Wasim Kempson – The Knowledge – Leadership In Islam

			Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You know
what I mean? Why Muslim people, they use the carpet when they pray. I mean, for example, for us,
we're going to church. Okay? I know, for most Muslim people they pray inside the mosque. But I mean,
every time I see Muslim people pray with the carpet. No. I mean, for us is like a bit strange
because sure, in the church, you have a chair, you know, is something like comfortable as well?
Sure, sure. With the carpet, I mean, even outside, they put the concrete in the floor, and then
decree otherwise the they don't want to pray. So yeah. Well, the Muslim when they pray, they pray
		

			five times a day, they're required to pray on
		

			a clean floor, or clean floor. And if you go outside, maybe you're not sure what you're praying on.
So they put a map there. So you can be assured that you're going to pray on a pure and clean
surface, okay. Although it is not a must. Some people think I have to put a prayer mat down and pray
on the prayer. So you can pray even without carpet. Pray on the prayer mat. Okay. You don't have to.
You don't have to if it is
		

			a clean area. Yeah. Then it's okay. You don't need a mat. I don't need to pray on the mat itself.
Okay. But you know, sometimes people they feel comfortable praying on mats, but it's not a monster
as long as you're praying on something which is clean. Okay, then it's not a must. It's okay. And
before pray you, you clean yourself. I mean, you take a shower. What do you because you've noticed
that have you? Sorry, you've noticed you've seen this? Yeah. Yeah. What we do as muslims before we
pray, we perform. We call we'll do evolution. How sorry? Evolution in English. Okay. Okay. And this
is what's something strange if you go to the Bible. Yeah. And one in one of the gospels that says
		

			that. When the Jesus he wanted to pray, he asked for water. And he washed his hands and he washed
his feet. Yes, yeah. So it is something that, you know, Jesus, he used to do, and Muslims, we used
to do it as well. And he says that Jesus, he frustrated he was bowing down. Yeah, right. The only
ones who do that. So we pray like Jesus prayed in the Bible. So there's a lot of cinema
similarities, you know, Islam didn't bring something new. Yes. Yeah. There are some similar. Yeah,
it's not new. It is a continuation of the message. Okay. So, for example, for Christian people, you
know, we have the Pope, here, Rome. Yeah. You know, it's like, the center of the Christianity. I
		

			mean, okay. And Muslim people who, who they have I mean, they have something else.
		

			You have the head of the church, isn't it? He's the pope in the Vatican. Yeah. Yeah. We don't have
this kind of system in Islam. No, we don't have like the head of
		

			the head of
		

			the mosque. Okay. We have, you know, you have different countries at the moment. You have the heads
of state, you have different countries and things like that. We don't have that kind of setup where
there's one person who's in charge of everything. We don't have that. Okay. I mean, even for
example, I don't talk about the Vatican. Yeah. But every single church in every single church, we
have the priest, yes. Priest is like, yeah, the person is celebrate the mass. What's about the most
Yeah, we do have a priest or something like that, but he's called an imam. Imam Ahmed. Okay. He's
like, in charge of the of what we call in Arabic, a masjid a mosque. Okay. So he would be, you know,
		

			he'd be in charge of the prayers. He'd be in charge of, like, you know, delivering sermons and
giving talks, and sometimes counseling.
		

			So, you know, we do have that somebody's in charge of, of the, of the mosque. So we have that
similarity, if you'd like, in that sense. Okay. But I mean, for example, for any reason, if the Imam
doesn't can celebrate the, pre the time of the great, I mean, if he's not, if you see someone else
can do the same, or yeah, technically, because we pray five times a day. That if the Imam happened
to be not there, yeah, yeah, somebody else can take his place. But yeah, you have to study for be
Imam. Well,
		

			I mean, every people can be an Imam, or well, you know, usually they would choose somebody who is
who's capable of running a mosque, you're not gonna choose anybody, because there's an important
roles and important job. So you should choose the right person. And usually, they would have some
form of study, they would have had some education concerning they have certain skills, so they can
deal with their community. It's very important. But if we are outside, and we want to pray and you
want to choose the person who's going to lead the prayer, he is called Imam as well. He will lead
the prayer that can be anybody and even if they're small child and they know how to pray they can
		

			lead the prayer as well. That's okay. Yeah, about the child for example, even they, I mean when you
have to about the
		

			Obviously, when you have to start to, to cover yourself, I mean, about a year year, after 10 years
old, I mean, when is 1112? There is like, age? Yeah, there's no set age. But Islamically when both a
male and female, yeah, when they reach a certain age, or a certain time in their lives, I should say
that they are considered to be adults, okay. And this may differ, it's like when they reached the
age of puberty, when they become morally responsible for themselves, then they were, for example, as
you've asked a girl, she'd wear the hijab, some girls maybe at the age of 11, maybe the age of 13,
when they, you know, they reached adulthood, that they wear the hijab, I mean, when they're younger,
		

			I mean, sometimes, you know, they do like to wear it, because they see their mum wearing it, and
they want to follow their mother, you see, sometimes you find little girls, they wear it as well,
they don't have to, but you know, they, they like to, because they see them, I'm unable to follow
their mum. And then eventually, because they're Muslims, when, when they reach the certain age that
they will have to wear it, they're used to it. It's not suddenly she has to wear the hijab, you
know, you get used to it when they're young and things like that. So it becomes easy for them. It
becomes natural for them. This is an important thing. You know, another things very, very strange is
		

			like, for example, Christian people have they used to have in the in the church, they cruise the
picture of, you know, for example, Jesus Christ, the Prophet, ba, I mean, for I know Muslim people,
they don't have these kinds of things. I mean, you don't wear like, a course that's like Christian
people, or I know even inside the most, they don't have any any picture about God or Jesus Christ,
or the other prophet, or Mohammed. So this is another things that is quite strange for us.
		

			Yes, what we have in Islam is things which protect us or keep us away from any form of idol worship,
okay, then either worship comes in many different ways. Because worship comes in form, that person
might put their trust into something other than God. So when they put across around themselves, the
person puts their trust into that cross, okay? Or they start to think that this has special powers.
This everything that is good is from Allah is from God. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we have these kinds of
things. Yeah. So to protect ourselves from that, we don't have imagery pictures,
		

			and the wearing of amulets, yeah, it's all prohibited in Islam, because this is a path that has been
taken by, you know, previous people that led them into
		

			idol worship and forced worship and to, you know, to take their worship, because very important
Islam, that you have a pure worship only to Allah alone, not to associate any partners. So anything
which may
		

			change that is prohibited.
		

			And all of these are good cause is the correct correct thing to do? Because you want to ensure that,
you know, when you worship God, when you worship Allah, it's done in the correct way.
		

			So, for example, if you do something wrong, like seeing, you know, something that after, you don't
feel good, for example, because some people that go to, to the priest, you know, confession, yeah,
confession, right, sorry. I don't, I mean, you, you, you do the same with a mom or anything is when
a person has done wrong and they commit sins, and we'll we will do things wrong.
		

			For Muslim, we can go directly to God at any time. How I mean, so you, for example, in your prayer,
you know, when you're sitting at home, you know, you say, oh, Allah forgive me, oh, God, forgive me.
I've done wrong, you know, I made a mistake. And right there and then if you're sincere, in your
true and your repentance, you know, God will forgive you. Because God is the One Who forgives you.
There's no need for me to go to a priest to to confess my sins. And then he says, You're right, your
penance, or your explanation is to say, you know, five Hail Marys and
		

			10 Glory be to the Father, I remember I used to do that once upon a time, when I was a Catholic, go
to the priest, and you know, confess my sins, but in Islam, we don't have that. We have a direct
liberal, direct relationship to Allah. We don't go through any human being.
		

			Okay, this is what I found very special. But I don't need to go to a human being to confess my sins.
I can confess my sins to God, straightaway. And because of His mercy, He can forgive me straightaway
if I'm sincere. Okay, there's a very special relationship we have with God. Yeah, personal
relationship. It's not through any human being or anything from this earth. It's directly and
directly no to Allah subhanaw taala. That's
		

			it. I mean, you said before that you believe in Jesus right. So
		

			what about Christmas, for example, mean Muslim people to celebrate Christmas?
		

			or you don't do it? Sure. I mean, you know, we have to distinguish between two things. Yeah, you
have Muslims and Muslims do a lot of things. Okay, but not necessarily what Muslims do is from
Islam. Okay. Likewise, you know, there's many, many Christians, but not necessarily everything that
Christians do is from Christianity. The two different things sometimes.
		

			So in Islam, you know, we wouldn't celebrate in Islam, we don't celebrate the birth of Jesus is not
a celebration for us.
		

			Because we don't know when he was born. We don't know. So you how can you celebrate something that
you don't know the date off? So setting the ray is celebrating his birthday as such is not a
celebration in Islam. So if some Muslims, they get involved in they do that. That's their choice.
But it's not something Islam, you know, commits us to do.
		

			Okay, so it's very important that you distinguish between what Muslims do and what Islam is.
		

			And I would encourage yourself, because, you know, you see, you're very good questions. You seem
interested? Yeah. I mean, I have a lot of questions that look at Islam. Don't look at the actions of
Muslims. Yeah, at least Yeah. Because, you know, sometimes human beings are not the best example.
Yeah, even about, you know, the terrorist people, you know, now all the TV or the media speak about
terrorists, they just kind of people that kill other people in name of Allah. I mean, that's what
kind of things have to distinguish between the people and the religion? Just because they are they
say that they are Muslim? Doesn't mean that it is yeah, that's what I mean, they say they are
		

			Muslims. So I mean, who kill other people in Mr. MALAMI. That's why.
		

			Another important point is that
		

			there's a lot of focus on what Muslims do. Okay, when you know, in many other countries, which you
can consider their terrorist acts as well, that they may happen to be Christian. But nobody says
that this is Christianity and Christianity is a dangerous, or that this action is done by a Jewish
person, that the Judaism is dangerous. Nobody does that. Yeah. People separate it. For some reason.
You know, maybe the media, they don't want to separate between Muslims and Islam. It's all one
thing. Yeah. So it's very important that you know, you have to use your own mind to separate the
actions of people and the religion itself.
		

			This is why I did when I had many questions. I looked at what the religion said. Because maybe the
people they fall short and they make mistakes. Yeah, this is very important, because I didn't catch
your name there. Sorry, I didn't catch your name. What was your name? Francesco Francesco, we've
arrived at Putney bridge, okay. Okay, take care of yourself. Thank you, man. You never know we might
bump into each other I get.
		

			Thank you.
		

			Boom, boom,
		

			boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,
		

			boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,
		

			bump, bump, bada bada boom, boom.