I heard the brothers say that I sometimes go by another name which was a suggestion

of
a number of people.
There was nothing wrong with my name in the first place, but I do sometimes go by
another
name, but most often I don't, and it has had some interesting results in that in
the United
States in particular, very often you have church groups which approach the Muslim
students
at university campuses and they tell them we'd like to have a debate or a dialogue
or
a discussion about Islam and Christianity.
So why don't you invite a Muslim speaker and we'll bring a Christian speaker and
we'll
have a discussion.
So what usually happens is those brothers get in touch with me, and when it comes
down
to a few days before the debate is supposed to take place, it has happened over and
over.
The Christian group says, who is your Muslim speaker going to be?
And the brothers say, his name is Miller.
And they say, no, no, no, that's not fair.
We want a Muslim speaker.
It's not because they know who I am, maybe they're starting to, but it's not
because
of that.
Because what they want is some foreigner who may stumble through the English
language
or he may be unaware of certain basic things that everybody knows and so they make
a fool
of it.
It's what they want.
And it really makes them nervous when they find out, no, his name is Miller.
He comes from this continent.
Usually what they say is, that's not fair.
In fact, recently a situation like this came up in Kansas, at the University in
Lawrence,
and they wanted two speakers and they told the Muslims, you bring two speakers.
Well, there was myself and another brother whose name is Steve Johnson.
He used to be a Jesuit priest.
Again, they were very upset about that.
Thought that wasn't fair.
In one situation in Pennsylvania, at the last minutes the Christian group became so
worried
that they canceled their speaker and they brought in an Egyptian Christian because
they
thought maybe that would counteract the effect of having a North American talk
about Islam.
But that Egyptian Christian made all the mistakes they were hoping that Muslim
would make.
He barely spoke English and he was very unaware of certain basic things.
In fact, the organizers came to the Juma the next day after this talk and
apologized for
the performance of their speaker.
Now I mention all of that because it leads into really the topic that's under
discussion.
The Muslim is supposed to be equipped to give an account of himself.
He's supposed to be able to defend what he believes.
It used to be Muslims were much better equipped for that.
But as the boundaries of Islamic territory spread out in the center, the Muslim
didn't
have much contact with the non-Muslim.
So he didn't get any exercise in defending what he believes in.
He's surrounded by people who never challenge him.
He's on the frontier, on the edge, in the new territory where the Muslim has to be
sharp.
He has to be aware of how to deal with people that he means.
A few years ago, a brother had brought to me a little booklet.
It was an Arabic.
Somebody had given it to him.
He was very excited about it.
He said, look here what I call him.
And he started going through and he is quickly translating through the Arabic.
He's from Sudan himself.
He said, this was written by a man in Syria.
It's about Christianity.
It's a Muslim writing about Christianity.
And look at all these arguments that he uses.
He says he uses your arguments.
He quotes the same place in the Bible.
He says the same thing you say here and here and here.
And he was turning the pages and translating them.
So I said, when did he write this?
I was very happy about this.
There's a man in Syria who is writing in Arabic about the same kinds of things I'm
talking
about.
Well, he hadn't thought about that.
He hadn't even noticed who the author was.
He just had noticed that he was from Syria.
So he looked again on the inside in the cover.
And this was a reprint of a book that was 800 years old.
It was written that long ago when there were Muslims who used to deal directly with
the
non-Muslim.
That's a rare thing to find today, at least in that part of the world.
And that's a shame.
In a situation you're in here, really you have plenty of contact with the non-
Muslim.
You can't just build a wall around yourself.
You have to be equipped to deal with the person on the outside.
Or in fact, you're only going to suffocate yourself.
You're going to defeat your own community because you get no exercise.
It's like muscles you don't use.
And the brain is the same way.
If you don't use it, it dries up.
So I'm suggesting and dealing with a thing called revelation, reason, that it's
something
that requires thinking and practice.
And we should be ready to talk about these things.
I'm afraid that it's sometimes a controversial subject.
There are Muslims who say reason has nothing to do with revelation.
And that too is a shame because that's very much in disagreement with what the
Quran tells
us as we find several ayat.
But tell us the Quran is for those who have understanding.
It's meant to be understood.
If you don't understand it, then you have a problem.
It's supposed to be understood.
It's a revelation.
That is the word even mean in English.
It means you revealed, means unveiled.
Something was covered and it's uncovered here is the truth.
That's what revelation is.
It's showing you something you didn't know.
So you have to have an understanding.
It's not meant to just be something that has a great deal of blessing just wrapped
up
in the sound it makes when somebody recites it.
There's a message there as well.
The sound is beautiful.
But it means something also.
Friend of mine is by birth, a Palestinian.
So he spoke in Arabic all his life.
Said he was in Europe one time and he was sitting in a mosque.
And he heard a man beside him saying something very fast.
And he listened.
He couldn't figure what he's saying.
He heard this.
He finally stopped and asked me.
He said, what is that noise you're making?
He said, I'm reciting the Quran.
My friend says, listen, I speak Arabic.
I'm telling you, I didn't even know it was Arabic.
Slow down.
He says, no, no, the faster I say it, the more times I can recite the Quran.
I get to the end and I start over.
He suggested to him that it's not how many times did you recite the Quran.
It's how much time did you spend in reciting the Quran?
So understand it.
And he tried to explain that to him very carefully.
And when he finished, the man just started up again 90 miles an hour.
There's supposed to be some meaning in there.
That's not to say everybody understands everything that's in the Quran.
But the idea is it's trying to tell you something.
And if somebody tells you that it's too difficult for you to understand, I suggest
that's a
very unislamic thing to say.
Who knows best how to talk to a man?
The one who made man.
People who tell you the Quran is too difficult are saying, well, God wants to talk
to you,
but only a few people can understand him.
I will tell you what he meant to say.
I can understand him and I'll explain it to you.
See we need teachers, but we don't need interpreters.
Nobody interprets the Quran.
You teach the Quran.
Just as if you go to school, people teach mathematics.
They don't interpret it.
They teach it.
They explain it to you.
That's what the writers have sat seared in.
They said, do you have a problem understanding this?
Ayah?
Well, look at this ayah and this one and this one and you know this and you know
that,
put them all together.
Now you see, it's clear.
That's teaching.
Interpreting is when you say the real meaning is a secret.
I know the secret.
I will tell you the secret.
That's interpreting.
And there's none of that in Islam.
Again, as I say, it doesn't mean we understand everything that's in the Quran, but
the ideas
it can be understood.
It may involve some work, but nobody has some kind of a license that he carries in
his pocket
to say, I am one of the people certified to tell you the secret meanings of the
Quran.
We're warned about that kind of thing.
I hope that's clear because sometimes that causes the controversy.
There's a difference between a teacher and an interpreter.
Teacher assembles the facts and he helps you learn it.
An interpreter says, don't try to learn it.
I'll tell you.
Trust me.
That's the danger.
We have even the case of Omar when he was the Khaleen who issued a law.
He said such and such will be the case and a woman challenged him and said, how can
you
say that when the ayah says and she quoted the Quran to him?
And what did he say?
Did he say, don't argue with me, I'm the Khaleen.
He didn't say that.
He thought about what she said and then he announced to everyone, the woman is
right.
Omar is wrong.
What anybody tells you has to stand on its own merits, not on the merits of who is
he,
but how much sense does he make?
So the idea is to keep your mind alert, not to go to sleep and let somebody put
great
burdens on you and say, believe this and take this and so on.
I know all about it, so trust me.
You're supposed to process that information, to give it some consideration.
Then you come to trust the right people.
If you test what people tell you often enough, you start to realize this man, I
think I can
trust him because ten times he's been right.
I'm starting to trust him, this one I'm suspicious on.
Then you make some progress.
There is, you see, the speech of Islam which liberates, it makes people free, which
virtually
no religious system has other than Islam.
It's liberating in this way that one of the messages to the reader of the Quran is
an
encouragement that you should trust yourself to know truth when you hear it.
Trust yourself to know the difference between truth and false.
It doesn't mean we don't make mistakes, but the idea is that you have the ability
to discover
the difference between true and false.
You may make mistakes, but carry on.
You can find the difference between true and false.
You can't be sincerely wrong for your whole life.
If you want the truth, you'll find the truth.
You have the ability.
You don't find that in most religious systems because, in fact, they will tell you
that
the truth, when it comes to religion, is the thing you just have to accept.
Somebody gives it to you and you take it.
People try to analyze it to take it apart.
And they defeat themselves in this.
You see, the Quran wants you to analyze what you hear.
It tells you to analyze the book you're reading.
And you read the Quran.
Don't just take it because somebody said you should.
But think about it.
Isn't it so?
It asks you again and again, oh man, haven't you considered this?
Can you not see this must be true?
Even again, many, many points, saying you know this and you know this, so you must
admit
this.
That's analysis.
In English, the word comes from two Greek words.
Anna, from the means up and religious, or lies, almost like it sounds of English
means
loose.
When you analyze something, it means you loosen it up.
So you open up the package and you look at all the parts.
You don't just swallow the whole thing.
You loosen it up.
You see, does this connect with this?
Is this sound?
Is this true?
You analyze it.
Just a few months ago I was in Kuala Lumpur and I was a missionary, had come to one
of
the talks that I gave.
And I explained the kind of thing that I've been talking about here and he stood up
to
say in the question period, he said, no, when it comes to religion, you can't
analyze.
This is the mind cannot tell the difference between true and false.
He says, you have to be like the gold coin dealer.
And he tells a nice story.
There's men who make their living dealing in gold coins, can tell the difference
between
a gold coin and one that has lead added to the gold by the sound.
It makes them drop it on the table.
The gold coin dealer will take a coin.
He has never seen it before.
He may bite it.
He drops it on the table.
This has a little bit of lead in it.
It's not pure gold.
He says, that's the way truth is.
Comes from the heart.
Can't explain how, but when you hear it, you know it.
Well, his problem is the gold coin dealer doesn't do this trick by magic.
He does it by analysis.
It's years of experience that had taught him when you throw a piece of lead on the
table,
it goes plop.
And when you throw a piece of gold on the table, it goes dinn.
That's analysis.
He knows that by sense, it's not by some magic gift he has.
He learned that by experience.
So what he didn't seem to realize is that the method he's talking about is my
method.
He doesn't understand how the gold coin dealer works.
You're supposed to learn over the period of your life how to tell the difference
between
true and false.
So you don't fall for the lies that people tell.
It's also unfortunately true that as human beings, anytime we hear a new thing, a
strange
thing, we're not likely to believe it.
But what often happens is if we hear it several times, then we start to believe it.
Because it doesn't sound strange anymore.
We've heard it before, so we start to believe it.
As some people have said, if you repeat a thing often enough, then people believe
it.
It may have been false to start with, but keep saying it, keep saying it, and
finally,
people will start to believe it.
That's unfortunately true.
So it's one of the things we want to ask ourselves.
If we're trying to defend what we believe in, we want to ask, why do I believe it
anyway?
Is it because I've heard it so many times, or do I have a reason to believe it?
If you believe it because you've heard it many times, then you're never going to be
able to convince somebody else, unless it's just by repeating it to him over and
over.
But what most people want is a reason to believe something.
So it is that, in fact, many things that people believe are not believed because of
reasons
they have, they don't so much believe things as they give excuses for why they
believe
what they believe.
That is, somebody may tell you some strange sounding thing as part of his religion,
and
when you say, how can you believe that?
You say, well, doesn't it sound like it might be true?
And he tells it to you in a beautiful way, and when he's finished, the beauty of
the
story is supposed to convince you that it might be true.
In fact, they have a song about it that some church is saying, where they sing, I
love
to tell the old old story, which means even if you've heard it, I love to tell it
over
and over and over.
And I can tell it better than he can tell it.
So that I meet this kind of thing very often when I get into discussion with
people, and
they'll tell me what they believe, and I say, how can you believe that?
He says, well, once more, let me explain it.
And he gives beautiful explanation of how it's supposed to work.
And I tell him, you've just told me how it works, you haven't told me why it must
be
true.
Then his friend will say, no, no, no, wait, let me do it.
So he tells you the story, only he puts it in better words.
Some people want to sing it to you.
And they say the more beautiful the telling, the more likely you are maybe to
believe it.
But the Muslim is supposed to be alerted to that thing.
See that was one of the things the Meccans first challenged when the Quran was
revealed.
Yes, thank you.
The Meccans were suggesting, maybe all that is is beautiful words.
This man is a poet.
He's trying to get you to believe something because he tells it so nicely.
And so that is replied to in the Quran to say, this is more than the words of a
poet because
it gives many reasons why it's not the form that does the convincing, it's the
content.
What does it say that is supposed to convince you?
Not how nice does it sound when we say it.
There's also among the suggestions made by people.
I'm not picking on a particular group but it's what I'm most familiar with.
The Christian in particular will say to the Muslim, I may believe in a lot of
strange
things but your problem is you can't make enough room in your mind for this.
So if you're just making enough room to accept some of the things that I say,
you're being
narrow minded.
You're too cautious.
Make room.
Be generous.
Admit that maybe this could be so.
They tell us that and they say that over and over in such a way that it wants to
make you
ashamed of yourself as though, well maybe I should give him the benefit of the
doubt.
Maybe I should find a place for that in my mind and say maybe that could be true.
And yet if you think about it, imagine if you could that the situation was
reversed.
Suppose it was Muslims who believed in the Trinity.
Suppose it was Muslims who say once there was a man who also was God.
Once there was an infinite being who used to be only that tall and so on.
And suppose it was the Christians who said no, no, God is one.
You could never squeeze himself into a body and so on.
Suppose that was the situation.
Then how generous do you suppose the Christians would be with the Muslims?
I suggest it's very likely what you'd be hearing all the time from the Christian
is,
you foolish people.
Can't you see this doesn't make any sense and so on and so forth.
But because it's the other way around, it is they who tell the Muslim, don't reject
this, maybe it's just too big for your mind to understand.
I'm sure that a great many of them really wish it was the other way around.
That it was Muslims who had to defend all of these ideas of Trinity and an infinite
but
finite God man who died but didn't really die but he definitely died but he didn't
die and round and round this kind of.
They probably really wish that was our problem not theirs but it is.
Humburah.
Usually when these kinds of things are offered to us to try to say maybe you could
find
room to bleed this anyway.
They're offered by way of false analogies.
That's the kind of thing I talk about with a gold coin.
Someone say look you don't might be true, maybe it's like such and such and so.
I wish I had a dollar for every time somebody said well the Trinity is like an egg.
You see you have a shell and you have a clear part and you have a yellow part,
three parts,
one egg.
You see I'd be wealthy if I had a dollar for every time somebody told me that.
The problem is that that's not what the Trinity is like.
The Trinity says the Father is God.
He's not one third of God.
He is God and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God but there are not three
God.
There's only one God.
The difference being of course in an egg the shell is one third of the egg.
It's not the egg.
The white is not the egg.
The yellow is not the egg.
There are thirds.
There is nothing.
It's like the Trinity.
There's nothing in nature.
You can point and see you see that thing?
That's what the Trinity is.
It's like that.
There is nothing that comes in three parts but each part is the whole thing.
There's nothing like that.
That's what I mean by false analogies or appeals to common belief is what it's
called where
somebody tells you something is true because look at all the people who believe it.
You have two books now written by one missionary worker, this Josh McDowell, two
full books
trying to show why he's right.
Basically there's a number of mistakes in them but basically the most recurring
mistake
is that he'll tell you on one page what he believes and then he'll give you a list
of
people who say he's right.
That doesn't prove anything.
500 years ago I could have proved to anyone that the earth was flat if that was the
case.
So the earth is flat.
Go out on the street and ask the first person you meet he'll tell you I'm right.
The earth is flat.
There's the proof.
It doesn't matter if the whole human race says something that doesn't make it true.
Unless your argument is the whole human race says this thing I suppose but the
number of
people who agree with you or even the number who disagree with you doesn't have
anything
to do with the truth or the falseness of what you believe.
You can always find somebody who will tell you you're right.
You can always find something that makes it look like you might be right and so you
can
fool yourself.
If I told you the moon was made of cheese I'm quite sure if you give me seven days
I'll
bring you somebody who will tell you I'm right.
I can find him here.
I probably won't have to walk very far.
If I tell you the moon is made of cheese I can show you things that makes it look
like
might be right.
He knows the same color as cheese.
Doesn't it look like it might be made of cheese?
You can always find somebody or something and make it look like I might be right
but that's
how we fool ourselves.
It's what a stress in Islam is on reason.
Don't let someone fool you, don't fool yourself.
You see the Quran by contrast with these kinds of false arguments and imitations of
arguments
offers replies to things.
There's a tradition that says in Islam there is no foolish question if you will in
Islam.
There is no question somebody can ask and the Muslims reply would be that's a silly
question.
There's only good questions.
There are some questions where the question is faulty.
There's something wrong with the question but there's no foolish question.
You learn by any question you ask.
I have an American Muslim friend who in fact is a Muslim because of that attitude.
He was in a church and he used to go and ask his pastor questions all the time.
One day the pastor had given the talk saying there's only one God.
We came to him after and he said how do you know that?
Maybe there's 12 gods but we forgot 11 of them.
Pastor said that's a foolish question on the go away.
That's a good question.
Quran gives an answer to it.
If there were many gods then what you would see would be confusion because each God
would
be trying to take charge of some piece of the creation.
You would not see harmony and cooperation.
One thing you know for sure is that the universe only has one management.
Never changes.
The rules stay the same all the time.
It's a good question.
In fact the education of the Quran is largely built around quoting all the stupid
things
that people say and showing you why they are stupid things.
It always worries me when I get into a community and people say we're building a
Muslim school.
That can be a good idea but usually you find people who say what we're going to do
is put
up a big wall and put our children in there and we'll hide them away from all the
lies
that people tell.
Well then you're not educating them Islamically.
Islamic education means you show the people all the lies people are telling.
You show them why they're lies.
The Quran quotes every kind of foolishness that anybody ever thought of.
That's how it teaches you.
It's telling you when you go out on the street you may meet someone.
He'll tell you this.
When he does you tell him that.
You don't educate anyone if you hide all of these things from him.
You say the truth is just this.
Don't listen to anyone else.
You listen to other people and you learn how foolish they are and you come to
appreciate
what you have more.
That's the real education.
Islam then is really based on a...
A number of things that don't require the kind of proof that other people are so
concerned
about.
You know that in the United States half of the printing that is done.
That's printing of any kind.
Books, newspapers, magazines, half of the printing done in the United States is
done
by the evangelical churches.
Take all the paper and ink used up in the US.
Half of it is used by those.
One small group of churches.
Now you might think well they must have a lot to say that.
Because they use up half the ink in the US.
They don't really have very much to say at all.
But it's because they are in a position of having to defend so many things which
cannot
really be defended.
It only gets worse.
The more they try to patch it up the worse it gets.
That's why you have about 35 English translations of the Bible.
Each one was trying to fix up something that the last one messed up.
And it just gets worse each time.
I'm not mean.
You're really good but that's really what happens.
Truth is an agreement with the facts.
And if you keep trying to cover up the truth then you cause some problem in another
place.
It's just as you know this carpet that is laid wall to wall.
You find it in some homes where it runs from one wall to the other and it's tacked
down
tightly.
But you have to measure that the same size as the room.
See, if the piece is too short you can get it up to this wall and now it won't
reach
this one.
And when you pull it tears or if it's too big it has a bump in it.
When you smooth out this bump it jumps up in another place.
That's the way falsehood is.
When you try to cover the truth with something false there's always going to be a
ribbon
or a bump somewhere.
So no matter how many times you try and smooth over something you've hidden it
causes a new
problem in another place.
I was thinking of the story we had years ago when I lived in the west coast in
Canada.
It was a story of a man, another true story.
It worked for one of the big stores there.
His job was installing this carpet.
And he was in a brand new home and he put in this wall to wall carpet and you have
to
tack it down carefully all around the edges so that it's completely tight like the
top
of the drum.
And when he was all finished with this brand new home he reached for his cigarettes
and
they're gone.
And he looked back in the middle of the carpet as a bump.
So he figured that's where my cigarettes went.
It would take him all day to tear up the carpet and get his cigarettes back.
So he took his rubber hammer and he went over and he hammered down this bump.
He down smoothed out.
He thought no one will ever know that the carpet will be here for 20 years.
The cigarettes are smashed flat.
Then he went out to his van and there were his cigarettes on the seat.
He went back in the house and this woman had owned the places running around in a
panic
looking for her budgie bird.
So the point I'm trying to get at you try and hide the truth.
You make it worse.
You may think that you have fixed things.
It gets worse.
That's the nature of falsehood.
Try and use it to cover over the truth.
It will find you out.
As the Qur'an says the truth wins over the false.
That's its nature.
Because truth is agreement with facts.
If you can always make the false agree with the facts, well then it's not false.
It's true.
You see the truth wins by what truth is.
Now here I'm afraid maybe is where I get into some controversy and where sometimes
Muslims
have some misunderstanding.
Listen carefully please to what I say.
Because some things are impossible.
And if you don't believe that then people will use that against you.
You see the Qur'an tells us a number of things that people believe and it tells us
why they
can't be true.
It doesn't just forbid us from believing them.
It tells us why they can't be true.
But you say, oh no no, you see with God anything is possible.
Well then what's the whole point of the Qur'an?
If anything is possible.
The Qur'an tells you some things are not possible because they don't mean anything.
They're just words.
It gives the one example as it begins one surah by an oath.
It says by the even and the odd.
And even number is a number that you can cut into half.
It's divisible by two like four and six and eight are even numbers.
Odd numbers if you try to divide by two you have one left over.
So they are two different things even in odd numbers.
When you say even you mean it isn't odd.
What you mean when you say even.
So not even God can make an even number and odd number.
Because it doesn't mean anything.
If you point to one and say this is even what you mean is it can't be odd.
It isn't odd.
It's even.
It's a meaningless string of words.
They are yes but God he's big and strong.
He could make an even number into an odd one and it would still be even.
No that doesn't mean anything.
It's just empty.
See hundreds of years ago there was a Jew in Europe.
A Benedict Spinoza.
Some call him Baruch Spinoza I guess.
He was a Jew who a very clever man and he had given so much thoughts to
philosophical
matters that he left the Jewish community.
He was very disappointed in them.
And the Christian community came running to him saying now that you've had the good
sense
to leave the Jews you should be a Christian.
He said I would if I knew what you were talking about and he just simply his whole
life pointed
out to them he said you tell me that God became a man and I'm asking you what do
you mean?
Those are words but what do you mean?
Those words don't mean anything.
Do you mean God became a man like once there was God but then he became a man so he
isn't
God anymore now he's a man he used to be God now he's a man.
Do you mean like when water becomes ice and it freezes?
It used to be a liquid but then all these atoms squeezed together and formed their
crystal
and now we have ice is that what you mean?
The God was big but he squeezed himself down now he looks like a man.
He's made of the same stuff but pressed into shape like a man.
Is that what you mean?
What do you mean?
See there is no meaning to that when you say God became man because of what the
words
God and became and man mean.
That's the kind of thing the forehand talks about.
The Messiah is not God because of a number of considerations.
Things that some Christians have realized over the centuries.
There's a great many non-trinitarian Christians have always been.
17 centuries ago a man named Arius thought about it this way like I thought
experiment
he did a like lab work in his mind.
He said alright suppose God could be a man and still be God.
Suppose you point to someone who says this is God and this is man.
What would happen if I stabbed him?
If he's a man he'll die.
If he's God he won't die.
Well he can't do both.
I mean either dies or he doesn't.
So as Arius put it and it's really what the Muslim can say to the Christian in all
generosity.
You might say if you want to tell me that Jesus is God go ahead but then don't tell
me he
died.
If you want to tell me Jesus died go ahead but then don't tell me he was God.
See for today I'll give you one but I can't give you both.
Nobody can give you both.
And their problem is they demand both.
He was God and he died.
And you can't have both you can have one or the other or neither you can't have
both
because it doesn't mean anything.
The point to someone and say this one he's alive and he's dead too.
When you're alive then you're not dead.
You're dead you're not alive.
You see two different things that exclude each other.
I hope I'm not confusing you but I hope you understand what I'm trying to get at.
That's the sort of thing the Quran encourages to think this way.
You say this can't be so because look this and this is impossible.
Some people will be very happy about that.
About the same century as Arias.
There was a saint of the church who used to say why did he believe what he
believed?
As it translated from the Latin he said it is absurd therefore I believe it.
Absurd me silly crazy.
The sillier it is the truer it is.
Now there are people who think that way.
They tell you that's what religion is and if the Muslim doesn't understand that
about
people he's never going to be able to communicate with them.
To a lot of people that's what religion is.
Everything else makes sense.
Religion isn't supposed to make sense.
There's been books written about Islam.
People criticizing Islam by saying it's nothing more than common sense.
Because this was a crime.
As they put the phrase sometimes they say all theological doctrines are
paradoxical.
That means when you talk about theology you say things that sound crazy.
That's what theology is.
You talk about astronomy or geology or medicine you say things that make sense.
But when we move over here to theology it doesn't make sense.
That's why we call it theology.
That's how some people think it's supposed to be a collection of impossible things.
Things that can't be true but they must be.
If you're brought up to believe that it puts you in a frame of mind where no one is
ever
going to convince you away from that or it seems unlikely.
I've met people time and time again or you give them some reply to something to say
look
the thing you say you believe in it can't be true because ABC you tell them why.
And they smile and say I know isn't it beautiful.
They love it.
The more wrong you're sure they are the more they love it like yes I know.
Some people will tell you I'm a fool.
Like in daily life would you say that to anybody and be happy about it normally.
But when it comes to religion our people will tell you that.
I am proud to be some of the I'm a fool for Christ.
Now whatever religious scriptures you read there's a lot said about fools.
And who is likely to be the fool but come back to that in a minute.
Point is if the truth about religion is supposed to be impossible sounding things
the problem
is how will you ever decide which is the truth that.
You see some man may come to you and say let me tell you this it makes no sense at
all.
And another man will come and say no no I have something different it doesn't make
sense
either.
Mine is true is as false.
How do you decide between two things that don't make sense.
The only way to judge when something is true is to at least it has to make sense.
That doesn't even make it true but at least it has to make sense.
You see what I mean people have competition between two kinds of nonsense how do
you choose
between them.
To choose between them you have to use good sense and yet these things are nonsense
they
don't have any sense.
What some people will then tell you is that they believe the unbelievable.
This is why they have a great reward which is an interesting idea.
People tell you the more impossible things I believe the greater my reward and
paradise.
That's an interesting idea but I don't know of any scripture that says that
anywhere.
That's an idea that some people have made up.
I don't know any scripture where it says this will be impossible but believe it
anyway
you'll have a reward.
If you believe the more silly things you believe the greater your reward.
I don't know of anything that says anything like that but that's how some people
run
their lives and they'll tell you very proudly.
They say I believe what is unbelievable.
But what does that sound like somebody saying?
By definition I think if you look it up in a dictionary you might find under the
word
foolishness you might find in there a fool or somebody who believes what is
unbelievable
without any proof.
That's being fooled and in any scripture you read who is likely to be fooled the
good
or the wicked who gets fooled in life.
The good people are the wicked people and yet some people will brag to you to say
yes
I'm a fool.
I believe foolishness.
There's also people who will tell you very profound things and use this by an
illustration
of a Quranic method that is the way to reply to so much of what people say.
And somebody tells you something you take what he said and apply it to what he
said.
You turn it back on itself.
This is like people who tell you you can't be sure of anything.
Lots of people tell you that.
You can't be sure of anything.
You want to ask them are you sure?
Usually they'll tell you yes I'm positive.
You can't be sure of anything.
I know that for sure.
You see that it defeats itself, kills itself.
And there's a lot of things some of these are saying that people put up on walls
you
know they hang them up.
They look so profound but if you just take them and turn them on themselves you see
they defeat themselves.
In the same way I'll often meet people who tell you after I've explained something
they'll
say you've proved what you say but you know even prove can fool you.
Your proof can fool you.
And I usually ask them are you sure?
They say look I can prove it.
So he gets talking and on until I let them carry on and usually I want to cut them
off
and say I just want to remind you that when you're all finished proving this to me
I
will remind you what you said when you started.
You told me that any proof can be wrong it can fool you.
So if you think you've proved this thing you might have fooled yourself according
to
your idea not mine.
It's a useful exercise to think about that.
The great percentage of what people tell you if you just take it the principle they
talk about turn that on itself probably it demolishes itself that often is the case
anyway.
Another piece of advice in trying to give an account of what you believe back to
people
that I'd suggest and that is when you talk about a topic with somebody and you keep
asking
questions and they keep giving answers at some point they may give you what sounds
like a
good answer.
Well that's the time to stop.
You might even ask somebody is that your best answer?
They tell you yes make a note of it.
Fine.
Let's talk another time.
On some other occasion when you talk about some other topic and you press till the
end
and they reach their best answer make a note of it.
The chances are pretty good that this answer can be a good one and this answer was
a good
one but you can't have both.
That they conflict with each other.
So people may answer any question you give them but the trick is do all of their
answers
form something that hangs together or does it fall apart.
You see there are people who will tell you for example a price must be paid for all
sins.
If you're sin the price has to be paid.
There can't be any other way but on another day he'll tell you God forgives and he
never
seems to realize well does he forgive or does he get paid.
And they want to tell you well both but you can't have both.
When you forgive somebody it means you don't get paid that's what forgiveness
means.
The man owes me money.
I say the money you owe me is forgiven.
I can't now say give me my money now after I've forgiven you.
The similar way if he pays me the money he owes me I count it and put it in my
pocket
and say I forgive you.
I've made a joke of forgiveness.
You see if somebody forgives they don't get paid.
If they get paid they don't forgive.
You can have one or the other.
You can't have both.
That's an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about.
You may finish with this answer one day and this answer on another day and then you
want
to remind them do you remember what you said on Monday this is Wednesday you said
this put
those two side by side so you can't have both.
More directly to concerned to Muslims are another couple of points that I'd like to
make.
And that is time and again in the Quran we find a discussion of what some group of
people
do in ignorance or some bad thing they do.
It talks about people who used to cut the ears of cattle or they'd have certain
prohibitions
on which meat could be eaten or inheritance laws and various things.
And when they were challenged about these things to say where did you get that
their
reply was always well this is what we found our fathers doing.
And the Quran points out that that's not an argument.
That's not an answer.
In fact it mentions in one place that this is a false argument because that's what
your
fathers used to say.
You do this false thing your fathers used to be asked why do you do that thing they
say
oh we found our fathers doing this.
It doesn't establish anything it just puts the blame somewhere else.
But if that's not a reason to say I do this because my father is doing it.
If that's not a reason for unbelievers it's not a reason for believers either.
It's no good being a Muslim and somebody says why do you do the things you do?
And he says well my father showed me.
It's not a reason.
The father can be a big help to you but doesn't the reason that it's right because
your father
did it.
Each person is supposed to establish that for himself to realize and reflect on
these things.
There's one I says when you read the Quran it says read some and think about it and
talk
about it in groups of dudes.
It says face to face talk about what you read with somebody.
So it starts to mean something to you and you understand what's going on.
You don't just take it because somebody gave it to you.
It has to mean something to you so that you really do submit.
Have the experience one time in Los Angeles and an Egyptian man was driving me to
the airport
and he mentioned as a driving he says to me how long have you been a Muslim.
And at that time I think I told him six years or something like that.
He says oh longer than me.
See he's an Egyptian about 40 years old and he's been making salasants.
He was 15 I suppose but in his own mind he says you know I've only been a Muslim
for
a couple of years because before that it was just a habit until one day he woke up
and
realized this is true.
It's not just a habit.
It's not just something I was handed.
It's true.
I can prove it.
I thought about it.
That's when in his opinion that's when I really became a Muslim when I submitted
because
I admitted this is true and those are false things and these are the true things.
Now how do you put yourself in that frame of mind?
Well the Quran starts off by telling us before we get very far at all right into
the second
Surah of the second ayah.
It tells you who this book is for.
It tells you it's a guidance.
It's who then will muta-kin a guidance for those who have taqwa.
So if you don't have taqwa it's not going to lead you anywhere.
What is taqwa?
What is this thing you have to have before this book does you any good?
Well taqwa is often misunderstood too.
It's translated in English sometimes by piety which is non-verbal translation.
He maybe was a good translation a long time ago but piety carries a flavor of this
is
somebody who he's so religious he never smiles.
He eats bread and water.
He walks around with his head down and his hands folded.
He maybe wears it.
They used to wear hair shirts you know they make a shirt with hair on and turn it
inside
out so the hair would scratch them all day and these kinds of things that's piety
that's
not what taqwa is.
Taqwa has to do with what was illustrated in fact as this reported by Omar when
somebody
asked him what is taqwa and he was trying to draw a picture of it he said taqwa is
like
a man who has a long flowing robe and he has to walk in between the thorn bushes.
So he sees the thorn bushes and he thinks about it and then he pulls his clothing
in
around him and then he walks in among the thorn bushes so he won't catch his
clothing.
Taqwa means in other words he's aware of his environment.
He takes notice of everything around him.
He's alert.
He sees which action is called for on every circumstance.
A wake and alert that's taqwa or a shade of its meaning.
If you have taqwa it means you realize your place that some things are beneath you
and
some things are above you and you have an understanding for what is your place so
you
don't reach for the things that aren't yours and you don't lower yourself to the
things
that are beneath you you deserve better.
That's taqwa or a start of it.
Your eyes are always looking around you to think this is a good thing this is a bad
thing.
I'm not sure about this so I'll wait until I decide and so on that's taqwa.
You're being careful.
Then this book is a guidance for you.
Because it starts to tell you take notice of this and take notice of that and don't
forget this.
It keeps pointing your face at what is important what matters in life.
Because there's a great many things that don't really matter when it comes to
certain other
things.
But you might say it doesn't matter if there are men living on Mars I still have to
find
something to eat tonight.
Whether this is true or not I know I have to do this.
That's the kind of thing that the Qur'an has spilled with.
To say if your speculation is here or there you want to tell the story of the
crucifixion
and how it really happened you're wasting your time but you need to know is this.
You waste your time there it keeps telling you which things matter.
So it is that really intelligent Muslims in every age have not been disturbed by a
title
that says reason and revelation.
Although some are today and probably always there have been some who were because
they've
understood what the Qur'an is as they have put it in different centuries the Qur'an
is beyond reasoning but it's not beyond reason.
What that means is there is information in the Qur'an which if you had searched for
a lifetime you probably never would have found it.
But now that you have it it's not unreasonable.
The Qur'an doesn't tell you to believe anything you can't believe.
It doesn't tell you this is impossible but you must believe it.
It doesn't tell you about anything like that.
So it's not unreasonable but it's beyond the ability of a man to figure out
everything.
You could discover a lot of things for yourself.
You know that a few hundred years ago in Europe there was a version of the Trinity
being preached
which wasn't totally accurate according to the church.
So they called the council to redefine the Trinity the Fourth Lateran Council.
And when all of the bishops and cardinals and all of the intellects had finished
their
discussion they issued a statement in conclusion about what is God.
You know that that statement well it read like this it said there is a reality
which
is God it is unique and eternal if neither begets nor was begotten and there is
none
that can be compared to him.
Does that sound familiar?
That's the 112 surah of the Qur'an.
So their best minds arrived at the conclusion that the Qur'an tells you.
So what I'm getting at is you might figure out this or that or the other thing but
you
never figure out the whole thing.
It's too big.
But anything you're given is not unreasonable.
It will make sense.
You're not asked to believe something impossible.
Unfortunately usually the first people who tell me that's not true are Muslims.
Until you know there's lots of impossible things in the Qur'an.
And whenever somebody mentions that to me I always ask them for an example.
So like which impossible thing are you thinking of?
And they always give me the same example.
They say the resurrection of the dead is impossible.
That's what the Meccans used to say.
That's why the Qur'an answers them several times.
It challenges them.
Do they say the resurrection is impossible?
Have they considered this?
It mentions as an example.
Have they considered themselves?
What were they?
They came from a drop so small it couldn't be seen.
And the verse goes on to say which is more remarkable?
That they were created from an insignificant drop or that someday all of their
bones will
be gathered together and they'll be made new again.
Which is the more difficult task?
Although it shows a person who says the resurrection is impossible being kind of
foolish.
It's not even as difficult as something that we all are witnesses of.
It's something more unusual than that that goes on all the time.
But it directs your attention to that.
They say the resurrection of the dead may be unfamiliar.
Maybe you've never seen it.
But is it impossible?
Consider this.
Now does it look impossible?
That's the kind of thing that the Qur'an is quite full of.
So I repeat.
Muslims are not obliged to believe something.
That a sensible man would say that can't be so.
There's plenty of room for these things to be so and in every case the Qur'an tells
you to take notice of something else that reminds you that this is not so strange
after
all.
It's a lot like this and so on.
So that's maybe a lot of random thoughts till now.
Thank you for your time and attention, May Allah guide us always closer to the
truth.
Amen.
Thank you for your time and attention.
May Allah guide us.
You have the vibe.
Literally unseen is not really a good translation I suppose but it means literally
what is absent.
But you don't have in front of you, you believe in that.
That has again nothing to do with reason.
You see you have most of us believe in things we've never seen.
I believe in electricity.
I've never seen it.
It goes through the wires but I've never had a look at it.
Most of us never have.
So this is belief in something that's unseen.
It's not right in front of me.
And that's generally what is being talked about.
A lot of what is talked about in the Quran for example is ancient history and it
says
there are people who believe in that.
They weren't there, they were absent or that thing is absent from them.
It happened hundreds of years ago but they believe in that.
That still is a reasonable thing.
You believe in it for a number of reasonable considerations.
That's the advantage that Muslim has over various religious systems in competition.
So you can, this is one of the blessings of Hatch.
That you go there and you see the place where these things happen that you know
about.
See by contrast there was an article in a newspaper in Canada a couple of years ago
about Islam and it gave a lot of explanation and then it mentioned the Kaaba.
Their words were they said Muslims believe that Muhammad threw idols out of the
Kaaba.
You see their choice of words?
They say Muslims believe that this is true.
The same as Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead.
You see, Muslims don't believe this man threw the idols out of the Kaaba.
They know it.
They can go to the Kaaba.
They say this is where he stood.
He threw them here.
Maybe if you dig you'll find one.
You see it's parts of the world we live in.
It's anchored in fact.
It's not a belief in something that you can't touch because you can go to Mecca or
Medina
and there are people who will tell you.
You see the Prophet is buried here.
There's a wife who's buried here and the son is there and so on.
It's real.
It's not as in most other systems that the people will tell you well once upon a
time
long ago and far away and we're not sure exactly where this happened.
That's quite different.
That would be believed in the unseen and the unreasonable.
But when you believe in something when you weren't present but you've got all kinds
of
evidence in front of you that this is the way it happened, that's not unreasonable.
Believe.
Okay?
I can't hardly hear you from there.
How can you believe that Adam's question comes down the rails some year and
sometimes he
gets to down the hill?
Yes, well this question is the kind of thing I think I started to get at mention
last night
that Muslims are in an embarrassing position because they don't know what to make
of the
origin of man and where did he come from.
What's tragic about that is that the Quran tells you a little bit about the origin
of
man and then it gives the command that you're supposed to research it.
It should be the case that Muslims are the leaders in researching where did man
come from,
how they come to be, the shapie is and so on.
The Quran gives you a few hints telling you his origin is in this place between
that place
and that place and so on and then it tells you research it.
You should examine it.
Muslims don't.
So what they're left with is the situation where other people have done it and they
fall
into two camps and the Muslim wonders which camp should I join, you don't want to
be
neither one.
One group says man is a joke, it was an accident, it just happened, doesn't mean
anything.
The other group says no, no, 6,000 years ago God rolled up his sleeves and he
huffed
any puffs and it took him all day and he made a man and then they offered to the
Muslim,
which one do you believe?
You see, when you want to say neither one, they both sound silly, the real truth is
somewhere
else because and where I'm afraid that often we can get off the track is if we take
what
little the Quran says and then we start to fill in the rest with other sources.
The Quran says as an example that men were made of one naps, that's all one naps
and
a lot of Muslims will tell you, well yes, it's like the Bible says one day Adam
went
to sleep and God took out a ribbon and he made it into a woman.
Maybe but I don't think so and that's not what the Quran says, it simply tells you
men
and women are made of one naps.
Now the valuable scientific lesson in that is that that's not what generally the
world
believes until modern times as most people believe that a human race usually was of
the
opinion that men and women came from different sources.
Women were made of this and men were made of that as what the bulk of humanity
believed
until recent years.
The Quran tells you that isn't true, whatever it is they're made of, they're made
of the
same thing, the same naps.
It uses the same expression when it talks about how plants are made, it says
they're all
made from the same water, same map.
It uses the sentences constructed exactly the same.
Whatever kind of fruit you eat, you have all different kinds but they're made of
the same
water.
Those who have manned made of the same naps.
So then you want to get interested in what is this naps, what's the meaning of it?
So it's a very big subject which Muslims haven't begun to explore.
There is a book now out by Maurice Bukal called What is the Origin of Man?
And not that I agree 100% with everything, it's in the book but at least he points
out
these things to say that there's two very silly ideas around and then the Muslim
has
all of these other possibilities that he could choose from.
And he itemizes some of these things, mentioning all the other possibilities that
are allowed
for within the Quran.
I hope that satisfies you.
Maybe the directly answered what you're getting at.
I'm trying to say it's a question that Muslims are supposed to find out about but
you're
not obliged to take one or the other of what's currently offered.
Have a look at what does the Quran say.
The Quran does not say that Adam was thrown out of heaven.
In fact it never uses, never said that people are going to heaven anywhere.
That's a careless translation in English.
It talks about paradise, for you know it talks about jannah, garden but heaven is
something
else.
So you for a start.
I just, one of the, it's just unfortunate but that's a.
Yes, well that too is a jinn is something that maybe people are to examine because
myself,
I found out that anything that I've ever tried to figure out from the Quran that
usually
the answer was in the origin of the word.
What did this word mean originally?
See a lot of Arabic words in the Quran are used by Arabs today but they have new
meanings.
They don't mean what they meant all those centuries ago.
They've acquired other meanings.
So if you pursue to the original meaning you have a clue as to what it means and
that word
comes from a root which I believe means hidden or something like this.
So there are those who would say well whatever the jinn are this is somebody we
don't see.
Whether that means a man who lives in the hills or it means an invisible spirit or
whatever
it means I don't know but so far that's all the Quran has said.
That there are communities that you don't see.
Well that's not too hard to understand that could be the case.
There's probably people living on this planet that no one knows they lived there.
They found some people in the Philippines a few years ago who lived inside an
extinct
volcano.
Nobody ever knew they were there.
They never met the outside world and they thought that volcano was the whole world.
So in a sense you might say these seem to be jinn.
They've been hidden from the human race till now.
That's just one option.
It may well be something else because the Quran mentions of the jinn apparently
being
made of something different than what man is made of.
Well maybe these are not men but they're something else.
But again that's not hard to understand.
It's open to investigation that's all.
That's not particularly interesting and I don't think that it matters to people.
But the best I can do is try and tell you that again it's not an unreasonable thing
there's all kinds of room for this idea.
Well I get too far off the subject but I told you more about it.
So yeah this sent a question here so let me mention this.
I don't know if I talk to Christian groups here.
I guess there's no specific arrangement although anybody is welcome.
They're saying what would you suggest could be said to a Christian who rejects the
Quran
by quoting the last part of actually it's about the third last sentence in the
Bible
which says something like this.
Whoever adds to this book will be punished, whoever takes from this book will be
punished.
See a lot of people will tell you this is the part in the Bible where it says the
Bible
is finished.
There's no more revelation.
You can't take from this you can't add to this.
Funny thing is if you ask somebody who tells you that in which book of the Bible do
you
find that?
See there are 66 books in the Bible.
You find that in book number 66 it's almost the last sentence in the Bible.
So they say you see here's where it says this book don't add to it.
Don't take from it.
But that book is called the Apocalypse or sometimes the book of Revelation 1 of 66
books.
Now ask the person who told you that when was this book written?
Was it the last book written in the Bible?
Maybe they won't know but if they don't look it up they find out it wasn't.
There were three more written after that.
They are put in the Bible ahead of that book.
First, second and third John, three short letters of John were written at least two
years
after the book of Revelation.
So you want to ask them well if this book says don't add to it how these get in
here
in front of it.
They were written later and that's where they have to be more honest with you to
say
well when it says don't add to this book it doesn't mean the Bible means this book.
Revelation this last number 66 don't add to it don't take from it and that's all
that
ever meant of course.
It's just been by carelessness that the books are not arranged in the order in
which they
were written.
So one book which says this book is finished has been made the last book of the
Bible so
when you read that sentence you think it's talking about the whole book.
It's not it's talking about itself.
I hope that's clear.
They can check that out anywhere they like look in any church source will tell them
the
book of Revelation was not the last one written.
So if it says it's finished you they have a real problem.
Any more questions?
Yes I wasn't saying anything myself about what I believe I was trying to point out
that
people try to take both positions they will tell you sin must be punished and they
will
tell you God forgets.
And so when you say well which does he do does he punish or does he forgive and I
tell
you he does both that's where you have to say but you can't do both.
From the most important view it's simply a matter of every sin must be punished
unless
it's forgiven.
See so if it's forgiven it isn't punished but every sin comes into one of these
categories
is either paid for or it is forgiven all of the accounts are set straight.
That's a concept that not easy to understand to many religious religions because
they think
of sin as though it's a condition that describes you totally.
Whether you do one sin or a thousand sins that doesn't matter you're a sinner so
you either
are punished or forgiven and the Muslim says no it doesn't work like that it works
the
same way as the legal system works you get punished for what you did unless you get
forgiven.
See their problem is that if you are a sinner you all have the same punishment it
take somebody
who used to talk nasty to his grandmother and somebody who killed hundreds of
people
say brother all sinners same punishment.
See that's not even how we work it in court you don't bring a man and say now you
went
through a red light and you killed your mother your both sentenced to die.
See the punishment fits the crime unless there is forgiveness and then there's no
punishment.
You see that the problem is there not the Muslims.
The Muslim has a nice bounce here's the list of the things I did wrong I either pay
for
them or I get forgiven.
Some may be forgiven some I may have to pay for but it's one or the other in every
case.
Their problem is they lump them all together as one son.
It's not that I have a long list of sins it's I have one big sin my whole life as a
sin.
I have to pay for it but I'll be forgiven but I have to pay and round and round
they
go or somebody had to pay say Jesus paid but God forgets.
There's another question on here.
Could you give a clear example of a deletion addition or alteration in the Bible?
Yes there's many many many of those.
The problem is they come in different categories and if you pick one somebody will
escape that
and go to somebody some other category and lead you off the track.
I suggest to maybe as an example everybody knows the story in the Bible it's you
find
it in the book of Matthew and in the book of Luke where it says that the devil came
and
tempted Jesus and in the book of Matthew it says the devil said to Jesus he said
turn
these stones in the bread do a trick for me and then he said throw yourself off the
roof
and see if God sends an angel to catch you before he hit the ground and then he
said if
you worship me I'll make you the king of the world I'll give you the whole world.
That's in the book of Matthew I believe it's told in that order.
In the book of Luke it tells the same story but it's in different order.
He said turn the rocks into a bread and then he said they worship me and then he
said throw
yourself off the roof and see if an angel catches you.
So which way did it happen?
Was it one two three or one three two?
So you have two men telling the same story but they put it in a different order.
It's obvious it's the same story, different order.
Now this leads people into quite a digression they may say well you see Luke told
everything
with accuracy.
So whenever Matthew disagrees with Luke we take Luke.
That's an interesting idea.
It doesn't change the fact that apparently this other man wrote something but he
didn't
tell it the way it happened.
He told it's different than the way it happened.
At least one of them did that.
But they say we trust Luke you can take them also to where it then tells you about,
well
I can give you all the references.
Their problem is they have a Matthew Mark and Luke three stories of the life of
Jesus.
Matthew and Luke disagree so they say well you take Luke.
He began his gospel by saying I wrote everything with accuracy.
Luke disagrees with Mark.
They tell you well you take Luke because Luke wrote everything with accuracy but
now
we have a problem because there's places where Matthew and Mark disagree and Luke
doesn't
say anything.
So which one of them is right?
Luke is supposed to be the corrector but he doesn't make no comment on various
parts.
Maybe an easier one.
In the book of Ezra chapter two verse five it gives you a long list of names in
this
chapter of people and how many sons they had.
In Ezra chapter two verse five it mentions a certain man by the name of Arah and
how many
sons he had.
I believe it's 775.
In the book of Nehemiah chapter seven verse ten is the same long list of men and
how many
sons they had when it gets to Eris they had 652 sons.
Let's see so it was in 775 or 652 or neither one of those.
I don't think it's a lot of material things.
But I noticed that if they didn't have the only copy of the life, Trinity doesn't
appear
in any copy of my home till now.
That's not a thing that the sense of Christian community is going to dispute with
you.
They're well aware of the fact that Trinity is not in the Bible.
The word isn't there and the vocabulary isn't there.
So what they do is find what seems to tell them it might be true.
This is like that thing I said you can always find something that makes it look
like you
might be right.
And so I said that the moon is made of cheese I can tell you it's the same color.
Looks like I might be right.
You can do that with the Bible.
If you say Jesus is God you can find some things that look like you might be right.
You can find a place where he's reported to have said who honors me honors God.
Sounds like maybe he's saying he's God.
But maybe not.
Corrances who is loyal to the messenger is loyal to Allah.
Doesn't mean they're the same person.
In the same sense neither does it necessarily mean that Jesus says who honors me
honors
God means I am God.
But it might be so you use that.
And so you take what looks like it might help you.
And that's the closest you can come to trying to defend that idea.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yes yes sir.
was that they would begin to ask.
And my question is,
may the question of non-
the
both of them are a description of a state of affairs. Muslims not a label
you wear or a badge or something. It's supposed to describe you.
You have an I which says it talks about some people who
Islam was explained to them and their comment was, oh we were Muslims before this.
They didn't call it Islam. They didn't say we're Muslims.
But when somebody said, well Islam is like this, they said, oh well then we're
Muslims.
We have been before I talked to you I was a Muslim.
You see that's the point. So that I know there are people who say
you shouldn't give the Quran to anyone except the Muslim. How do you know?
You see, who's a Muslim? That's supposed to describe him.
What he's like. Doesn't mean what he calls himself.
Maybe he's never heard the word. That's the, tell you a lot of stories that way.
There's a man that I met who had a cousin going to school in Germany in
Stuttgart and they had an Islamic center on the campus.
And it was an old man. It came by there and talked to them three different
occasions and local man. And he was taken to hospital.
Sometimes they didn't see him and he was told he's dying.
He'd be dead in a few hours. His family sent for the priest.
And he heard them saying this in his hospital room. He said, don't bring the
priest.
He says you go to the side of such a place as you find some young men there,
bring them. And they went and they found the woman was this man's cousin,
this friend of mine. They came to his hospital room. He says, you're my witnesses.
I accept Islam. What do I say? He made the Shahada and he died.
Now, it isn't really accurate to say he became a Muslim the day he died.
He might have been a Muslim for 50 years before that.
But he never heard of Islam. He knows what Islam is. He knows what submission is.
He has talk when all of this. But when he met his first contact with Islam,
it showed him this is what Islam is. He said, this is me.
I've been a Muslim all this time, you see. And then he simply makes it public.
That's all you're saying, you're my witnesses. That's not the magic word.
There is a poor store that shouldn't do the full-on tsunami.
And he used to be honest to, on the back of the evening.
So, the name shouldn't work without him.
Yes, well...
As a strange point of view, as I said, if you give somebody the crime,
probably you're giving him a translation anyway. So it doesn't really matter what
he does.
It's not the Quran. Probably it's the translation.
But besides that, if somebody wants to insist that you can't give the Quran to
somebody,
they're not really aware of the history of it.
At that, Ahmadidah ran into this problem with somebody who said to him,
you can't give the Quran to a non-Muslim. He says, how about a piece of it?
He said, no, not a piece. He said, one verse, one ayah? No, no. Can't give any of
it.
So then he reminded him of how the Prophet sent letters to the non-Muslim kings
and quoted the Quran. He put Ayah in the letter.
Now the messengers didn't come to these kings and said, you have Wudu before I give
you this letter?
He'd have a letter for you. One man took and he sat on it.
He was in contempt. Now somebody tried to tell you, oh, but later there was a verse
revealed which said,
none shall touch it but those who are clean and so on. They don't know what they're
talking about.
That's a Meccan verse, not a Medina verse. The letters were sent from Medina.
That ayah was revealed in Meccah long before that time. The meaning of that verse
is, well, that's another subject,
but it's not this simple situation saying, no, unless this is a man who he comes to
the jumah every Friday,
he can't touch the Quran. It's a little more complex than that.
I don't want to really go into it, but you don't just chop it off like that. It's
much more to it than that.
I mean, for that matter, who were the Muslims to start with?
What made the Muslims worth the revelation as they heard it piece by piece?
They didn't become Muslims and then said, do you have a revelation that I can
touch?
It was a revelation that won them over. That's the way it's supposed to work even
now.
But again, it's an imaginary problem usually because you're not getting somebody an
Arabic copy anyway.
I guess that's all our time.