[Music]
where people talk about freedom of
speech
availability of free speech there was an
attack on freedom of expression
him because he recently got cancelled
pretty much but when they go to cancel
you ladies and gentlemen
it comes hard and fast he said to him
you know rasheed you're muslim right and
he said he said yes and i said you know
i want to become a muslim like i
remember saying that to him what would
you what advice would you give to salman
rushdie
here we see that more than 200 thousand
dollars spent we've been told that uh
they're out to kill us all
assalam-o-alaikum brothers and sisters
we went to the streets to ask americans
about islam
here's what they said do you know
anything about islam
no do you know anything about islam
no sadly do you know anything about
islam
not really do you know anything about
islam
no i'm sorry you know what islam means
islam
no we've been told that uh they're out
to kill us all
that's what you've been told
that muslims are out to kill you all
well that's what i say on tv
anything
i know it's in the middle east isn't it
well that you're gonna have four wives
brothers and sisters as you can see
there are so many americans who don't
know about islam we need your help to
change that help us to build the dean's
center the first mega dawah center in
america we have 500 000 left and we need
your help to finish click to donate
right now may god almighty allah reward
all of you
greetings or peace welcome to the dean
show i'm eddie your host go ahead and
subscribe if you have not already hit
that notification bell so you don't miss
out on exciting shows just like this one
that's coming up with my next guest
michael
abraham michael abraham is a public
school teacher and author has a degree
in political science and he was born
raised to a syrian orthodox christian
father and a roman catholic mother and
as he spent time learning about islam
from the orientalists in the university
while he was observing muslims it led
him to believe that there had to be
something more to being a muslim than
what the media would have had
him believe so let's bring out our next
guest
michael abraham assalamu alaykum
how are you doing eddie thanks for
having me here alhamdulillah so i will
say this you know but uh just being
reminded for the listeners out there who
just heard you say something in arabic
so they don't have to take an arabic
class what did you just say
i said uh
peace and blessings of allah be upon you
and the mercy of allah be upon you may
say and say arabic so much almost forget
how to translate it you know beautiful
you see that's the message of jesus that
greeting of peace and you are actually
named after one of the prophets that we
believe abraham it's a beautiful name
yeah and abraham is actually my last
name and you mentioned that my father is
a syrian orthodox christian
and a lot of people ask me why i chose
the name abraham upon becoming a muslim
i didn't actually choose it exactly it's
my birth last name so he had an ancestor
who came to this country whose name was
ibrahim and it got changed to abraham
and made his last name when he came here
so
your father let's start with there so he
was a syrian orthodox christian
and your mother is catholic so you're
kind of mixed in the middle which way
were you more geared towards coming up
following father or mother
yeah so my father his his grandfathers
who immigrated to this country in the
early 20th century when you probably
have some idea there's an increase in
immigration from people from eastern
europe you know including hashem the
levante area or the area of western asia
that's now syria jordan and palestine
so my father's grandfather and
grandmother were syrian immigrants
during that time that came to new york
state
and you know by the time you get to my
father's generation you know him him
second or third generation
you know that that generation of
immigrants really
they strove to assimilate very quickly
into american culture essentially so you
know my father he did not speak arabic
and he grew up going to orthodox church
but he he really was not a very
religious guy he wasn't he believed in
god he's not a very religious guy at all
whereas my mother my mother has longer
roots in the country
they you know have been together since
they're in high school and she went to
catholic private school growing up
so through most of my childhood she was
a pretty strong catholic and she took us
to catholic uh you know services and
sunday school and this type of thing
growing up so i was more raised heavily
catholic but you know knowing that being
arab was a part of my identity but sort
of not really knowing what that means
very much because by the time again like
by the time you get through the
assimilation process through a few
generations a lot of it's disappeared
wait so your mother she was
remind us again so she was also wait
she's catholic but she's american she's
american you know and she's mostly
anglo-saxon background
irish irish-american just some ancestors
been in the country very very long time
you know okay so you're a syrian irish
yeah kind of kind of american that's
right yeah america you have an american
mutt they say you know but you were born
and bred in america yeah absolutely yeah
i was born my parents were from new york
was born in the state of minnesota and
mostly grew up here oh okay so they were
new york you're
raised in minnesota
beautiful i heard you can hear that out
there in some places in minnesota is
that true yeah so there's a neighborhood
in between downtown minneapolis and the
university of minnesota campus called
the cedar riverside neighborhood and
that neighborhood it is really the
epicenter of the somali diaspora there's
these there's these large towers there
there's all somali people living in it
so the city did um
the city of minneapolis did recently
pass
um a ruling and actually during kova
they let them do it during ramadan to
have the event play out loud and they've
since uh passed it so they can do it
year round to to pass the event to do
the event out there yeah
so where were you at that time in your
life i mean most people nowadays if you
want to bring up the bible most people
don't understand the bible don't know
the bible some people identify
culturally as being christian how did
you identify when you were coming up
mother's catholic
father syrian orthodox christian what
would you identify with more
you know i would say growing up in the
west like christianity is it's kind of
confusing you know
and going to church every sunday
you know i always grappled with the fact
that it was hard to get a grip on on the
history of what this religion was that
we were learning and what it was you
know like i can and i can remember you
know it's part of catholic service they
read an epistle of paul like part of the
new testament that paul wrote
in every service so they'd always read
the letter from paul or whatever it's
like well who's paul you know just just
all these types of questions and then
and you know all that stuff oh jesus is
god but he's the son of god it's like
well then who's moses there's all those
types of things you know and you know my
father would not go to church with us
growing up
and that always kept me sort of feeling
one foot out of the church in a way
and also to not identifying christianity
as a masculine thing at all i i actually
can remember explicitly from a young age
as kind of feeling like christianity was
not really something uh meant for men
because i didn't see my father practice
it so much because he would just stay
home on sundays you know for my mother
the moral teachings of christianity were
very important to her so like when we
would come home from church and this
type of thing whatever was talked about
she'd really focus on the moral aspects
of it and a lot of those things as you
know there are things that correlate
with islam you know being good to one
another you know
being conservative with your
you know interpersonal relations with
the opposite gender all that type of
stuff
and you know she was actually fairly
heavy on talking about those those
values and their benefit in a secular
way to us
so i did inculcate a lot of those values
that my mother um taught me over time
you know honesty was such a big thing
with my mother
and she was a mother who um she's the
type of mother who could always tell
when you were lying somehow and she'd
always find out so you know my mother
did a really good job raising me in in
this regard
and bringing me up with those values
now you know um you might know some
people might know the process of
catholicism
you know catholicism has a process to it
so you're baptized when you're very
little you have first communion when
you're like seven or eight and then
about the time you're a teenager you go
through something called confirmation
now by the time i was 13 and about to
start taking confirmation classes my
older sister had really gotten into
marxism and even though i was only in
eighth grade at this time
she was teaching me about marxism of
course marxism has all these
anti-religious sentiments
and you know teaches you that religion
is the opium of the mass is just
something meant to manipulate you
so i have an older brother and older
sister while my older brother had gotten
confirmed while he was in high school my
sister chose not to and because she was
doing all this learning about marxism
and teaching it to me and she was kind
of teaching me all these criticisms
against the catholic church and stuff i
chose not to go to confirmation classes
and chose not to get confirmed as a
catholic when i was in eighth grade now
that was that was a it was a contentious
issue with my mother at the time because
my mother was actually the teacher of
the confirmation classes i was supposed
to go to
and i went to the first one and then
didn't go to any of the ones after that
so i mean you know looking back on it
this was and i mean i knew it at the
time too but
somewhat of an awkward thing for her to
be the teacher of those classes and then
after the first class it's like your son
isn't even coming however at the end of
the day my mother did respect that it
was my choice at the end of the day and
and she really encouraged me against it
she told me you're going to regret it
somewhere
you know somewhere down the road in your
life and this type of thing but you let
it be my choice you know i can remember
at that time and it was another thing i
held on to in life to later on
like that feeling these criticisms i had
and confusions i had of that maybe not
want to go through
with getting confirmed being catholic
you know it wasn't that i felt a
discordance with the values that my
mother taught me a lot of those core
religious values a lot of people have
and i can remember being tough trying to
communicate that to her at the time that
you know a lot of what you've taught me
like i still believe that stuff is right
i just don't really think this is the
route to it you know
and after that you know i you know
something i never um i never just
believed in god in life i never became
atheist or this type of thing
but i did you know in my teenage years
develop these marxist types of
criticisms towards religion that type of
thing i can remember discussing that but
you know when i eventually embraced
islam i i i saw it as a natural
conclusion to living out a lot of what
my mother had imbibed in me from a young
age with the values that you did teach
me
can you say marxism is
synonymous with communism yeah i'd say
so you know the kind of religions the
opium of the masses you know the
catholic church is
has been uh manipulated people and taken
over people throughout history and you
know it just religion's a tool of
control that type of criticism you know
but there is some truth to that
statement as far as far as
religion being used to manipulate people
because you have man-made religions and
people can do that uh just like they can
do that with communism or any other
system would you say
well absolutely and and you know when
you grow up i mean at this time i knew
nothing about islam i had hardly heard
about islam at this point in my life you
know this is a teenager in the 1990s in
america
and you know when you have that
experience and you get exposed to those
types of criticism at a young age the
tendency you have and what you do is you
just associate as that's all religion
and that's kind of what marxism itself
did you know it just tries to put all
religion in one basket so i mean all
that sets the stage for later in life
when i actually learn about what islam
is
to for it to appear very profoundly
before we go that
help the audience understand
the the main difference between your
father's religion the orthodox syrian
christian
what what they believed and it seemed
like your father really wasn't
practicing right and then your mother
catholicism what's the main difference
there you know i'm really honestly i'm
not the best person to speak on that
because i wasn't into the syrian
orthodox practice a whole lot growing up
you know i it's like some of that stuff
are things that that i don't know
totally
mm-hmm so would you say what what i
understood is uh you know when you study
comparative religion you see that
catholicism you have more
and more of the conflict you have
confession box yeah i don't think you
have you don't have confession box with
the orthodox church yeah no that that's
a difference that's one main difference
right you're praying to the rosary this
type of thing they don't yeah so you
have a lot more uh saints yeah but you
also have some say do you have some
saints in uh or orthodox christianity
well i i know the church fathers are a
big deal in the orthodox church yeah
they they make a big deal about the
bishops and this type of thing i do know
that
yeah but the core pretty much uh trinity
is in both of them correct yes yeah and
then the catholicism making uh mary a
mother
where she's she's the mother of god this
is really emphasized right
i believe so yes yeah
uh so when you come now and you start to
look into well before you get to looking
deeper into islam
you got to spend some time learning
about it through the orientalists
yeah that's correct that's correct so
you know
knowing
before so you're you're talking about
you're in university you don't have a
muslim who's practicing islam and this
is very common right someone who's
living islam and teaching you islam how
it should be you have someone
defined this term orientalist who's
teaching you islam
yeah so you know when i went to college
i ended up pursuing a degree in
political science with a focus on middle
eastern politics you know i was a senior
in high school when 9 11 happened and so
you know as well as desert storm when i
was in early elementary school you know
those are things that happened in life
that made me wonder about the arab world
and just you you know syria is part of
that part of the world and i wasn't
really connected to it in any way aside
from some of the food that my father
would eat
so you know when the war on terror
happened i really felt a pressure to
actually learn about what it was all
about and learn what was going on
so i ended up pursuing a degree in
political science with a focus on middle
eastern politics
and when you do that it starts to become
pretty apparent that there's this
religion that everyone practices in that
part of the world and through certain
media channels you'd be here to be
talking about after 9 11
that you have to learn about now you're
correct especially at the university of
minnesota the university of minnesota's
political science department and their
cultural studies department is really i
would say not a great place for someone
to learn about
islam at least
at least i was 15 16 years old when i
was there you know no then why do they
have the topic then well i mean it's
orientalist studies you know an
orientalist i mean that's a term given
to western academics who study and
characterize
the the muslim world especially the arab
world but the muslim world
and generally characterize it in a way
to suit the agendas
of the west so
this is kind of what you terms again
sonata is someone who's an opponent to
islam who has
you know yeah you know it's some kind of
bias there i would say so so if i'm
teaching you know as a martial arts
teacher if i'm
let's say i don't like a certain martial
art
and i'm over here teaching
let's say uh
shaolin kung fu right that i'm not
really a fan of i don't know and i've
studied a little bit but i'm not
actually a master
uh sifu in kung fu like i should i
should stick in my lane no
absolutely you know something you see
there is a
a big thing you see is a real hesitancy
to get to the meat of what orthodox
islam actually is
you know even like with these professors
who who they they try to feign being
unbiased in this type of thing and a lot
of the rain material they give you
it really overly focuses on the
sectarianism in the muslim world it
overly emphasizes that a lot of people
who only study islam and that sort of
thing something they come out with a lot
of people will they will think that the
population of shia and the population of
sufis the population of secularists in
the muslim world are in way larger
numbers than they actually exist that
that's just one crux of the kind of
confusion that you get you know and
again it just focuses on you know you
study political science as a
pseudo-science so anything you do there
it focuses on crafting just these
characterizations of things
to you know
fit a culture of critique that's modeled
in the western world that doesn't really
fit into properly understanding islam
very well but you glean some things you
know you glean some things that make you
curious is what happens
i can't tell you how many times i've
spoken to actual muslims so someone
who'll be a muslim not really practicing
islam and then when you want to share
islam because you'll see them let's say
something very basic like not praying
five times a day for instance and then
you'll try to explain some of the basic
they say no no you don't have to tell me
i took islam
in the universities right i i know islam
but they're not living it and then when
they start talking about it it's like
you know there's a big
there's a
big conflict with the two an area i see
that now um as you know i do education
of public school k through 12 educators
now about islam and about the needs of
muslim students and and about many
different things concerning k-12
curriculum
you know i always get social studies
teachers in high school
they always come into my trainings
thinking that they already know about
islam because they've studied history
this type of thing and you can teach
them some of the most basic stuff about
islam especially basic things about the
everyday practice and how it affects
someone's life and and it's all new to
them
exactly
i find the same thing with them they
they really have overblown
notions
you know especially about the place of
non-orthodox practices i would say and
that actually really affects those
teachers because they oftentimes assume
that religiously their student bodies of
muslim students are more diverse
religiously than they really are
so that's where i want to take my next
question and spend a little time here
did you while you were studying in the
university learning from the
orientalists did this name salman
rushdie come up
[Music]
[Applause]
i met decay in the
availability of free speech to americans
freedom of speech is one of the most
fundamental
important universal rights at all in his
work
you know i can't recall that it came up
in university specifically but you know
i learned about salman rusty actually
from my sister when i told you about
that when i was in high school you know
the whole salman rushdie incident that
was one of the few things that i had
actually learned about islam about the
muslim world
at that time
and i remember i can remember it being
characterized to me and uh via her and
it being characterized by selma and
rusty that uh uh
muslim populations of people they don't
read books or they don't read this type
of thing you know yeah and actually both
my mother and my sister they were um
very big
they were english literature majors so
they were very big into literature this
type of thing so i can recall my sister
having a fascination with with that
whole incident when i was younger it'd
be one of the first impressions i got
about the muslim world we wouldn't even
be talking about it but as you know it's
it's been brought up again it's in the
news
you know because someone went and took
the law into their own hands you know
obviously you know this is something
that islam condemns you know going
vigilantesm right so someone did that
and now his name now this guy again
uh he's brought up and he's like the
epitome of freedom of speech what are
your thoughts on that when you hear that
well it's really something you know i
mean the whole experience i had of
coming to islam in college and it's you
know studying politics amidst the war on
terror and this type of thing
i mean that really made me reflect quite
a bit about amongst
about how the media affects people's
perceptions of things
you know and something i went through
too when i became islam was really
seeing a contrast between what the
university would say about islam what
the media would say about islam
and then the very prominent somali
community that we have here in
minneapolis because especially at that
time some of the classmates i had at
university people i'd see in my
neighborhood the shops i go to this type
of thing i'd see a lot of community a
lot of good behavior this type of thing
from them
but you know kind of let me know that
there had to be something more to this
religion than all that so i mean i think
the salman rushdie affair going on i
mean it really just upsets me that it's
just another thing that we have to be
reacting to
and i think as muslims you know we need
to really be developing strategies on
how we proactively educate about people
about islam
in a comprehensive way in a
comprehensive way and being in education
has really made me think about that and
that's why i put some of the projects
that i have together to do that
do you find it hypocritical when now
he's championed
as someone who is
where people talk about freedom of
speech there was an attack on freedom of
expression and someone who is probably
just the luminary in the world
[Music]
a symbol of free speech
just what is freedom of expression
without the freedom to offend he said
it ceases to exist you know but then you
have others i've
recently we've he's kind of been some
someone who we had on the program and we
don't obviously endorse
you know people
uh behavior outside of islam people who
do things obviously not according to you
know how god wants you to live but the
person is not not a muslim right uh but
there are some things that uh he said
and he came on the program and he's very
respectful and whatnot we pray that god
almighty allah guides him that he comes
to islam this uh gentleman by the name
of andrew tate have you ever heard of
him
yeah i've heard of him but i i can't say
i've ever really listened to his stuff
yeah
so that was interesting i just wanted to
ask you when you see someone like him
because he recently got cancelled pretty
much but when they go to cancel you
ladies and gentlemen
it comes hard and fast you lose your
facebook then your instagram then your
gmail then your discord your bank that
like it's just like in real time you're
watching your phone and apps just
exploding boom boom boom
and i'm like okay people are wondering
what happened to the freedom of speech
when it's geared towards the muslims
it's kind of like say whatever you want
and then people use this as the you know
get out of uh getting canceled card
but on the other side you know there's
certain restrictions to freedom of
speech just when it's not against uh
when it's not against uh
uh islam and muslims
absolutely
you know eddie i i personally i think
hypocrisy is sort of
integral to western culture in a way
which might
you know that might sound like a harsh
thing to say
but but i really do think that you see
that all over and i think it is our part
of our job to point that out to western
society
you know in a constructive way
but also in different ways in different
means so so you really just see it all
over all over the place you know
certainly with freedom of expression
certainly with some of the ideals
underlying uh liberal education because
you know ostensibly a liberal education
is supposed to be one ostensibly
where you look at all different opinions
and then you analyze it objectively to
determine which is the best one or
things but when you actually look at how
how liberal education takes place you
actually see many different world
perspectives are explicitly suffocated
and often oftentimes the system itself
it's not even really ready to take
opinions outside a secular liberal
paradigm so i mean just that's it's
itself is is hypocrisy you know working
in education the student body population
in the united states has gone through a
big transformation in the last 20 years
with 2000 to 2010 being the highest
period of immigration the united states
certainly the highest period of muslim
immigration
you find all these schools
having
talking a lot about diversity and how
they value diversity and they value
multiculturalism and they value the
culture of students and families and the
home culture and all that type of stuff
but then when they do that
they only want to talk about that in
ways under certain constructs that the
academic departments in western culture
have already put together and then when
especially when these schools they have
muslim populations of students that
they're serving in them
you cannot honestly authentically talk
about muslim culture and respecting
muslim culture without talking about
islam and without knowing and learning
about islam and without respecting
islamic perspectives of viewing the
world and viewing any issue that could
come up but there's virtually no place
for that there's no there's been no
place to develop for that in the
education system
now that you're someone who spent some
time also you went to saudi yeah and you
were teaching there for a few years is
that correct that's correct the saudis
actually where i started as a teacher so
i did a degree in political science but
the first thing i did out after
finishing my bachelor's degree was um i
ended up working at an elementary school
in jidda it was a saudi private school
that was trying to implement an american
style curriculum to saudi citizens
so i ended up getting thrown just thrown
in to the profession of teaching
and i was in saudi for three years a lot
of brothers have gone uh you know to the
khalid to the to the arabian peninsula
and done various forms of teaching
english
i'm one of the few who i ended up coming
back
and joining the public education system
here and i got a teaching degree here
master's degree in education so i work
as so i've been working as a licensed
teacher in the united states for nine
years now and again i developed a
professional development education
program and wrote a book called engaging
muslim students in public schools
in an effort to begin educating the
education system here and the society in
general better about islam
i mean were you nervous before you went
i mean with all the propaganda and
people
that are thinking that okay if i go to
that part of the world as an american
they hate us
you know i might get my head cut off
i was not afraid i mean i had already
become muslim before i went to saudi
i've been muslim about i've been muslim
about three years before i went to
school okay so this is before you accept
correct correct so i knew brothers there
this type of thing you know i knew
people from there all that type of stuff
now the family on the other hand you
know and my wife also she was my
girlfriend before i accepted islam so
she's also from non-muslim family so
getting all them to
feel settled about it as a little
different thing you know that was that
was just every stereotype in the book
coming out with that
so so that was more of the issue that i
had to overcome before going to saudi
now what were the key leading points
that had you determined that okay look
syrian father catholic mother you know
there's a lot of culture involved here
i'm taking a big step forward you know
to
look into islam
and
now i'm going to probably go up against
the odds here with my family and society
what had you pushed through all that
that you were like man this this is very
powerful to have you accept it to have
you accept islam submission to the
creator not the creation what did it for
you at the end
yeah you know eddie it's a very deep
question
and you know i'll just i'll just say
this
because it's a lot to talk about
you know ultimately when i decided to
become muslim was when i went i went to
a somali bookstore in that same
neighborhood i was telling you about
cedar riverside which was right by the
university of minnesota i went into a
bookstore there and told them i needed
an english translation of the quran
because it had bothered me taking
classes in university and studying like
islamist politics as they would call it
or this type of thing or the
israeli-palestinian conflict or
and they never had us read the quran and
it just becomes clear it's like like
when are we going to read this
so i went and sought it out myself you
know
and you know even just leading up to
that
you know my acceptance of islam was a
very strong journey in intellectual
conviction
and the family i grew up in overall like
politically they were more liberal than
they were right wing if you want to call
it that growing up
you know as you study politics
university and i was always told to you
know have an open mind and and learn and
that type of stuff
so you know as you grow up you explore
different perspectives from kind of both
sides of the political spectrum if you
will
you come to learn that you know there's
an intellectual foundation to
conservative thought as well as liberal
thoughts
and as i looked at those things i the
the different things i found myself
agreeing with were kind of a mix of the
two you know
but you know and and also too just just
living in the city
and and
i'd walk around minneapolis a lot and
talk to people on the street and this
type of thing and
and seeing things that just go on with
your own friends
in american culture and the things
people get caught up caught up in
and again you know having that
foundation of my mother's own religious
teachings that i told you about like you
know when i was at that age is in my
very early 20s
you know i was really beginning to see
the value of of religious teachings and
religious moral values overall and that
there needs to be a foundation in it
and islam to the extent i learned about
university and what i could glean from
it it was it was appealing to me
something that was a big appeal to me
about it was the prohibition of alcohol
prohibition of alcohol because i had
seen so many people in my life uh fall
into that vice and it ruined their lives
of course every american family's had
someone
touched that
but you know something that i never
could get a grip on when i was studying
islam in university i actually didn't
know
whether or not it was a religion someone
could accept and just join that wasn't
something that was made clear
and that was something i felt was
evading my studies it's like well
and you also see when you grow up
christian
the next religion outside your own you
maybe know something about is judaism
and you know that judaism belongs to a
certain tribe of people
so you know you're studying islam it's
like well it's not just a religion for
the arabs because there's all these
somali people who who practice at this
type of thing so i couldn't get a i
didn't have a full grip on whether or
not islam was something that you join by
birth or something that you accept
but when i read that you know honestly
eddie when i read like when i got the
translation of the quran i actually have
it right here the one that i i read
i got about five verses into sort of
before i knew i was going to accept this
religion five only five verses
in the verbatim word of god almighty the
quran
your five verses is the second chapter
of the quran and you're like i know this
is the truth that's all it took five
verses that's it and you knew the quran
was the truth that was that had such a
powerful impact on you just those five
verses yep
and and you know when you and as you
read and this was this was the summer of
2007.
and man eddie i spent that summer with
my face in that that translation of the
quran
and you know when you have this type of
confused christian upbringing
that i grew up under
you know when you read the quran and
everything it says it really just makes
everything make sense it just makes
everything make sense
and you know
that summer and even the moment when i
knew that i had to accept islam
it's a lot to explain but i felt like
every moment in my life had led up to
that moment at that moment
and i tell billy this was 15 years ago
now um i've never had doubts about islam
since accepting it i've never had any
doubts about it some peop you know we
all struggle with trying to be the best
muslims we are all that type of thing
you know of course i have those types of
struggles but i've i've never had any
doubts about islam
and core to it also you know
studying politics
and analyzing society at that age
you know you very much want to find
solutions for people and solutions of
the problems of the world this type of
thing
and you know sometimes you look at it
and you think like you know maybe there
is no solutions there is no answers for
mankind
and then when you discover islam you
know you realize that god did not leave
mankind alone without any solutions
and just just the gift of having
discovered that
is something that i i will never let go
of how of how strong that feeling was at
that time
and since that time
you know obviously i've had a whole
journey within the muslim community and
different muslims this type of thing and
a lot of times muslims were talking
about
our inter-community issues and this and
this type of thing
but but i've always held onto it as it
being part of my own purpose and
something that i have to do
to partake in educating western society
better about islam
because it it will solve so many of the
muslims issues it will solve the west's
issues
and of course when you read the quran
you read about prophets peace be upon
all of them who were sent to their own
people and sent to their own nations to
give them this message
so so that is what i've tried to live
out as best i can and strategize around
since i became muslim
subhanallah i'm really amazed that it
just took five of those verses obviously
your heart was open you were seeking
the truth at that time you're looking
you're yearning
yeah
and you know the thing is eddie those
those first verses are sort of
and for people for people don't know it
may be the second chapter but the first
chapter is only seven verses so this is
very early in reading it
you know what it describes is who the
book is for
that's who it describes so it's for
those who who believe in the unseen
and those who
those who fear a loss penalty allah
and those who believe in in the
revelation and who those who believe in
revelation
so you know you know once i read that
i mean i realized it was a religion that
was open to anyone who will accept it
who wants to accept its message
now before that you got you obviously
went through the first chapter of the
quran yeah right can you go outside to
put you on the spot can you for those
non-uh you not yet muslims non-muslims
who are out there never got to hear the
quran it's so beautiful to hear a new
muslim going and reciting a language
that you never spoke you didn't speak uh
arabic right growing up no an american
born bred in america can you go ahead
and recite the opening of the quran
please for us
oh man you can do this
you know first of all i read the whole
translation that summer i read the whole
translation that summer and you know
it's taken me a while to get into
tajweed classes or recital quran but i
don't know where people understand
please okay
okay
[Music]
and just to hear it coming from someone
how long has it been now since you
accepted islam 15 years 15 years and
this is something that every muslim
learns it recites it every day in the
five daily prayers minimum
and just to hear someone like yourself
you know reciting it this is this is a
living miracle the quran and just for
someone to think you know this is
something that the quran has a challenge
a test it's preserved tamper-free temper
proof we have it in its original and
you're a
living testimony to that
show uh may alexa from all of us i mean
so this is something that is just it's
just amazing mind-blowing for anybody
like salman rushdie if he would he's
sitting there writing about you know
islam and the quran and if what do you
think is missing here for someone like
that someone who's you know i've heard
that he's not even really a great writer
but they elevated him so much so because
of this you know someone like him now
now he's got a chance to you know he
could turn his life around also with all
the harm that he's done to himself and
to others and to you know trying to do
harm to islam but it's just at the end
of the day i mean it's like spitting up
at the sun it's going to come right back
at you so now i think he's you know
he's uh
in the last phases of his life and he's
gotten you know um
what with recently what happened to him
you know what do you think he's missing
he could you know let's say he sees this
it's a good chance he might right
uh what would you what advice would you
give to salman rushdie
well i it's probably unlikely he's
into my advice but i mean he's old you
know one way or the other he's getting
to the end of his time so he asked you
know
no one will avoid death normally by
death and you have to make a deci
you know the thing is
this dunya
it distracts people and that's the big
temptation of the west you know it it
uses the dunya to tempt people
and manipulate them
and
you know make them forget about where
they are going eventually all of us are
going to die we know that we all know it
and because we all know we're going to
die we know that this life is a
preparation for the next life
so if we choose to neglect that you
choose to sell the next life for a
miserable price in this life
then you you've incurred a punishment
upon yourself that's simply the reality
of it
so my advice to him would be to take the
testimony of faith
in islam and to accept islam before he
dies
and what's that testimony of faith
that's the one that you took to enter
into submission to the creator not the
creation islam yes
so there's no word there is no deity
worthy of worship except god alone
and muhammad is the servant and
messenger of god let's spend a second on
that it's so beautiful it's a negation
first that you're not going to worship
anything in creation nothing that you
can see touch or feel you're not
worshiping it except the creator who
created creation the one who created
jesus
abraham which your name is named after
uh he created muhammad peace and blessed
people on all of them the sun the moon
everything you're not going to worship a
nationality your ego your desires
nothing but the one who created you that
makes so much sense man it's so simple
to understand isn't it absolutely how
did you feel when you took your shahada
this describe those moments now and
where did you take shahada was it in a
masjid was it yeah so you know that
summer uh i spent that whole summer
reading the quran now even after i
started reading it no i want to become
muslim i didn't actually know how to
become muslim because i hadn't learned
that
and i ended up taking shahada
you know i was working in restaurants at
the time and there was an ethiopian
brother who
ran a chiropractic office behind the
restaurant that i worked at
and i told him i i remember telling i
was serving him coffee
and i said to him you know rasheed
you're muslim right and he said he said
yes and i said you know i want to become
a muslim like i remember saying that to
him so at this point at this point you
want to become a muslim i spent i spent
almost three months knowing i wanted to
be muslim but not knowing how to become
muslim and and i'll never forget i said
that to him his face just lit up he is
in his eye just got so wide when i said
that to him
and he had to go like after that he's
like he's like wait i'm gonna come back
to you
and he came back like a week later
and you know he
he didn't quite understood i understand
how much i had read already i think and
he told me you know like um you know
it's it's it's a big decision and
you have to make sure like it's right
for you so
what he did he brought me actually to
one of our local somali malls we have
here but there's there's a few malls
that are
run by the somali community
and he he actually bought me this book
islam and focus
which was this is by like some some
professor from princeton in the 70s
and he gave that to me and he said like
like here read this and he said i'm
going away back to ethiopia for a month
because i'm getting married and when i
come back you know i'll i'll take you to
a mosque like i don't know he didn't
want to give me the shahada for some
reason
so he gave me that he also gave me a dvd
this is back in the dvd days he got me a
dvd at that mole of kadyasine
a classic dawah dvd um of him giving a
lecture entitled what do you really know
about islam
and that was my first exposure to to any
type of
muslim personality
dyi type figure i hadn't had any
exposure to that before i decided i
wanted to become a slam
i want to become muslim so so i watched
that and i actually learned this book
through this book i tried learning how
to pray
like it has pages in it where it tries
to teach you step out of step how to do
it this type of thing so i tried
starting and all that type of stuff but
anyway when that brother came back
it was the first night of ramadan it was
the first night of ramadan in september
2007. it was september 12th i remember
the day
the first night that ramadan came in he
took me the masjid lakuda on central
avenue in minneapolis across the street
from holy land restaurant people in
minnesota know it
and it was a
jamal bin amur who was
still around here
and also too that masjid was kind of the
center of the islamic university of
minnesota which some people know too now
and that was from the sheikh that uh he
led me in the shahada there
and there was young brothers and older
brothers sitting around we did it
you know some of them who i'm still
connected with and still know and then i
prayed mug mughrib uh uh uh in in the
jamaa with them for the first time
and it was the first
night of ramadan and i can remember the
sheikh explaining to me
the the hadith at that time of how on
the first night of ramadan all the
shaytin are locked up and all the angels
are
set free and um and then i began fasting
right away and that that same brother
who ran that chiropractic office he took
me to tara he picked me up and took me a
tour away at that masjid every night
my first year
becoming muslim it's just amazing man
just hearing all this uh and just taking
it back to something that's just so
simple if a human being is searching for
the purpose of life
and they're like reflecting upon
our departure date we're all going to
leave this life sooner or later and then
just doing a simple investigation
looking at you know the different claims
that are out there and weigh islam next
to it and
what captivated me really is the simple
message
and the pure monotheism the toheed what
we call it that stands out from
everything else because in every other
man-made religion you got some form of
creation worship christ
or associating god to being a man in
some way or less of a god but islam just
and you know making that clear
distinction that the creator is the
creator and the creation is the creation
and you don't worship anything in
creation but you only worship the one
creator go ahead what are we going to
say you know as you say a big thing
about for me too eddie
with tawheed
is the fear of allah subhanahu wa tala
and the definition that the quran gives
to allah is being all seen
and all hearing
and that you're going to be held
accountable
you know like you know americans are so
are so political like political
identification i think it superseded
religious identification in the west
and you know certainly having some
exposure to marxism and this type of
thing growing up but but also even just
coming from a family that was like more
liberal in this type of thing
you know sometimes people
they they look at like things like the
government as if it can solve everyone's
problems or do everything and it simply
cannot no matter how
how much it tries you know even if we
have a
technological overhaul super big brother
state like china's trying to put
together where they have a camera on
everybody it will not be able to stop
everyone from doing wrong
so a realization i had was that to
really have a just society and to have a
wholesome society and to keep people
from falling into these vices that
people fall into such as alcohol and
drug addiction amongst other things
people really have to have a fear of god
they have to have a sense that god is
watching them that that is an idea i
developed again before i read the quran
and that was part of the first five
verses of swartz al-baqarah that hit me
so hard that it talked explicitly about
the fear of god in it and you know and
of course the word taqwa it is more
encompassing than the word fear which is
what's used in vert in the verse but but
that was a big part of what hit me so
profoundly as well
yeah that's interesting you you
mentioned the
common estate there the communist
country and then them putting cameras
all over the place
to have you fear getting caught and
looked at you know and then exposed but
when you have the taqwa the god
consciousness in your life
and that fear of god you love god the
driving force is love and you live
between a balance of fear and hope but
now you you know that there's an angel
on the right writing the good deeds
there's an angel on the on the left
writing the the bad deeds you know this
is ingrained in you you don't need no
cameras because a muslim you you leave
him alone with a dollar or a million
dollars he fears god you can trust that
muslim you'll get your money back right
because that's absolutely
that's absolutely right that's amazing
and you got behind you let's uh a few
more things i want to ask you you have
uh because people say is that the box
you guys worship behind you what's that
uh cabba back there and that's uh
right behind you got the picture can you
hear there's some people that believe
that you guys worship a black box in
this in the in the desert
yeah and i can remember uh i can
remember hearing that uh stereotype
before i became muslim like i remember
hearing this you know
of course you know muslims will call it
beethoven which which means which can be
translated as the house of allah
and some orientalists back in the day
tried to say that that means that
muslims think that god lives in that
which of course it is not you know it's
it's just
it's the central
it's the thing it's the direction
towards which muslims direct their
worship when they pray and you know the
building of it is told in the the in the
quran and the story of abraham the story
of abraham with his son is smile
first house of worship built by abraham
and his son ishmael to commemorate the
worship of one and only one god and
isn't it there's also it's it's uh
mentioned
in the bible you have mecca called becca
actually that's correct it's there that
that's that's the house
and then the other thing is um
you also
specialize now as a teacher teaching for
all these years that's good i want to
spend a little bit time before we
conclude ask you some questions about
this
because it's becoming very tricky for
teachers now you know how are you
handling this with all of the new age
stuff that's happening and all of this
uh confusion that's out there you know
public school teachers now are really in
a dilemma especially those who hold to a
higher moral ground
well i'm glad you asked about that eddie
and you know the
public education and the opportunities
that exist for us as muslims as well as
the challenges is really something that
i've gotten online the past year about
to try to educate muslims more about
and
there are is definitely challenges and
to be clear i don't recommend to muslims
that they send their kids to public
schools if they can homeschool or send
them to an assignment private school
they should do that but the reality in
the united states is most muslims are
choosing for one reason or another to
send their kids to public schools and
many muslim families don't have another
choice for you know especially our
families who've gone through a refugee
background they're of low socio economic
status maybe mom and dad are working
both working two jobs
they don't have another choice
so advocating for our kids in the public
schools is something that we have to do
and it is something that we can do
you know there is competing pressures in
public schools there's competing
pressures but but the american education
system is also unique
it's unique in the respect that it is
designed to be local first it is not a
top-down structure the 10th amendment of
the united states constitution actually
prohibits the federal government from
creating a nationwide school curriculum
so school curriculum is
at its largest done at the state level
but it's really more done at the
district level
and schools nowadays too public schools
as far as families are concerned they
have competition stiff competition to
get families to come to their school
because almost all states have some form
of school choice now between district
schools and charter schools as well as
private schools and homeschooling be an
option for families as well
so this is something this is actually an
untapped source of power that the muslim
community has in america that they have
not properly utilized the schools the
public education system needs our kids
it's dependent on them and even if we
don't send our kids to those schools we
are still taxpayers in those places and
the fact that we don't send our kid to
the local public school cost that school
money
so we have an opportunity to educate
them on why and the schools are opening
to listen to this and the field of
professional development in education is
an opportunity to do this and this is
where i've been working for the past
six years non-stop
as far as the pressures being a teacher
you do get pressures from all over the
place however
teachers unions are a highly influential
force nationwide in the public school
system
and i belong to a teacher's union here
teachers unions can be good or bad as
far as how we see it but something that
they give teachers they give teachers a
lot of protection
they give teachers a lot of autonomy
they also shield teachers from
accountability in a lot of ways
so a lot of times people have a
misperception over you know if a
district says to do this then all the
teachers are doing it or if someone you
know at the state government thinks this
is a good idea to do in the schools then
all the teachers are doing it
it's really not that way completely
teachers actually operate as independent
agents in a lot of ways and the single
biggest factor that plays into what goes
on in american public school classroom
is the choice of the individual teacher
in that classroom and even if a district
puts together a curriculum or something
like this because of teacher union
contracts typically
that curriculum doesn't have any
authoritative weights with what a
teacher does in the classroom
beyond being a recommendation so this
can be good or bad for muslim families
it can be good because there's an
opportunity for us to educate educators
about our desires as a muslim community
and what we want for our kids and the
knowledge that they need to have to
properly understand muslim children
muslim families in the muslim community
and we can offer them resources to learn
more about that and even resources they
can learn in the classroom that they can
use in the classroom to respect our kids
more
on the flip side of it it can create a
conundrum for muslim families because if
our kids are put in a classroom with a
teacher who decides they want to do this
or they want to do something like that
or teach about this or ask the kids
about that which is something that we
may not want them to
the accountability mechanisms that we
can put on those teachers might be
limited it might be limited especially
if they belong to a teachers union
because the teachers union is ultimately
going to protect them it's even going to
shield their own administration from how
much they can go into that teacher's
classroom and even observe them and find
out what is going on in their classroom
so we have to understand this aspect of
teacher autonomy going on the schools
and any muslim family who sends their
kid to public school they have to try to
proactive proactively educate that
teacher and the school in general and
the principal at the school about islam
and about what we want and what is
needed for muslim children and families
and i hope you'll give me an opportunity
to plug my book and training program
here eddie yeah absolutely so i i i've
written a book called educating muslim
students in public schools and i run it
it was first a training program that i
did in minneapolis i've educated people
from every school district in the twin
cities area as well as greater minnesota
as well as every people from every
school district not every member but at
least some people from every school
district in the seattle metro area in
the columbus ohio metro area and i've
had and now doing it online now after
colvin stuff i've had i've had over 2000
educators take it take the full training
from over 20 different states
and i've sold over 500 copies of the
book so it is work that is spreading if
people go to abraham education dot com
they can refer educators to that to take
my training where they will learn
authentically and comprehensively
what islam is and what that means for
muslim children and families and how to
not step on that and how to actually
honor that in their classrooms and
school environment and eddie it's really
an opportunity for us to because since i
became muslim i have reflected upon
how we can
cross barriers to educating american
society better about islam and too often
we are stuck in certain echo chambers in
how we try to get the non-muslims aware
about islam
so you know we can do things through
media and that's great and we have to
but the reach of that will always be
limited you know i really respect
brothers who do street dawah and and
everything like that that is very
important but the people who are going
to approach a booth like that are
limited
the public education system there's over
3 million licensed teachers in america
it is the most licensed profession
in the country
public school teachers they may not have
a personal interest in learning about
islam but they do have a professional
interest because they're teaching muslim
kids and they have these families in our
community and we have a young population
of kids we have more kids aged k-12 in
our community than we do people older
than that and these public schools they
feel that they know that there's more
kids from the muslim community than you
see in the community more broadly
so that is a point of leverage that we
have in the society
and oftentimes especially immigrant
families they're intimidated oftentimes
they feel a sense of accountability
themselves to the schools and they're
worried about how schools are going to
look at them but a lot of people in
america they don't treat their local
public school that way a lot of people
in america they treat the local public
school like the school serves them and
it does serve them it's meant to serve
them because you're the taxpayer and
you're the one who sends your kid there
and they are dependent on your kid going
to that school for that school to exist
so i've put together these resources so
muslim families can have an efficient
way of going to their school emailing
the principal emailing the teacher and
saying here i recommend this training
for your public school educators i
recommend your school study this book so
you can actually learn about the needs
and wants of muslim families and all
teachers have to get continuing
education credit hours to maintain their
teaching license and they get that for
doing my training so a lot of them want
to do that and again in education there
is a big emphasis on on respecting
diversity and respecting
multiculturalism and all this type of
thing but as muslims we have to
call people out on their hypocrisy or we
have to challenge them when they're
being hypocritical and they don't
realize it because they can because they
can talk about diversity all day long
but if that doesn't mean actually
learning about islam for all intents and
purposes you're not respecting the
diversity of the muslim community and
therefore they're not authentically
trying to
serve our kids as they say is their
mission to do
we're almost out of time but i just want
to touch upon this just
dull indulging this a little bit deeper
so
i hear what you're saying and i i agree
what you said earlier that it's very
dangerous
and
it's
a great chance to lose your child
sending him to a public institution like
that if you're not debriefing them every
day not just
not just um
are they learning sometimes uh
a very different language than they're
learning at home
you know and you know the kind of
profanities that a lot of times go
unchecked
the drugs a lot of times the dating
promiscuity
uh you have even and i'm sure you know
you've been exposed to a lot of it you
know young girls becoming grandmothers
you know you think of grandmother you
think of someone old or you have young
girls becoming grandmothers now you know
and this is not in marriage
uh so you have the disrespect towards
not only teachers but they pick up this
attitude bring that back home you know
the celebration of pagan holidays
and the list goes on of a lot of the
evil vices that we try to it's endless
so it's endless you understand that i
don't have to educate you on that you
see what's going on but now it's
becoming even more alarming so
what do you have to say now when you
have a system that is teaching
that a boy can be a girl girl could be a
boy this gender fluidity and i had a
teacher say that look she's thinking
that she's not going to be able to teach
anymore because usually what's happening
is that
during the beginning of the school year
they're dividing the boys and the girls
so now because the boys are a little bit
more rowdy so you kind of have this many
boys this many girls but she's been told
that she can't even call the boys boys
anymore yeah
yeah you know this this stuff is on the
increase
um you know it's not everywhere what is
mandated regarding this thing these
types of things is different from states
to state it's certainly probably at its
worst on the west coast the state of
massachusetts is not great as well as
far as what's mandated but again let
like even
even if it's not mandated you really
just don't know and especially younger
teachers who've gone through teacher
education recently they are really
getting a heavy dose of this type of
stuff in teacher education they're being
told the respectful thing to do is when
you have a class on the first day class
you've got to ask everyone what their
pronouns is and all that type of thing
so there is all kinds of movements with
this and then there's core to the reason
hold on they're told what
yeah it's become a common practice in
teacher and the teacher in the
universities that are
putting
to student teacher candidates people
getting their teaching license
they're telling them now that
it's very common that you should ask
kids their pronouns at the beginning of
of the school year in their class and
this type of thing you know
so so that that gives an opening that
the boy can say yeah yeah
yeah and even even even there's
districts who they've you know you know
you have to officially register the kid
and it's always been you identify
whether they're male or female you know
they've put in like a neutral category
in a lot of these districts and
generally the more liberal the place you
live in the more you're going to see
this type of stuff you know you know
without a doubt
but look i mean it just it highlights
the need to proactively educate people
and again i don't recommend to send kids
to these schools like because even if
that stuff is not there let's make that
clear you're a public school dude you
don't recommend whatever you said and
look eddie the last the last place they
want to be and eddie a thing i talk
about at length in my train and book is
practices in school
that get the kids to do shirk it gets
them to adopt habits that are shirk take
partake in learning activities that are
shorter
in the public institution yes and the
teachers don't understand this like you
know it's it's it's an even bigger issue
than this
and it's and sometimes it's laced into
the curriculum this type of thing so i
mean all the issues you mentioned i go
over that stuff in my book and in my
extended training i'm not saying that a
teacher doing that will you know fix
everything like that but it at least
reveals the problems to them and then
leaves it at least gives those people an
authentic education about islam
to someone who wouldn't get it otherwise
but yeah i don't you know i don't
recommend families send their kids to
public school
but you know we do have many families
who they don't have a choice and they're
stuck and especially if you are a young
adult and you grew up here you feel
competent with the english language you
know you should contact your your old
school
and tell them as an alumni here i wish
that my teachers had learned this while
they while they were there and you can
refer them to my website or abraham
education dot com or refer to my book
certainly if you're a parent in the
district even if you homeschool the kids
which you should
explain to them i want you to learn why
i don't send my kids to your school and
why and why i can't send my kid to
public school that type of thing
one more thing
why
would
a public
institution
here we see that more than two hundred
thousand dollars spent this is tax payer
money i believe on drag queen shows at
new york schools i know i heard about
that you heard about that
why why are they having male strippers
coming and read books to children well
look you know that that whole crowd they
have a lot of money behind them they
have a lot of activism behind them you
know and actually the organization you
really should analyze eddie is a gleason
g-l-s-e-n if you haven't looked at them
i i even i did a podcast with a youtuber
called mr middle path where i broke down
some of their documents they are a
non-profit organization they've been
around since the early 90s but they are
heavily corporate funded funded by
target youtube um you know
all these different big companies
disney disney they they just have a
direct partnership with disney
and you know they they create all these
um
model policies they will call them of
how you treat transgender how you
respect lgbt kids all this type of stuff
you know the big area that they will
really get into and that they've gotten
into is actually the field of counseling
in education counseling and social work
which is heavily linked to the fields of
psychology
so a lot of times student counselors who
very often they're a student a school
counselor is a licensed psychologist
a lot of times they have been put
through professional development
programs or they might have learned it
in their licensure program in the
university
that it's a proper pro that the proper
protocols
of how you respect lgbt kids or a kid
who thinks they might be that or this
type of thing is exactly what this
organization gleason tells you that they
should
and they have a whole bunch of research
that i think could be very heavily
criticized to ostensibly back that up
but that creates the problem where you
know like people have heard about you
know there's a story in canada where a
father in british columbia
i think he got um
i think he got like arrested or
something for child abuse for not
allowing his daughter to identify as a
son in this type of stuff
so a lot of places in the public school
system in america it's not that there's
laws that are that way yet certainly in
california they're trying to push for
that type of thing
but you might have people who they see
it as a best practice in their
profession
to treat it like that and i have had
school student counselors contact me
who told me they had a muslim student
who was in elementary school who was a
biological female identifying as a male
and was coming to the counselor to talk
about this counselor themselves
identified as lgbt they were encouraging
it upon the student
and i challenged them to tell the parent
they would not tell the parents about it
that i told that they would not tell the
parents about the counseling they were
giving so you can't you you can't
counsel them away from anything but you
can counsel them towards it
i mean i would say that it's very common
that school counselors are taught
explicitly that these days it's very
explicit and again if you look at this
organization gleason glsen you look up
their model policy framework for
transgender students or model policy
framework for lgbt students they will
say this explicitly they will say
explicitly that if a student is at your
school and they identify by a gender
different than their biological birth
the parent's permission
for
do it for the school
the parent's permission is not a
prerequisite for everyone in the school
identifying them that way they will say
that now i have to emphasize that
organization has a lot of money behind
them they have corporate america behind
them they have disney behind them but
they don't have the weight of the law
behind them so so so this is the kind of
games that are being played
and again
it's something to fear as a muslim
parent it is
but at the same time we can't be so
paralyzed by fear that we don't
proactively educate ourselves and
proactively advocate ourselves we cannot
be that way and i will tell you too
eddie your average public school teacher
and there's actually research that shows
us in surveys that shows this the
average public school teacher in america
is more socially conservative than the
average american they might vote liberal
but when it comes to social values it's
been found through long-term research
that the average public school teacher
is more socially conservative than the
average american
so there is without a doubt in my
opinion a silent majority in the field
of public education of people who want
more pushback about this especially i'm
having an increase in people in
california doing my training a lot of
those people explicitly tell me that
they want the muslim families to speak
out more about what the district is
talking about you know do making the
bathrooms um gender neutral and all this
type of stuff you know they they they
can tell that the muslim students and
muslim families are not okay with this
speak out speak out more yeah yeah
they're actually looking for families to
speak out about this more i will say too
i do know families a lot of families
um you know in closed-door channels a
lot of our families actually are
speaking out about this but not in a
public way and that might be the right
way to do it
but too often too that is it's reactive
and we can't always be trying to educate
people about ourselves in a reactive way
yeah we have to be proactive we have to
put people through an educational
continuum where they learn about islam
the proper way because i'll tell you
something eddie when you were when you
talk about how we don't agree with this
we we you know this is against our
religion when you say that to someone
you say this is against my religion or
our religion you know the way the
western mind construes that is well it
wants everything to be individually
subjective so it says well okay that's
your religion that's you so maybe if we
just talk about it in a different way we
can finagle things so now you interpret
your religion in a different way
so one of the first things i focus on
teaching people about islam is that it
is a text-based religion and its
jurisprudence is entirely based on texts
and someone who tries to teach about it
without reference to its text they lose
legitimacy in it now when you teach that
to people on the front end then when
you're having a conversation about your
religious needs as a muslim the whole
conversation is on a different platform
because the religion is not what i say
it is it's not what you say it is it's
not what i interpret or want it to be no
it's about what the preserve text say it
is so there needs to be deference to
that and when you educate people about
that on the front end then you have that
understanding built in so the whole
conversation is different now yeah
beautiful thank you for sharing we're
out of time
people can we see what's the book again
yeah engaging muslim students in public
schools you can find it on amazon please
refer people to abrahameducation.com
refer educators to that please
may god almighty allah reward you
sharing your story with us we went over
a lot uh next time we can go deeper into
this subject very interesting a lot more
questions hopefully we save it for next
time
that's a very important topic but we're
out of time until then assalamu alaikum
peace be with you like what's up marcato
and i want to thank you guys for tuning
in a lot of scary stuff out there but
there's hope there's light at the end of
the tunnel even for someone like salman
rushdie yes yes there is if he turned
his life around if he got this message
and he changed his ways and he turned to
the creator of the heavens and the earth
god almighty the creator alone
like our brother did here his heart was
open and all he had to do was read
five verses from the second chapter of
the crown why don't you take that upon
yourself to go ahead and get a free copy
of the quran if you're in the united
states here go ahead and visit
thedeanshow.com and we'll get you the
book
that helped michael abraham to change
his life around you saw where he started
off where he's at what made him
that he's on the show reciting the
living miracle the quran in the original
language here with you on the d show
and he's live in the way of jesus of
moses of abraham who is named after his
last name they were all they weren't
jews or christians none of them they
were ones who submitted their will to
one and only one god and this is islam
worshiping the creator not the creation
and we got to take this matter serious
because enough wishful thinking you're
thinking i'm going to live forever
they're going to make some pill or
something science is evolving and i'm
going to get a new body and go ahead
yeah
that's wishful thinking but you got to
prepare for death and it's coming so
take the matter serious and look into
islam
it is the way of life comprehensive
simple to understand and gives you that
light at the end of the tunnel
what else can i say tune in here every
week don't forget about our project the
dean center
and support us there and we'll see you
next time until then peace be with you
assalamu alaikum this is your brother
hamza andreas
and i want every single one of you to
support eddie from the dean show
financially and otherwise but in what
way
i want you to support his new project
the dean center it's going to be a
transformative experience this center
why because it's going to be a masjid
it's going to be a place of worship it's
also going to have fitness facilities
and it's also going to be a taoist
center to call people back to
allah muslims and non-muslims and we
trust eddie completely i for one will
take a thousand bullets for eddie he has
a vision he has more than 15 years of
experience in the tower he's had a huge
success with the dean show and he has
the support of many duarte and preachers
and scholars from all around the world
it's going to be an amazing project for
everybody go to thedeance.org donate now
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