Yaser Birjas – Defending The Prophet Against Orientalist Critique Pt 2 Of 2

			Bismillah
		

			Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam wa barakato Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi seldom at the Sleeman
kathira Mama, but
		

			in a recent class that I have attended undergraduate school in Texas, about transnational history,
you come to the realization that the issue of traditional boundaries in our minds does not exist
anymore. traditional boundaries regarding geography, history, knowledge, everything almost in this
life has become fluid. With nations in the age of postmodern time and globalization, it seems that
there is nothing such as national identity anymore. It was so ridiculous to see people probably 100
years ago, or maybe more than that a little bit, someone from the US, let's say, studying China or
Japan, if you would like to study the history, it is something national would be in the boundaries
		

			of the national state. But now we see that everybody's almost getting into the issue of
globalization. And those boundaries right now have become so fluid that people can interchange and
exchange thoughts, ideas, even heritage right now. So you find someone who's non Muslim, interested
in the heart of the Muslim land, and giving statements about Islam and Muslims. You have some
Muslims also interested in the heart of Europe, America and so on given statements about the
European culture and other people and so on. It has become something that is very acceptable today
in academia, as well as in popular culture.
		

			Orientalism is one of these fields that once held this position. And it became a Eurocentric
discipline means something monopoly of Europe until recent time, when the rest versus the West
starts growing up, and they started getting into the field of academia. They found so many of these
writings once were written for the European audience, concerning them. So they found it very
offensive. I'm going to start answering back dance word, the clash of civilization came back again
to the picture. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam unfortunately, has become the target of a
new wave of attacks against this Anno sallallahu alayhi wasallam. And as my brother chef Dr. sacani
		

			just mentioned, it is the responsibility of every single Muslim, to stand up for the honor of the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and defend his honor. And that's what we tried to do over here.
We are trying as much as possible. Explain how should we defend the honor of the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wasallam against the orientalist critique. She also spoke a little bit in details about the
subject and give many examples. What I'm going to be doing over here in Sharla hos Allah is to find
another way, how should we understand these waves of attacks. And I believe personally that the best
way of defending the honor of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, against these attacks of
		

			orientalist is by understanding the philosophy and approach Western philosophy and what is their
approach to these incidents of Islamic history of Islamic identity and the symbols of Islamic
Muslims?
		

			Marian orientalist of our time, regardless of their backgrounds, whether they're coming from
religious backgrounds, academic backgrounds, or even
		

			nationalist radical nationalists, they all come and attack the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam in
one way or another, whether it's from a religious perspective or academic perspective, our
discussion will be over in Charlottetown are these ideas and these philosophies and approaches
		

			of History The history of Orientalism, we will realize that it went through different phases, mainly
to historic and modern,
		

			and the historic and modern both of them, they made men the main focus or the primary focus of the
discussions, the Middle East, and what it represents, mainly Islam, and Muslims, and sometimes Arabs
in particular. So the misplaced representation of Islam has become very, very popular in their
writings, you will see that Islam unfortunately been demonstrated in different in a way that is,
again targeted targeting Muslims, just to the European or non Islam, a non Muslim audience, to the
Westerners in particular. So we see that in academia, in public in the media, Muslims has been given
specific stereotypes. Whenever we say Islam and Muslims, there's a specific image, at least the
		

			classical image back in the 70s and 80s. And now it is changing a lot of if we got a lot of it
classical, and see how the image or what the reason behind this stereotypes the Muslims and the
Arabs they had in the minds of Europeans and Westerners, according to what say dummies book about
Orientalism, therefore reasons. Number one, the hostile history between the two regions, the West,
that's Europe in particular and the rest in the middle
		

			In particular, so there is kind of hostility between the two, the two nations, the two geographical
locations. And definitely with that now with hostility, culture would be also intertwined in this
conflict. And whether this is against the Arabs, the Muslims, and even the Ottomans, in particular
in the last few generations. The second, which is something contemporary, the Arab Israeli conflict,
the Arab Israeli conflict is actually fueling, putting more fuel into the hostility they had from
historical backgrounds. And this is something we could see specifically after the Second World War,
		

			the more the tension rises between the East and the West, and the Middle East, beside more
stereotypes will be put into about Muslims into the media of the West. And the third, the cultural
negligence, I'm saying cultural negligence of the west towards the rest. This seems to be no
interest in learning anything about the about the east, or the audience, at least until recent time.
And I speak a lot of universities, I go to a lot of churches, and I speak with government
organizations, and SubhanAllah. It's really amazing, amazing how much you see people living in the
21st century, and they literally know they know about Islam or Muslims.
		

			Why you ask them, have you had any access to learn about Islam and Muslims, if they had any,
unfortunately, just like she was saying, was completely distorted. And we will talk about this
inshallah, and why this happened. And the final, the fourth actual reason for this distorted image
will be the oil factor. And the desert fantasies, probably, if you watch the movies of the 1976, is
about the Muslims and the Arabs, they're all about oil, about deserts, camels, shakes, or chefs, who
are very wealthy and rich, and they're going after their own desires. So they put a specific
stereotype in the mind of the people. This was, of course, classical, because the book of adversary
		

			was written in the late 1970s. Today, adding to this, we have number one, the rise of the Muslim
nations in the world.
		

			After the Second World War, there wasn't really much value, political value or economical value to
the Muslim world, today, it has changed. So more an excitation is being given to these, these
regions. Number two, the massive immigration of Muslims of the audience, the Muslims coming to the
west, and most of you, people are probably pretty presentation of this phenomenon right now. Which
means you're going to have to direct contact between two different cultures, how to define or
redefine this. Now I know, gathering of the two cultures has become the focus of these studies.
Number three, the attacks of September 11. Unfortunately, those tragic attacks, they lead to another
		

			subsequent events, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, everybody has become interested right now on
this, this phenomena, why because whether you like it or not, it would influence your life, at least
the way you behave, and you live in your daily routine. And when just very simple example, gas
prices. It's all because of this issue is all because of this war, so has become very, very
important for people to realize and understand this concept of where those right now what we call
them, Middle East experts, the contemporary Of course, orientalist, are coming from when they talk
about Islam, and Muslims. So this is right now has given the issue of Islam and Muslims totally
		

			different dimension, geopolitical, cultural and religious agenda.
		

			Let's go over the methodology of the orientalist.
		

			And I said that we can view this from two perspectives, historical and modern. When it comes to the
historical approach. We see that also went through two different stages, the earliest stage and then
we have the modern stage. The early stage goes all the way back to the Middle Ages. And she has a
code of some of those monks, they call them monk scholars, and they started initiated the issue of
going after Islamic Muslim specifically, and their texts, the Quran, the Sunnah of the Prophet
salallahu alayhi wasallam. According to Immanuel Wallerstein, this stage, as it goes all the way
back to the Middle Ages, mark the establishment of this first generation of orientalist, and those
		

			are the scholar the monk scholars, and the church of Vienna, the church Council of Vienna back in
1312. They established church for specific languages, and Arabic was one of these languages, you can
guess that Hebrew would be there as well, as well as Greek and Assyrian languages means those
Semitic languages and related to the Semitic languages. The focus of those monk scholars was the
language religion.
		

			And religious texts. So therefore, the first thing they had in their mind was the Quran.
		

			If there's any way to translate the Koran, back then the idea of translating was not really very
much strong, because the superiority of the Arabic language, and the field of academia was so great.
An example of this would be to like Villa, or Toledo in Spain, who was a center of learning in
Spain, for all Europeans, people, they go and they be impressed. So even monks, they would go and
travel to Toledo to learn the Arabic language. So they could use the expertise in the Arabic
language, studying the Arabic text, and present the knowledge to their fellow Christians or
Catholics and Europe.
		

			Now, as a result of this, because it started with monk scholars, we see from the early stages of
Orientalism religion was intertwined with this movement. So was based on religion in general. And we
see also that most of these debates were theological debates. By the way, these early debates, you
know, between among scholars and Muslim scholars, as well, mostly were theological, regarding the
nature of God, the concept of Catholicism, and the concept of salvation, even the concept of the
carnal delights in the Hereafter, and the alpha and the Prophet Mohammed Salah Sam was not basically
the main target of all these debates. Then we have the Department of focus over who will be to prove
		

			their superiority, superiority of Christianity, they were basically defending themselves, not
necessarily attacking Islam or Muslims. Because of this. They had in their mind when they were
dealing with Islamic texts. They had in their mind that Islam was considered as one of the Christian
Harris's
		

			it was it was it was heresy, it means it's related to Christianity, and they had the full right to
defend themselves and even attack Islam, the Islamic culture, Islamic theology, they also the time,
the time of actually the among scholars, was a time when Europe was looking into a specific
identity, trying to create religious uniformity, and specifically the Catholic Church. So they had
the full capacity, trying to eliminate the Islamic culture or Islamic theology from the presence of
Europe.
		

			As for the modern stage, and this continued until the middle of the 19th century, the 18th, the 19th
century. As for this to this stage afterwards, Oriental Studies took completely different trends. As
people started getting more organized, and their lifestyle was Industrial Revolution taking place in
Europe, people start organizing everything means all the disciplines in the university started
getting into different structure, structure, everything, of course, and one of these science
disciplines was
		

			structured was Orientalism, and it fell under Oriental Studies.
		

			For one study, while there was now modern Orientals who came during the middle of the 19th century,
and afterwards, they did nothing much except as he says, There was just an ancient discipline,
refurbish in the 19th century means they were recycling the same ideas over and over, religion was
again the same, still the same main focus of the discussion.
		

			On Sunday, they added to it the biblical studies, Biblical Studies has become very, very famous. Me
is the main study of religion, theology, history, archaeology, was the Bible. And based on this, the
religious now identity of Orientalism, has taken another shift, Judeo Christian understanding, so
it's again serving the same principle of Orientalism, Euro centric vision.
		

			The highlights of this period, number one, it was the height of European imperialism. That was the
time when political rivalry was taking place between different nations, European nations all wanted
to take over the world for economic reasons, plus political reasons. Number two, it was the time of
the Western arrogance. They felt that they have superiority over other nations. And you can see that
in the writings when they speak, they speak about other nations that they need their superiority,
even to the extent we will see next that like Karl Marx, for example, speaking about the torment
brings pleasure. So those nations means all the atrocities being created by imperialism. They
		

			brought social justice to the nation, and they should appreciate that. So they're justifying and
they're trying to create some kind of a model and ethical understanding to what they have done to
other nations. The third highlight of that period, is denying the virtue of the rest.
		

			So it's all about the West and the rest could not contribute as much
		

			As they did to the world, civilizations result of this in their intention, orientalist, they wanted
to modernize the whole world, specifically the audience. Second,
		

			they had geopolitical agenda is you cannot do that until you go and you bring your agenda to those
public rule them. When you roll them, you're making them a favor. And that's why the idea of
imperialism became so strong. And there was such rivalry between different schools of Orientalism,
as well.
		

			The writing during those times were primarily to the Western reader. Well, Adam, if you check, you
know what they were speaking about the audience, and the Muslims living in the Middle East. If you
read it today feel it's so offensive.
		

			Because in the past, when they were talking to the, to the audience, the people probably in the in
Europe did not realize at any time that those people who live in the in the East or the, in the
audience, they would never probably rise to become to that level of reading these kind of stories.
But they did. And they grew up to learn from them. And when you start reading these books, that's
when the debate and the clash started in the field of Orientalism,
		

			orientalist of that period can or can be classified into three groups, number one, colonial
officers, people who are embedded with the army. So they will go and they go and understand the
culture and give their own reports to the public. Lawrence of Arabia is one of them, a very famous
embedded with the army to go and give perspective on the culture of the redwoods and the people, the
Arabs basically in order to make it easier for them to deal and handle their, their occupation.
		

			They also the colonial officers, what they did, they thought that the Orient is basically resisting
change. And they have the full right to go and do that by force. They feel they have ethical
responsibility towards the Orient. And that's what we need to bring prosperity to them. And the
European, of course, version, prosperity, the way we think the way we rule ourselves. So because of
this, they thought they had a pretext to give a statement for the audience. And she also was
speaking about this when they speak on behalf of the
		

			of the Middle East, and the audience, they really give statements, they believe that they have the
full right to give statements needs to dictate to them what they need to do in order to get
prosperity, and modernity as well. The second category missioners
		

			missioners, they have in their mind to educate the public and the people means those people, the non
Muslims, not the non, let's say, Westerners, they don't know the reality of religion, the peace, the
religion, of peace, and so on. So they wanted to educate the public and the people spread the word
of God. And that's why they established residence for these missionaries to be all around the globe,
everywhere. And the third category academics, those people in academia, their main focus at the
beginning, was focusing on texts. And that's why you see bibliographies of Arabic and Islamic
manuscripts all over the world appeared, their interest in going and collecting all the matters to
		

			bring them to Europe has become so popular that today, when you go to visit Europe and museums of
Europe, you will find lots of these valuable manuscripts just lying there
		

			doing nothing.
		

			Because now the time of studying these manuscripts expired, and usually the Orientalism took place.
So you'll find all these all these bibliographies appearing here that just to serve this particular
area, and that's when she first was talking about being selective in texts. So of all these
authentic, all these authentic sources of Tafseer, we go to MacArthur why because it serves the
purpose. But going forward with Kathy romulo other diversity probably will not serve their purpose.
They because studies were emotionalized and became the center of all other historical,
archaeological, social studies. So therefore, even if you go and you check Islamic Society, it's
		

			gonna be with Glock with European glasses, biblical glasses, you see it through this.
		

			And because of doing so they wanted to establish a European identity different from the rest. So we
are better because we have this particular let's say valuable knowledge, and they don't have it. As
for now, the third stage of Orientalism, and that's the American School of Orientalism. You can call
it a revisionist school coming back to a different perspective on how to deal with the audience.
They do not call themselves orientalist, by the way and this started after the Second World War.
They do not call themselves orientalist by virtue they call themselves Middle Eastern experts. Why
because Orientalism and orientalist carries with this specific stigma today.
		

			So why don't really fit the time of studying the society? Oriental Studies has become part of social
studies here in the West. So it's not independent discipline completely. Now, it's about studying
the trends of the, of the society, the doctrine that believes what exactly forms these societies in
the East and in the Middle East in particular.
		

			This gave Oriental Studies a new social, political dimension, different from what used to be in
Europe,
		

			and concerned with politics and cultural trends completely. They believed that in order to
understand the current trends in the society, you have to check their sources. Why do those people
behave that way?
		

			There must be something embedded in their own religion, their own culture. So that's why they
started studying the sources back again, but with different perspective, no CRO officers were needed
for that period at all, because there's no need for that. And academics and missionaries scattered
the legacy of the difference of these coronal officers, but with two different views, revising the
past, as well as the new conservative methodology, which is attaching itself to the golden age of
Orientalism, and this is mainly in the evangelical movement here in the West.
		

			Academics based on this
		

			they wanted.
		

			They wanted, of course, to be so powerful in the field of academia. So therefore, they were
challenged by now how should we use the knowledge that was
		

			handed on to us by the previous generation of orientalist. And therefore, they, they realize that
the knowledge that was given to them carries two kind of categories. Number one, it's pure knowledge
or political knowledge. I wouldn't say pure knowledge, it's completely non political with no
political agenda. But that political knowledge has again attached to the issue of imperialism. And
therefore they wanted to focus on the pure knowledge to be more objective. But because this
approach, has has to do with the culture means it has to be influenced by current events. Which
brings us right now to these main issues that we have today against the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu
		

			alayhi wa sallam they believe are interested in that knowledge can give you the power. And if you
have the knowledge, do you have the full right to give statements about the east or about any other
nation? I give an example. One guy that came to me actually recently, and he told me about an
incident happened with him when he was applying to one of these schools for Middle Eastern Studies.
So he was applying basically, in the interview, he was asked to present his perspective or executive
looking forward to studies and so forth. And then who would be his his models and so on. And he gave
his perspective. He says, as a Muslim, he was very proud of his sister and his legacy. And he goes,
		

			he says, The time of course of the righteous holophone means the best duration is the duration of
the prophets. Allah said, among those who came after him, mainly, the whole of America said the
former US nanny. And the answer came back to him saying, Yeah, you told me about a generation
basically, were three Salafis were brutally killed.
		

			And he didn't know how to answer that.
		

			Because now they had the full right to give a statement like this, because they have the power of
knowledge. They know the history of the Muslims, and they think they have the full right to give
statements. Now again, because they have their own perspective, they will how they look in the
Islamic history, we have different way of understanding it, looking into it, the different
perspectives, but that gives them of course, the full power to say what they want to say, because
they believe that knowledge is power, which is true, it is false. But now, to what extent is this
isn't this knowledge as objective or pure, that's a whole different story. She has discussed that
		

			earlier.
		

			Now, the problem, this approach, as we said, it's on classical Orientalism, and that's why it's
dealing with the current events. And when they when you when you deal with current events usually
have feelings towards them, you cannot detach yourself completely from what's going on in the Middle
East, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Philistine other places in the world, you cannot detach yourself from
the country from the culture here in the West as well as the United States, but even in Europe, so
whenever you try to discuss these current events, you can have to be influenced, you have to be
influenced when you give your judgments or opinions.
		

			Taken for explanation, and these past Of course, completely makes those people influenced by the
current events. So when they started the life of Rasulullah, sallAllahu wasallam. They present it
with a contemporary disguise, like the issue of isodiol love that honor, even though something
historical, but now they come to the come discussing this from a different perspective, which is
we're going to come back to this at the end, then.
		

			The modern approach of Islam to Islamic history is similar right now to the old orientalist
methodology.
		

			Looking at Islam as a secular movement, and therefore, they just completely detach the spiritual
aspect of the study of Islam and if Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, some of these examples
number one the image of Rasul Allah has Allah anti Sharia law. Now, in our contemporary Of course,
times, you're discussing this issue as an issue of early marriage, how legal that is, number two,
being a mature or immature girl. Number three, without her consent, all these issues do when he
started them, you know, from the from the historical perspective, they make lots of sense that's
like she described, but in today in modern time laws, the differently become problematic. And people
		

			that have been given this of course, were the contemporary disguised without detaching them
completely from the historical context of these events, accusing the Prophet sallallahu Sallam with
*. And this has never been the case with the Prophet, Allah someone when he made I showed
you a lot of anger, including those who attack the prophet SAW salon back in those times. But this
is something modern, because it's have become so popular today that people are influenced by the
culture, the culture of their time, that they project these events, of course on the life of
Rasulullah, sallAllahu wasallam.
		

			And they see every now and then, an event coming from underdeveloped Muslim countries like
Afghanistan, Yemen, for example, when there's under age managers, because of course, they appear on
the news. So become a dramatic case, without Of course putting everything in perspective. So they
think that this has to come from the source from the Prophet Mohammed Salah Sam's life, but at least
from whatever Legacy The have taken from the Quran, or the son of the Prophet sallallahu wasallam.
		

			Now based on this, we see that the premises that they are making is based on their own contemporary
laws, not necessarily the historical context of these events. The second, comparing Rasulullah
sallallahu wasallam.
		

			To the prophets of the Bible.
		

			Now, as we said, it's all based on Biblical Studies. If you check the life of the of the prophets of
the Bible, as Muslims, we don't believe in these events, as they be described in the Bible. And I'll
give you just examples. Being lustful, going after the desires, and when you check the life of
Prophet, Lord alehissalaam and the Buddha is Salam. You will have horrible events and horrible
stories about them. So in their mind, he was another human being another prophet, like the ones were
mentioned in the Bible. Second, opportunists, like new holla is Salam in the Bible, not a sama
described as an opportunist person who owned the who was running the brewery, selling alcohol and
		

			beer, meaning he's taken advantage of the people. And now a professor Samuel also looked into the
same the same views as a king. He was enjoying his power. So the lesson like today, man, is that as
it be viewed in the Bible, as well, so basically, they are seeing the prophets Allah sent through
biblical again, glasses and Western glasses.
		

			The third, Islam being a religion of violence. Now, they see Muslims when they go and protest
against any attack against the Prophet sallallahu wasallam. They see that on TV, and usually they
show the Muslims being so angry, violent, destroying the properties, burning cars, floods, and so
on. They don't really see the Muslim world Imams, or whatever learned people speak into the public
to cool it down. So when you see something like this, how are you gonna describe this to them to the
Westerners? And how are you going to explain this to the Muslim? Now, so interesting. So Pamela,
when the Pope of the Vatican, he gave his famous speech, and when he somehow touched on the issue of
		

			Islam being a religion of violence, you know, people they got offended by that. What did they do?
		

			He was speaking that Muslim Islam is a religion of violence. Muslims are violent and angry people.
What did they do? They proved this point.
		

			That's exactly what happened. They went out. And they proved his point. They weren't so angry,
became so violent to say, no, we're not so we're not angry. We're not violent people. They proved
his point. And it was really ridiculous. I mean, regardless how much you're going to say that yes,
we're not like that. So pallial actions speak louder. So they proved the point of the
		

			also indiscriminate killing as it happens today, unfortunately, the name of Islam people they have
now another probably point in order to to link it to the life of a prophet salaallah Sensei, why
those people keep doing what they're doing. They must have some kind of justification and their own
sources. The process of de la silla whenever he gets angry, and he gets angry Salalah masala, but
whatever he gets angry Salalah Salam lamea Caitlyn FC cazzola salam, he never got upset for
something personal in London takahara moolah unless they were by violation to the limits of Allah
subhanho wa Taala. That's when he gets angry. But you read all the stories and the Hadith about the
		

			Prophet Solomon being so upset and angry. He never he was never physical unless you
		

			In the battlefield,
		

			and was one particular incident and
		

			so the property would get angry. But of course, that anger would be translated into something
positive, positive action. take that action suffer this Vf to Allah subhana wa tada go down
prostration worship Allah azza wa jal do the best you can do.
		

			The for the issue of terrorism.
		

			Now today we see that the prophets of Allah and he also accused as the first terrorist, the Minister
of Islamic terrorism, something new.
		

			Until today, there is no one direct definition for tourism. You cannot give one, you know, just
universal, I will say definition for tourism. And the Prophet Salas unfortunately, was attacked with
this accusation. And they have seen that from the action so many Muslims, so look the Muslims doing
this. So why are they doing
		

			these actions unless they have some justification to it in the in the life of the Prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he also spoke about this a little bit. So as the inclusion showed, in
response to these allegations, what do we say that number one, so Muslims become apologetic. And
they start denying the fact that we have in our sources, like the age of ice, or the law that they
should have been in Florida, and so on, by denying these now facts in our slow Islamic history, we
think that we're doing good for Islamic Muslims. And that is not not right. You should accept these
facts. But still, you should defend these facts depends on the context, the historical context, if
		

			we decide to explain to the public the way it should be done, don't you don't have to deny that and
there's a difference between authentic sources and historical accounts. And there's something
different She has also touched on this. When you say historical sources, some of our our historians,
they were just compiling stories, not necessarily advocating for these stories, or even endorsing
these stories. But at the same time, we have sources like Sal Bukhari and Muslim you should once
it's there, you should believe in these stories. Of course, as we mentioned, in these authentic
books, some answers with sentiments and emotions against intellectual suppiler. We Muslims, very,
		

			very emotional people. When someone speaks about the prophets of Allah, Salah about the Quran, or
anything like that, we get so emotional. And that's why when you get emotion, it blocks our
intellect. We don't give intellectual response to these issues I've been searching for when it comes
to the issue. I showed you a lot on how I have politics, so many websites, so many books, defending
the prophets, Allah sermon is nice, too. I showed you a lot that I know. There was probably one or
two websites that can really challenge the intellect of this age when it comes to this to this case,
anything else besides that, or is emotional, the provinces It was the most just man our shadow
		

			daughter, she loved the Prophet sallallahu Sallam which is true, but there is something else beyond
emotion that you need to use not to defend the prophets of Allah.
		

			Some terms of culture, and therefore they fall short on on evidences on some data, an aggressive and
physical being angry because they're completely helpless. And in conclusion, what do we need to do
as Muslims? Number one?
		

			Muslims have the full right we need to realize that Muslims have the full right like any other
nation to defend the honor of a prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Please don't be
apologetic about this. There's not an issue of academia. Chef, as I mentioned, no, this is something
that you as a Muslim, obligated to stand for the prophets. Allah said Amen, his honor. Number two,
the virtue of being angry for religious reasons does not warrant you becoming violent. means being
angry, it should be translated to something positive that you do and say, number three, the best
defense to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam against all these allegations, is by you as a
		

			Muslim act the way the Prophet sallallahu Sallam acted. That's how people understand you. That's how
people appreciate the diversity Allah sallallahu wasallam. Lights, Allah recently, just we were in
an summit in Houston. And we had more than 150 people living there for two weeks, two weeks living
their brothers and sisters coming from all over the world, studying subjects of knowledge and
		

			amazingly without even heavy let's say activity of the hour or whatsoever. Two of the workers in the
hotel, they embraced Islam.
		

			Out of curiosity, see 150 people, men and women around then you just got curious, what are you guys
doing? Who are you? What do you do over here? So they become Muslims upon law. I'm not saying that
we had Mashallah a wonderful and perfect angels in the hotel. But at least those people they just
really held themselves to a standard. That is acceptable. And of course in all of the scientists
love and the love of Rasulullah sallallahu wasallam.
		

			Muslims should be proud of their scholarly achievements, not completely run away from Allah did and
said, but you need to distinguish between what is authentic and what is just a narrative story. And
answering academic allegations is very dangerous. I should also mention if you
		

			not qualified, don't go in there. Don't start you know becoming emotion answering these intellectual
debates, what emotional responses, it won't take you anywhere. And Allah subhanaw taala says was
added humility is when you answer answer back with that, which is better. What does that mean? He is
to answer back in the same way they're at the talking to you is not still acceptable.
		

			The way they're talking to you don't use that same techniques be better. Use some that's better, of
course on their techniques, and then just basically don't say that they started it. No, it's not
about this out, oh, we're gonna finish it. It's about what is the best response that needs to be
given to the public. Avoid the sentiments, of course and emotional statements regarding the Prophet
salallahu alayhi wasallam. And remember, when you talk, you're talking basically to intellectual and
emotional clouds will lie. We are under estimating the intellect of our people, Muslims or non
Muslims. And that's why when we talk, we try to hide some of the truth, try to disguise it and so
		

			on. No, no, no. They're more intellectual than you can understand or even imagine. So therefore, be
truthful and upright, would you defend the honor of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam 400