Yusuf Chambers – The Purpose Of Life, My Journey To Islam
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses their journey to Islam and the importance of asking oneself what they want to do before starting a journey. They describe their experiences with various sports and their desire to reconnect with their parents. They emphasize the importance of seeking knowledge and experiencing life outside of the university to gain it. They also discuss the success of their university and the importance of avoiding extreme behavior and seeking sincerity in the face of extreme culture.
AI: Summary ©
Designing society in general. So without further ado, I'll proceed to the talk itself, which will be delivered by use of chambers and the topic will be about his journey to Islam.
Wow,
I made it
windy.
The roads are quite dangerous. I've seen about four or five trees down on the way hamdulillah none of them actually hit me so much in one piece. Thank God.
So guys, really, my name is Jeff chambers.
Probably some of you may know me, some of you probably don't want to know me. But anyway.
Really, basically, my journey started off when I was born, because you've got no option but to start your journey when you're born, right? Because you didn't ask to get good in this world. Right? Did anyone ask before you know? arriving to arrive?
No. Today or choose any anyone choose their name? Before they were born?
Their skin color? No. Yes, the mother and father?
Did you choose your mother and father names? No, you did. So you were put in this world?
without, you know, consent, right. And one of the things that you have to do if you really want to be intelligent about this world, you have to ask yourself, what are you doing here? Right? Just like if I send you on a journey.
We can go on a journey pretty soon with just 10. But the thing is, if I send you on a journey, right? And I say to you meet me at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, we're going Jeremy, what's the first thing you're going to do? Right?
What are you going to do?
You're not going to turn up right now because I haven't told you the destination yet. Okay. So we're all on a journey, a shared journey. Right? Agreed. We're in a white body jet. And I'm the captain. And I'm not.
I wish I was.
And
when you're in such situation, you have to do everything you possibly can to find out
what is the purpose of that journey? And what is the destination? And what happens when you get to the destination, so on and so forth. So
what I was about
seven, I disobey the authorities most of the time. Yeah, I struggled to understand why I should learn to read books about Pisa and Jane remember Peter and Jane books
pursuing Peter gamebooks,
Mary Jane and Jane now and Peter and Peter. But the thing is important thing is right, at that period of time when I was very, very young and very
confused, and my parents hadn't specifically said to me, you know, Tim, my name is Tim.
You know, your purpose is x y Zed, right? And they haven't given me any inkling or indication at all about what my purpose was. So to be frank with my mind's just used to wander a lot.
There was a person in my class who had read every single book in the library. And she was the swats.
From the lecturing you guys now
in this university, and I was the only guy who hadn't read any of the books on the shelf, because I considered that what was the purpose of it? I mean, it doesn't really relate to why should you know to know more about myself, to know more about the purpose, purpose of existence, that would help me so the first thing that we have to do is look at the purpose of existence.
So I went through school, not really learning much that they wanted to teach me but I just used to ask people questions and used to chill out with people and you know, basically make
Be antisocial. I suppose you could use the term antisocial.
And then they put me in a set, they put me in the remedial *, because they said that this guy's mentally subnormal he doesn't have the ability to reason. There must be something wrong with his connections in his synaptic connections in his brain, your brain only had one. I think I've still got one.
And so they put me in this remedial set, and they labeled me, right. That's what they do, right?
Nowadays, they have to attach a label to you. They have to be able to describe you. Are you whites? Who cares? Whether I'm white or black? Really? What difference does it make? Are you Asian, Caucasian? Are you Irish? Are you male?
to male or female, some
things have happened?
No, really, there's there's four or five is not male and female anymore is that there's lots of other categories labeled us to death.
You really have.
So anyway, they labeled me as this guy in the remedial set.
And I just got worse and worse, because I thought, well, they're gonna leaving me.
You know.
So I spent most of the time being tutored by three teachers in the class and being administered beatings by the headmaster then we used to be able to get beaten. Yes, used to the threat of beatings was,
was real. And it used to happen to us to have,
you know, thick leather wallets to put down on trousers, because we knew pretty much it was going to happen. Because we weren't prepared to
toe the line.
Anyway, it went through the sort of primary school stage, I got to the end of primary school, and they said, you have to stay on for another year. You know, you have to be punished for another year in this place. So I got through there. And then eventually, I got to the secondary school.
And one of the things I remember, just to go back to primary school, was there was a guy called David D, really nice guy. And he taught me how to play football. And he took pity on me, you know, saw me as a bit of a social responsibility project, you know, and
he also taught me how to play chess. So there's this guy in the remedial, you know, set, your remedial means, right?
Just check
it.
Right. Anyway, um, so I was
learning how to play chess. So he put me in the Chess Championship with the school. And I got to the final.
So I got to the final I was playing the guy who was teaching me so through the game, right? Anyway. So JJ hook is on the stage is like the head teacher.
And he says,
you know, he's giving out the medals. So he gets to third place. And then he starts reading out the name a second place. Timothy chambers. Timothy, check us
nearly fell off the stage, you know.
Anyway, so what I did was basically disprove the theory about the being medium, or needing extra curricular support and the scope.
What the issue was for me, is about prioritizing that knowledge that you get.
First of all, before you get knowledge, you have to find out why you're getting knowledge. Why is everyone here in university?
One of you tell me why you hear of university my brother?
You enjoy learning? Wow, you look like I used to. I have the same beard, the same long hair. I had a couple of, you know, angst in my ear here. You look like a series of pictures we related.
Probably related. Yeah. So very few people give an answer like that. That's amazing. That is really amazing. Who else can give me an answer?
system. Tell me why you hear it. You
Is it because your parents sent you?
They send you indirectly or
expectation. So sort of social expectation stuff like that. What about us system? Why are you here?
Sorry?
To get somewhere in life? Right? So we're on that journey, right?
Where?
Before we, you know, analyze how we're going to get somewhere. Right? And surely we need to know why. So we have to ask ourselves why? Right? So, the reason I went to university when I eventually got there, and so long, long story about how I got there, because I had no qualifications at GCSE. Before that, is a levels we still doing a levels, right.
Right. And then I did a,
an access to higher education course. I got to Sussex University. The purpose of my go to the university was, this is the I was told that the top 5% of people in the worlds intellectually, thinkers, philosophers, you know, designers,
the innovators.
Were there at the university.
So that's it, because I couldn't get the answers to my questions outside the university. And I tried, believe me. I had fried so
you know, I used to annoy people. I was a perpetual annoying, you know, I used to annoy people so much, because I just ask question, after question after it's not my son. Now. He's so annoying. He asked me so many questions.
But that's good. Right. That's healthy. You know, the moment we stop asking questions, we know we got to ask ourselves some questions, you know, really do ask questions about society, and about why we're not asking anymore.
Why is it that we, you know, it's it's a social
vacuum when it comes to talking about the purpose of talking about religion, religion, religio is to reconnect, right? That's what it means the term religion is to reconnect, according to Cicero, that's what he said. But, you know, so
here we are,
at a place of higher learning, where you have access to
hundreds 1000s of
top minds, and you got a lot of people that want to know, they want knowledge. They came in to seek knowledge.
So the first question that we need to address with each other
is philosophical.
It's foundational. It's causation. You know, if we don't ask those questions, and we don't come with the express purpose of it, because just because we say we're Muslim doesn't mean to say we know, by the way, so I put a Facebook post about two weeks ago. And I said, What are the topics you guys want to know that, you know, if I want to give some talks, one of the topics that you want to suggest? So number one topic was the purpose of life for Muslims.
Right? Just because you say you're a Muslim doesn't mean to say you read the Koran. Just because you say you're a Christian doesn't mean to say you understand the philosophy of Christianity.
Just because you say you're a Buddhist doesn't mean to say you understand Buddhist. Right? We're all humans, and we're all in this shared journey. And we're coming together
today to discuss the topic, which is very rarely discussed. openly, freely and fairly. In a no in a microcosm. macrocosm in a, you know, in a, you know, in terms of this tense, you know, how many different ideas do you think we have from these different minds in this room?
How many, but how often, we find it difficult to talk about those things. We would rather talk about whether Birmingham City got crashed last night or Leicester City, you know, go away go the other day.
Yeah, again, severe, or we want to talk about that. You know, what's her name, Jennifer Lopez, all we want to talk about, you know,
I don't know very many of these names. Actually. anything nice to know the good news everyone's talking about right now.
What are you guys talking about? What's the most popular subject in campus right now? What do you think it is?
silence is golden.
Hey,
okay, fine.
Okay, but the point being,
I went to university to find the purpose of life.
Okay, I didn't go there for some dumb piece of paper that says, Ba,
Ma,
PhD, you know, because the bottom line is that that's gonna get you a job, but it ain't gonna get you knowledge, it's not going to get you knowledge is knowledge for the sake of knowledge as far as I'm concerned. So the Prophet used to say, I see knowledge, which is beneficial
knowledge, which is beneficial. So all of us need to seek the knowledge, which is beneficial, first of all, to number one,
and then to your friends, your circle of friends, and then your neighbors, and then your neighbors, neighbors, and then your city. And then your country. And then the universe. Anything's possible. So there I was at university.
First day, very excited. I'm a fresher, I got in, I've signed up for all the activities, the religious groups, and this and that.
And I'm looking for this great minds.
Who can enlighten me that can, you know, tell me what is the purpose or just discuss it with me.
And to my shock and horror,
the top 5% of the world were not able to furnish with me even a decent discussion. In fact, I was having better discussions outside in the vegetable markets.
You understand me?
Because actually, what I found, correct me if I'm wrong, the majority of the people were coming here to escape their parents authority
and to experience life.
What was to experience life?
You know,
you know what I'm doing?
Right?
So what I did was I took time out. I started to travel a lot. I traveled I went to Africa, I set up some development projects in southern Africa in the, in the townships in, in apartheid South Africa.
I traveled I went to Malaysia a few times I stayed in Langkawi and the islands in Langkawi. I don't know, then it was beautiful and unspoiled and just reflects me.
And the night sky, you know, just to think, go run up the top of mountains every now and again. Yeah, take your mobile phone and throw it off the mountain if you want. But don't take it with you really, I would advise. Just go on top of a mountain and just start to think
about who you are.
who your friends
What's your relationship to the universe to the, to the worlds, to the lands to the mountains to the sea.
And so I used to do that a lot.
I used to come back and then try and find people then I went through a period of just looking for religious people.
And they would find me, I wouldn't find them, they will find me. So I met a guy that I went to school with
many, many years ago, and I was just walking through the streets of Soho, in London,
which is walking through and I met this guy, he just had a ponytail, and bald head
named Sean Sean film, if he's still alive, he's alive. And
he said to me come to our temple.
So I walked with Him. So I you know, I was prepared to sit with a group of people at least once, maybe two or three times to try and hear them out and listen to what they have to say. So I sat down with this guy has some beautiful food with him vegetarian food. And then he took me into this back end of this, like the center and he sat me in front of this guru.
And he said to me,
You are going to be a great orator.
After 15 minutes discussion, he doesn't know me, right? I don't know him. He doesn't know me.
But I know he needs more people to come to the center. So it's a great little sales pitch, you know? Because everyone's got sales pitches. Now you've got an elevator pitch right? University is not an elevator pitch, right? Who knows the elevator pitch of the university?
No,
I don't know, I haven't checked it out and done the research. But everyone has an elevator pitch. So this guy was begging me of a time is not in the other. So I said to him, Look, come in to find out the purpose of life, not to be picked up. Because I've got nothing to be picked up about. Just tell me what is the purpose of life. So he said to me, You will have to come and live with us. Said I have to come and live with you. In order to find the fundamental, the answer to the fundamental question of your religious person, right? You're a person who's you know, you've chosen to take a spiritual path in life, tell me how I can gain access to that spiritual path. So
after 15 minutes, I wasn't convinced, I left the place and never went back there.
To be a Hari Krishna said it
could have been any center, I didn't care what it was called. They labeled it by adding labels. I just went there to meet the people to find the knowledge so that I can live my life. That's it,
to share my journey with those people so that I can impact on that life better, so that I can look after my, my own self and other people in this planet in a better way. So I left that place. And then I was walking through campus one day,
not aimlessly. But I was looking for somebody and a girl came to me and said,
Come to our church tonight.
And it's like people were coming to me all the time.
Because you know, I was seeking. And if you see, you will find the verse of the Quran actually. But there's a verse in the Bible as well. It's probably a verse of the the Vedic scriptures as well. It's probably a version that probably virtually all of the books, all of the books of knowledge and wisdom will talk about the same stuff.
We're all human, we all came from the same beginning. We're all going back to the same beginning. Understand is obvious. It's so obvious, you know?
So that he invited me to the church. I didn't know what I didn't even care which denomination it was of Christianity.
I got into the church, I had a great social feeling. And, you know, I feel great. I'm gonna find some information about the books of life today. Amazing. You know, and it's a real is amazing. You know, when you actually go out sincerely, seeking knowledge, not just for the sake of knowledge, but seeking knowledge for real beneficial purpose. Just try it one day, you probably already do it, you probably guys you probably already doing. Don't just assume I'm almost ready. I know where I'm going. Don't ever be so presumptuous. I'm a Christian, I know what I'm doing. Don't be so foolish to think that you are in a position that you will own in that position. And you have a birthright, you
none of us have a birthright, right? without seeking knowledge without struggling without going to the horse and asking the horse, you know,
you need to go and seek from the people of knowledge. whoever they are,
wherever they can see, Sivan, knowlegeable. So there I am, I'm in the church.
And the guy
comes out on the
stage,
the guy with a guitar,
another one with a drumsticks.
And they start singing.
Start singing
about Jesus.
Jesus is your Savior,
inside of your
redemption will be gone through Jesus entering you and color the
song and the music. Suddenly, you know, the music started and then everybody stopped.
Everybody stopped and listened apart from me because I was just looking around left right and said, What's going on here? Suddenly, the conversation ended and everyone's mesmerized by the people on the stage.
So I went there because I'm thinking I'm going to get knowledge
So
suddenly the guy points to a person in the middle of the crowd, he says, and the devil is inside you.
I'm thinking, Man, I'm next.
I'm next. I'm pretty sure that that's why they call me here.
They're gonna do some stuff to me. And then they're gonna say the devils in. That's why you asked him all these questions.
So
I kind of age my chair back.
Looking left and right, is the back a bit more. Bit more.
Out the door never went back never came back. Because it freaked me out. They didn't explain to me what was going on.
They hadn't addressed me yet. As Tim, you've come here to find out the purpose of life. We know the purpose of life, or we think we know the purpose of life at least. Can we explain that to you? Now go straight to the music.
And when I used to see the girl, hi, how you doing? I'm a bit busy now.
Yeah.
Next thing,
I'm depressed because a lot of people you know, we get depressed, we have to be honest with ourselves. Because we live this life of drudgery. We, you know, we go from lesson to lesson from workplace to workplace, from hospital to doctor surgery can taste when you get earlier, when you get later, you know, you start visiting these places, you start getting to take some headaches and neck aches and
you get diseases and you get colds, you keep anyway you keep going around in the society.
functionality, you know, you eat, you sleep.
You wake up in the morning, you think I'm going to eat again.
You get through by midday, I'm going to eat again.
functionality, right? Then you go you go to work because you have to pay the bills. So you pay the bills. And at the end of the week, you have to pay the bills next week. So you have to go to work again. And then it's just Groundhog Day. So you will see that film Groundhog Day. And then Groundhog Day. You haven't seen it. Go and watch Groundhog Day. You'll know what I'm talking about.
So you break up the monotony. So you put music off to fill your soul. Because music makes you feel good in that moment. Yeah, man. Oh, those guys agree. Sad. I'm happy because I got music.
You fill your soul. And then you know, I was obsessed by music
obsessed.
I was into
Shostakovich and Beethoven and Mozart and then I I was into punk.
And then I was into, you know, other stuff you don't want to know about.
And I perpetually have this music on.
And it's very difficult to imagine a society without music right? Isn't it?
Who wants to movie that's got a silent movie. No music.
Have you ever watched a silent movie?
Can you imagine watching a movie a Hollywood movie with no music?
Impossible. It's not gonna happen, right? Because music fills the soul. So people that are listening to the music all the time. The society is just invited makes you want to buy things it makes you want to sell things it makes you want to be someone. You want to be someone because you're listening to music.
Right?
That's the reality of music.
We know what music is.
You know, it fulfills the soul. But then when you turn it off, you get depressed again.
You start thinking too much.
You start asking too many questions. So I was very depressed one day, and I knocked on the door of the biggest church I could find in Brighton. I was there and Brighton.
knocked on the door.
I was crying.
I said to the guy. I need to know the purpose of life. I can't live like this anymore. What's the purpose of me? You know being here. What is the reality of me being here? Please tell me he looks at his watch.
said we're closed,
closed.
But
I need to know. He said, Come back Monday morning.
I said you are having a joke on me, bro.
He was having a laugh.
I mean, why do you think this is all about? You should be open all hours. If you're spiritual. You should be turning people away. You got the biggest church in the street, bro.
What's going on?
Biggest church, smallest brain.
That's what I was thinking. I was depressed. I was sad. I was ready to go and drink another drink.
Another whiskey, maybe? Yeah.
Listen to another bunch of music.
Fill my soul to fill my mind.
You know what it takes
takes a very strong person not to do that stuff.
When you do that stuff, when you break away from that, and you really try to be you.
You really be true to yourself. That's when you feel the best in your life. And so anyway, I went back on Monday morning.
I said to him, I need to know the purpose of life.
says to me
Have you ever thought about doing
a theology degree?
Natural fact I had, because I tried to get to Dublin to do you see that? Then when I read through the syllabuses? It didn't actually address the question that was the focus of life. We know section saying right, we're going to start with a, then we're going to move to B, then C and then D and then E. So I sent him No, I really don't think that's gonna help me at all. You know, but can you just answer the question? What is the purpose of life?
He said, Look, you're not really interested in doing theology? I'm not really sure I can help.
You, I don't know the answer the question of what to say, look, I come here in the morning, open the door. If anyone wants to come in, they come in. If they want to go out, they can go out in the night, I lock the door and make sure everyone's left before I lock the door. That's my job.
So people had been sent to me, and I've been going to them. And I was getting these questions answered slowly but surely, in the negative, right, because I was it was a negative situation for me, because I wasn't getting answers.
So I went, and I have a friend who was a Buddhist.
Another time he took me to the Buddhist center, I started doing Buddhist meditation. And
I would do this meditation, it made me feel better, to feel like I was,
you know, like, a little bit fulfilled.
And then one day, after three months of learning this stuff.
I asked the guy I said, What's the purpose of life?
Don't ask me why didn't ask him the day one, but it just, I just liked the meditation. So I asked him, what's the purpose of life? So he was stirring his herbal tea at the time?
And
he thought about it for at least two or three minutes.
It's like he wasn't really sure himself. And then he answered the question. He said,
The purpose of life, brother Tim,
is to contemplate
the supreme
nothingness. The Supreme nothingness. I say, bro, now you confusing me, I'm sorry.
That has totally wiped my brain.
You're the first guy actually to try and, you know, objectively maybe subjectively
answer the question, what's the purpose of life and you've done it You told me something about supreme and I was supreme nothingness. No, don't please.
What does that mean? So
and then he gave me a book called the Golden sudras. Give me a book called the Golden sutras. And I got to page one.
I couldn't understand it.
I went back to the beginning page one. I got to page two I couldn't understand. Went back to page one, put the book down and said I don't understand this at all.
If I'm Wow, he's going on the journey.
So
I went off, and I never went back to the place.
Because the guy didn't know the books.
He was really good at meditation, and I continue doing the meditation, and all of the knowledge that they taught me, which was beneficial, I continue to use that. Yeah.
And then several other things happen that I mean, so many people, I'd be meeting people all day and all night, I mean,
just madness.
But I still didn't feel very fulfilled. And I felt depressed, and I wanted to continually make myself intoxicated.
So that I would not have to think too much.
You know, I'm dealing with a lot of homeless people in less than an hour, I've got a city of San Diego, the city retreat.
Most of the homeless are just paralytic. Most of the time. There's a reason.
Most of them they dropped out of society, because they don't know the purpose of life.
And society doesn't have any normal or any answer to this question apart from
send it from the monkeys. Before that there was natural selection. Well, that that is a science answer.
But actually, it doesn't, it's not fulfilling.
It doesn't actually tell you, what is the purpose? It tells you kind of how we got here, but there's no purpose. Right? So there's a science answer. You'll hear this a lot. In fact, the BBC, the BBC, verbatim was states, our ancestors. So it's more than a theory now.
It's the truth.
BBC says true. must be true, right? The British Broadcasting contract.
Right? Right.
You know,
this deception,
deception.
So
anyway,
got along very, very long story short.
I went
I have this girlfriend.
Like you do? society here. girlfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, girlfriend, other friends stuff going on. And
then
one day, I was with her in the halls of residence.
And she said to me,
she said tomorrow
Don't come here.
Please don't come here.
Now this is this girl. I really loved her a lot. In fact, I almost worship the girl.
It's the first time I actually felt like, I actually have something in my life, which was worth living for.
The girl.
The boy gets girl to go get the boy.
You know, maybe some of you don't. But maybe some of you do. Right?
So there I was.
With the girl with the almost like she's become the purpose of life.
You know?
She tells me Don't come here tomorrow. So I said to her.
What's this all about? She says to me, well, it's got something to do with my religion. That's the glue.
Okay?
It's got something to do with your religion and you're kicking me out is wrong. So either your religion is wrong
or you're wrong. There's only two possibilities
logical just logic right?
Either that we just making excuses. You don't like me anymore. You know? So in the morning,
I go to the Islamic Society.
Knock on the door, the Islamic Society.
Man comes out wearing
Iraqi brother
Iraqi, you know, the land that was bombed incessantly by generations of generations of governments and destroyed
the city of civilization microdots
leasing country before we destroyed it
anyway
He comes out.
He stands in front of me and he says, How can I help? I said, Yeah, see, I've got this girlfriend.
Some of you can relate to that, right?
You don't tell you in a rocky button girlfriend. I said, you don't take a Muslim you got a girlfriend because it's not really the dumb thing.
Anybody says to me,
you've got a girlfriend? Yes. And I need help with it. Because, you know, I kind of I love her and she I think she loves me. And I think, you know, you can help me to kind of, is there something wrong today? You told me to leave.
She said, she says to me,
Listen, this girl's not good for you.
And you're not good for her.
So you kind of need to
lose sleep.
I said, there must be something wrong with a group of religious people and tell people love each other to leave each other. That's your job. Don't even tell me you're going to tell me to leave and what good can be in the living? Surely you should be encouraged me to stay with that. It's good. So he says to me read these books goes to the bank. He has a whole pile of books in front of me and he says don't read the manual understand. So I start to read these books two weeks I'm reading these books. Yeah, reading everything about how to make gossip, you know how to make ablution we'll do how to make ablution how to pray what is a Muslim
who is the Prophet is man or prophet even Abdullah, the prophet Mohammed bin Abdullah so
what is the the book which was sent to the people to instruct them about the purpose of life, this call and
I was reading about the history of Islam. I was reading about the the righteous companions, I was reading about just about every possible subject under the sun, including the some of the chapters of the program, which I even committed to memory before I even
really,
I wasn't a Muslim.
Because I didn't understand what the term Muslim means, like so many people, right? Because
that needs a lecture in itself.
So anyway,
I knocked on the door of the girl.
And I said,
I just want to apologize to you
because
I was wrong about your religion.
But I was right about
your religions. Good. I like
I don't know about you, though.
So slowly, but surely, you don't learn to hate me.
Bad move. If you want to get a go Don't tell the truth. Right. So you get my
BA you know,
back in the day style stuff. Yeah.
So I, the more she broke away from me, the more I kept reading the books of knowledge. So I kept reading and reading and reading
anyway, towards
this month course. This month was was
Ramadan, right.
The month of the day that she flew me out. That was the first day of Ramadan the
in the morning, if you wanted to fast. She wanted to fast because we fast the daylight hours of the month of Ramadan. Why? Because the court and was sent down to who?
The girl is.
Yeah, no. Irish. Yes.
British Yes.
Koreans? Yes. Chinese? Yes. Humans. Yes. And those? Yes.
The moon? Yes. It was sent down for the whole universe, right.
So when she felt like I need to go back to the one that created me.
She told me to leave. Makes sense, right. So I started to understand why she was doing it. And then I started to go to the mosque. started going to the Islamic Center. I started to engage with the people and then beside joining the press with them.
Now, none of this really mattered to me or didn't really make a lot of sense to me until one day.
One day
I was
knew that I should be fasting. In fact, every human being alive should be fasting. It's not a Muslim obligation. It's human obligation. You might be thinking, Well, what an extremist call prevents officer takes him arrested. Right? he's suggesting that I should be a Muslim.
But it's true.
It's absolutely true. That only you'll only accept it. If you read the Quran. And if you read about the Prophet Mohammed, and you know who we're dealing with, from the sources, not from the BBC,
not from Channel Four, not from the daily failed.
No, not from Twitter are
not from facebook, facebook.
No, you need to learn it from the sources like I did. And I was forced to do it.
I was forced, I was pushed into a corner and said, You better read these books, by doing.
And the more I read, the more I realized I needed to practice something. And it made sense. So I woke up one morning, I started fasting.
Now the day I started fasting, whether you know, because everyone's got a different, you know, take on things and, you know, experiences, you can never really explain in an experience personal experience to a group of people and expect them to understand it, because they ain't gonna understand it, unless they've been through it themselves.
But the day that I started to fast, in the month of Ramadan, when the book was sent down to mankind, over a period of 23 years, 14 130 odd years ago, and to a man that could not read or write
a man that could not
speak poetry.
Amanda could not intellectualize about things, because he wasn't a academically trained person.
The day that I started, fasting was the day my eyes opened.
That day,
I felt massive change overcame me. And
I just kept pushing myself, I didn't know why I kept washing myself.
I was washing and cleaning myself and trying to make myself like different from before.
And the evening, my friends came and said, Let's go to the nightclub. And they said,
take a rain check on that today.
I don't think that's going to be very good for me. I don't think it's going to help me to fulfill my purpose.
Because I understand my purpose now.
So I kind of went
towards the masjid, the mosque.
I searched for a mosque. And I went in there and this guy grabbed hold of me. name was in the jeep.
And he said to me,
what are you doing as well, I'm doing what I have been created for.
I believe I've been created for is to worship God.
From all of my readings, I have to worship God and there's only one God worthy of worship.
And this man Mohammed along with this Jesus, and that john and that David and that Adam, the first man and, and all of the all of those MVR all of the prophets.
They came to instruct me about how to worship.
And all of the books that were sent the Bible, the engineer, the songs of David's,
the last testament of mankind, etc. So what do I need to do?
He said, Have you watched yourself? I said, I've been watching myself for 24 hours. What do you want to
say, Well, how did you know about this religion? I said, Well, you know,
it's a long story. I'm not gonna repeat
it just so I took Shahada. Now the Shahada is very simple.
It just, I testify
that
there is no god worthy of worship of Allah.
What
met
and by default, we accept all the other properties and all the other books which are correct.
The correct form. If you can bring the correct forms, we accept them altogether. So
I took Shahada
and then I don't know any British guys in the room. Yeah.
requestion.
So, we're all
you know, I don't know
how you describe it, but I'm Irish. I'm half Irish, my my father's Irish, my mother's English. But my mother
and my father.
I don't know what it is about our culture. But we never got to talk. I, you know, we never, they didn't show love. And I even now sometimes I find it difficult for my son's day, you know, he's up there somewhere. I can't really hug him.
But I've seen a lot of Asians and Arabs perpetually hugging each other all the time. In fact, if you go to the Arab lands, you will find two men holding hands.
Happy.
Let me be
my dad, and how are you?
Can't do that in England.
So anyway, I took the Shahada and 300 men helped me
300 men.
Awesome feeling.
And
as far as that goes that day, that's the day when we start to experience the difficulties.
You know, because you know, your culture is very different from 99% of the people that you will meet in a mosque.
See,
if you look at like Abdullah Quilliam in 1889, when he opened the first mosque in Britain,
very successful lawyer in Victorian Britain, he goes from Morocco, comes back to Liverpool, he opens a mosque. He's the only the only Muslim in Liverpool. He says I probably the only Muslim in the UK
that he knows about.
Theory opens the mosque. He does his worship on a Sunday.
And he calls all the people around. And he plays hymns. But he takes out the Shirky bits. You know, it takes out a bit about Jesus being the son of God and stuff like that, which probably made up a lot while
definitely our probably.
Yes, you know what I mean?
And he takes that out, and he continues the service on Sunday.
And then he starts to feed the poor. So the first thing he opens the mosque, if he's 1000 people from the street.
That's what Jesus peace be upon him would have done right.
That's what prophet promises I'm used to do, right?
That's what not Noah used to do. Right? All the prophets used to do those things. So he opens up the center, he feeds the big the poor, then he opens up an orphanage in Liverpool, in Liverpool,
Islamic orphanage, you know, this guy that prevent officers have to visit this guy, man. There's something wrong with it. You know,
you don't like prevent
it, it's not prevented, called create, by the way since they rebranded it.
So prevent extremism. Creative extremism, is when you go into a community. And you talk to this guy, same guy talks to that guy, and talks.
And another extreme, right, and then he talks to that guy, and he says that guy is really bad. You see that guy? He's even worse. Yeah. And then he sows the seeds of dissension in your heart.
That's what's happening today in Britain. And then they'll go to this group of people via the media, and they'll say,
See those guys? Do you know what they said? You know what they did?
Oh, my God.
They're extreme.
And then they sow the seeds of dissension against us. And then they create the disease of dissension between us and them so that until we can't talk to each other in fact, we feel so strange and strange from each other, that we don't talk to each other. And even now, it's gotten to the point where we don't talk to our neighbors in Britain anyway.
We don't even know the name of our neighbor's cat anymore. Haha hi has a nice cat. There.
I don't know.
Right? We know we see the cat more than we see the people that are only
really
serious. We become estranged from each other. And we can't even talk about the fundamentals of who we are.
On this ship journey and his white body jets, we can't even have a decent conversation about why we're on this journey.
He wants me to end.
So guys, really, essentially,
I just wanted to tell you about my own story. And everyone's got their story to tell.
But the important thing is we haven't ended the journey.
The good news is we have not ended the journey, right? Because otherwise you'd be dead, right? And you're not dead because I can see your breathing, right? You put your hands up if you're not dead.
Don't put your hand up, bro.
Young Sammy, so we can talk. Just very briefly, just to end this talk. Yeah.
So the Quran actually specifically does say about the purpose of life.
Because it's one of the things that you will be asking me Yeah, but you are you you know, we went through all this stuff and we'll find the bugs are like, well, what is it?
So according to the current day,
it is merely to accept that God created you
and for you to do as much as you can for God in this world.
Now, Who is God? What is God?
God is the one who is uncreated
is not created is not subject to the creative, you know, processes, like everything else, is the only uncreated.
What do you call
uncreated
entity, right? Choose the term. So just get rid of the term God for the time date.
Get rid of the term God, because of course, it's become very negative.
Oh my god, the only time you can ever use it right? When you're faced with the custom jobs are no.
Use the one that
just leave the term God. Just think about entity. Think about the reality of who you are, where you are, with whom you are, and what you are here for. That's it.
If you can do that, and sincerely do it without having to do that. My priest told me this. Well, your mom told me this. No, no, no, no. Guru told me this. No, no, no, no, no. Jamie Vardy is brilliant at kicking a football I'm gonna become a football player. No, just whatever is in your mind.
Empty your glass.
empty glass.
And you can feel it. But you have to do with sincerity. Not that I honestly, am saying this that some of you might come back with 1000 rejoin us and tell me. You said yeah, but that's your experience. Right? And you're right. It's my experience. But telling me telling you guys, my experience helps you to maybe try to go down a similar path. So you can find answers yourself. Don't just accept, accept, accept. question, question question. Right. Okay. Thanks very much for listening, guys. And I hand you back over to our Maestro for that day.
Thank you very much.
I'd like to thank you all for being so patient and listening to the whole talk. So quietly, attempt to invest before we start selling the food. Just a couple of quick announcements again, today we have another talk at 6pm, which is titled women in Islam. It will be in the arts may next a theater. Again, it's one of those topics which many people have misconceptions about. So I'd encourage all of you once again, it's 6pm, our main lecture theatre. And another announcement that I have is I forgot to make SAS and yesterday yesterday we had a talk on Islam in Europe, and I'm sure many of you, you know, appreciated this
The history that Islam has in Europe. We're continuing that historical theme with Islamic Society has a talk about Salah D and the Crusades on Monday in guild council chambers at 5pm. And the speaker is the hero.
So I encourage all of you to attend that as well. Before we finish, I just like to say, the way it's gonna work for serving as it has been for the last three days, just to err on the side. Take your food. We do have you heard but please be a little considerate, like five times. But we do we do have enough food for everyone. But if you're going around for your seconds, please reuse the same cutlery. We do have a shorter job down. Thank you very much. If you have any questions, you can come and speak to do to
at the end individually.
I hope to see you soon.
Yeah.
Oh
yeah, obviously