The
salamikum. Peace be with you. Thank you
for tuning in to the Dean Show. I'm
Eddie, your host. And some time back, we
had a special guest. All of our guests
are special, but this was a unique
individual who came on and shared his
story and it's really spread all over
the world. Many people got to benefit
from it. It's about a a gentleman, our
brother Dr. Gerald Dirks who finished at
the Harvard Divinity School and then his
journey on how he came to Islam. So we
want to check in with him to see how
he's been, how's his life been going
since then and we're going to be back
with him here on the Dean show. So sit
tight, don't go nowhere. He comes to you
the truth and the attribute of the one
who created you that he's one and alone
running this universe that he doesn't
become born. He doesn't die. He doesn't
eat and then go to the bathroom. This is
not God. You got problems here. This it
doesn't make sense. Who was Jesus
worshiping? And because it's recorded in
the Gospels, despite all of the other
issues about the Gospels, we put those
aside. We just say it's mentioned there
that Jesus worshiped God.
Asalamikum. Peace be with you.
Dr. Gerald Dirks, how you been? Oh,
praise God. I've been fine. It's good to
have you here on the Dean show again. H
good to be back. Now uh about a year ago
around this time you were with us and we
were very delighted to have you come on
and share your experience your your
journey to Islam which Islam simply
means to acquire peace to by submitting
to the one God to the will of God. and
so many people. We're we're on so many
we're on a few satellite channels now.
And not only do we broadcast here in
Chicago on the local TV station, but
now, thank God, we're on several
different satellite channels. So, so
many people have gotten to hear and
benefit from your story. So, if you can
just kind of recap uh for those who
didn't get to hear your interview, you
can go to thedeshow.com, but just kind
of bring us up to speed and and the rest
of the people of how you in short, you
know, end up making this turn towards
Islam and then we're going to come back
to atypical Christian.
Okay. Well,
um you know, I I started out um as an
undergraduate at Harvard and then went
into the Harvard Divinity School for
three years during my master of divinity
and I was in fact an ordained minister
in the United Methodist Church. Yes. uh
at the level of deacon. But upon
entering
seminary, especially a good seminary,
one is exposed to a lot of information
that the average Christian layman is is
never going to be exposed to. And uh
that information has to do with the
reliability of the biblical texts,
alternate versions of the texts that are
out there, etc.
and uh changes that we know have been
made in the text uh sometimes even
knowing when and where those changes
were made and why they were made. So a
person comes through this
experience and uh it shakes where one
thought they were going. It shakes the
foundation upon which they thought they
were standing. Uh, and so as a matter of
fact, upon my graduation from seminary,
even though I was now an an ordained
minister, I was what I call an atypical
Christian. Atypical Christian. One word,
atypical. Now define that. They heard me
say it, but now you said it again. What
does that mean? Atypical Christian.
Well, for me, an atypical, atypical
being one word, Christian, was what I
was. I didn't believe in the divinity of
Jesus Christ, peace be upon him. I
didn't believe in the concept of a
trinity. Uh but I certainly did believe
that there was one and only one God. So
that's what I would define as as being
an atypical Christian. Did you ever
speak in tongues? No. No.
[Laughter]
Some people would would make this as a
proof that you know Christianity I I you
Yeah. So what do you what do you think
about this? Just to get off the topic
for a second like if somebody mentions
this, someone sent me an email. They
said, "Well, this might be a proof that
Christianity is a truth." Because you
got people, you know, it's a phenomenon.
People speaking in tongues by the power
of God.
Well, they're speaking something
something. But I have yet to hear of
anyone tape recording a session and and
uh qualified linguists looking at it and
saying, "Oh, I recognize that language."
Yeah. Um, as far as I know, it's always
uh unrecognizable.
So,
whatever. Okay. So, anyways, so let's go
back now. So, you became an atypical
Christian. So, even before seminary
school, you were preaching, teaching the
Bible. Yes. Yeah. And now you went to
seminary school. You were exposed to
textual criticism. Textual criticism,
form ga form criticism. Yeah. early uh
early church history. Yeah. Etc. And you
went deep into this. And then I remember
you saying in in our last interview that
you were listening to some of the
preachers preach and teach some of the
things that you knew they weren't in the
Bible. Well, yeah. I I knew they
weren't legitimate things to be being
taught. Give us an example of that.
Oh, I I can recall one one minister one
Sunday morning um who was u basically
doing a give me money sermon. Yeah. Give
me money sermon. Yeah. You know, give
the donate money to the church sermon.
Uh where where basically he began to uh
really stretch uh some biblical concepts
about giving. Yeah. So tell us now you
became an atypical Christian and you
believed in one God like many people
they believe in one God. They don't
believe in the confusion that's out
there. A lot of these man-made
uh things and you were kind of stuck up
on for a while just being away from
Islam and everything else. So how was
your life then at that moment when you
were just atypical Christian? Well, you
know, my wife and I tried to live our
lives what we believed to be a moral and
ethical way. Yeah. Um, you know, every
now and then I I'd go to church because
I thought it was an important family
thing to do. Wasn't something I did very
often. And like I say, I often, you
know, ended up gritting my teeth at what
I was hearing. Yeah. Uh, being said.
Um, but, you know, I continued to pray.
Mhm. Uh did a lot of praying directly to
God. Oh, absolutely. Not to any prophet,
saint or No, no. To God, just to the
creator, to God. To God. Um you know, I
continued studying. I would frequent the
local seminary bookstore and see what
they had in, etc. Uh and read up on some
of the later uh the latest u
archaeological finds, etc. So, now
you're an aypical Christian. Now you
came to accepting Islam. How did that
happen again? Well, that started
primarily by having contact with some
Muslims in the Denver, Colorado area.
Yeah. By observing their lives and and
finally uh you know recognizing they
were living their lives in a very moral
and ethical way. Um quite at variance
with the society around them
and and asking myself, okay, now where
where are these people drawing their
religious strength from? Yeah. And so um
I began to read English translation of
the Quran, began to read books on Islam
by Western authors. Um and the more I
read, the more I ended up saying to
myself, well, you know, there's nothing
here with which I disagree. Yeah. You
know, this is basically what I believe.
Now, some people get hung up on the
Arabic and you having to now, you know,
dress a certain way and, you know, do
certain things that maybe you aren't
accustomed to. So, did you have did you
become an Arab now because you became
Muslim? No, absolutely not. And in fact,
you know, this is nonsense what you're
saying. Um, you know, as far as dress
code goes, Islam prescribes that you
dress modestly. Yeah. And and there are
some specific requirements in terms of
that terms of for for a male anyway. You
know, things going down at least to the
knee and at least above the the navl.
But uh there there's no prescription
that says you wear a th and a kofy uh or
you know a sari or or any other
nonwestern clothing. You know you
certainly wear your own western clothing
just modest clothing. So you're still an
American. Oh absolutely. Yeah. So you
don't have to give up now. You don't
become a Pakistani or you don't become a
Arab. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
Mhm. You just become one who's submitted
to the will of God. Sure. Sure. That
makes a lot of sense. We're going to
take a break and be right back with more
here on the Dean Show. Death and the day
of judgment, the mercy of Allah. These
are the things that finally made me
realize there is no time to delay
anymore. I wanted to take my shahada
right then.
The essence of spirituality is to become
more sincere to Allah. Contemplate death
itself. It is very very scary, but it
brings you back to reality. There is a
life which is everlasting in the
hereafter. And you have to make a
conscious decision of which group of
people do you want to be of the people
of heaven or the people of hell.
Back here on the Dean Show with Dr.
Gerald Dirks and people can go to the
deanshow.com to see your full story on
how you came to Islam. Now we really
want to encourage people to read the
verbatim word of God, the Quran. Yes.
And before we go into that and dwell
upon that, you were reading the Bible
and you were finding that was there
Islam in the Bible? Was it calling you
to acquire peace by submitting to the
one God? And this is what led you
finally to Islam? Was it was it reading
the Bible? Did that help whatsoever? Oh,
absolutely it helped. Absolutely reading
the Bible helped. And I think anyone who
reads the Bible with an open mind
uh and reads it aresh. In other words,
don't read the
Bible by through the lens of what you
were taught in Sunday school. This is
important. Now, read the Bible aresh.
What does it actually say? Yeah, this is
the key. Now, with the Quran, many
people think that, okay, it's the same
thing. You got multiple versions of the
Quran like you do with the B. How many
versions of the Bible do you have
actually?
Well, usually when we say versions, what
we're really talking about is different
translations.
Um, the difference, however, is that
when we talk about different
translations of the Bible, the different
translators go back to different sources
or different manuscripts. King James
version of the Bible goes back to fairly
late Greek sources. I mean, it's it's
not very old. Something like the New
Revised Standard Version of the Bible
goes back to very early uh textual
sources. uh to derive its translation.
Now having said that it is the case that
there are different Bibles different
Bibles. Yes. So would that be like in
one Bible you have one verse taken out
and another one put in or something's in
one Bible like the you have whole books
whole books out. So wouldn't that
constitute a new a different version?
Well yeah but usually I can say when
people say different versions of the
Bible they're really talking about
different translations. But in in
reality, the u if we look just at the
Old Testament, yeah, the Protestant Old
Testament does not have all of the
information in it that the Roman
Catholic Old Testament has. Yeah. Which
in turn does not have everything that's
found in the Greek Orthodox Old
Testament. Yes. And you look at
something like the uh Ethiopian Orthodox
Church and they have a radically
different Old Testament than than the
other three. Same things to be found in
terms of the New Testament. Uh now the
Protestants, the Roman Catholics, and
the Greek Orthodox all agree on 27 books
of the New Testament. But you look at
other Christian groups such as the East
Syrian or Netorian Orthodox Church, they
have a 22 book New Testament. They take
five of the books and say, "No, no, we
don't accept these." The Coptic
Christian Church includes first and
second Clement in their New Testament,
which are not found in in the other
Bibles. And again, you go to the
Ethiopian Orthodox uh New Testament and
and you find some wildly different
books. The bottom line is Christianity
has never ever agreed on what
constitutes the Bible. Is it true that
we don't have a copy of a copy of a copy
of anything original? Well, we don't
have anything original. Nothing
original. No, there's nothing original.
What we we have are typically much later
copies. And you know people sometimes
say well you know there's you know p-52
or you know whatever and you know that's
very early date maybe 120 130 150 um but
you know something like p-52 is a little
fragment contains like five verses maybe
or something you know so so we don't
have and this is different with the
Quran we do have we we have still
existent copies copies of the Quran that
was made under Khalif um man written
Quran. Yeah. And this was made within
you know a score of years the original
of of Prophet Muhammad. Yeah. Peace be
upon him. So is that what helped you
finally also to realize that you know
what this is a book that is not man-made
but is divinely sent. Certainly the
provenance of the Quran is much better
than the provenance of of most of the
Bible. Yeah. But it goes beyond
provenance. historical providence goes
to content. Uhhuh. And when we look at
the content of the Quran, you know, it
clears up some things that are
confusions. Yes. In the Bible, for
example, for example, let's take the
story of prophet Joseph. Yeah. You know,
we're told in both the Bible and the
Quran that prophet Joseph had a vision
in which the sun and the moon and and 11
stars bowed down to him.
And in both the Quran and and the uh
Bible, we have basically have the same
interpretation that you know his father
and mother and and Levan brothers will
bow down to him at some point in his
life. Yeah. Now the only time this could
have happened was after Joseph was sold
into slavery in Egypt by his brothers
and later rose to become the vizier of
Egypt and his brothers and father you
know moved to Egypt. Now, the thing is
in the Bible, we're told that Joseph's
mother died giving birth to or shortly
after the birth of Benjamin, the
youngest boy. She would have been long
dead and buried, long before Joseph uh
was even sold into slavery, much less
rose to be the vizier of Egypt. There
was no way, according to the Bible, she
could have ever bowed down to him. In
the Quran, however, we're told that
Joseph's parents, plural, came to Egypt.
We don't have the story of uh Joseph's
mother dying. Yes. Giving birth to
Benjamin. We want to encourage people to
read the verbatim word of God, the
Quran. This is what you did. And you
realize that this is indeed from the
creator of the heavens and earth. It's
not made by men, multiple men, or the
prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. So
now someone might say, you know what,
this you claim is from the creator, but
it's in Arabic. The original is in
Arabic. So how can I benefit? I'm an
English-speaking person. Well, you you
first of all, you have to get a good
English translation. Okay? And let me
emphasize that, a good English
translation because there are some
translations out there that are not
good, okay? That are in fact misleading.
And you want to get one that's easy to
read. And there is one that has just
recently come out by uh brother Yaha
Emerick, who's an American and a Muslim
uh who has translated the Quran into
modern American English. Yeah. And this
is important. Without the thou, thus,
none of that. Yeah. No, no. You, not
thee, thou, thine. Uh, this is important
because most translations of the Quran
that you look at have been translated in
sort of a King James English. Yeah. To
make it sound like the King James
Bible, most Americans are not familiar
with King James English. And this is
true whether it's the second and third
generation of Muslims in America or
whether it's non-Muslims picking up a
translation of the Quran. Most of them
are not familiar with King James
English. They have difficulty reading
it. They have difficulty understanding
it and they need something in
straightforward modern American English.
And that's what Yaha Emmerick's
translation gives us. But it gives us
much more. Now I'm holding up the
extended study edition. Yeah. Of the
Quran. So this has commentary and
everything. This includes s uh chapter
introductions. It includes historical
context in a different font. You have
the historical context in which the
following verses were revealed. This is
sometimes very important in getting the
proper understanding of what the verses
are saying. Yes. So you have the
historical context, but you also have
commentary. Almost 2,700 footnotes worth
of commentary. Sometimes discussing
linguistics why something was translated
a certain way. Sometimes giving a saying
of the prophet Muhammad that help
explains the text. Uh sometimes uh
providing other information that
provides a context to help understand
the text. So, the meaning of the Holy
Quran in today's English extended study
edition by brother Yaha Emerick. This is
certainly what every English-speaking
Muslim should be reading also. Oh,
absolutely.
Um, for
non-Muslims, either get this one or
there is another one, same author,
called a journey through the holy Quran
that doesn't include all the commentary
footnotes. Yes. but uh provides you with
all the rest of the information. Um
either one and these are available by
the way in
amazon.com or at uh ifna s
ifna.net which is brother yaha I's
website. Let's take a break and we'll be
right back with more here on the dean
show.
I would go to my room, lock the door,
prostrate and cry saying, "God, you know
me better than myself. Show me the right
way and I would not look back. I will
leave everything behind.
Allah is our creator and he creates
everything and he gives intelligence to
people." Is Muhammad peace be upon him.
Muhammad is one of the last messengers
sent from God.
[Applause]
back here on the Dean Show and this is
what we're really trying to encourage
people to do. What you did, you were
open-minded, humblehearted, you had a
connection with your creator and you
wanted to do his will. Now, you got a
hold of also this Quran, the verbatim
word of God, and you read. And we want
to encourage people to read. One of the
beautiful miracles of it, isn't it, that
it's memorized by millions all over the
world. And today, you don't have
different books of the Quran. It's just
the one Quran. Yeah. There there's
different translations obviously. Uh,
and the Quran has been translated into
language after language after language.
But when we really talk about the Quran,
we're talking about the Arabic original.
Yeah. And yes, that's the same. There is
only one version of the Arabic. Now,
you're as American as they get, I think.
So, so now an American who's watching
and he sees you, you went to the top
university, one of the top in the world,
Harvard University. You got your
divinity degree. You were a Christian
preaching, teaching the Bible, eating
Thanksgiving dinner, and you from a
small town, and everybody knows you.
They love you. And now they relate. They
They agree. Look, I don't want to
worship Jesus. I love Jesus. We love
Jesus, too. But we say, "He's not God.
Never did he claim that he was God. This
trinity is confusing. My mind is getting
a little numb thinking about it. It's
one God." And you proved in all of the
different lectures that this was the
teaching of all the messengers. So they
like what we have to say accountability
that no one's dying for my sins. I'm
going to have to be accountable in front
of God. So I got to do good. I got to
race for good. But they, you know, this
whole thing now the identity the culture
issue. Huge issue. How did you get past
it? With difficulty. Yes. With
difficulty. You know because one one
does have an identity. Uh one has a
national cultural identity in my case
being an American. uh one also has a
religious identity which originally in
my case was that of being a Christian.
Yes. Even though I was an atypical
Christian that was still the sort of uh
cloak of identity that I carried around
with me in terms of my religious
identity and it's a difficult thing to
change identity. Yeah, it is a very
difficult thing.
Um the thing that's important I would
tell non-Muslim Americans who are
watching we call them the not yet
Muslims. Okay. Alhamdulillah. That's
very good. Praise God.
Um, you're not giving up your national
cultural identity. You're still Muslims.
You're still going to dress in Western
clothing. You don't have to change your
name. You don't have to take an Arabic
name. And by the way, that's what it is.
It's an Arabic name, not a Muslim name.
You don't have to make these changes.
You don't have to sit around eating
biryan biryani or you could still you I
mean, even though you might have to go
to Mick Clinic, you can still eat
McDonald's.
Uh well if it's halal McDonald's depends
where you draw the line. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. But sure there are certain dietary
restrictions. You know we we don't eat
pork. We don't consume alcohol. Yeah. Um
but uh you know aside from things like
that you keep your American national
cultural identity. Only change that
religious identity. That's simple. Yeah.
That's and you're doing it for the
creator. The one who loves you, who
created you, who's the most loving. Yes.
Yes. Definitely. Okay. How could people
get a hold of you if they wanted to
invite you? They love what you have to
say to their university to a platform
where you can speak in front of
thousands. They can contact me at my
website. We started with peace. We end
with peace. Thank you very much. Peace.
Peace be to you, brother. Thank you very
much. And thank you again for tuning in
to the Dean Show. Islam, which simply
means to acquire peace by submitting
your will to the one God. It is growing.
It's the fastest growing way of life in
the world today, yesterday, and
tomorrow. And you can learn more about
Islam here in the Dean Show. Continue to
tune in every week. You can also call us
if you have any further questions and
you'll like to know more. 1800662 Islam.
And until next time, we'll see you.
Peace be unto you.