Communist to Islam - Dr. Bilal Philips

[Music] Nicoletta demon Hobbit awoken no more happy manager today you have a very special guest a very good friend of mine shaped up to be lawful it's it's not too sure I pleasure to see you and sit with you it's nice to see you my pleasure so Sharon I've been doing the podcast now for a few months just interviewing different Islamic personalities you know more on their journey what they've been doing what what how they came to his farm and also what they how they've been actually benefitting the Muslim community so insha'Allah today I wanted to speak to you about your your journey because you've not always been a Muslim so you know a lot of people I know you've been a Muslim for quite a while but so far many people think maybe you know you were born into stop because you've done so much although the name Phillips usually gives it away you know because they'll ask me they might assume that okay he is Muslim but then why is he got this name Phillips you know and where does that name come from or why even if you became a Muslim why do you keep to change that name but then I have to enlighten them that you know from an Islamic perspective it's not permissible for one to remove one's family name actually requirement do everybody is familiar with Yusuf Islam you know and you know other personalities who have just wiped out their names right so but he's Lama grades you know should have something in common with you to the standard you know yeah yeah these musicians yes so shake when did you accept Islam I accepted Islam in 1972 in 1972 I was 25 at the time hamdulillah that was after traveling through communism because I had left Christianity I got involved in university politics I was studying in university at the time and communism in Canada was sort of spreading amongst students University students etc so I got caught up in that and in the student movement so I saw in communism an answer for the world's problems you know after studying some history you know when you grew up in Canada you're not aware of what's happening in the rest of the world and know the oppression which existed in the past you know the in in America and there's more exposure to civil rights movements and these kinds of things so you can understand so I grew up in Canada without being really aware of that when I went to university then I started to became become exposed to that movements and things that took place and in Justices reading the histories of the North American Indians you know the oppression that they went through the slaughter stealing of their lands and all this you know you could see now becomes like wow it's a big eye-opener you know I remember there's a classical book I read in that time called bury my heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown I think it's T Brown yeah who wrote it but this book you know lists what happened to the Indians they the treaties that they made with the European colonizers and how these creatures were broken how they were cheated the landscape to alternative histories or even told well if you're not even alternative is just the I guess is alternative because you know it's the other side we didn't hear from the other side you know as always the settlers coming with their you know their wagons and they would make a circle and the Indians would be coming in off the mountains you know with their spears and arrows and you know these poor settlers they're just trying to live a life story all together face like yeah you know the I had a similar experience you know I think you know already I when I traveled to Sierra Leone I was doing business well at this point you know I was like from England you know the great British Empire you know the great things we did for the world until he land in Africa realized the reality the whole thing and he starts a research and and to study you know this whole truth like you said the the truth of the civil rights in America and all this yeah opens your mind yeah so this is what you know because communism then offered an alternative saying well no people are equal they should be you know equal everywhere in all facets of life and you know so to find that utopian society where people would work according to their ability and only take according to their need no this is the agenda of the Communists right you work some people yeah it sounds nice it sounds beautiful you know wonderful but it just doesn't happen actually that's generally so after traveling that route you know being engaged at certain points with elements of the the civil rights movement black power movement in the US and that you know and coming to the conclusion after a journey there that yeah communism really wasn't the answer because it really didn't change what it was supposed to change you you know Russia didn't become egalitarian society with all this equality in fact Stalin massacred millions you know and then then the most modern I you know extension from that was China and and China you know mouths eaten and his red book this was like the classic you know but then you come to find out that in the Cultural Revolution millions were killed again in the name of protecting the revolution you know so che regime would you only a political community so did you watch you lose your atheist as well now I've become atheist diseases so it was that like something he'd researched or you just kind of wish you more atheist against religion all to do not believe in a creator at that point you know definition of a well you know I was a nominal Christian and I went to church because my parents family went to church we went to church you but to say that I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior night didn't happen it was something that was said you heard it then he repeated it a few times over with it was just not something that went into your brain and you became you know transformed you know the Holy Spirit that you know changed your whole life outlook and no no I didn't it was just like school you know that was check out the chicks you know hardcore like under sixteen my church really no no I mean of course you went to church a lot after me yeah you know I was going to church you know in in in the 16th what's up the church what you mean just material no I mean I was Church of England yeah it's a bit more yeah the closer to the CAF link yeah more whereas you know Presbyterian already although there are an element from the Anglican you know they they do retain something but you know it's Protestants in general or just wide open it's just just belief you know you you say I believe Jesus Christ is your personal Savior and then after that everything is life it's a whole Norris no restrictions requirements and it's wide open so that's right so church you know became just a meeting place you know people would go you know with their fineries on Sunday you know show off their latest dresses and the guys with their suits and whatever you know it was it was just a show it was not and then of course in America it turned into something else there's you know became a whole you know rock you know occasion it was an event you know everybody's up there with the guitars and you know singing and that was in Canada they were not at that stage I we didn't black churches in in America and White's that also take that same route you know the issue there's a whole different thing so for me you know I was not you know really a practicing Christian nominal Christian you know my father didn't used to go to church my mother did somene but my father didn't he later on told me after I accepted Islam that the reason why he never used to go but he'd send us go with your mother but why he never went wasn't because of the fact that when he was about 12 back in Jamaica or 12 or 13 he studied logic because they used to teach that in a British system of Education muck that's know back in the 30s 30s he studied logic and after studying logic he said Jesus could not have been God no way it's illogical completely illogical so from that point the age of around 13 he rejected the idea of Jesus divinity and he only prayed to God it become a my head you know and that was it for his brothers and sisters they used to call him the atheist because for them if you didn't believe that Jesus was God you didn't believe in God so in the fact that you're worshiping God it's nullified it has no value because that God that your worship is not Jesus first of all you're not worshipping God you're like I don't worship or anybody else so you're this believer they call him the atheist you know but his father was one of the leading theologians of the Presbyterians in Jamaica well known you know Master Philips well-known you know so they grew up in the church so he handed the full exposure you know I got at that age rather so that Christianity was just from my mother's side she was still believing that system of belief and we wish to go to church with her you took some money you have to put it in the plate then you were like I just get in my other pocket you can slide it across your hand makes the movement whatever yeah so you know cuz we I know we're always resentful of that you know we had to go put our pennies or whatever and and the plate and why but you did it because that was the tradition so so when you go to university you started looking at the world for the first time now the whole world is opened up to you you know you're you're thinking exposure to people professors with many different ideas and that you know and then you became aware student movement I initially went into it you know just to be in with everybody else you know but eventually the ideas start to rub off on you and you know and become yeah biochemistry I was almost I was you know one semester away from graduation then then I went to the States got caught up in that movement shut down the university it was Simon Fraser University in West Coast Canada shut down the university the students shut it down went down to the u.s. to San Francisco you know California linking up with the active communist you know what they had called the Soledad defense committee I joined up with them Angela yeah yeah I was studying I was studying yeah no no I studied I wasn't studied you know the the books you know and caught up in the movement itself but at the same time observing you know what was happening around myself and I I could see a lot of ill discipline you know in the members you know of the movement that which disappointed me and people have not changed you know I was thinking that this would have caused people to be more honest more just more fair more whatever but the people were just the same people you know they just talked a different talk but you know life wise they were living the same lives they just found another channel by which to promote themselves or whatever you know yeah yeah singing singing in guitar yeah I mean actually that was more in Malaysia in Malaysia my family had moved to Malaysia before I came back to go to university and in Canada when I first came back I was still in university while in university I was playing in nightclubs and things like this you know but once I got into the communist thing I basically had no time for that anymore so I sort of left it hanging I when I went back up to Canada from the States I joined another sort of cultural communist movement youth movement there in Toronto and I started playing with a band again there playing in nightclubs now but mainly using the music as a means to to bring people to rallies and to gatherings and stuff like that because they would use some of that you know as a means of drawing people who would come for the music and then you give them the talk afterwards kind of thing right yeah 25 you accepted Islam well you know there were some brothers from the states who had come up there were draft dodgers mainly this was Vietnam war time and that's what a lot of the universities you know demonstrations and shutting down in the Canada was about because Canada was making the bombs which the Americans were dropping on the Vietnamese so you know students what is going on here what is kind enough to do with this and you know so yeah at that time in in in Toronto there were many Americans come up from the US they were in this university in in West Coast Canada Simon Fraser University also in Toronto there were many that came avoiding the draft so they wouldn't be sent over to Vietnam because the borders were open for Americans to come up to Canada so they came up on state so some of them that came up were Muslims they had converted to Islam in the States so they gravitated towards because they were into sort of a political Islam but it was the political Dawa their the movement at the time so they would come to the rallies and they would try to promote their dour here and there where they could I mean I wasn't really open to to the Dawa because we're already clear that you know religion was the opium of the masses so there was not really any thought along those lines but one of them managed to affect or they would say in fact you know one of the the the women that were part of our our Central Committee she accepted Islam and that shocked me because she was a hardcore communist she was a Maoist right you know as the heart she had memorized mots multi tongues red book and all yeah that would have been something else but she you know she had memorized so she was really hardcore Maoist so how in the world she accept Islam religion you know so this is what I asked her so what's going on you know so she said so she said you know actually Islam is not like the other religions you know that yeah it's true you know what we would learn about religion and she'll used to to placate the masses so that they would not desire you know the things of this world they wouldn't challenge the upper class that is running the society because they will all be told it's it's paradise it's coming after this world so you you be happy with what you have here now you know so it was understood but she said you know Islam it's not like that it's a whole different thing actually Islam is very revolutionary you know and then they watch movies like they call it the Battle of Algiers you know where the Algerians were the first country in Africa that liberated itself not were given their in their independence but liberated itself through battle fought their way until France had to let go right so this was like you know this is this is the revolution successful revolution but the battle cry was Allah ho Akbar who this is Allah Akbar god is great huh how what's the connection you know and so that seeing those issues and then I started to read Islamic books in particular the book by muhammad kitab called Islam the misunderstood religion this was the book that really did it for me you know it was only like the second book I read on Islam and that was it that book covered everything because it is a political yeah it looks at the everything he's looking at communism capitalism socialism you know Christianity everything which was that people followed to show basically what is the summary of what he showed there was that all the wood that was found in all of these religions and systems and political all of that good is there in Islam and each one of these had negative aspects to them and all of that negativity is not found in Islam so what other conclusion that you can come to that hey Islam has got it all you know so it was clear just clear all the good points were there so I said well ok yeah this is something I could accept you know because I was having as I told you I was having my doubts at the time which is that same period I was also reading more about the history and seeing the the impact of communism on these countries China and Russia and related countries and you know how much injustice that ended up developing there under the name of communism and and how these countries hood couldn't compete with the capitalist countries if communism is so great it should have shot ahead and been the V economic power of the world but instead papito the people were still down they couldn't compete with with America and Europe and [Music] but it's because they're not following should be yeah or you can just simply say that this is a period in history go back to the period when they were the top of the world the technology everything was them people came to them to learn so it did show that Islam can take people to the top of the world you know so it's there so the fact that it's down right now you know they were overcome and whatever so it's down it doesn't mean that it can't be there you know so so which is different communism never had a period when they only now with China Russia to a smaller degree but only now with China China has now come up to become war power but it didn't become that on the communism that's the whole point that what they had to modify that communism till it became capitalism with the name commitments upon the outside you know they became capitalists they accepted that capitalism you know had value and it would move the society forward and we keep the theory of communism in place but what is working and moving you know the engine of the society is capitalism it's not communism not communist economics it's capitalist economics so you know so they they they they don't have any proof from that perspective so at this point you and then you you went to yeah within a year after I accepted Islam yeah within a year but you know in that one year I joined Jamaat a table I went to the UK they had the first each tema in the West there in Dewsbury right and I had spent my four months there in the UK I completed my four months there in the masjids of the UK because I had gone there seeking knowledge this was the idea in Canada accepted Islam the few books I had limited try to get other books very few books available you know okay sit study under people you know foreigners who were there in the message from different countries the Egyptians Moroccans you know and trying to get knowledge we didn't realizing that it's very limited these guys are just you know cultural Muslims so they what they gave you is their piece of their culture you know you so here was the real Islam in all of this you know so then when they said okay wanna study we've got scholars in England you have over 50 mosques in Canada in Toronto at the time there are only two mosques in the whole of in Toronto whole of Toronto so at that time so 50 mosques and in every mosque is a Maulana could study that's like you know ah you know the the students dream so I went there and I sat I had my notebooks with me I would sit ask the questions and the mallanna's would tell me and I'd make the note of all the answers of you know I good four months of study came back to Toronto and you know told my wife we are hanafis know because you know you had to follow one of the four methods according to what everybody was saying and of course most Muslims are hanafis abu hanifa was the first of the Imams ya go with the majority you know became anomie told my why I had to learn in in in the UK I had to learn the female prayer for hanafis because it's so different from the male it's not something you can even explain it in writing it has to be demonstrated you know so I learned that female prayer from the mall honest and I came back taught my wife you know how to pray according to the Hanafi way and then I moved next door gives the whole year yeah yeah but that's a book kind of explaining and bring these people through the history to understand the mouth hands because the mother hub is a mystery in the minds of the majority of Muslims they know it they heard the name you know Mother Hubbard okay I put up the different ways mass luck they have different names yeah even you know but the mother hub reality of the mug hub the vast majority of Muslims have no idea you know are they different religion some even call them different sects you know we have the Hanafy sect we have the Schaffer a sec something Otto college sect it's not really sect its mother hub so where's the mother you just follow on you know this is they're all correct so this was the point we were told that they're all correct if anyone you follow it's okay you know the Hanafi is the best one to follow since the majority people following it but any of the others you follow it's okay if you don't follow on then your Imam is Shaitaan yes yeah even though you had books coming from Turkey this Hussein ishik he wrote some books and and then in these books one of these books he is praying about the mother B says one of the questions you will be asked in the grave is what is your mother yeah they went to that point so made it really serious about this mother up thing so I remember when I so I moved next to the Maastricht Masjid Imam of the mustard was a chef a Imam from Egypt and I started studying with him fit was so now you know I would the evidences and that I start to see the contradictions you know and I saw that ultimate contradiction where the chef is say if you accidentally touch a woman your would do is not broken your food is broken and but if Hanif he said if you touch a woman you would lose not broken so you know that is the arrow error irreconcilable difference you know no way can't accept it one has to be correct why not incorrect so this is what set me made me ready for Medina and when I reached that point of understanding and the person who gave me Shahada just as a point of information was a dr. Abdullah Hakeem quick he was one the Americans who had come up was is the one who converted that sister yeah yeah yeah you can write it in the US well maybe it was a year or two before me something like this but here yeah yeah but he went to Medina we went together to Medina we went together to meet here so so the point though is that when I reached that point where I could see contradictions which could not be reconciled you can't say both are correct I realized that I needed to go to the sources to get Islam from the sources to understand it because I felt something was obviously wrong here you know it's not something you could talk about out loud you know we would as convert Muslims that to it there in Georgia who would grumble about these differences amongst ourselves but you don't say this to a born Muslim cuz ha ha so we are in the background Ana's got you man it's in your head shape on you know so hamdullah so new enter Medina then the Enlightenment came we came to understand the origins of madhabs and these kind of things and hamdullah never look like especially in English you know from different people such as yourself and other people in English but at this time nothing is the only books we had worthy of MIDI books because they made the translation of the Quran that result is available you know we then the news of Ali's showed up but difficult to get a hold of a copy yeah yeah so he kind of just figure it out for yourself no no it I mean a lot presented away [Music] it's really when I came to Medina yeah so in Medina you know then this discussion was there amongst students they didn't insist on anyone Matt hub even though they use the in the in the high school junior high they use books from the Humber limit hub but in the college university that we studied from books which were non math hub specific books you know so we looked at the classics the classic works did research studies with attend many classes scholars ice to sit in the circles of shake master Dean albani and when bars share baccarat desirey homography lotta the well-known scholars were teaching in Medina not sure Carlos Amos was in Riyadh side you know we had a theme that's where he was used basis another side so when I came out to Riyadh you know then I was studying mostly in the circles of Sheikh bin baskets he had big class going on there so our attendees as well as people were very humble you know very you know simple you know there was not the hype wasn't really there so it was very very like Medina you know I mean we have had access to scholars big scholars who came from Egypt you know who were teaching there were you know known as giants of you know scholarship in Egypt but you know there are regular people they would sit and talk with students and you know it was it wasn't the you know superstar type of relationship you know well I did basically five years or five and a half years you know four years of the college you know a year year and a half of the language school and then I went on to Riyadh do my Master's I started teaching them did my masters at the same time yeah ghanians have they have a strong Islamic you know in Arabic background because my teacher when I was studying in Medina his informal teacher was Ghanian besides to study under him he in preparation for his name was Muhammad Arabia he's in the states in the States and stuff but he and Abdul Hakim Hakim myself and couple others we used to study with him he we taught him English and he teaches Arabic you know building and preparing us for the university I'm not no sure in Ghana who knows you the very very old shape one of the first batches of the Medina students there's a bunch of them yeah there's a bunch of them in Ghana he's because I went to they have a school there's about four of them were mice some of them wise to teach karate in Medina yeah you know they were my students right this was a means of earning some little extra money you know to survive yeah I teach karate and Kung Fu but yeah so there was a set of students that means maybe what 40 or 50 students hmm you know from different parts of the world they would I trained them my wife used to so the the Gea's that they would wear hmm as she saw it up she hadn't shown machine and this was our means of generating just survival money man survived in those days back in the you know the early 90s not saris there only that's what it was 1970 1974 you know 74 you can't imagine what the medina was like and you know this only didn't provide married students you're on your own on your own the my same money they gave to the single students the same money they gave to you and you had to sorry you couldn't be on campus because they were getting that money but they were living on campus they would send that money home build a palace when they graduate and they go back you know they live in high you know Susan yeah yeah yeah they'll fail past one year fail a year past year so then the the whole four year degree becomes an eight year degrees earning all of these salaries from eight years you know you come back man you are laid out you are the shape not for so us you know they're struggling you know survival serious survival mode man I remember not eating you know eating meat like once a week they don't know the many complaining I was there 15 years he started from family right it started for my junior high school from grade 8 that's what they do it no he he's been doing mrs. P no but you can only do so many time because they put in the thing that if you do it twice they'll fail they'll kick you out they started to put that in saying those people in here that's kind of numbers they've been there they came there from from the grade eight so they do great 8 9 10 11 12 right seven actually seventh is the beginning of fan away so so they got motor wasit sorry what was it so they got a good six years those six years they turn into 12 years because your eyes said you only allowed to fail once hmm right so they will pass that they'll fail then they pass they fail then they pass then the fitness you males twice I twice in a row because before that they would do that you know before those days we were doing failing twice three times and you know they're just there they this is for life we're not going you're telling me who's getting involved in dowry as well yeah yeah in in when I was studying in Modena those six years in Modena five six years the dowel would be during holidays when I went back to Canada US and the West Indies so I would go back into those communities and focus mainly on them convert Muslims were increasing their numbers were increasing reaching out to them holding circles for them guiding them you know us as I said West Indies us to go down regularly to Trinidad Barbados Bahamas Jamaica so you [Music] about nine family was down there and everything so the Dow of course that's what that's the first place I went actually when I accepted Islam in Toronto first thing I did was I flew down to Jamaica you know to her to give the dower to my family my cousins and uncles and aunts and you know to reach out to them first and foremost I was the duty I recognized that so after giving dower to my own parents in Canada before going down then I remember when I went down to Jamaica and I was with one of my cousin's close cousins and he told me oh there's a there's a mosque in downtown Kingston I said really please stick me so they took me down you know only yeah we came up this nice mustard you know oh he came up you know I'm sitting no no it wasn't ugly you know I came up looking and that's something strange about this place so then when I got closer and I went up to the front door I thought thing Baha'i temple yes device you know so because they are breakaway sect from Islam from Shiite Islam and they they retained the Eastern style of place of worship so it looked like a mosque but it wasn't so there I on today and Jamaica for Muslims I finally came across one Muslim in Montego Bay you know an old Indian man he was dying of cancer at the time he had built a little mosque on his land a couple of workers who work for him they converted to Islam they used to pray there he used to give the Juma good Baah then eventually the word reached a couple of sisters who all the sisters who had accepted Islam in New York they came back down to Jamaica to live out their lives there so they came to the mosque and so I met a little handful that was about it that was it of Islam in Jamaica now you know Jamaica they have over 35 mosques you know many thousands of Muslims that those days his flaw was just non-existent been raised in the world every country go find them in the jungle those were the days so super join you after your studies during your studies you use also writing the rioting began in Riyadh in Riyadh I was asked to join a school an Islamic school called Minar at Riyadh and to design curriculum for grade 1 to 12 so at that time I was like 1979 1980 there were no books on Islam available for children for young people to study in English so I had to create something so at that time that's what forced me to write I was not a writer you know particular my father was of course masters in English teaching English as a foreign language and all that my mother was also a teacher you know mathematics and they helped me to put things together to write they they reviewed my materials and helped me to get it in the best format you know I was a writer from the perspective that I started from my communist days to keep notes recorder he could say more than writer I recorded and then every book that I read of Islam I took out the most key ideas and I put them in books so if I want to review that idea I get back to it I could all just flip I did not to go back through the book again so so I had that practice of writing but it wasn't really creation it wasn't authorship it was just basically recording material so I had to take the ideas now which I had studied in Modena over the four years etc and bring them down to the level which was appropriate for grade 12 11 10 9 so this was a challenge said with the help of my parents I've prepared materials as like notes which we printed out and stuff like this circulated among students and developed teaching skills which helped also for our purposes to give lectures etc because I would travel regularly as I said to the West although in Riyadh there was there were foreign communities they're mostly Filipinos who didn't know Islam and they were starting to come into Islam there were a few brothers who are engaged in Dawa there one brother what's his name now doctor dr. Gillian gelila did dr. gelila Dean he was a professor of English at Imam of the Saud University and he with the English was giving tower to Filipinos you on rooftop of apartment buildings you know he would invite them on the weekend one day they were off Friday whatever he write them up there and then he was giving them you know the d-backs tile Dawa hmm so I attended you know few sessions and got got engaged in explaining as one who had converted from Christianity you know explaining the the lack of logic in the Christian belief system you know so this was more my focus I never really went into you know the verses and trying to argue from their verses this brother Jelena Dean he had read quite extensively and from comedy dots works and he was giving that side I was given more from the logic and having been a Christian myself you know and so the dawa started from the rooftops in react and then in baja we eventually got a center set up there you know that's the first of what they call the Makati with Joliette or the foreign communities offices they spread all over Saudi Arabia later every city every part of the city they set them up you know because how did you keep to do something and but they obviously their English usually is so weak they couldn't make the dour themselves so they tried to you know get somebody who are already converted or whatever you know me I was the one who was being carried around to many of the companies and that is what this was the method that they would use to take time off the workers shifts car companies farms it's not truck gather them and just give you know one-hour presentation to them you know about Islam really focusing and explain to them what Islam is you know and not picked up you know as time went by more and more till we started I started the first translation of the hood bomb you know not they wouldn't do goodbye in English never really reached that point there what it was was the hood bar was translated either simultaneously they would bring the non-muslims to the back of the Masjid and somebody would translate simultaneously and or the other way was notes would be taken by the person was gonna do that I did to prepare notes from the hood baa and then afterwards I'd explain to them always a football about so that it had value for them you know so started that practice that started in the in the living room of one of the Imams I was asked to come and translate for these converts after anything and from that it spread Tim you have to hold it in the master another section of the master Eden you know became a standard practice here across Saudi Arabia no no no I was in Riyadh they might when I did my PhD in the UK it was done I only had to go to Lampeter I went there in Wales I went there maybe about three times so it was because it was by research so I didn't have to take any classes it was just research for the PhD I went there defended it you know start with my professors and so on so who my advisors supervisors so going to the UK was was going mainly in the 90s I I was going there for our purposes because I used to stop off in the UK on the way the flight from Saudi Arabia back to Canada which is always go through the UK there were no direct flights at that so let's stop off in the UK so I stopped off there for a week spend the time travelling around the UK giving Dawa teaching in some of the different bastards holding classes published books it's it's over 50 over 50 individual topics Islamic topics right weathers was Sula tafseer soon and hadith you know in all the various areas the only area I think I haven't written on is serie so I've done tough years you know published books in fit and not only Sula hadith but actually compilation of hadith called the best in Islam and Clash of Civilizations and total as I said about 50 books in as individual topics I did a series which I edited prepared such were and published a series for children learning English called the Iman reading series that has 56 books by itself you know then that was for teaching Islamic English English presented in an Islamic package you know which is being used in schools around the world till today that was back in the 90s so where did the idea come around follow the Islamic online university well you know it was a gradual stage high school teacher doing my Master's finishing a master's finishing PhD while doing dour but still teaching from the PhD and you know I became a lecturer a teacher in university right I was teacher in university for 10 years in UAE the American University in the way I thought there is Lamech Studies on that I was the department and this is where the need to set up an Islamic department came I set one up in a German university and I ran the Department of Islamic studies there English medium and then from there Islamic Studies department the next step is University so I then I set up a university in Chennai you know after you know after setting up a university and that set up at university in India I think it's the first accredited and that is government accredited Islamic University in India I know people think that there should be there are universities there alagar and say not Islamic those universities are not Islamic the the the most analogous is the most famous one the the strongest student body you know they have student groups is the communist we recall the communist student group that's the strongest one in the Universities that tells you all right this if they're the strongest with the strongest following and all this kind of thing that's telling you Islamic Lee it's to lunch you know or smiley a university in Hyderabad I went there I went to their library and everything the head of the university is a Hindu you know it's Carlos smile here but nothing Islamic about it so that so your IOU was the first Islamic know what university register yeah it wasn't call IOU it was called this Colin Stokes call is functioning in Chennai it's called Preston International College okay right but it it is registered as a university it is connected with the Madras University it was the first inning in India so hamdulillah you know I was prepared to live there I brought my families over and everything but the government had other plans they didn't renew my visa once they saw where it was going because what I was trying to do develop there was an International Islamic University because there's none for India there is in Islamabad there is in Dhaka and Bangladesh there isn't KL and no and there isn't Uganda there Kampala International some universe so these exist but not in India you know with 200 million Muslims so this was my intention but from the very beginning they sabotage those intentions I tried to get teachers from all over from Egypt from Kenya they wouldn't give them visas I had to get my teachers from India so I went try to get other professors will be teaching with me from India then we wanted I wanted a varied student body so we invited students from all over the world no visas or they would go to the to the embassy the embassy television Aversa t it's fake even though we were registered at everything they found any excuse to just stop the people so virtually nobody could come in from the outside so it was this was 2009 yeah so what I did was I decided that at least because it was in Chennai you know South India Tamil Nadu at least the student body should not just be all from Tamil Nadu so it's just a Tamil Nadu University like each University you know generally is the people of that state who go there so I did a tour of all the major cities New Delhi you know mumbay Bangalore Bangalore you know I went to all the major cities and invited students to come to study in Chennai so at least hamdullah the student body was from all over India which is very important for an Islamic University but it it has the Hajj spirit you know people getting to know each other Muslims from different parts but as I said when the time came to renew my visa after one year no renewed visa so I had to go back to Qatar so at that point I decided okay it's time to go online I was already preparing from 2007 I started a bachelor's program in Dawa connected to omdurman Islamic University in Khartoum der Milan Sudan they already approved the syllabus I was using their syllabus translated into English what's wrong so the preparations for going online was already there in place so the plan was I should start in 2011 goes from seven 2007-2011 four years I would have finished curriculum ready to go online when I was blocked and forced to go back to Qatar then I decided at that point after 2009 going 2010 to start in 2010 so I launched University online in 2000 because - yeah online nobody could stop me I could hire anybody I wanted to hire from anywhere else whatever even in the country yeah students from everywhere were coming they were as soon as I started the number is just quadrupled every semester four times the amount that were you know so it spread very much shooters do you have no which is what registered who have registered it's over half a million over 500,000 students have registered you know but that doesn't give you the figure of those who are currently active because students come and go come and go they stop for one semester or they stop for two semesters whatever it's it's up to them because they're free - yeah so you know hamdullah one of the big challenges that were faced with as all universities are faced with our dropouts in most universities it doesn't matter as long as people are coming in your numbers are coming in you're making the money no problem you want to drop out after that you paid no problem but because our goal is changing the nation through education this is a calamity for us you know which we have to deal with because we can only change the nation if they've studies Shido which prepares them to go back out in the society and affect the society and change it you know so we're you know devising different ways and means you know to reach out to these students to try to bring them back on board you know find out why they dropped out and you know so we've expended a lot of energy over the last two years now you know especially in this last year we've been you know trying to focus more and more I'm you know I'm arranging for you know this actually big universities already have this in place but the way we're taking it on is is some another level you know because it's it's a real care a real important principle that we have to reduce our numbers of dropouts beyond what the conventional universities have you know this is a big challenge and this is customer care in the other in business there's not a customer care they carry the customers so they'll come back again they're becoming regular customers so I mean from our perspective in fact I think most universities the biggest amount of money is spent in advertisement Osmo standard but in our case we'd have to make that in student retention we need to devise ways and means get the latest you know data and information you know which is our being is being used by different universities to help retain the students we need to take that whole thing to another level because of the importance that that holds with regards to fulfilling the mission of the university so you know this is a huge challenge along with the accreditation issues that you know a lot of countries don't want to deal with online universities they think they're fake you know degree mills they call them all kinds of names I mean ours is very real students that have gone to you know big universities like the Malaysian universities taking courses there and taken with us and said what you're doing there is you know it's much more difficult than what's going on there so mean weird they you know you know this is it many of your students around the world you know my troubles Africa Asia you know in the doing very well census of different countries this strong net yeah and the network that its students to work with and yeah students in general in virtually in all the fields either ours is completely unique like in our psychology teaching you know bachelors in Islamic psychology what are the University in the world is teaching that you know so we were we've broken ground you know and in the areas that other universities have not even began to think about so this is open you know if people want to study that the IOU they can go to the website you can stand up simple and we're trying to make it as simple as possible you know simpler and simpler so that the the registration process doesn't become a knockout point you know if it's not user friendly you know then people start up too much trouble you know but we have you know the course is of course we're known as the Islamic online University so people tend to think oh it's just Islamic subjects you know we have the Sharia we have a master's in Sharia which is recognized by the government of Indonesia so you can do PhDs in Indonesia with our masters etc and we have bachelors in Arabic again this is to be expected this is Islamic University but the majority of our courses are not quote-unquote Islamic you know it's education stomach banking and finance Islamic psychology or psychology Business Administration and information technology and we are also launching in the coming semester we're launching also agricultural economics we're choosing subjects which are vital subjects today to the growing Muslim community we're not focusing on robotics because who's using robotics in the Muslim in the third world this is a first world stuff that's just training people to be a part of the brain jury you know because they help yeah they'll swoop you up right away into US UK Germany you know but then what did the Muslims benefit from you teach it so we focus on those critical areas we want to also include mass communications journalism as well as studies in public health you know these areas which are the critical areas of the third world third we'll need people properly trained and then with an Islamic understanding because that's what's unique about us because otherwise you can go and study these are the subjects anywhere in any other university but they're not teaching it from an Islamic perspective that's the missing link you know and this is what we are doing and what all of the Muslim universities need to do you know but we're so we are pioneers in this you know to to say that we offer everything including business administration including IT people are high tea Islamic IT is there such a thing yes there is you know it's IT taught from an Islamic perspective and no matter how people may think that this is just this is just you know technology and you know but technology has to exist in a society that technology is learned and applied in a society it's not in outer space you know it's functioning so you can say okay the only thing anything is talking about that it's floating around the world no it is applied in human society and as long as you're dealing with human beings you know Islam has guidelines to protect those human beings in all the different ways and to make that technology a benefit to the society and minimize the potential harm which comes from it now Islam is gonna identify areas that they the non-islamic instructors would not bother to get into consensus technology you know you learn it it's yeah so there's no place for Islam here this is you know IT what reality is that IT has maybe less than the humanities you know cuz humanities are more dealing with human societal relations teaching education these areas but you know technology tends to be sort of a little bit more distant but still you have to apply it you know this is really important and just just the you know the atmosphere of the studying in the in an Islamic environment as well you know most of the Muslims who are having issues with their faith it's because of the secular education you know growing up if you'd be growing up in a secular society secular education you know running through schools the next 15 years of secular education it's going to have an effect sure you know because every subject is taught as if Allah doesn't exist and if Islam is false you know so no matter what you study in it's so important to have that Islamic ethos of justification it's a pleasure and really enjoyed meeting you speaking with you again I'm the love you for quite a few years now we've seen each other different parts of the world mm-hmm and I shall I will continue to do so and and I know I've told you this before but for those who are listening here's actually your video that helps me come to Islam I told you before my god yeah I was through my experiences in Africa with the world of the jinn if you like that type of thing I was explaining this to my friend in in my Libyan friend in the UK and he showed me one of your videos explaining how the jeans you know get their information and how it actually works basically and yeah this this was the key video mmm that switched me I appreciate add to my scale of good deeds and yeah I'm doing you know you know you know benefited a lot from your work especially your books in English just clarifying and clearing off a lot of the doubts that many new Muslims have and you know we use these books they still being used and promoted when we teach in the devil and you know we use these as there's reading material you know for the for the new and up-and-coming often coming dieese and they're just before we finish do you have any last words or any advice that you can give the Muslims or even the new Muslims on how they should go forward in life well you know as a teacher you know the general advice that we naturally give is that one has to be in that learning process you know we should never feel I know enough I have enough knowledge the Prophet SAW Salaam had already informed us that whoever seeks knowledge he or she has entered a path which is leading ultimately to paradise so this issue of learning you know we should look at it the way we look at a bada but we know if the worship is not done properly you don't have hoodoo or your broker will do out your praying or you know what to do you know you can't just do anything there are clear guidelines so similarly when we are in that learning mode and it should be a part of our lives that we leave this world we should consider all of the factors that will make sure that the knowledge we are getting is correct the understanding of it is correct and the application of it is correct you know because otherwise Shaitaan knew Allah knows who are lies you know so it's not just the knowledge by itself so yeah I can get it from a book you know I can watch the video here and you know YouTube and I can get it from there well learning in that way where you're just taking from whatever is available you know is the cocktail it's mixed up and if you don't have proper teachers proper sources of knowledge content will access content then that knowledge will not benefit you it may benefit you from a material perspective because you've got a degree now you make money or in this position etc but it won't benefit you ultimately in this life and the next so we need to recognize this responsibility that the promises are seldom put on us when he told us belly one evil oh aiiah convey whatever you've learned from me even though it is only a single verse from the Quran to convey he told us to convey but he also told us to seek knowledge fallible ill me very delicately Muslim seeking knowledge is compulsory for every Muslim so he gave us two instructions one that it is obligatory for us to get that knowledge because why because it will put us on a path to paradise and also it is obligatory for us to convey whatever of the knowledge we have gained we have benefited from we've understood it cetera you know so it's to both aspects being a student and being a teacher you know and anyone who is a student can be a teacher he may not be able to be University teacher lecture professor but there's all there are always people around him who he can teach he can pass that knowledge onto so that is the responsibility that every Muslim has and has to fulfill which Allah will ask us about on the day of judgment so that would be my general advice that we need to look at this process as a bada it's a blessed process being a teacher and a student student first teacher after simultaneously this is a process that each Muslim should be conscious of we ask ourselves what I'm honored today Who am I if we're not then we are like how many consciousness they are like so demon a demon soon [Music]

Channel: Bilal Philips

Views: 4,916

Rating: 4.8660288 out of 5

Keywords: Khutbah, english sermon, islamic lecture, muslim scholar, Dr. Abu Ameena Bilal Philips, shaykh, Communist to Islam, embracing islam, story of dr bilal philips, how did i embrace islam, Young Smirks, John Fontain

Id: QVckAcDtTFY

Length: 83min 15sec (4995 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 12 2020