Wasim Kempson – The Knowledge – Role Of Jesus In Islam

			Boom, boom, boom,
		

			boom, boom, boom,
		

			boom, boom,
		

			boom, boom, boom,
		

			boom, boom,
		

			boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
		

			Hey, what can I take you to Hammersmith? Hammersmith? Okay, it shouldn't take too long.
		

			You have an accent there. You're not from these pots. No. Well, like I've been here for a while. But
from Paris from Paris. Oh, come over. Yeah.
		

			Good. Good. Have you ever been there? I haven't. No. There was an incident in Paris a few weeks ago.
How was it now? You know, given the family that it's a bit it's a bit tough. It's, it's been 10
cent? Yeah, that's the right word. Ah, yeah, shame. What happened is way better. Yeah, I know, it's
a lot of different a lot of violence that's going on right now. It's quite bad. Yeah.
		

			What do you think about it? Well, you know, it's, it's very unfortunate that, you know,
		

			you know, in Paris and, and other places around the world where, you know, people don't feel safe
and always very, very sad.
		

			And it's, it's unnecessary.
		

			When you and it's unfortunate, you know, because it's done in
		

			western in the name of Islam. And, you know, Islam is very far from that's got nothing to do with
that. But do you know much about Islam? Well, I'm a Muslim myself. You are? Yeah.
		

			About the ability to study a little bit if you like,
		

			you probably know a lot more than me. Yeah. But many people, you know, they misunderstand Islam,
they look at the actions of people. And they think that's what Islam is. Yeah. So anything to do
with Islam is like, you know, shock horror. You know, this is something dangerous and something that
we, you know, we need to stay away from when in fact, Islam is not like that at all. And people are
hijacking, you know, the, the message or word, or the religion itself to serve their own
		

			their own causes.
		

			It's not new. It's not new. It's something that people have done, you know, throughout many
centuries in different religions and different ideologies. They use something to try and push and
push another shot. And there are a message I said,
		

			Fine. I know a little bit about the Prophet Muhammad. And a bit of the history and I know, I don't
know if you could answer my questions, but
		

			doesn't it? Isn't it that he participated in a couple of wars himself?
		

			He did. Yeah. Yes, he did.
		

			So
		

			so how is violence? How is violence looked upon? Yep. And violence? Yes. It was part of Muhammad's
life. How is it?
		

			How does it participate? Yeah, sure, is a participant in modern life as well. You know, when, when I
was studying the life of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.
		

			I looked at from a number of different perspectives, I looked at from an Islamic perspective, I
Muslim writers and Muslim historians, and how they documented his life. And there's also non
Muslims, you know, they have no vested interest into that they're not Muslims to praise the Prophet
Muhammad. And there's a number of
		

			autobiographies written, one of them written by Karen Armstrong, actually, and it's very, very good.
It's about the life of the prophet Muhammad. And it explains from a very kind of
		

			neutral position, about really his message, and what he propagated, and yes, he was involved in some
wars. But the wars weren't there, you know, on a kind of expansion, kind of taking over lands
purpose, that wasn't the objective. Many of the times it was self defense, that the fact that the
Muslims were attacked, in the cities that they were in. And whenever they went out to
		

			call people to Islam,
		

			the option was given there to invite them to Islam, you know, peace, no war, and so many when people
refused, and people took took up arms against Muslims, then, in fact, violence was,
		

			you know, that took place. On top of that, whenever there was, if you'd like a war, they're very,
very strict regulations, very strict guidelines as to how Muslims are to interact with the opponent.
Things like, you know, you're not allowed to how many women how many children to hire many religious
clergy from the opposite
		

			religion if you'd like not to cut down any trees not to harm any of the environment, very, very
strict regulations. And this is something which
		

			only in the 1940s when the UN the late 1940s, when the UN was established, that laws like this, and
the declaration of the human rights, yeah, but they started to implement laws like that, where Islam
had these things prior to this more than 1400 years and a lot of people know them. Another thing I
understand about Islam is essentially it
		

			Message of Peace. That's right to give. Give yourself that's right. For the peace of the world. My
right. Yes, Islam wants to bring about peace. He doesn't want to bring about warfare. And it's, uh,
you know, the famous false statement that Islam was spread by the sword is it couldn't be any more
wrong. Yeah, you know, if you go to Malaysia, or Indonesia, which Indonesia is the biggest, or the
largest populated Muslim country in the world, more than 100 million Muslims that they embraced
Islam, because of business transactions from the people of Yemen, there was no sword at all. They
just saw the integrity, the good behavior of Muslims, and they used to question them as to use it,
		

			why don't you never cheat? Why do you never deceive, and that they will inform them and say that
we're Muslims. And we are bound by the word that we give to people. Our word is our bond. And we
know that we will be judged ultimately, by God, in the transactions we do. So we need to be very
honest. So the people of those areas were impressed as to the How truthful Muslims were, and their
business transactions. And now, of course, you find there's millions and millions of Muslims in that
area. So the fact that you know, or the notion that Islam was spread by the sword is completely
false. And all you need to do is just barely scratched the surface, just look a little bit, and you
		

			will find it, you will find the truth here you find because it's easy just to throw in a very simple
statements. And that's what what people remember, when you look at the newspaper, or you read a news
caption, that's what stays in your mind. But is it true? Only when you start studying these things?
Do you think you know, that's not the case at all?
		

			But so,
		

			what do you do you think the truth of Islam has developed a bit or? Or how,
		

			apart from media or, or whatever, how, like, the the truth, or what the belief truth of this
violence is coming from? Yeah, you know, example, like, what is the modern significance of like a
jihad or Yeah, or what is their? Their comparison? What are they're trying to say? Because I agree
with you, like, I already know that violence is not really part of the religion or like, it's right.
It's, it's not to like, give violence. That's why I mean, another false statement that religion
brings about war, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't bring about war, whether that's kind of that's
kind of a weird one, because there's been a lot of wars.
		

			And if you look, if you look, well, that's true, I mean, to some extent, but if you look over the
past, the 20th century, for example, that's how many wars were actually
		

			were based upon religion, World War One, World War Two were not religiously based. Okay, the Vietnam
War, okay, the Korean War, all of these wars, the Cold War, it's not religious based. In fact, this
is politically motivated politics. It's about countries expanding their lands got nothing to do with
religion. So it's a false claim to say that, you know, religion is the cause of wars, if you just
look at the 20th century, where more people died in this century, more than any other century, in
the history of mankind. None of those wars were based upon religion. Rather, they were based upon
political interests, whether it was democracy versus communism, or the like. Now, what you mentioned
		

			about jihad, you know, Islam is a great civilization. It's not just something exists in in mosques,
few mosques around the world, you is one of the great civilizations that exists on this earth. So
therefore, like any great civilization, it is a nation of people, that they have guidelines about
how they will live and how they will exist. You know, there were civilizations that existed before
like the Persians or the Romans, or even the Greeks, for them to remain here as a civilization. They
had terms and conditions, and how they would interact with other nations. There were times how would
you behave with people in times of peace? How would you deal with other nations that times of war.
		

			Similarly, Islam, being a great civilization has terms and conditions, how you will deal with other
nations at times of peace, that you will have agreements, you will have times when you will have
trade and so on and so forth in a peaceful way. And then, of course, there are Trump's times when
		

			when there's war,
		

			when the nation is maybe attacking you how you're going to deal with that. This, if you like, is
called a jihad. It's called a struggle, because the word jihad means a struggle. How is it that
we're going to defend ourselves? We have a civilization we have the right to exist. We have our own
borders, if you like, We're a nation that exists. We have rights and you know, and hope and
regulations that we want to uphold.
		

			So with the jihad, it's not just, you know, these.
		

			Sometimes these mad mullahs, you know, with sword, some horseback running around trying to cut the
heads of people. As far from the truth, it's got nothing to do with that. It's a form of engagement
with another people if they're aggressive towards Muslims, and then you have the internal struggle.
A jihad is to, you know, to overcome your own lowly desires, about doing things which are
displeasing to God, this is an internal struggle, which is the greatest struggle in some sense that
will always remain with you. Because if you're not involved in a war that you made, you know, that
kind of jihad you may never face. But every single one of us is facing a daily struggle, a daily
		

			jihad against against evil. So again, it's not a topic, which we can just discuss in two or three
minutes. I think we know it, it's very important that you have a very nuanced and deep understanding
concerning these very important topics, which affects so many people.
		

			So if it's about like, a struggle or
		

			not defending oneself when,
		

			when your religion is oppressed, or when you're oppressing the oppressed. How is it? I don't know. I
mean, I know, you know, quite a violent, but like, I don't know how to justify or how do these
people correlate with the religion when so and so Jihad ease that act upon violence? For example,
going?
		

			Yeah, bring violence to innocent people. Yeah. And then they just become regular criminals? You
know? No, I agree. It's very important that I think a lot of people misunderstand. Or people think
that there is an actual link between the religion and your right acts of violence, where that's the
mistake. That's the mistake. Yeah. And it's easy to make that distinction on non distinction, I
should say, in that here it is, quote, unquote, the Muslims, and they're doing this act in the name
of Islam, that, surely, then this is what Islam must teach. You know, people will make that
assumption, when, in fact, what is going on? Now, you know, with this, what do you how do you think
		

			we is a solution, a solution? I think the solution is in different ways. If you're talking about
this, ISIS exists at the moment and dealing with it head on. That's one. That's one problem. Also, I
think, which we're all part of, is to
		

			educate the masses, educate people about the reality of what Islam teaches, and how that this
particular movement is very far from Islamic teachings. And you have to make a distinction between
what Islam and true Muslims what they stand for, and what this particular movement, how far away
from Islam it is, and what they're calling to, and how they're behaving and interact with people how
far that is from a true Muslim.
		

			So the fact is, I can have a conversation with you now here. Yeah. You know, we can chat about him,
we learn about things, you know, you start to learn about and you say, you know, having a
conversation with somebody. Yeah, that's why I got to know that you know, what's going on in these
countries. That's got nothing to do with Muslims. That's got nothing to do with Islam. But it's easy
for people just to see if they've got any of these, you know, things in their minds pre
		

			release thoughts which already existed there that you know, this is Islam. They're not willing to
ask any questions. They're not willing to engage with the situation just as simply absorb what the
newspapers say what the news says. If that's what they say, it must be true, when in fact, it may
not be the case. Boom, boom,
		

			boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.