How the Bible Led Me to Islam The Story of a Former Christian Youth Minister by Joshua Evans

a cinematic avocado alhamdulillah alhamdulillah hamden catira ocellatus romero scuba violin viola he was ideas main a shadow la la la la la la jolla cherry cola dough and Muhammad Abdul Waris aloha tama Divino rahmatullah al-amin what Diana lava bead me he was a regimen arama that I'm going to tell you tonight about my journey from why I once was is a former Christian youth minister to how I got to where I am now there's a lot of bumps in the road you know it seems pretty clear yeah you're a minister and now you're Muslim I know but as a little bit more to it in sha Allah so I just bear with me and hopefully you'll get something out of it because the point is at the end is I want you to get the message behind the story because if I was traveling around the country just to tell my story then I would be wasting time it's on YouTube anyone can go get it from anywhere in the world so inshallah we're going to begin at the beginning I was born and raised in Greenville South Carolina I was born and raised in Greenville South Carolina and I was raised by my grandparents because at a very early age my mother had stepped out and my father was working two jobs so was me and my grandparents and my grandparents were the traditional conservative southern christian folk as they say they were born in that they were very very conservative and their ideals and their ideologies in their ways you know you know as you hear about you know be people being set in their ways that was my grandparents like this we did it this way and this is the way you did it every single day and that was it and we were very religious in the sense that we went to church on Sundays women to church Sunday evenings we went to church wednesday and in Christianity that's considered very religious so and it was not hard for us to go to church and it was not difficult for my grandmother to drag me to church every Sunday which as a kid is what they had to do because the church was two houses down from our house there was two houses and then there the church so was not hard from the dragon me every Sunday and I hated Church as a kid because of the simple reason that you know we are brought up United Methodist and Methodist is for any of you know it's very traditional it's not like you think about like screaming and shouting in church and all that no you you listen to the preacher you sit stand up and you sing you sit back down you listen to the preacher you stand up and sing you sit back down listen to the picture and that's it that's all that happens and in the pews that they call them the chairs I made out of wood they're hard you get tired of sitting there you're fumbling around playing with the money that my grandmother gave me to put in the offering plate all of these things that's what I remember from churches is a very small boy but the thing that I do remember enjoying about church was sunday school sunday school is what I got enjoyment from because went to Sunday School your painted pictures you know if like no other building the req pendant pick you know all these pictures of Moses plating the Red Sea you learn the stories of of Moses frame the children of Israel from Egypt you learn the story about him splitting the Red Sea you learn the story about knowing the ark you learn the story about David and Goliath you know you learn all these beautiful stories in Sunday school so this was basically as coming up this is what I knew about Christianity was the stories that I learned in Sunday school because I never listen to the preacher during regular service so that was the only thing I know about Christianity so coming up this was how it was it was just the norm and the conservatism in my house just to give you an example and about the level of conservatism is if let's talk about gender issues let's say when I became 12 13 14 and I started to actually you know notice females and I actually didn't think they had diseases and wanted to run away from them every time I saw them let's say I wanted to have a girl over something of this nature it was so serious to my grandmother that I had to make an appointment with her let her know this girl was coming to my house had she had it we had to sit in the formal living room which in the South I don't know if how it is here but you have the dining room then you have the formal living room with all the nice stuff that you don't go in unless there's company over and my grandmother either had to be sitting in the same room with us or in the kitchen where she could see directly in the room I mean this is just how it was in my house this is how my grandmother grandfather were they were very stern they were very loving but there were rules and those rules were the way they were and they did not change so this was my upbringing and I would say at about the age of 12 13 14 more along the age 13 14 I started going to the saturday evening youth services at my church that were 4 12 and up and the youth services were held in the gym and they were totally different than church at the youth services you wince we played basketball we played volleyball we played dodgeball you know we play every kind of sport and we ate pizza and cake and can do you know all the stuff kids like to do and at the end the youth minister who happened to be my caddy corner neighbor across the street when I was 14 he was 17 he was the youth minister so he would set us down and give us a 30 minute lecture about Christianity about something about God doing you know he would give us a 30 minute sermon and then and that's how the youth services were and going to these youth services I met some other people who went to other youth services they invited me to young young men for Christ and other in other things that were going on in South Carolina and so I started to go to these different retreats and in camping trips with them and so that is what i would say that i started to become a Christian out of wheel I became a Christian because I wanted to not because it was something I was dragged to do I started to actually want to be Christian this is something I wanted to do I made my own choice in my own decision to do it so when I turned 15 I started going to high school and when I was in a freshman in high school my best friend who was the youth minister was a senior in high school and I remember we had a very close bond because I I had to have my license yet so I used to ride with him to school every day and it was a big deal for me to go to ride to school with the senior especially since he had a you know a brand-new or it was a brand nobody had a restored 67 Mustang which I've always been a fan of course when I was a kid so we had a very close bond and we were very good friends because both of our parents were very similar they didn't let us do much so we spent a lot of time with each other and when I became a sophomore he graduated and started to attend Bob Jones University I don't know if that rings a bell with anyone but Bob Jones University is a very prestigious conservative Christian College in South Carolina it's probably the most conservative college I've ever seen because the Moody Institute is known as one of the most famous in this country since Chicago but Bob Jones is conservative to the point to where when it comes to men and women like men and women aren't allowed to get caught talking to each other in a room alone if they're not married holding hands on campus the man had to wear button-up shirts or polo shirts tucked in with slacks or jeans the women had to wear skirts no jeans skirts that came down to the ankle and assured they came to the wrist and this this is this was part of the guidelines for Bob Jones University you know you didn't party you didn't you didn't drink it in there was none of this that happened at Bob Jones University and he started going there and his major was a textual criticism and textual criticism probably doesn't ring a bell with anyone and to explain it in detail would probably take an entire another entire lecture but just to give you a brief synopsis of what is a textual criticism a textual critic takes the ancient manuscripts of the Bible the pieces of parchment that were found all over the world and he has to learn Hebrew Greek Aramaic Latin you know these languages that these parchments have been found in and he has to take these scriptures and try to find out where they came from why there are variations in the many different versions of the same parchment let's say you have Matthew chapter one from the Bible there might be five thousand different variant readings of Matthew chapter one in six languages and so he has to be able to take all these and sift through them try to find out why there are so many variations of the readings and then determine which one is the original and that's not as easy a task a the same you could figure you know which one ever the oh this is probably a more original which is not the case since there are no originals you might have one parchment is the oldest parchment of the of the of the group but it might be a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy with with laden with mistakes and then you might have the newest part parchment in the Indus series that might be a once over copy from an original or twice over second copy from an original therefore would make the newer parchment more original than the older one so it's not a very easy field to go into and he started studying textual criticism and being that I was his best friend I started studying textual criticism whenever he was you know doing his homework or research papers you know I was right there with him whenever he did a homework he would always let me read it or when he finished his papers he would give them to me I would he would pass down all of the papers to me out of every text book when he was done with it he would give it to me I started to learn a little bit of Greek a little bit of Hebrew so I became you know started to become a layman's textual critic and I applied to Bob Jones University in my sophomore year because it was a three-year waiting process for Bob Jones and when I turned 16 almost 17 he my friend came to me one day and he asked me a question that I had never really even pondered upon he asked me said have you read the Bible and I said no in church I mean yeah we've all read the Bible in church you know your parents make you open it up and look at it and at the Bible studies i went to young man for Christ's we did have Bible studies and we'd read a few passages and talked for two hours about those few passages but he's like no no have you ever read it you know like you read a book beginning to end I said no I don't know anybody this red nobody that I knew had ever read it beginning Genesis 1 went to the end he said so but this is the inerrant Word of God as we are taught this is our instructions on earth why haven't we read it you know why have we not read this book and I simply notice that's a very good question and he gave me a challenge was basically a challenge for us both he said let us start with Genesis 11 and let's read the Bible and let's see what God says to us because this is the inerrant Word of God inspired to men for instructions for us so let us see what God says to us if God can talk to the preacher through this book why can't he talk to me I said you're right i said that's very good i had a lot of time on my hands i wasn't really allowed to do much anyway after school so I said why not let's read the Bible I was somewhat nerdy as fourteen fifteen-year-old 16 year old um so I we started to read the Bible and we decided to go from Genesis 11 and what we try to do this was the attempt that we made was to not think of anything that we had ever heard about Christianity but to open the Bible and let's say I just found this book in the desert and really and see what it says to me let it talk to us so we started Genesis 11 and we started reading through the Bible you know we we did some of it together and most of it I did by myself because I I'm a very very quick reader so I decided to read a lot on my own and as I was reading through the Bible I started to notice the stories that i had heard in Sunday school you know you start reading Genesis you read about him and Eve we all know that story you started reading about Deuteronomy Exodus you know the stories of Moses the story of Noah the story of lot and Abraham I'm and all these stories that I know but I was surprisingly an astonishingly shocked by some of the stories that I read about these same people that I learned about in Sunday school just for instance and this is a big testament to why a lot kept sending us prophets and why Islam was sent as a complete and perfect a teen with the crime if you read about Noah in the Bible there is the story about Noah saving humanity from the flood with an ark and all of that there is this in the Bible there's other another aspect to the story of Noah that not many people know about unless they actually take time to open a Bible this will not be preached from any pulpit anywhere is that the Bible says that Noah was an alcoholic this is the Bible's portrayal of Noah or not I am that he was an alcoholic he was a drunkard this is the word used in the Bible that he was a man given to alcohol and I'm a psychology major and my field of specialty is mental illnesses in alcoholism is one of those is a mental illness and I know from seeing alcoholism is effect on one of my close friends parents I know that someone who is truly addicted to alcohol and if Noah lived for so long addicted alcohol he was seriously addicted alcohol it is hard for someone addicted alcohol to hold down a nine-to-five job working at McDonald's flipping hamburgers much less construct an ark to save humanity from a flood that's never happened so that stopped me for a moment in my tracks and I said no was an alcoholic you know and it bothered me for a minute because I said I did you know things started popping in my mind like if no was a drunkard how did he know God was talking to him because you know I've seen some people they're alcoholics you know you were just asleep in my dog's food both the other night drooling and now you're telling me we're talking to God last night you know it did this did you know to rationally that would not make sense to me that's like you know and i'll call it on the street coming to you and tell you God's talking to him you know he has note that this would give this man no validity the this man has no validity with anyone so I didn't pay too much attention it caught me but I said you know what I'm gonna keep going because there's one thing that you don't do in Christianity and I'll tell you what it was in a minute when I started doing it then i came across the story of lot or luke la seven and we all know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in these stories but there's a another very twisted story in the Bible about lot in his daughters there's a story of lot and his daughters in the Bible that says his daughters got him drunk one night and seduced him in committed incest with him I would have been that this is the Bible is one of the Bible portrayals of the prophets of God the person who say save or save this family from Sodom and Gomorrah this is the story that is in the Bible so I'm catching myself again like wow this is becoming a really bad habit that I'm saying this is becoming a bad word currents that I'm seeing over and over again in this Bible so you know after that I started you know speeding through some of the other mumbo jumbo to get the more of these prophets stories and got to the story there are others and there are some stories in the Bible that are not PG rated period they're not rated for talking anywhere you know you would need an 18 and up ID card to be able for me to even tell you these stories so I the one that tree intrigued me them that caught my attention the most was of my most beloved story in the Bible and that was of David and Goliath that was my most intriguing story to me because not only was you know I said that in the Bible that David was a very small man in glad there's a very big man and that was appealing to me because I was always been very short and as a kid I was really short so you know I said this was a very beautiful story to me just in its pros and in his concept of overcoming and so I started to read about David and there are very very beautiful stories about David in the Bible there are indeed but there is one story about David in the Bible that shocked me to my core and it's a story about three people there's three people in this drama David Bathsheba and Uriah and it says that David saw saw this woman named Bathsheba and she was one of the most beautiful woman of her time and she happened to be married to one of the commanders of his army named Uriah but David on this day decided that he was not able to resist his temptation to be with this woman Bathsheba so he did and he committed adultery with her and knowing that he did this he that the way that he decided to cover it up was he sent a letter to the generals of his army saying that when the battle was fierce for everyone to pull back and abandon your right so that he would be killed and when he dies and he could have Bathsheba no harm no foul so David went from being the Slayer of Goliath the hero for man to an adulterer a plotter and a murderer and so this is when I really caught myself and said hold on now something's wrong if something's got to give I said because to me God's prophets in my mind were people of example people who I can follow as an example someone who was supposed to be the best of us so that we could follow them and emulate them and I'm they're turning out to be worse than some of the people that you see on America's Most Wanted David is somebody that if i only knew this about him from the Bible I see him coming down the street I'm going the other way and calling 911 because he has to have a warrant out on him for something this is what I'm thinking in my mind this man is not an honorable man at all he ok he killed Goliath yeah but he killed this other guy named Uriah to be able to commit a doctor with his wife so I I did I committed the cardinal sin in Christianity I started asking questions this is the one thing you do not do in Christianity is you don't ask questions especially not about issues like this so I went to my pastor and I started asking questions you know what what's going on here you know pastor there's there's a very bad recurring habit about these men in the Bible what is what is the deal here and I remember he told me the same thing that I almost every pastor or every evangelist or anyone I talk to about this same same same answer almost like it was programmed they would put their hand on my shoulder say brother Joshua don't let a little bit of knowledge wreck your faith because you're not justified by knowledge you're justified by faith and they would call me versus likely not own understanding you know Paul's were justified by faith in Jesus Christ you know this is all they would quote this whole line of thing to me like it was already pre-programmed that they like they program them pastor school that people are going to ask you questions and here's the answer so you know I said to myself you know I don't know pastor you know this just seems kind of odd he said let me tell you something what you're reading is the Old Testament referring to God's covenant with the children of Israel and they were different people of very stubborn crazy people so why don't you move on to the New Testament in the New Testament you'll find the New Covenant they were under with Jesus Christ and I promise you things will change and be better I said okay perfect so I read all that went ahead and fit sting got to Malachi and then started with the New Testament so I you know I open the girls and I said here we go you know let's start all over again but there were a few things that I had learned from the Old Testament that I wanted to keep in mind when I started to read the New Testament I learned number one that God was one in a unique sense this is what I learned from the Old Testament that God was one in a singular unique sense this is over and over and over and over very clearly in the Bible God's nature is one this is so clear through the Old Testament and that he was very jealous about his worship and every single time the children of Israel would turn that something else other than him he would punish them and restrict their lifestyle this is something that I learned and it kind of seemed the similar to to me with how God dealt with the children of Israel was and hate to use this start contra the stark contrast but it's almost as if one of one of us went out god forbid older than that hope not and let's say we went out here and robbed the bank you rob a bank you're going to jail for a long time and every day when you wake up do you think that that jail is going to look like the the hilton at LAX no I I doubt it it's probably dark cold bad food orange jumpsuits not nice people the whole nine yards and the reason why this is and I know this now for studying psychology is that this is supposed to be a stark reminder every single day when this person wakes up that you are in jail this is supposed to remind them every single day you're in jail because you committed a crime and we run this not you this is the message that is being portrayed to this person in jail so when the children of Israel kept rebelling against God he restricted their lifestyle you studied today low now it is some of the most strict religious law you can find all of the good things that we enjoy as Muslims even when it comes to dietary laws like the good parts of the meat that we are allowed to eat they can't have these things these are things that are restricted from them why because God Allah wanted to remind them every day that I am of I am your God you will worship me I run this not you and I understood this from reading the Old Testament this is a concept I had come across so I started with the New Testament Matthew Mark Luke and John and one other thing that i did when i started to read the Bible was if you go to barnes and noble let's say you go to barnes and noble and you take a book off the shelf what is usually the first thing you look at the title then the next thing no author you want to know the title in the author what is the name of the book who wrote it and if you do this test with every single book of the Bible you get a title and no author author unknown our author is appears to be so and so or we derive that so-and-so possibly written this you know like let's just say for excellence they say Moses wrote exodus which if you read some amol of Exodus he couldn't have written all of Exodus because the last part of Exodus is Moses's death burial and joshua taken over the children israel and now unless Moses was a sure indeed profit that was able to write things after he died then he did not write these things and so when you go to Matthew Mark Luke and John I wanted to know Matthew who mark who lucu John who because it's called the Gospel according to Matthew the bad thing is that no one knows no one knows because no one pinned their name down to these things no no Bible scholar in his right mind was tell you that we know for sure Matthew so-and-so wrote this marks on storrow this loop so and sober of this John so-and-so wrote this it's not it's factual information that we do not know who wrote these so I was intrigued I'm like that doesn't you know why would somebody write this book that's supposed to be passed down over generations and people are supposed to miss the inspired Word of God to guide mankind and nobody decided to write pin down who wrote it but anyway I started to read it and I started to notice things about the teachings of Jesus Christ and they were not what I had learned in church when Jesus spoke he spoke of the nature of God and when he spoke of the nature of God it was the same nature of God that I found in the Old Testament Jesus said it many times that God is one God is he would even quote from the Hebrew Scriptures hear o Israel the Lord your God is but one when he was asked what is the greatest commandment or the he was asked the greatest commandment he said the greatest commandment and every Muslim should understand these two concepts there should be nothing new to you the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your mind with all your strength and then to love your neighbor as you love yourself he said the rest hang on these two which we know how we're in Islam we have rights of the creator and right to the creation so this was the concept that he was teaching and he even was he even said in 1st John 5 to 17 and this was more clear to me than anyone else anything else can be this is life eternal that they may know you the only true God the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent and when you look at that in the Greek in the air make it is almost exactly to a tee of line I'll Allah Mohammad Rasool Allah now that I know either they can have understood that very same similar statements yes indeed there were some in implicit statements about that you could implicitly if you took them and separated them from everything else you can maybe derive that Jesus was trying to claim some divinity or something for himself but I also know from doing psychology and I did a little bit of law to that an implicit statement cannot override an explicit statement an explicit statement always takes precedence so if jesus said God is one and he Anna gorica Lee may have alluded to God being more than one then the clear statement overrides that each and every single time so this is what I found through the through the New Testament and I also found that Jesus taught salvation but his salvation that he taught was obeying God and following the commandments this was his mode of salvation one man asked him good master tell me how I can inherit eternal life he said follow the commandments follow the commandments he even in Matthew was so serious in c.r body he said whosoever shall follow the least of these Commandments and teach men to do so shall be called the greatest in the kingdom of heaven but whosoever shall break the least of these Commandments and teach me to do so shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven so this I understood very clearly that Jesus taught the same nature of God that was in the old testament he taught that the the Salvation lied in worshipping God and following the commandments this I understood my team are Luke and John were very clear about this you know there were other things the only begotten Son you know but these things were not in red letter so I did not give them as much weight as what I did to the actual words that Jesus Christ was saying I've his own mouth so I read Matthew Mark Luke and John all of it was saying the same to me i said but and i was thinking to myself this is not what i was taught about christianity you know you're taught that God is 1 in 3 three and one you know one one one equals three you know father son Holy Spirit Jesus died on the cross to forgive you sin you know and there was another thing that I noticed from the Old Testament and this is a beautiful lesson to Muslims because you're asked this all the time especially when it comes to Dawa and it I never put two and two together until I learned this lamb and then read the Bible one more time is i wanted to know why the Jews wanted to crucify Jesus so bad why so bad they could have just mobbed them anywhere and kill him on the street he didn't he is not like he had clans like the Arabs they would have come in and backed him up I said what did it is kill him you know why were they so strict and sincere that tell Pontius Pilate you gotta kill him and you need to sanction it weakened obey you need to sanction at the kill him and now I understand it was that Jesus had a mission and that mission was to share God with the world and Paul even kind of tells on himself in his book of Galatians as to why Jesus was was meant to be crucified of the Jews wanted to crucify and Paul said that the crucifixion is the stumbling block for the Jews and he explained in Galatians that Jesus Christ and this is how he tried around about explain it was cursed for us to remove us from the curse of a law by taking this curse upon us for it is written and he quoted the Old Testament everything that hangeth on a tree is cursed so I went back and study the Old Testament and Jake law and I realized that people who were crucified that was considered a curse upon them you had do something pretty serious to get crucifixion it because it was Senate considered a curse from God it was part of their law that when someone is crucified that person is cursed so wherever they buried these criminals like in the in the graveyards in in Israel and Jerusalem in Palestine where they bury these criminals they were crucified this was considered curse ground this was considered ground that you didn't go on and you didn't you did nothing here because these people are cursed by God so I started to put two and two together that it's not that they wanted to kill Jesus because it just killed him they wanted to disprove who he was this was their point was to disprove who this man was he said he's the Messiah they wanted to disprove it and they knew if you can crucify Jesus he can't be the Messiah he cannot be on Messiah if you can crucify him and even if he is if we can still force our crucifixion on him then then that'll detriment his message so they understood this and knew this and this is why they wanted to crucify him and this is exactly why I law saved him from it this because everyone actually wanted a law saving from the crucifixion because you cannot receive that was part of his law that he came to fulfill that he could not be cursed according to this law he said I've come to fulfill the law to fulfill it therefore he couldn't be cursed according to it and this is why he went to the Garden of Gethsemane and ask God to remove this from him because he knew how detrimental this was to his message of crucifixion so I began to see all of these things so I and I started to read I got to the book of Acts and started to read the writings of Paul the Apostle and things went from this to this it went from one way to another way it went completely flipped turned around the entire teachings went from obeying God worshipping God following the law to worshipping Jesus Christ and abolishing the law completely Paul even wrote to the Galatians all you foolish Galatians why are you still following this curse law Jesus Christ came as a curse to remove us from the affliction of this curse so I said to myself but Jesus just said a few books before this the whosoever shall break the these Commandments and teach men to do so should be the least in the kingdom of heaven and here you go Paul preaching this gospel to abolish the law so I even asked what is going on here so I started asking my past and my pastor said now you're getting into deep water you know now you're starting to question the New Testament you really got you really have some issues you know they even thought that I might be you know possessed and all kinds of things so I had a very big conflict going on inside of me and my friend took me to his uh his a textual critic a teacher in his professor in what this man told me probably wrecked my faith in Christianity and I always say I doubt he would be very happy me traveling around the world telling people that a Christian professor from bob jones university right my faith in christianity but he did because what i asked him was what happened to all these contradictions you know in the in the Old Testament there are many contradictions if you study Hebrew language you'll understand that when you read some of the Old Testament or the Torah that there are some parts of the Torah that you can see is the most beautiful arabic that you can see just I'm both beautiful Hebrew that you can see just like when you read the Quran is very beautiful Hebrew and then two chapters later you'll see Hebrew that looks like a broken three year old who do it is trying to scribble sing Hebrew dan looks very colloquial very diabetic you can tell us not the same person speaking so I started to I went and asked him about all this stuff I saw and he told me he said what you have is a book written by men over centuries and centuries and eons and eons and he says and this book started as an original that was copied and copied and copied in somebody added a mistake and somebody came behind him and corrected that mistake in added two of his own someone came and copied it and skip the line and added a line where it wasn't supposed to be and then someone else came and copied it and took it to his country and in order for it to fit well with the doctrine they were teaching he would cross out a dot here or cross out a word here or change a word here so they would fit with the with the the theological ideas of this part of the world and he said and after all these years you have a book now that is compiled from all of this written by the hands of men that still have mins fingerprints left on it and that's what you have you have an improper imperfect book that is only perfected through faith this is exactly what he told me that this book is perfected through faith you cannot perfect it texturally it's not a textually perfect book those who believe in it believe in it by faith and so I said here we go again with this faith thing you know I said God gave me a brain for a reason if he did not want me to use it he would remove this reason and logic part of my brain out and replaced it with more faith so you know and I was of the opinion though you know as the saying goes my grandmother didn't raise a fool I'm no fool you know i said i can't i can't believe in this you know i mean this is this book I've been taught it in the air or of God and you're just telling me that it's a book of errors there's only perfect through faith that's like me taking a nineteen eighty two dots and all beat up and say say if you believe it's a really it can be immerse a DS if you believe you know that that would make no sense you can't take a car to the car dealership and say that no no if you really believe it if you look at it right it's a Mercedes so I said no you know this this is a book full of errors and God's religion is perfect if God has a religion it's perfect if he has a book it has to be perfect because he is perfect so I left Christianity completely and um I decided that I was you know I had learned some concepts from the Bible God was one you couldn't fool me that you know I had also concepted that there should be nobody standing between me and God because he created me without permission from anyone therefore I don't need to be taking permission from someone to go to him if I had to be forgiven for something they should come from him because on the day of judgment is going to be me and him alone and I didn't know about God's prophets yet you know I had my mind my doubts and persuasions about that so I decided to start searching other religions I went back to Judaism I stay Judaism found the same thing that Jesus taught about spiritual to spiritual Jews they leave the law and laws Jews that were so caught up in the law that they left over for spirituality I studied Buddhism Hinduism tell you wisdom Confucianism Wiccan Bushido you know everything I could get my hands on every type of ism or religion I I studied it but there was one Lippman's test that i use for every religion and when I saw it whenever I met them or the people or whatever about this religion i always ask them do you have a book do you have a book because another thing i had come to the conclusion of is that if your religion is true you should be able to hit tangibly hand me something and show me that this religion is true give me something that I can see I don't want to hear that faith stuff anymore I heard that all my life and it look where it got me it got me thinking I'm driving a Mercedes running around in 1982 beat-up Datsun I said no you you have to show me and I'm sorry I read the Baja vaquita I read the Torah I read the scrolls of town you know I read the the code of the Bushido i read the Wiccan book of spirits and spells and all that other magic stuff they have and I read all of these things and I found something very congruent with all of it was that there were very same philosophies and teachings and all of these major religious books they all talked about God in his nature most of them alluded to the fact that God is one and that God sends messengers to us and people to us to teach us but they were filled with a whole bunch of garbage to be to be honest with you that I couldn't logically rationally believe so at about the age of 17 just about the toss about 17 17 and a half I gave up my search for God and I became kind of angry with God because I said Here I am looking for you and I can't find you and yet doesn't like you give me any help and I don't know how many of you know but for a 17 year old is frustrated with God and the world there's a lot of trouble he can get into there's a lot of things he can do to put himself in predicaments when he's frustrated the world and had come to the conception that you know if there's a god that exists and he doesn't really care about me you know that's a kind of a dangerous young man so I started doing the whole party in trouble going to parties drinking underage all of this stuff i started doing you know I'm a perfectionist at heart so when I was a Christian I tried to be a the best one I could if I was going to switch to being any other religion then I was going to do that one percent so you better believe when I went after the dunya I did that one hundred percent and you know I was a martial artist since I was 15 years old and even there was only two years you know two years if 17 you think you know you're Bruce Lee so I got into a lot of fights got kicked out of school had to go to another school got in one fight got arrested for a fight you know and and there were a couple incidences that stopped this downward spiral because I was on a very very quick downward spiral that within I believe if I were to continue on that downward spiral i'll probably end up hurting someone killing someone or them hurting or killing me and there were two incidents that brought that to an abrupt stop like pulling the emergency brake and the first one was a car accident that I was in my friend and I were on the way back from Clemson University from from a frat party and we were driving up 35 in South Carolina and we were both highly intoxicated and I decided that night that I he was driving i decided to put my seat belt on for the only reason that i kept falling over when I fell asleep without the sea boat on it because I didn't really believe in the seat belt thing because I I said if I'm gonna die I'm gonna die you know that's the conception that I come up with it if you know if it's times me to die it's time for me to die didn't believe in the whole time your camel thing so I put on my seatbelt and I fell asleep in the next thing I know I remember waking up by the car shaking and I woke up to grab my friend because I thought maybe you'd fallen asleep but when I woke up the only thing I saw was the tree line and then the pavement coming right at my face in the window smashing and the car flipping the whole nine yards and us landing in a ditch and I remember getting out of the car that was the first thing i thought you know III number one I couldn't believe that you know you really think about oh you're a Latino you just move I jumped out of the car and realized that I had jumped out of the back of the car that wasn't there anymore it was still in the median on the other side of the highway and the front part of the car was was over in the ditch and I drove my friend out who was not non-conscious and pulled him over the side road I had no injuries I looked at myself we're trying to find what's missing and there was nothing but a piece of glass stuck in my arm that I pulled out and it just so happened that a state trooper was passing the other way because he turned around and came back and uh when he came back he you know he asked what had happened in the first thing you asked me was did you see what happened because it was other people would put over so I guess he thought that I was a bystander cuz i started to walk towards him he's like did you see what happened you know where the people i said ya i really saw what happened i was in the car you know and he was like you know they as they say like the color drained out of his face because he was a shot he said there's no how are you in that car you know and of course they took at the hospital my friend got arrested DUI but before he put us in the ambulance he he was a man of God because he looked at me and he told me he said young man you better realize that you're on this earth tonight for a purpose the only reason you're still alive is that God has a purpose for you if not you don't live through things like that people without purpose if you didn't have a purpose then this night would have been your night so you need to realize that I said this old man's out of his mind you know if God had been looking for me he had the opportunity to get me a long time ago so don't tell me about that God stuff now so I paid it no attention in about a month later three four weeks later my friend and I same too he's on crutches still we decided to go to New York City we decided to just take off drive to New York City we didn't tell her parents where we're going i said i was sleeping his house he said he was living in my house for the weekend so we drove to New York and I in New York I remember going to the ATM to get some money and and in New York they have these ATMs where you have to go in the blue glass room to get your money I ATM I don't know if they have that here if any of you been to New York now I haven't that you have to put your bank card into going there but in 97 it was not like this you went in and it was almost like the game mouse trap because you go in take out your money criminal comes right in behind you there's nowhere for you to go you know it's nowhere to run so I went and I took my money on the ATM and I heard the door open behind me you know so I turned around you know I thought somebody was coming in behind me and there was a man who put a gun to my face and he must have really really really really needed this money because he didn't ask me anything he didn't say a single word I just remember looking at the gun in my face and him pulling the trigger and it was a revolver and to this day I'll never forget that image in my head of seeing that little little spindle turn and hearing that very distinct click other of over and it was it probably could have been like a 32 snub nose gun like this but when it was in my face it looked like one of those like cannons that you see on the movies and I remember when when he pulled the trigger I didn't think anything you don't think anything just blink you just go into this like shock of blankness and then a couple seconds later thankfully I had been doing martial arts that might have helped me overcome the fight or flight syndrome because I like I think was go you know like like myself kicking myself like what are you doing go so I i bum rushed him we were flying he went flying money with flying gun went flying and I took off and went to the hotel and didn't say anything NeNe buddy went back to South Carolina the next day and I didn't say anything cuz we were supposed to be in New York my grandfather would have killed me if that guy didn't kill me my grandfather would have took care of it so I didn't say anything until about a month or two later you know I kept having nightmares about the same incident i get the having night terrors from from this incident and so i told my grandmother about it and she told me the same thing that the that the officer told me she said you know you have to realize that God has a purpose for your life you're here for a reason there's no people don't go through the things that you've been through and still walking on this earth without a reason and you're pushing the limit what she told me you're pushing the limit really God has something for you and and he wants you to get it but you're pushing it and she didn't tell me to go back to Christianity and study my Bible only thing she told me was that God has not went hasn't gone anywhere you just have not looked in the right place yet and so I decided to put myself back together you know the the car wreck the the the gun thing they're getting arrested for fighting like all of that like really made me stop really quick and think you know that i need to get my my my stuff together so i became somewhat i became an agnostic someone who believes i believe in god with no form of religion I prayed to God on the floor on my hands and knees because this is how all the books of God is how the Bible the Torah the New Testament the Bhagavad Gita the all of these scriptures that I ever read they said that this is how the men of God pray and it was during this time that I did read one book about a slim in the public library because I had never heard of Islam ever but I remember I was looking the religious section in the library at at school and there was a book about Islam and I was in the library the public library and i remember it was some title like why I'm not a Muslim or or some you know one of these titles that was propagandistic against Islam but I had no idea so I just took the book and I read it and I remember it said that Muslims mosl EMS and any of you knowing Arabic knows that's a very derogatory word a Muslim is someone who oppresses someone else that's a very quick slide of the pin that was used in the past for a very real purpose it said that Muslims were people who worship the moon-god name name of Allah who lived in a box in the desert and Saudi Arabia and they were oppressive to women I remember there was a whole chapter about how they could have four wives and as many as they want actually because they could marry to divorce one get three more you know this whole you know and it said that you know I remember the one thing that really caught my attention was the whole chapter on John where I said that Muslims are allowed to kill non-muslims at any time at any place without discretion and it was an honorable act and not only would they go to heaven before it but they would get 70 versions on the way you know so I closed the book on his land put it back on the shelf and marked off Islam off my little list of religions and said thanks but no thanks never ever see a Muslim I am out and I said I'm pretty safe in Greenville South Carolina I'd never seen a Muslim ever so I said you know I don't have to worry about running to know Muslims thank God so you know III I started you know just worshiping you know I tried to just be a good person you know pray to God asking for guidance try to be a generally good person and I remember the word changes when I met a Muslim I met a Muslim who I had met a couple of times at school we had went to school together and I knew him but I never knew that he was Muslim and there's a couple reasons why I never know he was Muslim because he was african american number one in the book said that muslims were Arabs and number two I didn't know you know I thought awesomes ran around you know marrying as many women as in one killing non-muslims I didn't know that they could also be part-time drug dealers so I didn't I never knew that this guy was Muslim I didn't put two and two together so we're at his house one day and me and my other friend the one that you know I got in told her trouble with I'm trying to keep him out of trouble now we were at his house and we were debating something about religion after i forget what even the topic was but you know he had two teenagers thing and they know everything and I was trying to explain something to him about the Bible and that guy came in and was listening he said have you ever heard of Islam I said yes I've heard all about Islam he was like okay so what do you think of it I said what do you mean what i think of it that's probably the worst religion I've ever seen on the face of the planet he's like why he's like I'm a Muslim I was like man stop playing you know like your ear you're an african-american you know he's like so I'm like the book said you guys were there all the Muslims were Arabs he was like with us did you read the book and I told him he was like man what indeed you know what have you been reading he's like you need to go to the mosque for jummah he's like I he told me said I'm not a good Muslim is what he said to me he said I'm not a good Muslim I'm not even going to try to front and say I'm a good Muslim he said but I can guide you to some people they can tell you the real truth about a slam because he know about my story about wanting to find religion and he said you need to go to the mosque for juma and I said was what's Juma he said it's just like church with no chairs I said I can do church with no chairs because in church the chairs were the worst part anyway because they had these hard benches that you sit on that are like this and so hard I said that's good you sit on carpet wow man I should every church should be like that and I said where's the mosque he said its own way hampton boulevard i said we're not we hampton boulevard on with him to boulevard live right off of waiting bull's horn he said you know where lee road intersects with ray Hampton I said yeah yeah I live on the other side of the intersection he said it's right there I said no it's not there's nothing there's a gas station area church he said yeah you know that church the inventive angelical missionary training facility said yeah I used to take missionary classes there he said you know that building in the parking lot with the gold thing on top I said then yeah the gym means I know that's the mosque because I had always thought it was the gym because it was in the same parking lot and it was just rectangular with two glass doors in the front and you could literally walk in between the church and the masjid and touch them like this anyone doesn't believe me go to greenville south carolina at the mushroom you can almost touch the both of them just like this he said yes right there I said I've never you know first I was shocked like I've been living across the street from all these crazy Muslims all my life you know I said I never knew you know and he told me to go to juma and I asked him what time he said he would meet me there at one o'clock in the afternoon or friday so i said okay i went on friday and i'm waiting outside for him you know i'm not going inside that's not happening you know what I'm seeing all these people going in and at this time it was a predominantly indo-pak e arab masjid anyone who went in even was was not American period and i did not see even one african-american going there and and i did see one and then we went in I heard him talking in a dialect that I realized was he was probably from Africa I say he's not American um so I'm not going I'm waiting and I'm standing outside sitting on the church steps and the Imam pulls up in parked right in front of me who I had no idea who's the mom but he got out he asked me you know am i what am i waiting for someone to step the other and I explained to him he said oh yeah we know this brother you don't see him that much but we know who he is you know he said I'm glad you came you know he was a very very nice gentle young man and he invited me into the mosque and I kind of wanted to wait on my friend you know but I didn't want you know the same time I didn't want to tell his man I don't want to go in so I went in and they put me in the back and gave me a chair anyway I said I came to sit on the floor they gave me a chair anyway you know and all of these people are piled up in front of me and there's no Americans here and I'm starting to wonder you know if this is a setup because it starting to smell like a setup to me because I'm in my mind I'm like you've been set up before and this seems kind of like this so and I'm starting to think in my head you know scenarios you know a young mind at play you know I said this this other guy my friend he probably was in this same situation like me and he probably made a deal with them to get out as long as he brought other Americans and treating them into coming to the mosque so they could do their job after juma and get their 70 virgins so I'm sitting here and there's all these people in front of me and then there's a curtain with all these people behind me making noise and I have no idea who's back here so I'm stuck in the middle of this I hear that is some women but I don't you know I there's a curtain I have no idea so I'm like this something very odd about what's going on right here I'm like just let me make it I'm starting to look for the exit I'm like you know calculating how many people are between me in the exit you know I I know some martial art so I said I might hit a couple of them and I'm out and then the emm came and I I just now realized that he was he mad because he got up on the member you know and they and they started to call the adhan and you know I said okay that meant seemed nice he seemed generally nice so I felt a little more comfort and then he got up after the adhan and he started his hood but in the handle and no matter who would I said oh my i said i betcha he's talking about me you know and he's being forceful you know he was getting loud and banging on the member he's pointing in my direction you know I'm like oh man I gotta get out of here really quick you know I said well I'm gonna take my chances with the woman behind me I'm going through the curtain and then he started to when he got done with his arabic tirade he started to explain it you know that barely all praise belongs to Allah alone God alone in him do we worship and him do we seek help and assistance we seek refuge with him from the eve of the life you know he explained what he said in Arabic and it sounded to me so beautiful it was very very beautifully pros what he said and I wanted to know where he got that you know I said where do you get that you know because it was only about God and about the nature of ourselves all of us should know the the the beginning of the football and he quoted the three verses from the Quran o you who believe fear God is he should be feared and do not die and instead of state of submission to his name he was a very wise man because he translated everything it was almost as if he knew I was there and translate everything for me you know and he I remember to this day what the football was about and I don't know if he did it because I was there or if that was his already planning on bug but it's almost as if it was meant for me the football was that the title of it was that the the forgiveness of Allah is open to anyone at any time at any place no matter what unless they have committed shark and the the pros of the Dhokla was a very long hadith a very long hadith at all some of you will know and just to make it shorter was a hadith where the row solo set aside and met Gabriel angel Gabriel and aged rib real was telling them to tell him that if the Muslims commit this certain sin to tell them that I love what forgive them and every time he would tell the Muslims they would say okay with what about this in and he would go back and meet with Gabe angel Gabriel and he would go back and come back and say Tom that Allah will forgive him for that and this discourse happened you know for many different sins and then finally angel Gabriel of a sedan said to tell them that allah has said no matter what they do even if their sins are compiled you know like the oceans are from ill of the West as long as they have not associated apartment over with Allah tell them that Allah will forgive them and I remember he told me that I or he said that you know that the door of repentance that God is open as long as you have not seen the angel of death or the Sun has it risen from the West I didn't really understand the Sun risen from the West thing at that time but um and he said that you know God's forgiveness has to come from God alone this was the whole premise of his khutbah was on forgiveness and in toba and I was saying to myself these are all of the same concepts that I had formulated through reading the religious scriptures myself and I'm asking myself where did he get this stuff from you know where did he get old and he started using names like he used the name Ibrahim at 8am he used named moose and I'm like he translated to Abraham and Moses I'm like what did he do you know where is he getting these are names from the Bible I know these people and so after the the Kaaba they started lining up for the prayer and I got apprehensive because everybody's getting up in front of me and blocking my exit from the dorm and so I guess they want one guy in the back song so maybe he because I had to move back ago he said we're about to pray and I said pray to who and he said to God I said which one and he said the one that created the heavens are you know the same one that's in the Bible you know the the only crater that is Earth the only God I said yes I I know him and the in so the men started to pray and I when he recited the Quran I know it sounded very intriguing i had no idea what it was but then when I saw Muslims bow and prostrate on the floor verses and verses of every religious book that I had ever read started ringing off in my head that this was the way men of God prayed and the first thing that I could think of in my mind was this is worship that's what I said to myself this is not prayer because prayers are asking God for something these people are worshipping God so I said to myself did you've written this you've read this religion off way too easily I thought I was a much more open minded person in that and I was ashamed of myself that I had written it off with just one little book you know I'd put all this studies into the other religions I read this one thing about his name and was done so i went to the imam after the after jamiah you know he talked to me and i would have to say that I was probably a little bit rude with him and I've asked him to forgive me that I know I saw him a few years later I said you gotta forgive me for the first time you saw me because he started telling me you know would you like to know a little bit normally he had a very heavy accent he was an Egyptian brother would you like to know a little bit more about it slam he tried to give me some pamphlets I said no no I don't I don't want any of this right here I said do you have a book this is what I wanted to know do you have a book can you give me he said yes we have a book I said it's called the Quran I said can I read it is it in English can I read it he said sure you can read it and then you tried to explain it to me a little bit how I came by said that just give me the book because the book should speak for itself so I took the Quran home and on Friday night I started to read it because it's a book I had never seen before and I was very interested so I went home and I opened this open the Quran and I read the fatty ha it seemed to me kinda like the Lord's Prayer you know it was a little little similar to what i found in the Bible but then I started to read Surat al-baqarah I started to read some of the aluminum and I started to see names that I had seen before I started to see names like Abraham Moses David Jesus yeah yeah John the Baptist Zechariah Mary and I said I know all of these names but there was something different about these people in this book the profits that I found in the Bible were people that were deplorable of not very character they say men in the Quran was someone who were at the highest echelon of moral character and moral fiber they were someone there was an example to be followed because they lived the message that they preach therefore they were able to be followed and emulated so I read all of these chapters and I stand I read the story of Jesus peace be upon him because when I saw him the name Jesus for a site that really intrigued me I wanted to see what does this book have to say about Jesus and I read the story in in in in in aliamanu and I rest Orion sort of Miriam and it was so it was it was more beautiful than anything I had ever read in the New Testament or any Nativity story that I had ever heard it was more beautiful than that times 10 I remember the only thing that I could capture my mind was the miracle of how because in the Bible you never really figure out the conflict of how Mary gets over this this point finger pointing at her about her coming with a with a baby and she's not married there's no real into that there's no real defense for her from this in in the New Testament but the Quran is so explicitly so clear that the Jesuses first miracle was to speak from the womb as I speak as a baby and defend the honor of his mother something that you cannot deny something that you cannot deny about her who Mary was when you have this baby speaking on her behalf so I would say I read the Quran entirely in three days but that first night after i had made it through so that I mean man my heart was already given to this book I didn't know what it meant to be a Muslim I didn't know how to be Muslim I didn't even know what that meant but I know that whoever it was that followed this book I wanted to be like these people I wanted to be like the people that I read about in this book these are people i could follow these were prophets this was a book of guidance and this was something that the book is calling an appealing to me that if you don't believe in this book you never see that I've never seen this in any other scripture the direct challenges that are in the Quran that if you don't believe this book is true put it to the test put it to the test and this was something that was so astounding to me that God is telling you over and over again if you don't believe this is the truth test it bring me something else like it test they put it to test if it was written if there was more than I mean all of the analogies about God everything was so logical so rational so reasonable in my mind that it was like two plus two equals four and that was it there was no one plus one plus one equals three egg yolk water fight there was none of that foolishness the Quran was very direct and very straightforward and his teachings so I gave my heart to Islam that night in in my living room reading the Quran and you know and I cried and cried you know that I had been looking for the truth all this time had searched all this way and it was right across the street right across the street from my house and so I went back on Monday to accept Islam and ask these Muslims when the world they've been all this time and I go ready to go in there and do my thing and I go in the messages locked and because there wasn't they only came on Fridays in for Asia during that time and I didn't know so i said okay i guess i have to come back home on friday because every time I passed by the message after that it was always locked so I came back on friday and i and i took my Shahada you know and as they say the you know the rest is history but i don't travel around the world and this was in december of 1998 I don't travel around the country in the world telling my story you know just for the entertainment value even though I've been told it does have it some entertainment value I don't tell it for that person for sure if that was the only then you could just get it off of youtube and it's the same exact story I'm going to finish with this and I hope you can give me 10 more minutes inshallah to tell you why I go around telling my story I tell my story to let everyone realize that there are millions of millions and millions of people just like me just like me in 1998 searching for the truth can't find a way out there are millions of people there are probably millions of people in California hundreds and thousands if not millions right here in the orange county in Los Angeles in the Southern California area that want to know the truth that are tired of hearing the same garbage preach them over and over again tired of this Shaitaan box telling them the same thing over and over again tired of the world being in the condition to the same tired of their life being in the condition it's in and we as Muslims have the solution to every single one of their problems and guess where we keep it at right here inside the masjid right here inside the mashing we have all of this truth we have the solution to every problem in the world you want to solve the world hunger the world hunger is proud that the problem of world hunger Islam has the problem you want to solve a problem of world poverty Islam has the answer you want to fix the economic situation of this country it's lamb could fix it tomorrow and this was in an op-ed piece in The Washington Post in the Washington Post there was an op-ed piece that that the two markets that are falling apart in this country are investments and in housing and there are two people in this market that wall dia the rest are bottoming it out this market is steadily climbing it's not shooting getting rich overnight like people want to but it is continually going up and that is Islamic financing and Islamic housing markets these two things are so studying so strong that a economist and NBC are trying to figure out how they can take some of these Islamic principles some of these from these are investing and housing firms and plug them into this system to give it some stability because they realize that you won't get rich overnight in the Islamic system but it will be stable it will be something that will give stability so they are starting to find out the Islam has the answer in the solution to their problems but we already know this we already noticed that we can solve every world problem with this lamb would put it into it but the problem is we're hiding it from the people unfortunately willingly or unwillingly unknowingly we are hiding this from the people and there is a statement in the Quran and that there are la ones the Jews about what they did with their religion and it is a statement that is left in the Quran for us that verily those who conceal the evidence is in the clear proofs after we have made it clear for them in the book they are those who are cursed by Allah and cursed by those who curse until an ex unless the they repent and reveal that which they have been concealing those i will accept their repentance because i am the one who accepts it the most merciful we have become guilty just the same way that Jews have hiding the truth about their religion when they saw the Prophet Muhammad's Edison and they knew the truth and wanted to hide it people we know that we know the truth about Islam and we were hiding it we as Muslims are running around begging Allah for dignity and honor and he'll when he is already given it to us in this Dean everything that Muslim could ever want has already been given to him in this Dean of Islam anything that you ask a lot for there is an account set up for you to go take it out of you just kind of find it where it's at in any of you i'm not going to go through diets for there too long but if you want to know the solutions to every one of your problems in this world and the hereafter just go read so rotas' off i attend through 13 very very easy solution if I had the time I would read them to you in chamba but we have the cure to every disease in the world and and we're not giving it to the people and I want to use this as a parable because I really want this to hit home with you let's say what is your name brother Abdullah mashallah the same in Abdullah our best friends we're brothers and Dean were roommates and we've been roommates for years and years and and let's say brother Abdullah has contracts and illness and disease that is one of the most painful diseases that any human being can ever ever go through in his life and it's not something that's going to kill him quick let's say this disease is going to suffer and fester with Abdullah and make him not be able to eat sleep nothing he's just miserable all the time when I come home and either he's rolling around on the floor in pain and and let's say I know him in this condition and let's say one day I come across the cure for his disease someone tells me that if you give this tab duel or anyone like him he will be instantly cured and he will never suffer again and let's say I take that and put it in my pocket and I don't give it to Abdullah why why don't you give it to Abdullah number one I'm Way too busy I have two jobs going to school you know I have a long commute back and forth you know I gotta drive up and down the 405 every day I don't have time to give up do Lewis medicine man if he wants the medicine he'll go getting himself I don't have time I'm really busy number 2 i'm not a doctor i should not be prescribing abdullah medicine and I'm not knowledgeable in medicine he should if even he wants help you should go see a doctor I'm not a doctor number three Abdullah's please forgive me but I do was kind of stubborn he doesn't really listen very well he probably you know he's kind of set in his ways so even if I tell him this medicine is good for him and it'll cure him he probably wouldn't even take it anyway so why waste my time do any of these excuses sound familiar and let's say I don't give this medicine to Abdullah and he dies and let's say he died is the most painful death that you can ever imagine I want to ask you a kind of rhetorical question I want to ask you kind of a rhetorical question do you think on the day of judgment that um Allah is going to call me and Abdullah up and ask him about this incident between me him me and him because I've oppressed him I have a pressed him I've allowed him to suffer knowing that I can ease his suffering I'm sure I was going to ask us about this but you know the beauty about Islam is that if Abdullah was a good Muslim boy this disease patiently and died he dies as a Shahid inshaa allah and on the day of judgment this is how beautiful islam is that he could very well come before and Allah asked us about this and build up do is say you know what a lot of forgiving so you forgive him this is the beauty of our religion and along in law will forgive me but the disease I want to tell you about is the disease that every single non-muslim walks around with every single day and they don't even know it it has no it has no real physical symptoms and that's the disease of shirk the disease of being jihad being ignorant about Allah Subhan Allah Allah Allah gives them life and they worship someone else Allah feeds them and they think someone else he created them and fashion them in the womb with their mother and knows them better than they know themselves and they have no idea who he is they don't even know who he is if that doesn't pain your heart to see a person in this condition then for sure the hearts have become hardened because when i see non-muslims especially when I sit in places like airports I see this disease I see it on them I see them walking around with it and there's so many of them passing me I think that myself there's no way i could talk to all of them there's nothing i can do in this disease is something that not only is not going to show up as a physical symptom and is going to leave them eager to bottle las abandon with diana but when the day they die they will die the most physically painful death that anyone can ever suffer the rosula said I said I'm said that when the Angel of Death Comes to the disbeliever it doesn't come kindly he yanks the soul through the nose and it's as if he his flesh is torn from his bones it's as if they take brother Abdullah and turn him upside down and stuff him enough human paper shredder this is the death that is waiting for those who do not know a loss I know what ahana and you know the unfortunate thing that why you've been sitting here listen to me thousands of people have died thousands of people have lost their life not knowing a lot while I'm talking to you right now people in this city have lost their life and there's nothing we can do about them they're going it's too late for them we can't save them even if we want to and that's a deplorable deplorable sad sad fact that we can't save them but there are many many many many weekend safe and that all that takes is us taking this light of his name we have and showing it to the world there's a statement in the Bible and I finish with this weather Jesus Lisa have said this or not it doesn't matter because this statement is one of the most profound statements that has been somewhat of a focus for me in my mission of Dawa it is said that no one would bring a candle into his home and then place a bucket on top of it because then no one would benefit from the light know if someone would bring a candle to the home they would set it on the table in the middle of the room so that everyone can benefit from this life and unfortunately the Muslims of this generation we are a bunch of candles with buckets on top of it no one can see our light no one can see the beauty of its laminate believe me if you don't see it believe me take it from someone who was once standing on the outside looking through the window at that light it is one of the most beautiful things you can ever lay your eyes on it is a treasure to be found of treasures and everyone else can see this and they will see this if we show it to them if we allow Islam to be Islam if we start becoming Muslims meaning that we the best form of Dawa that you can do to this world is very very simple it's not complex it doesn't take a ten hour workshop even though some of the details do but if you want to know the way the best way to be do Dawa is for Muslims to be Muslims that's it study our history study the history of Islam why was the world conquered by Islam not through military campaigns and wars but through Muslims being Muslims the most populated Muslim country Indonesia was because of Muslims being Muslims a few Muslims decided to get up off their behinds and go to another country and live their life as Muslims not shaving off their Dean to be pleasing to those people but being Muslims and when the people asked them and inquired what is it about you backwards Arabs that we've heard all these crazy things about now you come out of the desert with pristine moral and character and you have better ethics and morals than we do what is it this happen new people and their answer was layin allah mohammad rasool allah then we believe in a line he has sent us a man named mohammed and we emulate his lifestyle that's why we're like this this is what conquered the world for Islam this is what conquered people's hearts for his name was the truth and the beauty of it in its simplicity of its message this is what brought me and this is what the world needs with all of this foolishness going on in the world this is what it needs the simplicity of Islam whether they want to hear it or not they know it in the bottom of their heart when you show them the truth even if they turn away from it they know it's the right train and they know what's the truth and on the day of judgment you can stand before Allah subhana Allah having washed your hands and saying that I did my job and I finished just one more thing I finished with this if you don't believe this is important if you don't believe this one of the most important things you can do as a Muslim then the last statement of problem homicide I sell them to the Muslims as a whole he gave his farewell sermon and we know that it's what his femoral sermon was was a summary or a synopsis of what Islam is and its general principles and he knew this was the last thing he was going to say to the Muslims as a whole and how did he end this sermon those who are here pass this on to those that are not here for verily it may be that the last one that hears my message may understand it the nose right here among us he gave a command to those Muslims to pass it on and for those Muslims to pass it on and for those Muslim to pass it on until there was no one left to hear this message this was a command he gave the last command he gave to this home as a whole and then what happened he pointed his finger to the heaven and said all a lot bear witness that I have indeed conveyed your message and upon saying that's what happened a lot revealed disorder this day I have compacted perfected for you your deed and completed my favorite view and chose for you Islam is your religion and the last statement that Prime muhammad saw the centum gave to us before this was revealed was that we must pass this message on he gave us that duty he took that duty that was only reserved for profits no one else no other if you don't believe me go read sort of the right now about what was a commandment of the other nations no other nation was given this opportunity and blessing to pass on this Dean except us because there are no more profits coming so the job falls on our shoulders carranza not gonna fall out of the sky and hit people when they're walking on the street this job has now become ours and just like if the prophet mohamed salah salem had not done his mission he would have been accountable before Allah we if we do not do our job of spreading this message of Islam we will stand before along the day of judgment don't be the person standing before long the deer judgment and your neighbor that you've known your coworker that you've known 15 10 15 20 years come and find you and tell you you knew this day was coming you knew this day was coming and what was going to happen to me and you did not say anything to me and those people will complain to a lot about us they will complain to a lot about us because we have the truth right amongst them and we're not giving it to them we need to stop hiding in an hour masjids in our homes in our hearts and we need to give it to the people it's beautiful trust me just hand it to them just hand it to them I promise you they'll take it because it's something that is so pure and pristine and I forgive me for probably going over my time and if we have time I want to leave some time for questions and answers I just and I will be outside to take any questions and answers the only last thing I want to announce and let you brothers and sisters know is um one of my biggest our projects is a DVD project that I do and my goal is to put a DVD about it slam in the hands of every single person in the United States of America right now I'm working on Florida and other I have other brothers working in other places because people will watch a DVD we did studies and this and people will watch media there before they'll read a book or for they listen to audio CD and hummed a lot through these dvds we've gotten i would say an average about two shot as a month because my personal contact infos on the dvds and people watch them and they call me and i converse with them and then usually they must limit except is none I just had a Shahada the day before yesterday from irvine texas from someone who had bought the DVD and given it a muslim i bought and give it to his friend his friend hated it or i didn't want us we gave it to another person and that person gave it to a coworker at work who watched it in accepted islam so this is one of my biggest projects and the way this project works as i make 100 dvds and I brought two of them with me today I'm my with the are the way this project works that make 100 dvds and 75 of them go out to different Dawa arenas and the other 25 I make available for Muslims to purchase for two reasons so that they can be so that i can buy another hundred to make and so that you can share in this other along with me because when you purchase a DVD that makes another DVD or you give it to a friend then you share in this agita with me and everyone knows that that was the biggest pyramid system because of the Hadassah lost art of cinema that one who calls to guidances gets the same reward is the one guided without that reward being lost from him so I made these dvds available to the to the Muslims so that you can put a little effort in Dawa and in and make another hundred in sha allah so I brought to today in there outside one of them is called Islam in the Bible which is basically my what I just told you in a PowerPoint format so that you could see all these verses that I saw all these things that i read that allowed me to see the truth of islam very clearly when I saw it and I coincide them with the Quran so that you could see them and there's another one called the other ones called the true gospel of Jesus Christ where I go through the New Testament or first part I think is an interview about me in my story to Islam and there's some other q and A's on the other dvds about nature of God and all these different things but um it's a powerpoint presentation about the New Testament and Jesus Christ and how you can prove to someone that Jesus Christ taught is them from the New Testament from their own book that they have to agree they either have to believe it or reject it and if you believe it then you have to believe what I'm saying is true about Islam if you reject it then this is your book not mine so you know that I try to use these to teaching methods and they also can be given to non-muslims because they're in a PowerPoint format there in a very educated format and they're available outside for ten dollars each so if you please if you could please don't make me take any back home because they always have something about taking 200 dvds on the airplane anyway so please come and get them and if you have any questions my contact info is on there and everything if you have any more questions for me and my website and everything I thank you for your time and if anything has been of benefit know that truly all good comes from hablas upon over to Anna and if anything that I said is incorrect or hurtful or shameful know that that indeed that comes from from my own naps in my own lack of understanding akula kandahari was tactful al igual como estas fellow who in a hawala al rahim assalamu alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh

Channel: One Islam Productions

Views: 227,757

Rating: 4.8555689 out of 5

Keywords: islam, new, muslim, embrace, shahadah, revert, yusha, convert, allah, god, muhammad, mohammed, bible, quran, koran, christianity, torah, injeel, cartoon, jesus, moses, old, testament, revelation, noah, abraham, faith, belief, science, cure, heart, racism, slavery, women, veil, niqab, hijab, jihad, extremist, moderate, modern, ban, religion, lecture, islamic, mohammad, muhammed

Id: N4UTSO5GQdA

Length: 80min 41sec (4841 seconds)

Published: Wed May 30 2012