Am I The Same As 20 Years Ago

I graduated from the Mr. Medina, in the College of theology, my master's is 100 published, you can see it 800 pages in Arabic in our 50 pages, I went on to the PhD, again, in Islamic theology and intellectual history, I have published papers, I have a book coming out in the academic world, again about all of these topics. And so this is an area I have studied internally. And also being a very active diary, I have to make decisions externally as well. Right? So this is an area very near and dear to me. And if you're not aware of that I myself have undergone a number of changes. If you are aware, then you know, if you're not then the so called the of today is not the so called the of

1520 30 years ago. And there are reasons for this. It's not because the software Allah I'm trying to please or placate it's not because there's an element of watering down. No, it is because experienced teachers you would books will not teach you experienced teachers you would books will not teach you. Theory is one thing and practices another. And you know the irony, we all know this in every single field, we know it in medicine, we know it in engineering, we know it. None of you when you graduate from your bachelor's degree, takes your bachelor's degree knowledge and then applies it directly in the work, there's always a training and you realize much of my training is

absolutely new. I needed the bachelors to walk in. But once I'm here, the stuff I'm learning is totally disconnected a different. The same thing applies to Islamic methodology. The same thing applies to theory in Islamic activism versus practicality in Islamic activism, when you are studying in a classroom, in a sanitized environment, when everybody is on the same wavelength, everybody's believing in your version of Islam, it's very easy to have theoretical guidelines. Now get out of that classroom and get to a community like Islam, Mississauga, get out of that sanitized version, and now deal with people on the ground of all different persuasions, all different backgrounds, all

different understandings. And all of a sudden, your theoretical abstract rules don't make any sense. This is what happened to yours truly, this is case exhibit A, I have no embarrassment in admitting that I came here with idealistic notions, naive notions, when I came from the Christian Medina, after having studied 10 years, and one of the most advanced most difficult and also, to be brutally honest, one of the most ultra conservative seminaries in the Muslim world. 10 years I was immersed in that bubble. And I came out thinking, What can these people teach me about anything I know my tradition, I know the law. I know the evidences. But one thing after another and interacting and

making some blunders and causing harm, causing people to not want to pray in the masjid because of a fatwa errors or an idea you had. And you realize, hey, that theory doesn't work in practice in reality, and so I have to go back and rethink and get much water from my other peers and colleagues and so on. And so here I am still the same person, and yet not the same person. Still the same flesh and blood, but without a doubt, not the same ideas that I had. And you know, I have no no embarrassment to say this because Wallahi you know, Muhammad Ali has a statement. If your mama daddy the boxer, if your views at the age of 60 are exactly the same as they were when you were 30 it

means you've wasted 30 years of your life. If your views when you're 60 years old, your opinions are exactly the same. This means you haven't learned anything you have remained stuck, stagnant. So yes, without a doubt, my views have changed. And I know many critics and Allah has blessed me with Mashallah. Plenty of critics. So be it my goal is not to provoke the criticism or to answer to the criticism will lie my goal is the pleasure of Allah and the unification of the Muslim ummah as much as possible

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