Islam vs Terrorism by Sheikh Yusuf Estes. Lecture delivered for Peace TV.
Yusuf Estes – Islam vs Terrorism
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala rasulillah why Allah Allah He was a big Marina Chateau La ilaha illallah wa, Ala Wai Sherman Mohammed in Abu rose. So first of all, I want to extend this announce the greetings of peace
to all of my brothers and sisters here in Bangalore, India, from from our country, we have many Muslims, I don't know if you know this in the United States of America. In fact, many of them came from right here in India. And all of them want to be sure that I give big sometimes to everybody so shallow. I'll do that right now set out Molly can run for too long.
The second thing is that I turned out to be a real Muslim after all, and how is that because I noticed the difference in timing in my country. Everybody's real punctual, punctual, they got a big thing about being on time. And you know what, I must be Muslim, because I was late tonight.
We have in our country, what we call Eastern Standard Time, ESP. Then we have CST Central Standard Time. MSD. Mountain Standard Time, then we have PST Pacific Standard Time. And then we got one for the whole country for the Muslims, there's called a St. Arabic Standard Time, which is about an hour behind everybody else. In any case, the subject tonight,
really is a very serious one.
So
I think it's important for us to pay very close attention to this subject. The subject is about Islam versus terrorism.
Usually, I see them right on the banners, it will say Islam, and terrorism. But I want you to be sure you understand versus terrorism. When there's going to be a fight or some kind of a bout, a boxer is going to come to town and they're going to fight it out. They put the name of one, and then v s and then the name of the other one. This will be for instance, Folsom versus Shylock. And that means these two are fighting against each other.
For this one, I want to say Islam versus terrorism, because certainly one fights the other. In our country, there is a very big misconception about Islam versus terrorism. I'm sure that there's a certain amount of that all over the world because of the tremendous hype
that is being received everywhere through the media.
And so the first thing to do is talk about the medium.
Media is a way of communicating ideas and information. And it's a very important thing for all of us. This is something that's been going on since human beings knew how to speak is for people to go into places and share information from other places.
This is not new at all. As a matter of fact, that's how Islam spread exactly through media
versus the sword, meaning Islam didn't spread by a sword. It's spread by media.
Media, or stories is called Hadeeth.
All right. In Islam, we have a science of media or Hadid.
And it helps us to determine whether or not the information being presented to us is accurate. For instance, if someone says to me that up to law said to up the rock man, and he said do Ayesha and she said to shake jofra and shake Java said to me,
the only person you're looking at is me.
How do you know I'm telling the truth? Well, wait a minute, hold on Jeff are sitting right there. And you saw him just say something to me a minute ago. So maybe it could be possible. The other people are not here. The only way we'd be able to check that out now is to ask him, what is the veracity of Asia? The one who told it to him? Do you know I should? And if he said, Well, not really. Then how valuable would that information be? Likewise, if we ask if she's here, we said to her What about the rock man and up the law and if she says I don't know who they are
Or I just met him yesterday, then what is the value of this ad? Or media? pretty much nothing.
Okay, but for sure you want to check out the one who's talking to you.
And if you find that this man is given to prevarication, meaning he lies,
then what's the value of anything he says? Right?
So this is how we should be today. As Allah subhanho wa Taala warns us in the Quran in surah. Chapter 49 of the Quran, Allah is very clear on this subject.
He warns us
it's in a 49 verse six. Oh, you who believe Yeah, EULA Dena amanu. If a fossick, this is a disobedient person or liar comes to you with information or news, then you have to ascertain the veracity or attest to it. To find out if it's real, unless you find yourself harming people in ignorance, and afterwards, you will regret what you have done.
Now, I want you to think the next time somebody tells you something, who are they? Who is the one speaking to you.
If it's in a newspaper, who is the journalist? If it's on television, who are these people?
And then who are their sponsors? Who are the ones having them say these words? Are they saying all of the truth or just what fits in a five minute segment?
Are they prejudiced?
In my country, we have some people that are prejudiced, meaning
they like themselves so much. The group they don't like they will lie on them. Even if it's not true, they say it anyway, because Oh, well. They're African American. So we'll say this about them.
So, I don't know. Do you have prejudice here in India? Does people ever do that? Oh, okay. So the first thing to do is realize, if you know for sure they've lied about something else, throw everything they say.
If what they say is questionable, or maybe not all of the truth, then at least think about what you're hearing.
But for sure if you know something to be the opposite. If they tell you it's light outside right now, what do you consider that?
Are you going to consider the obvious? Are you going to try to say, well, maybe they meant, you know, it's almost light? Or maybe they meant those lights over there somewhere? Or, you know, let's be realistic.
tell it like it is in play. That's the first part. The next part
deals with what some people do.
Some people do bad things in the United States of America. But does that make everybody in United States of America a bad person?
Some people do bad things
right here in Bangalore, India. But does that mean everybody here is bad?
And often, just as when I was in Pakistan,
the residents will speak harshly about themselves without realizing it.
And say things like, everybody here in my country is corrupt. There's nothing but corruption. There's no honest people and see Really?
Are you sure? Yes. There's no honest people. That's right. They're all liars, right?
Well, for sure, the only one I know about is you and you just said you were a liar. Therefore, everybody must be honest, except you. But we don't think of it that way. We don't realize we're including ourselves, our mothers. Are you gonna let somebody call your mother a liar? You just did.
When you said everybody in my country is a liar.
And it's not true, is it?
But there are some bad people in every single city on this earth, but it doesn't make all the earth bad.
Likewise, there are some people who call themselves Muslim. And they do some bad things. But that has nothing to do with Islam. So now let's find out right now and right here. Exactly.
What is Islam versus terrorism? I'll begin with the word Islam itself. We have an internet website at Islam tomorrow.com is lm t Oh m owrow.com. We broadcast through the internet 24 hours a day.
You can go there and listen to our programming 24 hours a day, Islam tomorrow.com we have another internet website called Islam, always. And another one Islam yesterday. And I'm thinking about getting one called Islam for internet forever and ever. I mean, but anyway, our websites are open 24 hours a day, and there's plenty of free parking. Now I want to come back to our subject we're talking about Islam versus terrorism. The first word Islam needs to be understood in the language that it comes from. fee level our BIA in the Arabic language. Islam comes from this root site law. And from this many words come. And Islam is one that contains other words in it. Often I hear
Muslims say Islam is peace. However, Islam is more than peace. It contains four other beautiful words that equal the real peace. First of all, there is surrender. Like when somebody comes in with guns, and they tell you give up, you give up, I surrender. That's the first word. second word, submit. This is when you're going to sign an agreement. And you're going to do what it says it's called the Shahada, the third word is obeying. That means you're going to do what you said you would do when you sign the paper. And then the next word is sincerity. It means that you're going to do what you said you were going to do, and you're going to do it because you know you should, whether
anybody knows it or not, and whether anybody likes it or not. you sincerely want to do what you said. And then finally, you do it in peace.
And then you receive peace from a Salaam, and that's the name of a law, the peace. So it means a peace between you, and you're creator and sustainer. And it means a peace inside of you, and a peace around you, no matter what's happening. Because you know, this is from your Lord. It does not mean peace in the Middle East. Although that is a big goal and desire of all of us as Muslims. It does not mean peace on earth, goodwill demand, something that's said very frequently at Christmas time, like now, but we would like to see that as well. But for sure Islam is about the relationship of a human being and their Lord. The second word, I want to talk about the vs. In this corner, weighing
240 pounds the other word called terrorism. Okay, what is terrorism?
What is it? Of course it comes the word terror. What is terror? Check it out your dictionary? It's not a good word. Is it terror? It's to put fear into something. A terror is even more than fear. Fear, you're afraid of something terror is when it is beyond normal fear. beyond normal fear, a terror of something.
Okay.
Now, did those words sound like that match? Islam, terrorism? This is a bit
linguistically, you have to say, No, these don't fit. Next, let's look at the teachings of Islam, about accepting something. Once it's established, you've established something, you move to the next and then next and the next. Once you establish in your mind with no doubt there is a God. There's no doubt in your mind. There's a god. And most of the people on this earth today do believe that there is a God. They have a different perception, but the majority of all the earth bound air breathing mammals called human beings, except that there really is a God that created them and takes care of them. Okay. But once you accept that there's a God,
then you accept that this court on could only have come from that God. And in this court on it clearly states that you are not a believer, until you have made Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam as the judge in the matters. Were you in dispute. Once you've understood that, by the way, if you want to reference that's chapter four.
Verse 65, on the sunburst 65, once you've established in your mind that Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam is, in fact, the one who brought this Quran from his Lord, you don't have any option in the matter, you take it and you buy it wholesale complete, and send it now what we hear
and we obey.
Now, that is the concept being used to say, Muslims will do anything. Well, we will. That's true, if that's the accusation. Guilty. If you're saying we'll do anything that our Lord
has ordered us to do, we'll just try.
So if that's your accusation, then yes, guilty, guilty of absolutely following what our Lord has ordered us to do, otherwise we wouldn't be a believer.
But
the next thing some very evil people have done regardless if they call themselves Muslim, or Christian or atheist. It's a very evil thing, when you lie against the law in His Messenger, because clearly Allah says in the Quran hated to Allah is that you lie you say what you don't do that you prevaricate, that you misrepresent something, it's not acceptable. Many of the articles being written against Islam, quote, one part of a verse, and then Miss translated,
corrupted, twist it, take it totally out of context, or use translators mistakes. But I'm going to share with you that having been a Christian for nearly 50 years, very dedicated Christian, very much loving the Lord, I very much still to this minute love Jesus to Christ. Because that tells us right in here is confirmation of Jesus is right here. I have no doubt in my mind after studying this in the Arabic text,
that there is anything in Islam that would underwrite acts of terrorism, all I can find in the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad peace be upon him are x vs. terrorism.
There isn't enough time in one little lecture, to cover this subject in detail. That's why I mentioned our website, so you can pick it all up over there. But quickly, I'm going to give you a couple of pointers and let you consider for yourself. The first one is when someone says, Well, you know, those Muslims have been ordered to kill all the Christians and Jews, wherever they find them. wherever you find them, kill them. It says in the newspaper, and I live in Washington, DC area, we get the Washington Post, I pick it up, I look in there and say whoa, where's that in the Quran?
I call him up. I say who is the journalist that wrote this thing? Where did you get that? I'm not familiar with the verse. Oh, you know, the whole Quran is loaded with stuff like that. I said, Raleigh, just give me one reference. They said well,
verse 191.
In surah, Baccarat, the chapter called the cow, well, it does start out exactly like they said, and kill them wherever you find them. Whoa, oh my god. Oh my god, and kill them wherever you find them. I'm looking at the translation called the Noble Quran by Dr. Muslim Khan and Dr. Mohammed helali.
Published by dar Salaam, that's what I use all the time. It says, oh, my god, they're right. And kill them wherever you find them. Whoa.
Wait a minute, hold on a second. Did you hear Christians and Jews in there? I must have missed that. Let's go back and look again and kill them wherever you find. That could be talking about bugs.
Come to think about it. It just says and wait a minute. When was the last time you started a sentence with the word and let me check this out in Arabic. How many of you know Arabic? Anybody know Arabic? Anybody? Okay, well, there's, there's a thing in Arabic looks like a comma. It's kind of round and has a tail on it called a Wow. Okay, that's the word. And in Arabic, it's a conjunction to say this. And this doesn't necessarily mean plus like one plus one. But it's an and let's see if it says that. Wha Yep, there it is. There's an and right there. Wa
t Lu. That's what it says. Well Cthulhu
I just give you the first two words. That's the ones they're quoting in the newspaper. That's my point. But when was the last time you started a sentence with and it means there's something right before that, doesn't it? Doesn't it?
Well, I don't like it. When people do that, whether they're Muslim or non Muslim, I don't like it when the men and Islam start out, saying what cool. In chapter 24, verse 31, they begin to tell the women about lowering their gaze. And when he jumped, it says, What cool because they don't want to mention the verse before that said, cool, say to the believing men, to lower their gaze to guard their private parts.
They don't want to mention the men have a responsibility in this deal do and the same way when somebody misquotes, this verse starting out with WA, I want to go back to the verse before and find out what you're hiding from me. Let's see where it says Christians and Jews in here. What it says is they're asking you Mohammed about the new moons. Maybe I'm supposed to kill the moon. And they asked you Mohammed about the new moon say these are the signs to mark the fixed periods of time for mankind and for the pilgrimage the Hajj.
Am I supposed to kill all the hajis
and it's it. It's not a beautiful piety, righteousness or taqwa that you enter the houses from the back, but a lot but our beer is the quality of one who fears the law. So enter houses through their proper doors and fear of law that you will be successful. And now we go to the next verse, and fight in the way of a law loads who fight you. Okay, and transgress not limits. Truly Allah does not like to transgressors and kill them wherever you find them and turn them out from where they turn you out. And I'll fitna is worse than killing, and don't fight them at Masjid al haram unless they first bite you there. But if they attack you then kill them, such as the payback for the disbelievers. Did
you hear Christian or Jew in there somewhere? I'll read it again. If somebody thought I said Christian, or did you hear that? The people that I heard referred to in English, it's talking about transgressors, loads who fight you.
So it's retaliation? Yes or no?
It has limits yes or no.
Don't fight them only except when they're fighting you
and turn them out from where they turned you out. Do you remember any story about Jews and Christians turning Muslims out of somewhere? No.
So this isn't what it's talking about? Not at all. But by the way, I'm going to tell you something. With 50 years experience as a Christian, I heard a lot of preachers do exactly the same thing with the Bible. Take a verse, take the part out, they like make a whole sermon out of it. Nobody ever heard that before.
Sometime they have to add a word in or take word out like Jews and Christians.
This verse
came at a time when the Muslims had already suffered for years of not being able to retaliate against oppression and transgression called bull and fitna meaning trials and tribulations.
No one had to teach these Arabs 1400 years ago how to fight. Nobody had to tell them how to fight. Arabs know how to fight even today. I think they're born with a rock in their hand, okay, they know how to fight.
In fact, Islam came to teach them how to stay within the confines of Islam. Islam is based really on a concept. It's beautiful balance called rights and limitations. All we hear about today is rights, rights rights. What about the limits? There's no limits to the rights.
If you give one person all the rights he wants, he can take everybody else's rights away from him. So there has to be a limit Yes or no? A balance Yes or No?
Okay, cool. Moving forward.
This idea, this idea of rights and limitations is introduced very beautifully with this verse, these three verses actually in the Quran.
It's also understood when you know the story that the Arabs had been before Islam very ignorant fighting all the time. I'll tell you one story only because there's not enough time. One story there was a camel race
at the end of the race, the tribe that lost to the other tribes
One of the boys picks up a rock and throws it at the camel. When he did it killed the camel.
So the boy that has this camel began upset, wants to kill their camel or kill the boy. So a war starts between the two tribes and they're going after each other Boom, boom, boom, bang, bang bang. How many years did they fight the war of the camel 40 years, killing each other in a tribal feud over a race.
You didn't have to tell Arabs how to fight. But when they entered this limb, they were forbidden to go out and aggressively pursue those who were persecuting them. They were only allowed self defense. So I want to share with you Jihad does not mean self defense.
It's more than that. Self Defense is always there you somebody come up and slap you, you can hold yourself off. But to retaliate back, this was held back until these verses came for 13 years, the Muslims were very restricted in what they could do physically. They had to tolerate, endure and learned a word called stubborn patience.
The Prophet sallallaahu salam was the epitome of patience and a human being.
He was very patient. And one time there was a lot of aggression and oppression, physical abuse against the Muslims right in front of the Kaaba in Mecca.
And one of the companions went to the Prophet Mohammed Salah why they were so long and complained and asked him please pray to your Lord, make dua that Allah will take this off of us, etc, etc. And he didn't do it. In fact, he turned to him and he said, Oh, so and so don't you know
that Oh, the prophets before us. They had these experiences, and they actually hit people before us had worse experience is and he was talking about the people before us how the people before us had to endure the same kinds of things. In the first years after Jesus had left Earth, peace be upon him.
He mentioned the Prophet Mohammed says, I mentioned that they were tortured in horrible ways. They had their skin combed off of them with an iron comb.
They were boiled. Like you boil a potato.
They were cut in half, they put a salt in their stall and cut them in half.
Having studied the personally, the early years of Christianity, we have record of them being thrown into the lions pit
being thrown into the amphitheater so that the Romans could enjoy a nice afternoon out, go to the amphitheater night, let's go out and watch the Christians being eaten alive by the lions and bears and beaten to death by the Roman gladiators.
That's what they suffered.
And they had endured with patients.
So this has to be understood. And the way that it came
after they had moved to yathrib, which is years of patients that they waited, then the verse comes
and orders them to do what combat you Cthulhu combat,
not slaughter.
But kill in the sense of Mortal Kombat go to war, willing to die or be killed or kill, because they're doing that to you combat those that combat you. That's the kind of kill that's been implied in the verse here with the word kitao. And by the way, the word jihad is not in these eyes. It is not jihad is a very wide word and carries a heavy meaning.
But here particularly, Cato is talking about Mortal Kombat. The very same thing that Mr. George W. Bush ordered when he sent people out
to Afghanistan and into Iraq,
his mortal kombat.
But Islam is having limits. Big limits, fight only those who are fighting you.
Kill only those who are trying to kill you. But as soon as they stop, you have to stop. It is forbidden in Islam to kill the innocence.
If you're going to quote to me from this book and consider that I believe it and I'm going to follow it then please, please take the time to go to chapter five, which is sir Alma de and look to the verse that clearly states that if anybody takes an innocent life
It is though they killed all of humanity.
It's a verse 32, by the way, and if they save a life than it is, though they saved the entire mankind. And indeed their came to them are messengers with clear proofs, evidences in science. Even then after that many of them continue to exceed limits in the land. And understand Islam is about these limits. Because a lot of spinal Rotella did not want Muslims to be like the ignorant Arabs and just trashing people to the ground. In the Bible itself, in the book called Genesis toward the end, there is a chapter or a whole section called the * of Dinah. It deals with the subject of a boy from a non Jewish tribe, who took a girl from the Jewish tribes.
He loved her, he wanted to marry her. The tribal leaders from the Jews went to them, according to the Bible, read it for yourself and said,
We want this girl back.
The chief of the tribe said it's my son that took her. We didn't mean you any harm. But you know, let's make up like this. We will give you gifts, we will give you money, we will give you sheep.
Let us keep this girl he loves her. She loves him, can they be together? They said, No. We're coming back. So they came back with their tribes, the Jewish tribes were ready to fight. But then they realized, Oh, my God looked at how many there are of those people. They were huge. And number. So when they realized they were outnumbered, they made another conference between them. They sat together and they said, Listen, we got to work this out. We want the girl back. The tribal leader said, Listen, we're willing to do this, whatever it would take to satisfy you. They said we can't let her be married to him because he's not Jewish, not from us.
said, Okay, we're ready to accept your religion. We're ready to accept your religion, whatever it takes. And then if you will accept us, we will give you our lands and our animals, and you will be with us just as our own brothers, you'll take our wives will take wives from you, your children and our children together, we'll accept that term of peace. Could we do that? It says in the Bible, the Jews agreed to that. Based on one thing, you have to be circumcised Katon, same as we do today as Muslims, the men have to remove the for flesh of the private part. And that's what it says real clear in the Bible. You do that?
And then it'll be hunky dory, we'll go for it. That's Texas translation, by the way. Next thing, it says that they cut themselves starting with the boy, the son of the tribal leader cut himself like this that. I don't know if you got any idea what I'm talking about. That is horrible. Okay, that's amazing.
And every member of the tribe, they make sure every member of their whole entire tribe did this to themselves. And it says in the Bible, three days later, when the men couldn't even move, it said they were sore. But they were, they couldn't move. It said that's when the Jews came in and killed them all slaughtered them all men, boys, and kept the women for themselves, took all of their land, all of their property and all of their sheep. And they were very proud of themselves. They went back to their father Jacob and told him the story, and it said he was disappointed. This book, The Quran forbids all of that. First of all, you can't lie about the religion. You have to tell people what it
is, but they're always welcome to enter Islam.
But the next thing is, especially, especially when you make a truce, or an agreement, you have to follow through on it in Islam, you cannot deceive people with that.
And when somebody declares the Chateau de la isla de la la shadow Mohammed or Zulu law, I bear witness there's nothing to worship except God alone in Muhammad is His Messenger. He's your brother. And the prophet SAW Some said, his life and his property are safe from your hand. The opposite of the teaching of the Bible, in that area. By the way, I don't believe everything I read in the Bible, but I definitely believe that it's right here when it tells me to have limits, not to go in and kill all the boys and men not to go in and steal all the women and * them killing babies even stealing their land after you made a promise with them. And this is what allows for bidding right here for
the Muslims, for the Arabs and all Muslims ever since that's what it says. That's how I understood it. If somebody has some other Quran that they know about, bring it and let's have a look at it.
As far as I know, there's only one Quran on the entire earth. And it's exactly like everyone else on the entire Earth. So Excuse me, but where do you get out of that? Who slam is tourism?
I see it real clear Islam is against terrorism. In fact, if there is aggression, if there is oppression, if there is bolam and fitness, if there is terrorism on this earth, it Islam that declared the war against terrorism 1400 years ago, and it's called Jihad civilian law.
This is not a subject, that we're going to cover all the details in one short speech.
But it is definitely a message that has to get out to every Muslim first.
And then every other person on this planet, you may ask yourself, why did you say Muslims? Because my brothers and sisters in Islam, it's too often that I hear Muslims apologizing for Islam.
Allah will never accept that.
And the Muslim brothers and sisters who have died on the Taka La ilaha illAllah on the truth of Islam, for 1400 years, would not be very proud of you today, to hear you apologize for something that has nothing wrong in it. Until we stand up for what real truth is, and show people the beauty, the sweetness of the deen of Islam.
The power that Allah gives to the true believers until we do this, we're not living up to it, the people can't see it.
But before I end this little talk, I want to be sure that I balanced the scale.
I want to talk about the position of a non Muslim.
A person who is not Muslim.
looking at what's being presented in the media today
has a right to be afraid.
Because a non Muslim, doesn't really have the taqwa for a law.
And when you don't have Taqwa for a law, you're going to have Taqwa for everything else that Allah created.
Meaning if you don't fear a law,
you'll fear what he created. So they're very much afraid. And they're responding to that fear. And until they can understand real Islam, they'll continue to do what they're doing.
They see us one and a half billion people in the world as a threat as an enemy to them.
Because we have not lived up to the message, we have not presented Islam to them correctly. And therefore they fear what they don't know what they don't understand. And that's logical. People always fear what they don't understand who is going to carry this message to these people?
Are we going to go to Madison Avenue? Are we going to go to Hollywood, California, and ask these great promoters of media to put together a package for us and put it on their news?
I don't think so.
In fact, I know so
the way that we're going to present this message is the way that it was presented 1400 years ago,
by living the example of Mohammed Salah Lai la was Salam by sacrificing our lives in our work and our money, not to kill people.
But to kill inside of ourselves.
This knifes so that we can stand up and be room Muslims. So when they see the sweetness of the deen in us, they want to say I want to be like you. I want to be like you. And when you look at yourself in the mirror, ask yourself is this a person that other people would like to become like?
Because if the answer's no, then you're not representing Islam are you.
But if you can look in the mirror and say, this is somebody representing Islam, then get out there and let them see it in us. I'm not blaming them for doing what they are naturally going to do. But I'm blaming you and myself and every Muslim on this earth who has not presented this message correctly.
Let us make a firm resolve from this point forward. That when you leave out of this building tonight, that it's not the same person who walked in here
that your life is changed, that we are a better person that we're going to have
abide by the rules, regulations and commandments of Allah supanova to Allah and following the Sunnah of his resources. Well, Allahu Allah was so long. Let us make that resolve. And let us ask the Lord to guide us first. And in so doing help others to see the beautiful guidance of Islam on me.
I asked for the guidance of a law, Idina Serato, Mr. King. I mean, I asked for the guidance for all of the people that are logging with Daya, Muslims or non Muslims, Amin. And I asked that he gives us the good of this life and the good of the next life and save us from the punishment of his fire. Amin rebennack. In the afternoon, your Hasson Warfield out here he has one keynote oven our amin
Roberto la tuzik kulu bana bada it had a Tana Wahab Nana Mila Duca, Rachmat and knock on to me.
Allah home is le Allah Mohammed well Allah Mohammed comes later libertine libertine Majeed ami Joseph Kamala hair. I asked a lot to forgive me for any mistakes. anything good sit here tonight was from Allah.
The mistakes are from myself. So peninsula bondic has shared with
us the fruit
Ah,