Tom Facchine – Speaking with Non-Muslims about ISLAM

			So they ruled that the Jewish merchant gets to keep the armor. And at that moment that Jewish
merchant was so impressed that he said, You know what, this is not normal. I'm gonna convert to
Islam. Thank you very much everybody for your attendance today.
		

			My name is Tom, I'm Italian American convert it converted in 2010. And I wanted to share a mix of
past and present because it's not useful to just go into the past and the history books if we don't
relate it to what we're going through today. So I wanted to share a story that happened when I first
converted, you know, being an Italian American family and an Italian American person. We like to
call people, aunts and uncles, even if we're not blood related to them. Right. So, you know, I had,
we had a lot of those. I have wired one that was we called Aunt Maria is my mom's best friend
growing up and and Merida was actually polish and she was Jewish. And I remember the first time I
		

			went over her house after I converted, and she said to me, Tommy,
		

			what does this mean? Can we still be close, because now you're Muslim, and I'm Jewish.
		

			And at the time,
		

			I didn't have as much information as I do now. But I was smart enough to say, if anything, that
should mean that we should get even closer.
		

			Because the similarities between the Islamic and Jewish faith are very, very well known. In fact,
there's an argument and it's a strong argument to be made, that the Jewish faith with its emphasis
on law and practice and ritual worship, has maybe the most similarities to our legislation, how we
live our lives in a snap.
		

			But what was in her mind that made her react that way, was something that would take me a little bit
longer to figure out, this wasn't just by us, it wasn't just the fact she watched Fox News, which
was true, but that's okay. But it's something that we see on display, every time there's an
escalation in Palestine, or in the Middle East, this idea that they've been fighting forever. When
will these people get along? These people, it's just can't they just be taught to respect one
another and love one another and respect each other's faiths. And it took me educating myself just
like it took at Merida, educating herself to understand that that's not what is going on in the
		

			Middle East and in Palestine. It is not an issue of Muslims hating Jews and Jews hating Muslims, if
that were true, then we would not see the level of opposition that we see amongst the Jewish people
for what the government and the military of Israel is doing both here in this nation, and in the
nation of Israel itself. People holding protests and demonstrations outside of Netanyahu whose house
and offices. I don't want to get too political. But the point is that if we go to the actual
religions, and the long history of these religious communities, we find that much more overlap, and
collaboration and cooperation, then we find intolerance, or violence, or antagonism. And there was
		

			one particular place in time that I was asked to speak a little bit about that. I wish I had known
about back then when I was I dropped the news on my aunt Marina. And that was in what's known as
Muslim Spain. Now Spain, is significant. Now, actually, just this morning, I don't know if anybody's
following the news. But the United States announced this sort of 10 nation coalition to go into the
Red Sea and oppose Yemen. And Spain actually pulled out this morning, I said, Wait a second, we
didn't agree to that. Spain was ruled by Muslims for about 800 years. And historians refer to most
of if not all of this time period as a common event, Sia, which has to do it refers to the
		

			relatively amicable relations between people of the three Abrahamic faiths, Christians, Muslims, and
Jews. And that's not to say, that's not to say that there weren't ever any issues. And that's not
also to say that if we were to adopt today's standards, and go back in time that we would find the
same sort of, we would find everything Kosher or everything would square, but compared to Christian
Europe, at the time, it was much safer for you to be a Jew under Muslim rule in Spain. And if you
were a non conforming Christian, of other types of denominations or confessions, outside of the
Catholic hierarchy, it was much safer for you to
		

			even be a Christian under Muslim rule in Spain at the time, so much so that when Spain was quote
unquote, unified, and the Inquisition started, and the first thing that was done was there were
proclamations that were issued to kick out and remove the first the Jews, and then the Muslims from
Spain. It was none other than the Ottoman Sultan at the time, who sent ships attempting to evacuate
Jews out of Spain and bring them to Istanbul, which is why Istanbul, even to today has a very, very
large Jewish population. So Tom baozi, the second if you're looking for the reference, he sent his
Admiral Kamal race, to escort 150,000 Jews out of Spain, and save them from the Spanish Inquisition
		

			in 1492. They were given permission to settle in the Ottoman Empire and own land, and live there.
Now, that's already a remarkable, but if you go into the text of the proclamations that so Tom
baozi, the second issued, the find the justification and the things that he said, even more
impressive, so he said that
		

			he told the Jews he addressed the Jews himself, that it was God's command, to take care of the
descendants of the prophets, Abraham and Jacob, to see that they had food to eat, and to take them
under his own protection, that they should come and settle in Istanbul, and live in peace in the
shade of the fig trees, where they should engage in free trade and own property. Now was his
proclamation in 1492. As he set his own chips on his own dime on his own dollar, for no apparent
benefit to himself,
		

			he released a proclamation. And additional proclamations are all of the European provinces of the
time, ordering them, not only to not expel the refugees coming from Spain, but to give them a
friendly and welcome reception. And he actually even went so far as to threaten anybody who treated
the Jews harshly or refused them admission into the Ottoman Empire on the way. Now, when people
asked him, for when people were in his presence, and they questioned the wisdom behind what he was
doing. He was very, very confrontational, and open minded, or sorry, he spoke, he did not mince his
words at all. He said to somebody who challenged him, he said, you ventured to call Ferdinando wise
		

			ruler,
		

			He who has impoverished his own country, and has enriched mine.
		

			Now,
		

			why this is significant. This is not just about stories from the past and the history books, we go
back to the religious texts, what the religions actually teach, we find that this type of behavior
from Sultan baozi The second is not an anomaly. It's not him just acting solo. It's not him acting
despite sort of what his religion teaches, no, in fact, he was embodying the true teachings of Islam
that go back way to the very beginning. There was a story that happened in the very first generation
of Muslims. One of the leaders, the caliphs Ali, who was a cousin of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and
blessings be upon him.
		

			He eventually after the passing of the Prophet Mohammed
		

			was the ruler of the Muslims, and he had us a coat of armor that he found was stolen from his
possession. Now he was walking through the marketplace. And what does he see in one of the stalls he
sees his coat of armor being sold
		

			by a Jewish merchant in the marketplace? Now imagine if that was you? Today, we have no pawnshops.
Basically, right. Imagine you see your watch your necklace, your car, whatever it is, turns up at
the pawn shop, you see it right in the window. He say, Hold on a minute. That's mine. Right? You
would probably raise a hue and cry and be very upset. i Lee
		

			took the Jewish man to court. He said, I'm going to sue you basically, like that's my property, and
I'm gonna get it back. So they're in court, this Jewish merchant and Ali Ali is the ruler. He's the
what we might call the king in English parlance.
		

			And the judge so it's like, alright, well, you got to have proof. How can you prove to me that this
is your armor? No, I'm just gonna take your word for it. And i Li couldn't produce any proof.
		

			And so even though he was the highest authority, he was the executive of this
		

			So of this governments and of that civilization at the time, the court ruled against them.
		

			And they said, We can't do anything for you, you don't have any proof that this is yours, we're not
just going to take your word for it.
		

			It's your claim, you got to back it up.
		

			And so they ruled that the Jewish merchant gets to keep the armor. And at that moment, that Jewish
merchant was so impressed that he said, You know what, this is not normal. I'm gonna convert to
Islam. Because nobody does this. Most people, you will find their principles only go so far as their
interests do.
		

			Either when they are low, they abandon their principles out of fear, or when they're on top, they
abandon their principles, because now they don't have to stick to them anymore. And our religion
teaches Islam teaches that you stick to your principles, whether you're the lowest of the low, or
whether you're on top, that you have to do justice to everybody, man, woman, child, Christian, Jew,
Muslim, animal, insect tree, whatever it is, you better do justice to that, that person or that
thing, because God is watching.
		

			And it doesn't have anything to do with your position, with your power, or with your status in
society.
		

			And we see how the importance of this and not abandoning your principles when you're on top, we see
it in two stories that we share our traditions, both the Muslim tradition with the Christian Jewish
tradition, I'll share these at our end.
		

			One of those stories is a story of Joseph, which is my middle name.
		

			There's an entire chapter in the Koran named after Joseph.
		

			And in the beginning of that chapter, God says that his story is the best of stories are among the
best of stories, because there are so many amazing things that go on. In the story of Joseph.
		

			You all know the basic plotline, I'm not going to rehash it here. But one of the important things is
that there is jealousy in between justice brothers and Him.
		

			And God has a plan for Joseph. And that plan is very difficult. He has to be thrown into the well he
has to be accused of this and that he sold into slavery. He's tempted and resists the temptation to
be seduced by a powerful woman, he ends up in jail, he had to interpret the dreams at the very end
of the story. He finds himself in a position where he can take his revenge.
		

			He's got his brothers and his brothers who wronged him that sold them in the slavery, that were
jealous of him for no good reason. And now they're hungry. And they're coming to him for grain and
he's the one who's in charge of grain for the whole area. He has the ability to punish them. And
what does he do? He sticks to his principles. And he is fair, even if he shows them a lesson and
says, Yeah, it's me. It's Joseph and he kind of connives to give their father and the whole family
to move into Egypt. He says, He recognizes who is true enemy was and in our version of the of the
story in the Koran, he says that the real enemy is the devil. It wasn't you, you guys were tricked
		

			for a bit by the devil. But my real enemy is the devil, not you, and I forgive you all, and he gave
them their due.
		

			And a second story. Another one that we share is a story of Moses, who by the way, is the most
frequently referenced story in the Quran.
		

			And if you're to go through all of the prophets that feature in the Koran, the story of Moses takes
up the most space takes up the most time.
		

			And is highlighted the most multiple chapters of the Quran, dedicated to telling the story of Moses
at different parts or in or in its entirety.
		

			When Moses is a young man,
		

			he's raised up in the Pharaoh's household.
		

			He comes across two people fighting.
		

			One of the people is from his tribe, children of Israel,
		

			and the other person is from the tribe of Pharaoh.
		

			And so the person from his tribe sees Moses and calls on him to help me with this helped me out
here, I need backup.
		

			Moses enters into the fray on the assumption that the person who's part of his tribe is right. He's
going to come and help out his brother.
		

			Lo and behold, it only a little bit of time passes by until he realizes that the person that was
from his tribe was actually in the wrong
		

			and so the same thing repeats the next
		

			aid, he finds another altercation the same individual involved with somebody else from the tribe of
Pharaoh. Again, he calls on Moses for help. And this time Moses says, Ah, I've learned the lesson
here. You're the troublemaker. This is an entire paradigm for us as Muslims, truth over tribe. Truth
over tribe, you stick to your principles no matter who it is. If it's right, it's right. Whether
it's you doing it your brother doing it your tribe member, your, your homie, someone from your gang,
someone from your crew. What's right is right, and what's wrong is wrong. So when we look into
situations historically, why would the Jews want to go to a Muslim territory and settle? Why were
		

			some of it? I think Sheikh Murad is going to go more into detail into Palestine. Specifically, why
were some of the Christians of Palestine in the Holy Land happier when the Muslims were in charge?
Then when the some of the Christians were in charge? Why were the Christians sacking Istanbul,
Constantinople on the way to the Holy Land during their crusades? Because in Islam, we have this
principle that you stick to your principles, you give everybody a fair shake. We don't just use our
principles to get into power then punish people. We believe in establishing justice for everybody.
That is our legacy. And that's something that I wanted to share with you today. Thank you very much
		

			for your kindness and your attention and Maalox up