of peace now my next guest coming up he
briefly became an atheist which resulted
in a deep depression he considered
himself a nihilist just chasing the
dunya material world material things he
questioned the meaning of life he read
the bible a lot of philosophy now get
this during a plane journey he sat next
to lo and behold a muslim who was
praying how's he praying he was probably
praying in his seat
and shamefully he became very worried
he he became very worried like you know
most people because they're programmed
by the media and he was worried that
maybe some terrorist situation
might occur
but they started speaking they started
talking and he gave him a lot of dawah
he had he was educating him he was
sharing with him answering his questions
and he went on to investigate the things
that he was told and lo and behold
after about a month he ended up taking
his shahadah so what was he told what's
the shahada what were those things they
were discussing and what was the
conclusion after he investigated what
are the points that he investigated all
this and more with james dulin
here to share his story on the dean's
show
[Music]
how are you isn't that amazing now it's
like uh you ended up taking your shahada
through all this journey and now you got
a new brother from the two billion uh
muslims out there you're part of this uh
extended global international family
alhamdulillah a brotherhood
you feel very at peace after you take
the shahada so i'm very happy that i've
done it
so was that accurate so tell us uh
people are wondering like what was the
conversation like that you had next to
describe that feeling before you had the
conversation of you're being you're like
okay this is a muslim he's praying and
now he might be involved in some
terrorist activity what's going through
your mind there yeah so it was actually
strange that happened because i was
going my girlfriend and her twin sister
um they're bulgarian so we were going
over to there and um
normally we sit next to each other but
this one time the seats we went sat next
to each other and i'm sat next to this
muslim brother
and then i see him i didn't know what he
was doing at the time but he had the
quran arabic
he's praying he's you know rocking back
and forth and he's uh
in the seat
and he's making dua
and um
it wasn't so much then i started
worrying it was when
he had a bag and i've seen the tasby
come out of the bag
and then they were like wired there's
something in his bag which i'm wondering
was that you know leading to and i
already knew a little bit about islam
but then
the other thing that me worrying was um
when he started making prayer because i
had a
muslim i worked with and he was
explaining how no images no idols
and um he had like a photo and i still
not sure what the photo was but it was a
a guy who must be like a mentor or
something muslim brother and he had in
front of the quran so i'm thinking this
way to the bag and then i'm wondering
the photo maybe
you know so i started uh worrying and
i'm pretty sure that he clicked on i was
worrying i was
like side eyeing him the whole time on
the chair looking um
and then i got the chair to go to the
toilet
and um
as i was going to the toilet so we were
close and the flight attendant they seen
i was looking at him and i was like
worried i was like behind him and the
flight attendant said to me oh don't
worry brother he said he's just praying
and i said yeah and then i've opened the
door
and as i'm opening the door so like you
know the crack in the door that you can
see through like when you open it
um i've looked through the door on the
flight and
experience
you know i was uh embarrassed and very
shameful and then come on the toilet he
said yeah don't worry he was just
praying and i sat next to the brother
embarrassed and i'm like i'm so sorry i
said i know like
you know i thought i should know better
and then obviously i'm following the
the western media stereotype worried and
um
but
one thing that brought me closer again
was um his conduct
he was very um
i said sorry and i was expecting to kind
of like brush me off but he was very
open very
oh don't worry about it doesn't matter
and then after that he started calming
me down and then after this we just got
to normal discussion about where you're
from where he's from
um and then after that i started asking
him about run down and this is when the
conversation got deeper
and that's nothing new i mean we've had
a lot of cases where people have like
just been writing in something in arabic
some calligraphy reading the quran or
saying inshallah allahu akbar god
willing god is the greatest like
hallelujah
and then people have actually like
panicked and some muslims actually got
kicked off the plane because of that so
this is a real i mean you were actually
experiencing that you thought that this
guy might be a terrorist trying to do
something uh fishy here huh
yeah yeah and especially even like now
now i'm muslim um if i say allahu akbar
in front of my friends some of them in
work or wherever they'll they'll look at
me a bit strange because they don't
understand that it just means god is the
greatest they'll think it's got this
negative connotation that we see in the
media and they think it's like some
water or something like you're probably
familiar and um
you know tried to explain to them
so you were really i mean like most
people most of us uh even myself like in
early years i mean you don't know much
but you know what you've been kind of
just programmed
to kind of think and sometimes you're
not even paying attention it's just
coming in and then you just like
knee-jerk reaction so you you got
affected by a lot of the media
propaganda against islam yeah yeah if we
if it's like further back in the
timeline when i remember when
um i'm not sure how many years ago this
would have been maybe when i was 19 so
i'm
maybe about seven eight years ago i
remember like vermintly being against
islam like
when i was younger i wanted to join the
royal marines at one period
and part of that was because we had the
manchester bombing in england
and um
at the time i thought not because there
was a lot of uh terrorist attacks in the
in europe and i'm thinking like you know
just a tribune attributing it to islam
rather than
and obviously now
it gives me a lot of patience now if i'm
speaking with non-muslims
and um they start asking me questions
about islam and i can see they're
already judging
it gives me more patience because i know
not to be uh
i'm patient with them because they've
you know how i was before
so tell us a little bit more about the
conversation that you what was what was
his name the brother's name do you
remember do you recall his name's adam
yeah he said adam after the prophet and
then i
uh i was like oh that's great and um
after but just his conduct he's always
very smiling you know they're following
the sun they're smiling
um very open speaking we started
speaking at the time i'd already read
the bible and i believe believed in a
creator
um but i didn't because of the
contradictions in the bible these other
things had started going down the path
of
sort of what you'd call more like a
unitarian like i believed uh jesus was a
prophet of god but i didn't believe that
he was literally god
and so i started explaining to him my
beliefs
and then after that he started to say oh
he's very close to islam and he said
he said why why you've never looked into
islam like properly
and i said i don't know i said the only
thing i'm not too familiar i said i knew
there was like some pillars of faith and
he explained the pillars of faith
um the only thing i wasn't familiar with
was the prophet muhammad peace be upon
him i wasn't familiar with his life so
this was what stopped me from becoming a
muslim at the time
yeah for our audience i mean when we
talk about the articles the six articles
of faith belief in one god belief in the
angels this what he was going over
belief in the messenger his belief in
the books the divine books that were
revealed belief in the day of judgment
and divine decree predestination this is
the kind of things that he was going
over with you
yeah yeah these are all all the
different things you've gone over and
i'm agreeing with all of them and as i'm
agreeing he's smiling saying brother
he's saying that he's saying you're
already close to islam now and
i'm starting to second-guess myself and
fit at the time i made a promise and
said i promise when i get off the plane
i will buy a quran and read it
to
further my knowledge understand it
now before that before you even got to
that point where you were questioning
the meaning of life you talk about that
you were a nihilist
yeah very nihilistic when i was
maybe like four or five years ago
um
i sort of put on a lot of weight at the
time i'd always been competing mixed
martial arts and other things
and
at the time i put on a lot of weight it
became very nihilistic and thought i
remember
the one of the worst points was i
remember just being outside at one time
and i was just sitting on a motorbike
and just i'm looking at it was a guy
from night shift i remember he's going
to the day shift he's going you know as
we change over and i'm seeing to say
it's the same guy that i'm seeing every
day when i'm going outside
and i'm looking at him again thinking
this is what we're doing every day i'm
thinking what's the point why
why even bother like you know
and become very nihilistic about life
thinking
if
if there's no point of being there why
you know why don't i do xyz you know
like all these negative things
you know then you went on so you were
were you brought up with your family
what what did what kind of uh background
would your family have were they uh
you're obviously from the united kingdom
from from london
uh now i'm from warrington it's in
between liverpool and manchester
liverpool and manchester so you're from
the uk yeah
yeah yeah
what was the your family background what
kind of do they practice any religion
were they were they
it's like not really so obviously
they'll come to a
from sort of like a sign like a i heard
you speaking of sabor like scientism
like that sort of angle where they
believe in evolution
um
maybe they'd say like agnostic if you
ask them because they just don't really
think about it like a lot many people in
the uk and england like if if i speak
about islam
they'll say oh so you don't believe in
science which obviously
is not true but they just think it
counteracts you know like it's not um
the two don't coincide together
so
do you see uh
do you see more i mean were you at that
point like what had you go more towards
atheism then how did you end up getting
drawn into that and you said that was
just
i just sort of grown up sort of in that
way of thinking so i was always um
i was always kind of in that way of
thinking where religions you know it's
like to control the masses
it's um not something to be taken
seriously in this thing uh not that my
mum and dad never spoke to me about it
or were negative because they're both uh
like very open with people it was just
that that was kind of like the trail of
thinking growing up like it wasn't
you weren't spoken to in school
seriously about religion or any of these
other things so it was only when
you know you kind of go out you're
drinking all the time your friends
you're enjoying life
and then after that you know when you're
chasing the dunya and i've seen one
quote and it like is
very relatable where it said um
when chasing the dunya is like salt
water
when you uh drink it you become more
thirsty and this is kind of like the
perspective i had at the time i was
enjoying life but as i'm
doing more and more drinking more
partying and things i'm just not happy
with life like i'm second guessing
myself
so even though some people might think
like okay you're able to party
you're able to drink you're able to
indulge in all your desires are you
telling us that you're still not happy
what's that feeling like
yeah yeah just an emptiness you know
just the emptiness in your heart and um
it's hard to explain i know a lot of
depressed people who i will have spoken
to before they'll understand the same
thing and
sometimes it can be hard when you become
a muslim because
because we have that peace we want to
you know if someone tells me like the
depressed now i want to give them all
the information on islam because i know
that it's like the cure but
unless that you know like you can't
learn information in one day
and
how long did you actually
from there did you go on
so from there you went on to read the
bible
yeah i read the bible um
a lot of the old testament stuff i sort
of understood more it was more when the
cracks started appearing when it comes
to the new testament
um because you can see the clear
difference in writing style so the old
testament obviously it's not like um an
offered biography sort of like the new
testament is and then the new testament
um is very like i thought it was very
preachy
um no disrespect to any of the christian
brothers out there but um it just didn't
and then as after that i'm looking up
for the contradictions
and i'm seeing that verses were added
that weren't previously the
um the the nicean council the
um
the early church fathers they didn't
believe in a trinity
that you know they were very
monotheistic and then i think it was
after the first three hundred years the
mice in council it was like a doctrine
so um this made me start to question
christianity to where at the time i'm
thinking
more like this unitarian christian where
jesus was a prophet of god and i'm more
like monotheistic in that sense
but i'm also thinking i remember as well
sorry that um
i remember the biggest problem with that
is thinking that if this is the truth if
this is uh god's revelation
i'm thinking how can it be for such a
small
you know like there's not many
you don't mean very many unitarian
christians on the planet so i'm thinking
if this is god's revelation how can it
be corrupt you know the bible and these
other revelations
and what else how about like the uh the
concept of atonement of uh
jesus dying for your sins how did that
fit with you or not fit with you yeah at
the time i didn't really think about it
it was only um
you know i i started thinking about
jesus dying for your sins and i watched
um i don't know in england we have a lot
of uh debates in speaker's corner it's a
park in england i'm not sure if you're
familiar yeah um
i watched the muslim debate in a
christian and he said how is this just
that the most just man
could die for everybody else's sins like
it's if you think about it logically
it's not just is it so this made me
start to second guess that
and um
i remember there was a
there's another communist guy i believe
he debated jordan peterson
um i remember that sat with me a lot
where
he said to jordan peterson
um he said christians are more atheistic
than atheists
because
you believe god died
so it's like there's an absence of god
there's no rules
um and he said that that makes you more
atheistic than atheists um well that
just kind of like sat with me like um
like it's true there's no
and even praying before like i'm always
praying to god
and then i remember um
praying with another christian brother
one time it's like to jesus uh you know
peace be upon him but it just doesn't
logically fit that you're praying to a
man you know
so when you're praying what would like
your before islam what kind of typical
prayer like how would you pray to god
you know i'd pray um a lot of time on my
knees though
um with my hands out more like making
doer
and um
i would be if i was speaking i'd be
saying you know to the father not the
not the son
[Music]
so to the christians the father is like
that's allah the the um
god almighty the creator this is the
then
this is the the main head of the trinity
for the christian but for muslims is
just one no trinity just one god leave
it alone don't add delete nothing just
pure
images
yes it's very hard in england about
explaining um
islam is i see a lot of times i'll be
explaining
and a lot of
non-muslim english people who say how
how can you believe in a man in the
clouds
i'm saying this isn't christianity you
know we don't believe in a father
um the creator of the world we don't
give any images and this is and i
explain why we fall into this um
hole why we don't give him an image
well is that kind of like the common
concept of god almighty the creator is
they've believed that like he's some old
man with kind of a beard and
above the in the clouds somewhere that's
how they have an image of
the creator yeah maybe any sort of
religion on almost english people um
it'll only really come from sort of
grandparents or great grandparents
so um
and it's more christian based they don't
really
speak with muslims too much about i
don't know why it's kind of like
two inclusive communities where
they maybe need to speak more of each
other uh to give knowledge but
a lot of english people they won't
understand like even if i say
um in islam we have jesus
they they're shocked a lot of them the
light i didn't know that jesus was uh he
believed jesus was a prophet of god and
i remember one uh one woman one time she
was asking me a question
and i think she was a christian and she
was asking me about
the mother mary and i was explaining to
her that we have a whole sora about um
the mother mary and she was you know
shocked she couldn't believe it
so they don't know a lot of that's why
it's so important you know education and
sharing like this
this brother adam did on the plane
and after you guys had that conversation
after he shared some of the teachings of
islam with you like what did you
investigate like something obviously it
intrigued you you left that conversation
you went to investigate like
describe to us how you investigate how
did you go ahead and conclude that
indeed islam was the truth
so as soon as i got off the plane i
bought um the quran a translation of the
quran i don't believe it was the best
translation but um i read it anyway and
i know a lot of
muslims will say the same thing like
it's
night it was night and day for me
uh reading the bible to read in the
quran because the quran it just felt
like um
you know you do feel like god's speaking
directly to you as opposed to
um with the bible a lot of times it
feels more like you're flying the wall
you're overlooking what somebody else is
narrating whereas when you're reading
the quran
a lot of times you're thinking of things
and as you're thinking about things he's
giving you the answer or he's speaking
and
it was a lot more impactful and there's
a lot of times as well about punishment
and reward for things
and i'm like wow that's very deep but um
after i got off the plane i went and
looked at the life of the prophet
muhammed peace be upon him
and i was trying to pick holes i was
thinking
you know i was still thinking i'm surely
going to find a hole in this so
i thought there'll be a whole new story
and then i watched a lot of debates
about how um
how he was called the most trustworthy
uh everyone you know when they would if
someone went away on a holiday or
something or they had to leave for a
period of time
they would give the prophet um his their
items because they knew when they come
home
so um
this was like and then i was trying to
pick holes in well why would what would
be
you know like if uh someone commits a
crime what's the motive
so i was thinking he must have you know
like uh got power and that's why he
wanted to do it
and then you find out that actually he
already had the power and now him and
all his uh family are being persecuted
after so it was um
yeah there wasn't any hoes and you're
logically looking at him thinking
um it has to be the prophet of god that
can't
you know you can't find any holes unless
you know i see sometimes the debates
and people will go
on a tangent like you'll get atheists
and they'll say oh maybe the devil
influenced them but you think if you're
an atheist you don't believe
you know they're just being
intellectually dishonest because they
don't want to accept that
well that's uh really profound like yeah
why if you're an atheist you're saying
the devil
uh inspired him but you shouldn't even
be believing in the devil if you are a
so-called atheist and i like what you
said so you you went back and you're
trying to find trip him up you're trying
to see like okay if he's an impossible
abroad and you're using just common
sense yeah yeah you can surely there'll
be a whole i remember as well when i
when i realized i was accepting islam i
was still away on holiday but i was like
uh stressing like you know everyone
thinks if you accept the religion if you
accept you know you're very at peace
straight away
but i wasn't like that i was very
stressed out thinking about you know
having to tell family friends um
all these things that i used to do that
i'd have to give up um
so it was like stressing for two weeks
and i'm
preparing to tell my girlfriend thinking
maybe we'll split up put the time as
well and um
but no you know when
when um something is set for you by
allah he always finds as long as you
trust in him he'll always find a way to
help you out the situation so that's
what i've found so far
did you deal with any like a lot of
times what people do is they'll take
certain verses of the quran aya and
they'll misquote them and they'll create
doubt did you come across anything like
this and then
yeah
yeah a lot of um
you know a lot of the war verses are the
main ones that are taken out of context
about you know attack the disbelievers
not so i already knew these uh things
going into the quran so like um
i was kind of trying to see what's the
context of the verse before i prejudge
that and then when i'm looking at the
context of the verse i'm understanding
oh it's not you know
if someone's a non-muslim and they hear
that verse they obviously think that it
means attack all the disbelievers but
obviously it's a context the verse
written at the time you know
and how so then
not long after you end up accepting uh
islam submission to the creator not the
creation uh
what a month later
yes so um at the end of this holiday i
was sat in the uh i was sat alone with
my girlfriend i like to explain to her
but i'm very fortunate that they have a
uh they were brought up in a christian
family
and
they have a muslim friend a very pious
muslim sister
at her work
so they already knew a lot of the
teachings of islam so i sat down ready
thinking that that was going to be a
problem
um
she accepted that that was going to be
and now even sometimes
she's asking me questions so i'm hoping
inshallah maybe in the future
um that's gonna work out and then
after i mean maybe one two weeks after
that when i come back off this holiday
um
there's a grouping uh the gospels corner
that do dawah called yesterday so i rang
them because i didn't know any muslims
you know what to take the shahada with
at the time i i spoke with people in
work but i wasn't also
comfortable with um on a personal level
with going to them so um
i spoke with them again and they took me
through the basics of islam the pillars
and um after that i took shahada
so subhanallah how long has it been now
six months that was in june so yeah six
months you're still fairly fairly new
huh yeah yeah every year uh only just
maybe a couple of months ago
established getting the five prayers and
you know i'm trying to work through
everything one by one alhamdulillah
beautiful mashallah how was the have
have your
family how would they do they know about
it have they been receptive or have you
not gotten quite there yet
yes so i've told everyone except my
dad's but the only reason why
i haven't told my dad yet is because um
whenever i've seen him it's not being in
the right environment so we've been with
like a lot of people in a sort of like a
family setting or something so
i think inshallah that he's gonna
react okay but just in case i don't want
to ruin the atmosphere like for
everybody else if uh
you know they've come to see each other
so next week i see him alone actually so
i'm
intending inshallah to uh speak with him
hopefully everyone's okay
i spoke with my mum as well my mum
she was a little bit worried in the
beginning but like
uh she knows that i wouldn't do anything
crazy so and
i remember when i took shahadah i had to
stay with normally i don't live with my
mum but um i was staying there for like
one week two weeks so she could see me
going through the process of praying
every day
trying to establish the prayers
and
alhamdulillah she's been okay any plans
are getting married soon
yeah that's that's the big plan um
because
you know people uh there's one syrian
brother in work
and like um
me and my girlfriend who work together
so like he's like haram haram and i just
accept that i say i know brother i know
i'm trying like you know right
you took the greatest step forward it
all takes time everything you know has
its place in hamdullah but you did the
most
courageous thing the most beautiful
thing is you went from submitting to
your desires submitting to the creation
to submitting to the one who created
creation the creator of the heavens and
the earth alhamdulillah you're seeking
knowledge and alhamdulillah you're
growing and
inshallah god almighty allah preserve
you and protect you
and uh put everything help you to get
everything in order because uh yeah
you're a big help to me when i become
before becoming a muslim because i
remember i'm trying to find like
reliable sources that i can trust
so i see in for us you know like for the
mma community as what harass his videos
and then obviously i'd watch the podcast
with you the first one and then after
that i started going through all your
podcasts like muhammad hijab
um sinead o'connor i think was the other
one and then give me a lot of
information so uh jazakallah brother i
mean i mean i mean alhamdulillah we're
so uh elated happy to hear this
wonderful story
and is there any uh advice that you give
for people out there in similar
situations they a lot of times again
they get influenced by the media all the
hype but they're listening they're
watching right now right and they're in
a similar situation they're battling you
know with depression anxiety yeah try to
cover that up they went towards atheism
or you know a lack of religion or
they're battling with the whole trinity
thing what not what do you tell them
yeah i'd say speak to muslims directly
you know a lot of a lot of times now
um we see like a lot of like the
intellectuals in the western world
they're speaking about islam but they
don't speak to muslims you know like we
see with jordan peterson uh lately
speaking muhammad hijab that was very uh
beneficial so yeah speak directly to
muslims i would say
if they could speak with um a dollar
group because they're more
you know they're more in touch with
speaking to non-muslims giving
information so
you know speak with them go to the
masjid um
but yeah the most important thing is
don't listen to you know a lot of
brothers can go straight listening to
non-muslims on islam but obviously they
don't all have the best intentions
unfortunately
again thank you it's very very nice to
spend some time with you james do len
and uh inshallah you um
continue to tune in and we'll uh
shall allah be in touch thank you so
much for uh
[Music]
thank you salaam alaikum
give salam to the to the
and thank you
thank you very much james and for those
people who are wondering like what's
this book that he
went and got right away afterwards it's
the quran it's right there is right
there the quran and we have a surprise
for you you can go ahead and pick it up
see what it says and you get it for free
go ahead the deanshow.com
you can pick up your free copy and if
you still have some questions go ahead
give us a call 1-800-600
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thank you brothers thank you sisters
joseph
um