My Story - Dr. Bilal Philips

foreign uh thank you for taking the time to join us for this amazing one-on-one interview with dr bilal phillips dr bilal phillips is a jamaican canadian islamic scholar who converted to islam in the early 70s he completed a ba from the islamic university of medina an m.a from king saud university in riyadh and a phd in islamic theology from the university of wales united kingdom dr bilal phillips spent 10 years teaching islamic studies in an islamic high school in riyadh and another 18 years formerly lecturing in arabic and islamic studies in various universities in 2009 he founded and ran the first accredited islamic university in india preston international college chennai dr phillips has written translated and commented on over 50 published books on various islamic topics he also has presented islamic programs on riyadh channel 2 tv sharjah tv peace tv buddha tv islam channel the dean show and guide us tv but perhaps his greatest single achievement and the one for which he was listed in the jordanian publication the 500 most influential muslims is this historic founding of a mega university from doha the islamic online university now known as international open university which since its inception in 2010 has over 650 000 students registered from 228 different countries from around the world so without further ado we'd like to uh welcome dr bilal philip wales so how are you doing this evening alhamdulillah my pleasure to be here on the program with you yes likewise it's a pleasure to have you here alhamdulillah a lot of people uh you know we were we're doing marketing and they were like oh you're the is that your father mashallah we see the resemblance alhamdulillah so you know hamdulillah for our small community uh you know it's a chance for people who may have not known you to get to know you and those who knew you but you know didn't know uh you know your son happened to be here as well inshallah they're tuning in and um you know we can all benefit together uh so i was wondering uh where are you currently residing because you know obviously you travel a lot well i'm currently in doha qatar after spending a year in ethiopia okay and now do you have any projects that you you know special projects that you're uh currently working on well i was in ethiopia working on setting up an institute higher institute for islamic banking and finance you know so that people on the continent of africa wouldn't have to go to malaysia to study in this field because there there are virtually no in such institutes or departments of study in islamic banking and finance across the whole continent with one exception in nigeria in uh buk university they do have an institute there also but it's a part of the university itself yeah hey mashallah other than of course my major project which i'm always working on and that's the international open university and that is my 24 7 project mashaallah uh alhamdulillah so uh one reason why an additional reason why we brought you on or wanting to have you on was uh so that people can benefit from your uh revert story um because you know i believe it's it's pretty unique and uh you're an unique figure of you know of your own right so to learn how you came to islam and so that way uh those reverts who are listening or those who are born muslim who wish to do give dawah to their family or friends uh this could perhaps help them as well as motivate them to uh want to further their education because of course you know you have a phd from from being a non-muslim to becoming muslim to getting a phd to starting university you know that's a pretty amazing feat uh so let's get started um so first question i have for you is uh what was happening in your environment prior to discovering islam like what were you what ideology did you have or what was uh how was the environment well at the time i was in university in british columbia that's west coast canada a university by the name of simon fraser university and um i was studying biochemistry i was in last years of my studies there when i converted from christianity to communism you know actually my christianity was nominal christianity up until that point anyway so i can't really say i converted from christianity to communism but you could say i converted from nominal christianity to communism um i got involved in uh student movements student activities and i went down to the states to san francisco worked with angela davis and some of that defense committee down there and with the panthers also and um later on i went back up to canada and joined a group there which was uh espousing not the similar ideas etc connected with to some degree with african nationalism and um while in that group i was exposed to some draft dodgers from the u.s who had converted to islam in the u.s and were presenting or trying to promote or give dawa to islam there in canada and this was my major introduction to islam and it eventually led to my converting to islam okay so what caught your attention um you know because you came you became communist can you maybe elaborate on uh what attracted you to communism and then from there what attracted you to islam well communism you know was was gonna solve the world's problems you know uh the world had a lot of problems i mean north american world you know issues of of racism and oppression of black people and the decimation of the indian population in north america i mean these were all concerns you know to establish some kind of justice and equality and brotherhood amongst the peoples of north america so believing that communism was the answer you know that it would bring all the workers together you know regardless of their backgrounds you know and carry the society to a new horizon a new future it sounds very nice you know the the communist man as as was proposed was was one or man or woman who would work according to their ability and only receive or take from the society according to their need you know it's a very idealistic concept people only working working as far as hard as they could but for recompense for what work they did they would only take what they needed you know it's beautiful idea but it was not realistic and as i studied more in communism i came to understand the failure of communism it's inability to compete with with capitalism in which which had to do with basic concepts which were not correct that people are not gonna do that if i work twice as hard as you i need to get twice as much as you get regardless of whether you're a bigger size then you need more than me you know that i'm not gonna accept you know half of what you get simply because i'm smaller than you but i'm working twice as hard as you so this idea was not realistic and and and it was at the core of of failure of the communist uh society their inability to keep up with the capitalist society in moving forward so i could see these faults there and then as i read more in the history you read about the the massacres which took place in both china and and russia you know in an attempt to remove the bourgeoisie you know the rich people who were living off the sweat of the masses you know that these people could not be retrained they needed to just be eliminated so that didn't sit right with me so eventually i was introduced as one particular book actually called islam the misunderstood religion by muhammad khutub in which he he did a comparison between the various systems religions and ideologies etc and you know talking about their social systems the um the political systems the economic systems all the different systems of the the various uh groups or movements or ideologies etc and from reading that book actually it became clear to me that all the ills that were in communism capitalism christianity etc were not in islam and all the good points that were in these various systems were all in islam so islam seemed to have the best of both worlds and i became convinced that the railway forward was through islam in toronto okay so do you remember um the moment you decided to be a muslim like you you said you read the book uh but you didn't become muslim like right that moment right well it wasn't maybe that long after i mean up before that i was reading a number of other books you know um but this one just stood out because it was perfectly suited to people coming from a political background you know the others maybe were more spiritual um you know comparisons with christianity you know from a religious perspective you know and i wasn't really you know a practicing christian so they didn't have the same kind of impact no they did bring good points and clarify certain points but it was this particular book which had the greatest impact i don't know exactly how long it was after i read the book that i accepted islam but it was i think relatively short you know maybe a couple of months something like this or a month and a half or something like this and i accepted islam but i mean that's very interesting because uh i think for basically all or every revered story i've heard or you know that you've heard or seen is usually on the basis of uh you know the oneness of god or um i don't know i guess the mercy that's found in islam or the you know the quran just you know touched them so it's very interesting that uh you know you read a book about the systems in islam and you know that compared it with other systems and other religions and other ideologies um and it's on that basis that you became muslim well it makes sense though actually because you know those people that you spoke to are people who were maybe more religious they were still you know going to church or you know had only stopped but in their heart they still had that attachment to the church you know so because of that background the naturally spiritual matter is going to mean more to them so how did your friends and family react when you converted did you tell them right away or did you try to hide it no no i informed them straight away um i informed them and tried to explain to them you know why i made the decision etc my other political you know friends in the political movement etc i didn't disassociate myself from them uh because the movement that i was in there in toronto it allowed for people from different backgrounds you know while educating uh people youth focusing more on on black people than anybody else you know making people aware of their history history of africa and you know what people went through the movements that were there to try to change the society and the need for you know change there and that so that so this really didn't change that much in becoming a muslim i still you know continued except that i was now praying five times a day you know and i was living in a commune um and so you know some of us others in the commune also converted to islam and so there were people who were non-muslims and people were muslims we're all living together in a commune type set up while still working with the organization okay um so it wasn't it it wasn't really until you know i i felt the the acute need to um go and find out more about islam to study islam more in depth this is what really left caused me to leave that that movement all together not really be involved in it anymore okay uh so was there any like uh bumpy transition from leaving uh because i mean you said you were in the commune and you guys were all working together you know towards a common goal and you said not not much change except that you you were praying five times a day and you know you know uh maybe doing ethcod and you know other other rituals of islam um but was there like any uh like so none of your friends were like upset that you became muslim or now your family was uh upset by it and you you yourself had no you know discomfort being around people that didn't understand you know or have the same mindset as you well let's say that there will be discussions and debates you know about uh in the commune about uh you know about whether religion was the opiate of the masses or not so what would happen was i would bring you know material which showed that muslims you know led the first revolt against colonialism you know in algeria their fight that they that they went through uh franz fanon had written about the phenomenon there and the battle cry of algiers was allah you know women were wearing the burka and all this and using that as a means of smuggling you know arms etc for the for the uh revolt against france france's rule so you know that showing that there was a connection and islam was supportive to that struggle were it the opium of the masses then you know it would have supported colonialism and uh you know it would have been an enemy of the revolutionary movement so you know it was those kind of discussions debates of course with my family it was something different in that my parents were both uh very happy when i uh converted to islam because my father and his youth had been a socialist you know and then he's sort of seen his way through socialism and left it so we up until that point used to have debates and discussions and arguments at the dinner table and uh now these arguments ended you know my mom was very happy that there wouldn't be any more arguments at the dinner table you know so and also both of them had adopted uh a boy uh into our family who was of muslim indonesian background you know we had as a family we had lived in malaysia for some years and um in the course of them living there they adopted you know a muslim boy uh into our family so i have a muslim brother who was but you know it didn't at the time when they did it in malaysia it didn't mean anything you know beyond an adoption of you know a young boy around the age of myself my sister and brother uh but who had other another culture you know islam there was just a culture it wasn't really there wasn't any ideology as far as i understood my adopted brother didn't try to explain anything we just saw that he did things differently some things differently you know he used to pray with you know with his head on the ground and you know sometimes we'd open the door and find him in that position and wonder oh what's he doing we talk amongst ourselves but we were too shy to ask him and he was too shy to explain anything also we noticed that during ramadan my mother used to get up early in the morning and prepare a meal for him right that was yeah unusual uh also on sunday when we used to have you know with our meal um a glass of wine a little bit um my mom would give him grape juice so different and whenever my mother cooked pork she would cook fish for him okay these were just you know differences which was we i just took it as culture and myself my brother and sister they we just looked at it as some a cultural practice of theirs we didn't see islam you know as a religion it says my parents both understood this they understood because they studied islam uh in toronto university of toronto they both studied world religions class and islam was one of the world religions which they studied so they had that explosion they didn't understand it was another village and they respected it that's why my mother you know was very careful to ensure that nothing happened in the house which would go against my adopted brothers religious beliefs so for them when i accepted islam they were happy and of course my adopted brother was very happy of course i was initially upset with him you know why he didn't tell us anything about islam in all those years that we lived together you know why he didn't tell us anything you know and he was just saying well you know i was just too shy you know i i just felt that you know your parents had saved me helped me out brought me back to canada and everything else and for me to go and say anything which would disrupt the family you know create some kind of chaos inside the families that i couldn't do that you know i i just so i told him you know really okay i can understand but you know actually it was your duty regardless of what the consequences were allah would know the consequences best your duty was to share what you had with us because you couldn't be any closer than you know an adopted brother in the family so what else did you need to be able to carry the message to us so that was the uh reaction um my sister was huh okay my brother was because he has a he was a communist so he was a hardcore communist so we used to have a lot of uh debates the ones that used to be between my father and me now became between me and my brother you know and alhamdulillah he was convinced you know more and more but then i decided to go overseas to study to medina as you mentioned in the introduction so i left him behind and he always used to say yeah see i was following you but you left me behind that's why i didn't become a muslim anyway that's how it is so for um for most people what do you think uh stops them from wanting to accept uh islam as a true religion you know even when clear message is brought to them ah there can be so many different reasons you know that you know what about you know abu talib i will tell him if the prophet saw sallam was not able to convince him with him being the uncle of the prophet salallahu you know you can imagine so many different reasons and excuses and things that people can bring up you know but uh his his was more pride in culture and you know uh tribalism this kind of thing this is this was the factor which stopped him and of course there are people today too who looking at muslims most muslims are from the third world you know the colored peoples you know so you know so my people might not be interested simply because they're the you know the colored peoples are the ones who are muslims you know or it could be uh have to do with um the efforts that have to be made you know people are comfortable with religion which you only have to do on sundays you know once a week that's okay you know but every day praying every day too much yeah i talked to uh two individuals and their reason for you know i gave dowa to them they were both atheist and their reason that they gave me was um basically they didn't want to submit you know they said theoretically even if there was a god and they knew the message that they you know he gave was the truth and he gave the best way that they should live their lives still they want to live their life the way they want to it's like oh okay uh yeah well you know of course that's uh it's easy to say when you don't believe right that's true you know but when you believe when you you do realize there is a god and that's a lot more dif you know not much more difficult for you to say true true uh so what do you think is uh a very compelling reason for um people to come into islam you know for you it was the system the political system or neither political system sorry but the political economic yeah economic the whole gamut well you know in terms of becoming a muslim you know why why would would should someone become a muslim you know first and foremost is that if somebody believes in religion just believe in god you know and then having believed in god you understood that god didn't create us and leave us on our own right as deists believe but that he did provide a religion or sent messengers to convey to human beings a way of life that they should follow you know which we call religion so uh for those people who have at least that basic belief then the issue is for them well then which one you know there's so many different religions out there each one of them saying they're the true religion then how do we know you know one is right and they're all wrong or or is it that they're all right it doesn't matter you can follow anyone or what what's the situation so i mean i i would clarify for them that there are really only two religions there's only two one in which god alone is worshipped the creator of the universe he is the only one who is worshipped and all of the others are worshipping everything but that god who they should be worshipping there are different versions different you know practices and places and dress that they wear all kinds of different things but in the end they all can be lumped together as religions in which other than god is worshipped sometimes they say it's god we're worshiping you know many of them say it's god the religion usually has a god somewhere in there so they're worshiping god but in fact they're not they're worshiping the creation some aspect of the creation and calling it god so that's i think a a important and critical point that you know should be known also um if we look in terms of the name of the religion you know all the different names are either named after places like hinduism from the indus valley or people like buddhism or tribes like judaism or people like christianity christ only islam is based is named according to the central pillar of the religion and it unites people right down from the first man so adam was a muslim moses was a muslim jesus was a muslim so that oneness of way you know it's clear in islam from the very name and furthermore that name is mentioned in the book of revelation itself if you ask a christian where is it in the bible that you're christians jesus told you you are christians no it's not there yes they have something you know attributed to to um what's his name now um i forgotten paul or paul yes paul yeah oh paul you know in antioch yeah i think it was he he told him listen you all are christians but this is not jesus jesus never told his followers that they were christians you know moses never told his followers that you are jews that's your religion is judaism you know from the tribe of judea but you know he didn't tell him that it was judaism no and and so on and so forth then the other point that i would clarify for people is that the scripture itself in islam that scripture is preserved in the language of the prophet unchanged for 1400 years all the other scriptures out there of ancient religions etc they've all been changed lost garbled bits and pieces here and there people made up their own stuff and used that name for it it's no longer a preserved scripture written by the prophet of god or conveyed directly from the prophet of god and as such the religion itself islam hasn't changed the religion 1400 years ago is exactly the same as today but if you look at the other practices and the other religions they have changed they've been changing all along different person comes up there's new ways and things to do and ways to do it and this kind of thing you know it doesn't have that consistency with a direct line back to the prophet himself and you can see in islam again that prayer you know prayer is not a once in a week thing although some muslims might pray once in a week but they're not following islam properly they're following a piece of islam prayer is five times a day and some people say well you know praying five times a day is isn't it better to pray when you your heart feels into it you feel inside of yourself this desire to pray to god so you pray to god rather than mechanically five times in a day every day well that sounds nice but the problem is that if you don't feel it in your heart and all this other stuff today then you don't pray today and tomorrow you don't feel it don't pray tomorrow next week you didn't feel it week is gone two weeks are gone one month one year you don't pray the only time that you pray is when a calamity strikes okay that's when you're on your knees you're praying to god you know to lift this calamity from you so what kind of prayer is that you only pray when calamity strikes so you see that's a haphazard religion you know islam says five times a day organize your day around the worship of god simple because in the end it's about consciousness of god you know what's going to make you a better person the more conscious you are of god more mindful you are of god then i mean of course there are other issues which have to do with quran and science for example you know if you look into the quran you can find many scientific references which are only been found out in recent times you know in the last century but it was spoken about 1400 years ago and correctly and the bottom line is that islam from the time it was brought in its final form by prophet muhammad may god speak some blessing upon it's been the fastest growing religion people talk about today islam is the fastest growing no it's been the fastest growing religion for the last 1400 years and it just never stopped it was just spreading spreading spreading across the world remember it started behind hundreds of years behind christianity 700 years behind christianity but it and the christianity spread also did spread it was carried across the world but islam has been spreading continuously today churches are empty many parts of the world the uk they're selling them muslims were buying them turning them into mosques till finally some of the church elders said no no we're not going to sell any more churches not the muslims anyway if you want to buy it to turn it into a skating rink or a pool hall or whatever okay we'll sell it the mosque but that's real who has ever heard of a mosque being shut down because there's no people to work in praying it no we've got a shortage we're we're trying to establish more and more and more mosques around the world wherever you go that's saying something this is you know there's something here and so on so forth but you know one of the points i would also make is that if you ask people from the other religions what's the purpose of your existence why why are we here why were we created for what most people would say i never thought about it you know or if pastor so and so said some things oh that's what pastor said i said but can you find that in the bible can you show it to me you won't find it you won't find a clear statement of why we were created but in the quran easily open it up the verse is there the meaning is clear stated god says i only created the jinn and humankind to worship me that is the purpose of our creation it's there so of course there are other points that could be raised as to why should one accept islam why islam is the true religion etc but those are just a few points that i would like to share with your audience perhaps to help them in explaining islam to their friends because of course it's a duty as the prophet told us that you could should convey from the prophet even if all you had was that's all you had you need to share that with those around you because those people around you will give witness against you on the day of judgment they would say i was his neighbor i was his classmate i was her friend at the laundromat we were this and we were that and and we talked about everything under the sun new car house vacation parties everything we talked about but we never talked about islam i know some of you would say well i feel shy you know what i said to people you know the best way to do it is to just ask them what do you think about islam you know i'm a muslim right so what do you think about islam what's your idea let them tell you and then you can just start to clarify for them your initial dawah will just be clarification no no we don't do that no we don't slaughter people in the masjid we don't eat people you know all that stuff you know you just clarify all of these points and then from there hopefully they will have some more interest and start to ask you other things about islam which will allow you to explain more of the religion itself to them hey mashaallah that was i thought those reasons were very compelling uh especially the i believe the initial one just that islam is really the only truly monotheistic religion i mean that in itself should be clear evidence especially when everyone has this uh you know this uh innate belief in one in a creator you know regardless of time and society they all have this this idea exists in every every society essentially uh masha'allah um so i believe uh a problem or yeah a problem that occurs for reverts and non-muslims is that uh especially living in north america but really anywhere around the world is that you're raised with a with an ideology um like for instance you know you were christian and then you became communist uh but some people are uh you could say you know perhaps feminist or you know other sort of uh ism that they might have they might uh you know any sort of ism like they might be socialist so they might be um uh secularists and so on so when they enter into islam they try to bring it in with them right or if they're just muslim and they're raised in the in that kind of environment it's it's just like part of the culture or they just again bring it into the religion with them so how do we um like i guess how do we combat that or how do we resolve that issue well these ideas you know would be cleared in time as the person grows islamically because you can't expect somebody to enter islam and everything else they believe just drops so they're coming in pure like that baby you know newborn baby pure no other ideas no other things in their head etc so from there on you just had to put it all in their head no that's for most people they're coming in with baggage they're carrying things with them so those things those of us who are around them to help them on their path you know we have to be patient with them and uh you know help them to understand these things gradually if they say something you know we don't say you know we have to be able to become okay brother yeah okay sister yeah we can understand that you know but actually in islam we don't do those things you know whatever you know we have to be patient and help them along the way okay so that was a great answer but uh the thing i guess i want to just uh pick on it a little more and that is um some people they really truly believe that the isms that they have and maybe they developed them maybe from university or from france that they think it is actually a part of islam uh so you know you might have heard people say that prophet sallam was a feminist you know um i haven't heard that one oh you haven't quite a few times and so i mean it shows uh a lack of understanding of what feminism is and how it developed um and so you know that that's the same thing i just said yeah you know that people will say things and then you have to hear it and then you have to help them understand you know yeah you know islam did bring things for women which only the feminist movement brought you know a thousand three hundred years later feminist movement started to push this for uh women in european society etc etc whereas islam people were doing it from 1 300 years so yeah but we call that feminism but feminism has come to mean a number of other things you know which was not a part of the original feminism it has evolved and that's the nature of of isms and schisms and you know whatever isms uh in in the in uh western society where things are constantly changing and evolving so you clarify to them that you know this is not the original feminism yeah according to the original feminism yeah you could say the prophet was a feminist he did support the cause of women you know protecting their rights he did uphold it the blah blah etcetera so there's a an aspect to it oh others say oh the prophet was a communist because he you know told people that you know gabriel told me to take care of the neighbors so much i thought he was going to make the neighbors inheritors of their neighbors their wealth became the wealth of the neighbors so you know you can pick up from all the various systems out there or newly developed isms you know elements which can be found in islam because the idea is that islam is not claiming to be the sole owner of all the good that's there in the world that it invented it it was not known before no no no islam reinforced as the prophet sallam had said in i was only sent to perfect for you the highest of moral character traits to perfect them to bring them back to life to strengthen them to support them that is islam okay for the clarification uh so um one question uh another question i had was i mean after you converted to islam uh you decided to you know pursue and uh gain more knowledge um what was really the motivating reason you said just the the lack of understanding that motivates you to want to learn more um but was there any other factors well the bottom line is that when i accepted islam back in 1972 in toronto there were only a handful of muslims in the city coming from different countries bangladesh egypt syria pakistan you know people who are who emigrated to canada who had some technical skills or whatever which allowed them to survive there but who had very little knowledge of islam you know they were the more educated to a large degree from their countries educated in their various fields but they didn't have very much knowledge of islam so you know it quickly became clear to me you know within a year after i accepted islam that the people in the community in which i was living there in toronto didn't have real knowledge of islam i needed to leave and go over to the east and back to the centers of islam where islam started from whatever to learn islam from the original sources because people that i met around me they were following different math hubs for example you know initially i when i came in and i traveled with the jamaat jamaat went to the first hdmi in sheffield england went around the different mosques of the uk sat with the maulanas in the various masjids taking notes taking information trying to learn as much as i could then coming back and moving next to one of the couple of masters that were there in toronto the imam was from egypt he started teaching me from sunnah and i should mention that while i was in the uk you know i was basically told that you know there are four math hubs and um you need to follow one you know you can choose anyone you want but you need to follow one of these four well i asked well what happens if you don't follow one so well then satan becomes your imam you are following the madhhab of satan okay i should i better follow one of them then okay so uh which which one do you advise me they said well most muslims are hanafis and abu hanifa his title was imami azam that's the greatest and he was the first oh i said okay sounds like a good reason to be a hanafi yeah yeah good piano so when i started studying when i went back to canada from the imam there of that masjid from sunnah he was teaching mainly the shafi but i started to see differences and then i met up with some brothers from morocco and i saw them praying with their hands by their sides and um they told me they were malikis oh yeah right right uh but why there's these differences here which seem to be at some point you know contradictory to the point where people were saying they're all right if you follow any one of them it's right but then i saw that in the hanafi madhhab if you accidentally touch the woman you don't have wudu you will do is gone just like that but if you are a shafi sorry it's the other way around in the shaft if you accidentally touch a woman your wudu is gone but in the hanafi matab if you accidentally touch a woman your wudu is not gone so these are two which cannot exist either you have udu or you don't have it so to say both are right when both say the opposite things this is confusion i said oh this is sounding like three gods in one you know how can three be one well if you believe it can be well you know so that contradiction is and others you know drove me to want to go overseas to study and um that was the the driving force myself and dr abdullah came quick who uh we were very close in fact he was the one along with another brother by the name of rasheed they both gave me shahada a show in toronto so abdullah and myself we went over to study in medina go and study arabic and then studied in sudha deen et cetera so um the situation now and you know 2021 uh in terms of um you know having knowledgeable people in north america you would say it's not the same as in the 70s correct oh yeah yeah of course it's a whole different situation right now you have many many graduates who've come out of universities and in the east and have come back and are teaching in so many different locations um so it's it's it's quite different so would you uh encourage people to you know migrate to uh the east to learn about islam or are you do you believe there's enough options here in north america to just stay here and learn well there are a few options here in north america um you know you can get answers to your questions but to say become learned meaning you you go through a formal uh course of study there's not too many options in north america but we now have online you know the university which i set up back in 2010 launched in 2010 actually set it up earlier but launched in 2010 the international open university you know we provide solid islamic studies bachelors masters phd you know which you can learn from home study in your spare time so the world has changed it has become you know one uh one world it's not an eastern world a western world a far eastern northern and no it's just one world now it's like one village they call it the global village you know it's everything is accessible now online so there is in the us mishka university and even in terms of online universities there are others there's kiu knowledge international university out of riyadh which is online and and other universities coming out of malaysia and pakistan etc which allows people to study uh islam online as never before yeah uh so is there i should say what are the benefits of uh going beyond just basic understanding of islam you know um like what would be a reason why uh people in our community or those that are watching might want to go and study in a university when they already know the basics you know how to pray how to fast and so on one needs to have the inclination you know if one feels the desire and the wish to want to know more then you study best way to do it is to study formally you know of course in in our university you know we we offer a variety of other disciplines we're offering education banking and finance psychology information technology business administration but all of these are taught from an islamic perspective so a person could conceivably study any of those fields that they desire and we hope to increase the number of fields in the coming years but they would also be getting exposure to islam because really what needs to be done in our times i feel what is most critical is the reintegration of islamic knowledge into the educational systems which have been secularized where religion is removed from it there's no you know moral teachings at all so it's amoral and this has produced generations now of people that will do all kinds of things even though they say well we're a christian or or this or that but they're committing all kinds of crimes and you know moral crimes and things that were done by american soldiers in iraq to and in afghanistan you know they just have a recent case australian soldiers in afghanistan you know how these people were not ignorant people they did have some education their christians etc but they committed some horrific crimes you know so there the the moral education needs to become a priority again you know bringing morality back into the classroom yeah i remember oh sorry okay so i remember one time you were uh i think it was multiple times but you were engaging with students um yeah i think it was like a high school level and you asked them like which one of you has never cheated on a test ever like raise your hand and uh literally nobody raised their hand uh and these are all muslims you're talking to so it's like well if you if you're happy and willing to cheat on tests to get your education and then now you're you know to get a job that you really shouldn't have because you cheated to get it uh what of you know becoming a politician or a ruler or whatever like it makes sense that there would be corruption in in your in your uh nation because uh you you guys are all corrupt right yeah yeah um so what motivated you or what motivates you to uh because because it seems like to me it seems like okay you became muslim and then like you had just an upward trajectory where you're just like learning more and teaching more and writing books and you're just going and going and going like you're not stopping you know like for a lot of people alhamdulillah you know they learn and then they're like okay i learned take a break you know take it easy uh but you're just you just keep going masha'allah and um so yeah what motivates you how how come you keep going well i mean i accepted the instruction of the prophet sallam to convey the message of islam so that has been the driving force you know at the base of everything that i'm doing you know that as a teacher this was a critical role the prophet first and foremost was a teacher both of my parents were teachers you know and they helped me when i first began to teach in riyadh after graduating from medina they helped me you know to become uh a teacher who would impact the children who i taught the young people who i taught and um i recognize that the dawah through education is ultimately the most powerful tower because it is creating that dawah creates a new generation that are more and more conscious of islam and as such they would ultimately be able to change the state of the ummah that's why the motto of my university is changing the nation through education and it's taken from the quranic verse that allah doesn't change the condition of a people until they change themselves so education is the the biggest factor in changing nations changing generations etc so that has been you could say the driving force behind me which i hope to continue until i'm put in the grave inshallah uh so i have one final question and then uh we'll move on to uh uh questions from from the audience uh so what's some advice uh you wish to leave with the young muslims who are listening well of course young is a relative term but i would generally advise that seeking knowledge is something we have to prioritize it is compulsory for every muslim but we have to know that the priority in seeking knowledge is to seek knowledge of allah knowledge of what allah wants from us and knowledge of how to implement what allah has required of us this is fundamental knowledge which we all need to master in order to navigate this life successfully if we don't have that knowledge then we will be bumbling around tripping falling bouncing our head from one wall to the next you know we'll be lost stumbling through life reacting to things rather than acting proactively understanding and taking the right decisions to handle the various circumstances that we find ourselves in so it's important very important to make sure that our foundation islam is correctly understood not just as rituals that we need to do praying fasting hajj etc but internalizing and understanding the teachings of islam to make us ultimately better people and if the prophet saw assalam himself had said that he was only sent to perfect the highest of moral character traits in the mob that's telling us that to have and to live a good moral life is the foundation for success in this life if we're not living that good moral life then we're living an immoral life and as immoral immorality is considered to be evil corruptive destructive etc similarly living such a life is going to be a wasted life you will destroy what is around you while thinking you're building and you will not find real happiness in the material life which everything seems to be driving you towards you know it's about being a doctor a lawyer you know an engineer etc etc you know these this is where the focus tends to be in education today but reality is that it's about money you know so the focus is about gathering as much of the dunya as possible around us but so many people get all of that and they're not happy because happiness is not there the real happiness lies in being connected to god yeah it was great having you here uh alhamdulillah we're gonna go through some of the questions inshallah uh maybe about 30 minutes and uh and then we'll end it uh so one question that uh came from uh your side is uh uh dear will you be appearing on other platforms anytime soon i believe your last appearance on a different platform was the dean show with brother eddie well that's not the last appearance you know i've been on a variety of platforms all last year i was on facebook during ramadan teaching about the 99 years of 99 names of allah and this year i've been continuing in that on youtube so you can go to my youtube channel and um catch up on those classes i already taught about 45 uh sessions already since ramadan all the way through ramadan all the way through shawwal and into dilkada and heading for zulhijja so those are there as well as you know other uh platforms whether it's on zoom and streamed uh instagram material is being streamed onto instagram or being done for insta instagram or taken from uh other platforms and put on instagram so that's there um so i i think they i think they meant uh like other shows like uh like you know they haven't seen you on huda tv recently or uh you know peace tv or you know things like that well huda and peace you know have um due to kovid and all these other factors you know i've have been uh slowed down you know they're not they don't have as many opportunities although i did do a program i think last year a couple of programs i did for huda you know online um peace i'm not sure how they're functioning now i mean i know they have a lot of material from the past which they're doing but uh the opportunities to do programs for peace are very very limited now because the indian government you know tried to shut them down and um there but they're still functioning yeah uh so another question uh is it not unfair for non-muslims who have been exposed to many religions um to navi to now have to navigate through them to find uh the right way whereas for muslims they're just simply born into islam no it's not unfair because people are born into islam a lot of times take it for granted and they don't practice it properly because everybody around them is doing it and everybody's doing this and doing that and they're just doing what everybody else is doing and they're not really into it so it's that person who has to go and navigate here there and check this out check that out till they find islam when they come into islam they're coming in serious trying to practice everything and do everything so actually you could say they are more fortunate in that sense okay uh masha'allah another question um how can we follow or sorry can can i follow a medhab uh like sorry can i take from some one medhab like uh from imam hanifa and take from imam malik and just take from different meth hubs and uh you know combine them together and um you know that's that's my uh understanding or that's you know that's how i uh navigate well it is possible to take from different madhabs you know the math of abu hanifa supposedly called the hanafi madhhab but i should point out to people that abu hanifa wasn't a hanafi and imam malik wasn't a maliki imam shafa these madhhabs were formed after them long after them and they attributed themselves to them to give their rulings etc you know our standing but really the math hub of abu hanifa was the madhhab of rasulallah sallallahu alaihi and the madhhab of imam malik was the same mother above rasulullah and the madhhab of ashafe they all followed one madhhab that is the madhhab of rasulullah which is the same mother which abu bakr umar uthman and ali followed that's the bottom line so if you have sufficient knowledge to look at rulings and choose the one which appears to be the most accurate the most correct then you can do that without attributing yourself to any particular matter but if you can't do that and what you're doing instead is looking to find the easiest thing in each of the math hubs then you're likely to go astray you're likely because you're not seeking knowledge you're seeking ease you know so that's dangerous but with knowledge if you have sufficient knowledge it's possible you could be trained in the shafi'i mata but follow rulings from the hambali madhhab instead of some of those of the shafu image or some from the hanafi madhhab instead of those of the shaffer mother though your basic training was in the shaft so you know that flexibility is there you know if you look at imam shafi he's a classical case he studied under imam malik for how many years and he didn't even begin to start to teach others until imam malik died he had that much respect for him on malik he memorized the book of imam malik you know so and then he taught he went to yemen he studied on the scholarship and he taught changed some of his rulings then he went to baghdad he went to iraq and you know he there studied under the students of abu hanifah and changed more of his rulings then he went to egypt and he studied under the students of allah and changed more of his rulings had settled in egypt and now what was he teaching was he teaching maliki or the yemen or [Music] no he taught based on the knowledge he had gained from all the various sources he thought because he was a teacher he had reached that level of understanding that he could teach so he taught others based on the knowledge that he had and he made judgments and rulings he wrote one book you know which was when he was in baghdad and then he changed and wrote another book you know which is the most well-known book of his in which he changed rulings from his earlier book so there is flexibility here and we should respect and maintain that flexibility we shouldn't become rigid you know you've got a suit of iron on you can't move you just have to you know like a robot this is not what islam asks us to be shuffled another question what is your practical advice to get closer to allah and the dean at times it feels overwhelming not knowing what i should be focusing on like should i be focusing on tafsir history and so on so how do i get closer to allah in the deen well the basics of the deen we know are belief in allah so how do you get closer to allah from belief in allah you have to know allah this series that i'm doing called the 99 names of allah this is all about knowing allah who allah is and who he isn't so that's a source or study books on tawhid build your knowledge of allah because that's where it all stems from then as you are studying there or and you want to branch out further then you should you should actually i guess at the same time you should really be studying the sunnah because to know about allah you have to study from the sunnah also because the prophet saws he clarified so much about allah to us and in our prayers you know this is the foundation in practice of our deen if we can't get closer to allah in the prayers then we have problems we have real problems because this is this is the ship which will carry us ultimately to paradise and the prophet sallam told us to pray a farewell prayer when a man asked him about islam he said you know messenger of allah teach me about islam but keep it short so the prophet said when you get up to pray pray a farewell prayer a prayer like if you are told you only have one more prayer left to make in this life that's it after that you're gone from this life how are you gonna pray how would you make your wudu then how would you stand and begin your prayer and bow and prostrate and sit obviously you would pray a prayer unlike any of the prayers that you're doing now so you have to bring that that kind of consciousness into the prayer so you work on your knowledge of allah and about the deen of allah and you work on your prayers and fasting the other acts of worship you try to find the soul the soul of hajj the soul of fasting the core the key the most important element the external acts that we do you know are like the shell on a peanut but what's most important is the peanuts so that core element of whatever we're doing is where we should be focused the shell is what we need to be doing in order to access that core uh so there's a few more questions is it okay if they are uh you know a little off the topic uh i think they've all been upgraded yeah they kind of have but yeah that's true uh okay so one we have is um explaining the concept of polygamy in islam i don't know if that's too uh you know if you have enough time to explain that well let's say polygamy is a norm in human society everywhere whether it's done legally under systems or illegally uh outside of systems it is the norm it's a human norm islam has set rules for it the religion of god has set rules for it and how it should take place so islam is only regularizing what already exists it's practiced all over the world but they may it may just be called girlfriend and boyfriends you know a boyfriend has a number of girlfriends of course it's being practiced the other way now more so in the past it was always males having more than one female it is the norm so islam is only a regulator it has regulated it giving it principles guidelines etc to protect the interests of the females and the children that come from it to ensure that they are their rights are protected the other kind of illegal polygamy which goes on for example in north america you know people's rights are not protected children's rights are lost so islam is a regulator uh so some on topic questions and then i think we'll wrap up very soon um you said it already but perhaps they didn't catch it which year did you convert into convert to islam and were you already married or did you get married after 1972 and i wasn't married at the time i got married within a year or less than a year after i accepted islam all right masha'allah um and this person is asking does dr bilal phillips still have any schools open in or near toronto i don't believe you have any schools in toronto right yeah okay so uh and so yeah i believe that's uh all the questions uh for coming on um my pleasure yeah yeah it's it's really great to have you here alhamdulillah i'm sure a lot of people benefited especially in my community alhamdulillah i know i've benefited um you know lots of advice that you've given us that we can take home and and really utilize in our life um you know i've recently joined the uh islamic online university or uh international open university uh because i felt that um i wasn't sufficient the knowledge that i had and uh it's easy to be misguided because there are some people that say one thing the other that say the opposite is like well which one's right how do i know so having that source to learn and really go through a structured program already has been so beneficial for me and inshallah i really hope that uh you know i finish and get a ba get a masters and who knows what else and i've encouraged others in our community to also uh study through iou so inshallah they'll be joining uh this coming you know this coming semester in the fall i really hope so and um you know again thank you so much for your for your motivation for motivating us and for your advice and uh and hopefully inshallah we can have you again on soon inshallah it's been my pleasure and uh it's part of the dawah you know so whenever the opportunity presents itself and i don't have anything else more pressing and i'll be only too happy to share with you inshallah and your community thank you so much you

Channel: Bilal Philips

Views: 7,015

Rating: 4.970149 out of 5

Keywords: Khutbah, english sermon, islamic lecture, muslim scholar, Dr. Abu Ameena Bilal Philips, shaykh

Id: 1rOs21INeT8

Length: 87min 55sec (5275 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 13 2021