In the name of Allah the beneficent, the
most
merciful. I welcome you with the Islamic
greeting. May Allah's peace and
blessings be on all of you. Dear
viewers, I welcome you to another in
this series understanding Islam.
And in this segment we will be looking
at one of the
evidences, one of the many evidences
which
will God willing convince you that Islam
is the true religion of God. As I
mentioned in the early segment, the
previous
segment, every religion claims that
theirs is the true way. Islam is no
different in that
respect. However, as I said, for us to
judge, we find ourselves in this
situation of doubt. Well, in fact, which
is the correct
religion? Everybody claims that their
religion is the true religion? Maybe
it's better for me just to stick with
the one that my parents brought me up
with. That's what
I'm comfortable with. You know, this is
what's easy for me.
However, God gave us
intelligence. What is comfortable for us
may not be the correct
thing. We have to judge right and wrong
according to our
reason which is the product of our
intelligence. God did not give us this
faculty. this faculty which separates us
from the animals, from the rest of the
animal
world. He did not give it to us for
nothing. Not just merely to put
materials together, to uh build homes,
to make cars, to do jobs, etc. This is
not the purpose of that
intelligence, the sole purpose. We
benefit in this capacity. However, if we
look in the animal world, we see the
animals building homes, raising
families, modifying the environment to
various degrees as they
need. So
this use of
intelligence is not the primary use
otherwise we are no different from the
animals. The primary use of intelligence
here is to distinguish
between right and wrong. God gave us his
faculty. So when it comes to religion,
we use the intelligence when it comes to
things concerning our daily work. If we
have to choose a job, we choose the job
which will give us the most benefit,
material
benefit which has the most amenities.
You know it a car comes along with it or
two months vacation instead of one vac.
So we're using our intelligence to
choose here in the material world. But
when it comes to
religion, often times people don't want
to use that intelligence. They say,
"Well, you know, this is not what I'm
used to. Uh I I'm my family. I was
raised as this. You know, everybody in
my area, they were this and that's what
I better be."
No, we don't deal with our material life
in this fashion. And this material life
is a very short period of time that
we're on the
earth. A short period of time and we're
gone. We cannot take the things of this
material life with us. We all know
that what we will take with us
is the true religion of God. If we
followed that religion, that's what we
will take with us out of this life. And
that is what will provide for
us a life of everlasting bliss in the
next
life. The true religion of God. So we
cannot afford to be very
laxidasical with this issue of
religion. We cannot say oh my religion
it's a private thing. No religion is a
public and important thing. Not so
uh important
that we only uh use it in our families,
we only in our communities. So no it is
important in that it should affect all
aspects of our lives. It is a public
thing. It is the way for salvation. We
cannot afford to play around with our
future. Therefore dear viewers we must
use our intelligence. Put aside the
emotions. Put aside our environment. the
environment which we grew up in and use
the faculty which God gave us to
distinguish right from
wrong.
Islam states categorically that it is
the true religion of God and it presents
for you a series of
evidences. In this segment we will look
at one of those
evidences. The
first the name
Islam. If we look at the various
religions, we find that the name of the
religion
itself was never given by the founder of
the
religion that
is Hindus.
Hinduism this is the name given to
people who came from the Indus
valley India Hindu it is a name of a
people and
place if we look at
Christianity it's named after Christ
Jesus Christ Jesus never told his
followers, your religion is
Christianity. Look at
Judaism. Judaism is named after the
tribe of Judah, one of the 12
tribes.
Moses
and subsequent prophets never told their
followers that your religion
is Judaism.
These were names given at later periods
of time and so on. If we look into the
various other systems, the other
religions, Confucianism, etc., they're
either named after the founders
themselves named after them or the area
in which they evolved, developed or they
were
given based on some uh physical trait
etc. of the people. However, when we
look at
Islam, what we
find is not a sit this same situation.
We find that the name
Islam is not the name of a
people, not the name of a
place, but it is the name of the central
pillar or central concept of the
religion itself.
Its name
Islam
is the name in Arabic for the principle
of submitting one's will to the will of
God. Islam means fundamentally
submission that we submit our wills to
the will of
God. It also means peace. The term peace
comes from it. Islam.
Salam. You hear in our greetings,
salamkum. Peace be unto you. Salam comes
from
Islam. Because when one submits one's
will to God, then one attains true
peace. This is where contentment and
peace comes from. Submission of one's
will to God. Knowing that whatever takes
place in this life, it is according to
the destiny of God. What God has chosen
in our lives, it's for our own good. And
that what is required of us is only to
choose what we know to be correct in
each and every incident of our lives.
Correct meaning what God has identified
as
correct. Avoiding what God has
identified as incorrect.
Because if we are to choose merely
according to how we feel, we may feel
that something is correct because it is
pleasing to us, pleasing to our
emotions.
But it may not be really
correct. What is pleasing to us is not
necessarily what is best. So we cannot
leave the judgment of right and wrong
merely to our emotions. We have to
follow guidance. guidance of the one who
created
man, created the circumstances of human
life, knowing well what is best for
man. So he gave us a way of life
identifying in that way what is correct
and what is incorrect. So when we say we
submit our wills to the will of God, it
means we follow the commandments of
God in each aspect of our lives. We
choose between right and wrong based on
revelation, not on emotion and desire,
but on revelation.
When we do that, we enter into a state
which we call
submission to the will of God which in
Arabic is called Islam. And if we go to
the scripture of
Islam called the Quran to the fifth
chapter and the third verse, we find
there God
saying, "This day I have perfected your
religion for
you, completed my favor upon you, and I
have chosen for you Islam as your
religion. and I have chosen for you
Islam as your religion. This is God
addressing
man. In the third
chapter of the Quran in verse
85, we find God also saying, "If anyone
desires a religion other than
Islam, submission to God, never will it
be accepted of him.
So the name Islam is not something which
people uh came about centuries after the
time that the message was
brought but something which is written
in the scripture
itself. The name submission to the will
of God. The term
Muslim means one who submits to the will
of
God. It is an adjective which is which
is derived from
the root
Islam
Muslim one who submits to the will of
God.
I know in English it may sound a little
strange because you think of
Christianity and Christian. So people
want to say Islam and an Islam. They may
call a Muslim an Islam. But this is not
uh how the Arabic uh functions. Islam is
the religion. Muslim is the one who
follows that religion.
in Arabic means administration. Mud is
the administrator. So this is a common
uh way in which certain adjectives are
formed in Arabic. So it is Islam
submission to the will of God and Muslim
one who submits his will or her will to
God.
What does this
mean? This means that the religion of
Islam is not a new
religion. Muhammad, may God's peace and
blessings be upon him, who brought the
final message with the scripture, the
Quran, he never claimed that this was a
new religion. And if you read the verses
of the Quran, you will never find in
there that this was a new religion. In
fact, what you find is that it was the
religion of mankind from the very first
man set foot on this earth, Adam and his
wife Eve.
The religion which God gave
them after their
creation, after their test in paradise,
the religion which God gave them was
that of Islam. The very test in paradise
was a test of the will of
man. God gave Adam and
Eve the
garden with all of its fruits, etc.,
etc.
All things were there for
them but one thing was
forbidden. Human
nature
desires the
forbidden. However, the correct way is
to submit to the will of
God. Adam the human being failed in that
test. Disobeyed.
However, God taught him how to repent.
So, he turned back to God. He and Eve
turned back to God in repentance. And
God accepted their
repentance. And then they were put up on
earth with that
religion, submission to the will of God,
which contained in it a system of
repentance where man may turn back to
God directly when one commits error.
When Adam committed an error, there was
no one between him and God to turn to.
He turned and prayed directly to God. He
asked God's forgiveness whenever he
committed any kind of error. However,
once he was sent to
earth, having gone through that test as
a man, God chose him to be also the
first prophet of mankind. And he
received
revelation, the explanation of the
religion of God, which he taught his
family and the early generations.
This is
Islam, submission to the will of God. It
began with the creation of man. It began
as a religion in terms of human practice
on the earth with
Adam. It went
down to all of the other prophets that
came after him.
And God states in the Quran very clearly
that he has sent to every nation and
tribe
messengers calling them all of them to
this submission. Calling all of the
people to submission worshiping God
alone and avoiding the worship of false
gods. This is the essence of the
message. Prophet Moses, Prophet Noah,
Prophet David, Prophet
Abraham, Prophet Jesus, all of the
prophets of God, ending with the last of
the prophets, Prophet Muhammad, may
God's peace and blessings be upon all of
them, all of them carried the same
message, submission to the will of God.
So though
Islam as we know it
today appeared in the seventh
century. It was not the
beginning. Islam was the teaching of
Jesus. It was the teaching of Moses, of
Abraham, and of Adam.
submission to the will of God. This is
the true religion of
God. The name
Islam is found in the scripture
itself. Chapter 5 verse three, chapter 3
verse 85 of the Quran. both affirm for
us that God has chosen Islam as the
religion of man and that he will not
accept from us any other
religion but
Islam submission to the will of God.
So dear
viewers, this is the first point I would
like for us to
consider. The
teaching of
Islam is not a new
teaching. The religion of Islam is not a
new religion that we have to choose
between it and other older religions. It
is the religion of God to
man. Therefore, I hope that you will
reflect on this point and follow the
series of
programs as they appear on the
television. If you have any suggestions
that you would like to make, then please
write to me. Dr. Bilal Phillips care of
the program understanding
Islam charger TV P Box
111 again the
address understanding
Islam charger TV P Box 111 Charger
naturally if you would like further
information about Islam you just like to
call in and just get some direct
information, you may call to the Islamic
Information Center in Dubai, phone
number
358190 or fax
358193. At any rate, I'd like to thank
you for following this series,
understanding Islam, and I hope to see
you or to be with you again in the next
segments.
Thank you dear viewers and I bid you
farewell.