentioned the word Allah. What is this for someone who's never heard this term along? What does this mean? Allah is the Arabic word for God. And it's a little bit different than the English word because it cannot be given a feminine tense or a plural tense, you just say a law you can say a lot like a woman or laws with an S or an S. And also it means the absolute unique possessor of attributes and qualities, which nothing is even remotely like him. Unique, awesome in his in his power, extremely merciful. This is Allah is one who
has the right to be worshipped. The name itself means the one who has the right to be worshipped. It is right because we see people worshipping things all the time rather than worshipping drugs, worshipping cars, worshipping girls worship and famous in their bodies. When we work out you see autumn guys looking in the mirror is lifting weights. Now you didn't change man. There's not that much blood being pumped into your muscles right now. But the idea of worship is innate to the human being we've been created to worship. So if we don't worship the creator will worship something else, and that leads to destruction. So Allah The name is the one who has the right to be worshipped
alone. subhana wa Taala it makes perfect sense. Tell us what does Islam say about this crucifixion? And this, someone dying for your sin? Number one, we respect other religions and when we talk about them, we shouldn't be rude or aggressively now. Allah says what so bernadina there are many left in the Quranic says, You are forbidden to insult other people's God. Absolutely. So when we're talking about this is this for the sake of information? But of course, as you know, the Quran clearly states for malerkotla whoo, whoo hoo what I can show that they did not crucify Jesus. They did not. They did not fulfill their dream of crucify, but it was only an image or a likeness of Jesus. So we do
not believe that he was crucified he was raised to the heavens, peace be upon him and he will be sent back not as a prophet or the Son of God but as a human being and as a member of the Muslim community toward the end of time. What about this original sin or someone dying for your sins, we believe in original goodness.
Rather, we don't believe in original sin, we're not going to give a murderer an excuse for killing somebody, we're not going to give a madman who goes out and harms people and molest little children. Recently, I saw a man who killed a nine year old girl. That's why terrorism and Islam is forbidden. It's forbidden to kill people. Those people could not use as a as an excuse that they were born into Original Sin. We say no, you're born into original goodness, what you do with yourself. And there's a book now by a guy named Mark Hauser from the University of from from Harvard, called the moral minds. And he says, Every human being is equipped with what with a natural moral compass, which
leads them to be good people, if they if they develop that. So we don't believe in original sin. You know, if you owe money, and I owe money, Hey, you got to take care of your own your own debt, I have to take care of my own debt. It's not fair to blame you for my debt that will be injustice. And God is not unjust. Yes, we can go on and on with all these. We're just trying to hit some points to give you a beautiful taste about Islam. Tell us Brother, what is so unique about Islam because we hear that so many people, women are coming to Islam to be more demand is so
what's so unique about this one thing is, first of all, the propaganda or the negative actions of Muslims out there create in people's minds, the nightmare image of what Muslims are and who Muslims are. But once I get close to our community, they you know, they eat some chicken bones with this man hang out with us. They see how we are they see that we're, you know, people from the community, we're here working for the good of America, we're not here to harm anyone to do anything wrong. It kind of flips them out. And that causes them to say, Man, these people actually really nice, decent people are very loving people, concern people, because Islam is pushing us not only to be good to
our Lord. But the other important aspect of Islam is to be good to immigration, no matter who they are once a Jewish man, his funeral passed by the prophet as relayed by emammal body, and the Prophet stood up. And the campaign said, How could you stand up? He said, this is a soul. This is a human being. So when people see that we're not the terrorist, you know, archaea type this on TV, the madman is gonna jump on a plane and do something wrong or harm someone. You know, they're shocked. And then they want to learn and they see man they believe in Abraham, they believe in Joseph, they believe in Mary they believe in in David and Solomon, I didn't know that, that they only believe in
some Arab guy, you know, and then they don't want to kill us. They, you know, they don't hate the white men. So they see all of the true things about Islam, the simplicity of Islam, to worship God to pray to be good to others. And they fall for it, man because they say, wow, this is the truth. So these things touched my heart. And I already know these things. I can imagine someone who's really got a sincere heart and open mind. I mean, this just goes down easy. Does Islam had anything to do with terrorism? Not at all. Islam does not have anything to do with terrorism. And we we categorically denounce without any any reservation or acts of indiscriminate violence all over the
world, in America, or in any foreign land. Any any act that's committed against innocent civilians and innocent people is completely forbidden in this stuff. Tell us what the prophet said that a woman who killed a cat, she tortured her cat like now we have michael vick, right? Nobody's in trouble for torturing dogs. I was thinking the Prophet told the woman who tortured the cat like the woman who has this quality, she doesn't repeat, she's gonna go to *, if that's the case of a cat, Brother, what about human beings who live around us every day? You said, Prophet a few times. And then he said, peace be upon him. So there's some word for someone's like prophet who they taught him
about this prophet. Can you explain what the prophet Mohammed and all of the prophets, we believe had the same message when the dismissal of greed he died? He was alive in the seventh century after Jesus peace be upon this has nothing to do with Elijah Muhammad or anything on Mohammed? No, none of this No. x, Muhammad and 15th? None None of us. This is 1400 years ago, 1500 years ago, what did this man bring, and what did he call the people to he brought a mercy as as as mentioned the Quran, he was sent as a mercy to humanity. And he brought justice to people. He brought equality to people, he brought the message of one God to the people. And he brought the idea that in order to be a good
worshipper of God, you have to be also good to the people. Both of these are combined. That's why he said Seneca Amen, as Seneca mahalo can the best of you and faith are the best of you and character. So he didn't just bring the fairest cynical understanding of religion, but he revived the message of all the prophets to serve God and serve the people around you. If you can fulfill both of those, you got to make me so that's the main message of Islam to worship your Lord with all your heart one god, yes. And to do good to the people and be good to the people. And
we're gonna cut out just a couple more questions. Tell us now for the person that Okay, he's born Christian. He's born in this faith or whatever. Like I said, we're trying to educate the people because there's a lot of distortion out there about Islam, but tell us for the persons as you know what I'm going to take a little bit from the Christianity I'm going to take a little bit from what i think you know, is the best way to
God is this acceptable because you see that a lot of what you call this, if you prescribe organized really I don't want to do for any organized religion. If you prescribe ecumenical, if you prescribe your own religion for yourself, then you became God, you become a God, your God because you're the one dictating what's right and what's wrong. But you have to submit, you have to admit, look, there's certain things that I just don't understand and don't know. And I need to rely on a higher power to teach me how to surfing. But if I go to the restaurant, right, if I go to the restaurant and make up my own menu, I'm not gonna get served. I might, I might say, I want to look Hey, I want
some catfish, deep fried with some broccoli and some rice and they don't serve it. So I'll be sitting there all night long with an empty plate. So although I might have visualized in my mind something is not reality. Reality is you have to submit to what's on the menu. And what's on the menu. Here is what God Almighty has prescribed because he knows better he knows better than we do. We have to forfeit that. Allah Ya. Allah wa t Fabiana Khurana says this Gardiner no one knew about you, but your situation he knows what's better for you. So we had to forfeit the desires brother into arrogance and submit ourselves to our Creator and that's not easy. Check this out. Another
thing that's not easy all these religions claiming this is the way how do you get someone away from all this? And how do you get someone to to acknowledge that this is actually a religion, a way of life I like to call it from decrease I have no problem with someone compare religions go ahead and compare that's fine. Go Go and read. But for us, we say very clearly, number one, the message of Islam is clear and easy for anyone to understand. Number two, the message of Islam with regards to other people is very clear and easy to understand. Number three, if someone researches the Quran, researches the statements of the Prophet they will not find one inaccuracy in the Quran, or one
inaccuracy in the statements of the Prophet peace be upon him. And that right there is enough to lead you you don't have in the front the gospel according to this person and the gospel according to this person. This is the book of Allah
benefits before we call we want to know people want to know what's up if I'm going to submit I'm gonna give up all the women and all the good times you know, I'm young I'm strong and I'm ready to go. But now you're talking about submitting and you know, leaving all these good times. What's in it for me in this life in here? Are those really good times? That's the first question. We used to come home drinking one thought we had some good times. Got in right at 5am. You know, the club closed it to felt like a wreck. Yes. Okay. And then later on in your life, you start getting sick because of how you lived your life. So number one, are those really good times are those just perceived good
times. There's a woman who goes to the club and gets used by a different guy every week. This is really a good time. A woman who walks around with no clothes on and people are salivating over her. She's a piece of hamburger meat in the window. Is this really a good time to look at Britney Spears look at Lindsay Lohan look at the finest women so so so called finest women in America b&c look at their lifes, they're cracking in front of our very eyes go into drug rehab, having problems with the chin, and we pray to God that God will help them to be good mothers. But we're seeing in front of our eyes, those people who have had the best designs are those really the best of times the worst of
times. So let's ask ourselves, are these really the best in terms of we make our desires and our passions that God was not the best of times? So by overcoming your desires and gaining some self discipline, you gain the feeling that you never had before, of serving your freedom for the person now that is penetrated his heart. And he's like, what do I do now? How does someone become a Muslim? how easy it is to get in contact with someone but before they said, all he has to do is say, a bear witness that there's no god but God and Muhammad is the Messenger of the Arabic, a shadow and
the comments for our for our visit. I just want to encourage people to get to know their Muslim neighbors. Spend some time with us. And you'll see in sha Allah God willing, a good good communities, a very, very beneficial community for the people here in America. And may God bless. Brother, I like to thank you so much
for your for your efforts. Thank you. We hope to see you again on the show. I like to thank everybody that's tuned in. Stay tuned for another episode next week on the show.
You
know God
receives his messenger