'and if any one believes in Allah, ((Allah)) guides his heart (aright): for Allah knows all things'. [Quran:64:11]
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Islam in the United States?
Islam in the United States?
Written by Administrator
It is almost impossible to generalize about American Muslims: converts, immigrants, factory workers, doctors, all are making their own contribution to America’s future. This complex community is unified by a common faith, underpinned by a countrywide network of more than a thousand mosques.
Muslims were early arrivals in North America. By the eighteenth century there were may thousands of them, working as slaves on plantations. These early communities cut off from their heritage and families, inevitably lost their Islamic identity as time went by. Today many Afro-American Muslims play an important role in the Islamic community.
The nineteenth century, however, saw the beginnings of an influx of Arab Muslims, most of whom settled in the major industrial centers where they worshipped in hired rooms. The early twentieth century witnessed the arrival of several hundred thousand Muslims from Eastern Europe: the first Albanian mosque was opened in Maine in 1915; others soon followed, and a group of Polish Muslims opened a mosque in Brooklyn in 1928.
In 1947 the Washington Islamic Center was founded during the term of President Truman, and several nationwide organizations were set up in the fifties. During the fifties through seventies there was a great influx of Muslims from India and Pakistan who today represent a major segment of immigrant American Muslims. From the early twenties until the seventies a few Pseudo-Islamic organizations have appeared among indigenous Muslims using Islamic terminology to cover racist un-Islamic teachings: The nation of Islam (commonly called “Black Muslims”), The Moorish Science Temple, The Ansarullah.
Although they have always remained a small but vocal minority, some of their spokesmen continue to tarnish the image of Islam until today. Today the Muslim population in America is estimated by researchers at five to eight millions.
Written by Administrator
It is almost impossible to generalize about American Muslims: converts, immigrants, factory workers, doctors, all are making their own contribution to America’s future. This complex community is unified by a common faith, underpinned by a countrywide network of more than a thousand mosques.
Muslims were early arrivals in North America. By the eighteenth century there were may thousands of them, working as slaves on plantations. These early communities cut off from their heritage and families, inevitably lost their Islamic identity as time went by. Today many Afro-American Muslims play an important role in the Islamic community.
The nineteenth century, however, saw the beginnings of an influx of Arab Muslims, most of whom settled in the major industrial centers where they worshipped in hired rooms. The early twentieth century witnessed the arrival of several hundred thousand Muslims from Eastern Europe: the first Albanian mosque was opened in Maine in 1915; others soon followed, and a group of Polish Muslims opened a mosque in Brooklyn in 1928.
In 1947 the Washington Islamic Center was founded during the term of President Truman, and several nationwide organizations were set up in the fifties. During the fifties through seventies there was a great influx of Muslims from India and Pakistan who today represent a major segment of immigrant American Muslims. From the early twenties until the seventies a few Pseudo-Islamic organizations have appeared among indigenous Muslims using Islamic terminology to cover racist un-Islamic teachings: The nation of Islam (commonly called “Black Muslims”), The Moorish Science Temple, The Ansarullah.
Although they have always remained a small but vocal minority, some of their spokesmen continue to tarnish the image of Islam until today. Today the Muslim population in America is estimated by researchers at five to eight millions.
The Hoax of the Numerical Miracle of the Qur’aan
The Hoax of the Numerical Miracle of the Qur’aan
Written by Dr. Bilal Philips
Rashad Khalifa, an Egyptian biochemist educated in the United States claimed to have discovered an intricate mathematical pattern involving 19 and its multiples throughout the Qur’aan and especially in what he calls the Qur’aanic initials which precede 29 chapters (Alif, Laam, Meem, etc.). However, when critics began checking his numbers, they found numerous discrepancies and some outright fabrications in his data
The most famous proponent of this idea was Rashad Khalifa, an Egyptian biochemist educated in the United States. According to Dr. Khalifa, there is a miraculous numerical code to the Qur’aan based on its “first” verse (Bismillahir-Rahmaanir-Raheem), which consists of 19 letters. This miraculous code is supposedly referred to in verse 30 of Chapter 74 (al-Muddath-thir) which states “Over it are 19.” Based on these two premises, Dr. Rashad claims to have discovered an intricate mathematical pattern involving 19 and its multiples throughout the Qur’aan and especially in what he calls the Qur’aanic initials which precede 29 chapters (Alif, Laam, Meem, etc.). From this discovery, Dr. Khalifa concludes that the complexity of this mathematical code’s pattern in a literary work of the Qur’aan’s size is far beyond human capabilities, and that it alone constitutes the only real miracle of the Qur’aan which proves its divine origin. He further concludes that 19 and its multiples represent the key to the correct interpretation of the Qur’aan and Islam, and the reason why 19 was chosen is that 19 means “God is One,” which is the message of the Qur’aan.
Many Muslims at first received Khalifa’s theories with uncritical enthusiasm. However, when more rigorous critics began checking his numbers, they found numerous discrepancies and some outright fabrications in his data. His claims were based on the number of times a given letter or word occurs in a given soorah or group of soorahs. It was discovered that he would sometimes treat hamzahs like alifs and sometimes he wouldn’t, depending on the totals he needed in a given soorah to confirm his theory. Sometimes he counted letters that weren’t there, sometimes he failed to count existing letters, sometimes he counted two words as one, sometimes he added to the Qur’aanic text and sometimes he deleted from it, all for the purpose of making the letter and word counts conform to his theory. On top of that, his letter counts changed over time, depending on whether he wanted to establish a pattern for a soorah by itself or as part of a group of soorahs. When confronted with inconsistencies in his data, he began claiming that certain verses had been inserted into the Qur’aan that did not belong there. After this clear statement of disbelief he went on to claim knowledge of the exact date of the Day of Judgment and eventually claimed prophethood for himself. He attracted a group of followers in Tucson, Arizona, but his career was cut short when he was stabbed to death by an unknown assailant in 1990.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. See Rashad Khalifa’s presentation of his theory in the article “Problem of 19,” Impact International, 13-26 Nov., 1981, pp.14-15.
2. Quran: Visual Presentation of The Miracle, pp.70-73, 243.Note: This calculation is based on the Abjad system of numerology in which the letters of the Arabic alphabet are given numerical values, a system borrowed from the Jewish mystical system known as Kabbalah.
3. See Mission to America, pp. 137-168. A detailed refutation of this theory can be found in my book, The Quran’s Numerical Miracle: Hoax and Heresy.
Written by Dr. Bilal Philips
Rashad Khalifa, an Egyptian biochemist educated in the United States claimed to have discovered an intricate mathematical pattern involving 19 and its multiples throughout the Qur’aan and especially in what he calls the Qur’aanic initials which precede 29 chapters (Alif, Laam, Meem, etc.). However, when critics began checking his numbers, they found numerous discrepancies and some outright fabrications in his data
The most famous proponent of this idea was Rashad Khalifa, an Egyptian biochemist educated in the United States. According to Dr. Khalifa, there is a miraculous numerical code to the Qur’aan based on its “first” verse (Bismillahir-Rahmaanir-Raheem), which consists of 19 letters. This miraculous code is supposedly referred to in verse 30 of Chapter 74 (al-Muddath-thir) which states “Over it are 19.” Based on these two premises, Dr. Rashad claims to have discovered an intricate mathematical pattern involving 19 and its multiples throughout the Qur’aan and especially in what he calls the Qur’aanic initials which precede 29 chapters (Alif, Laam, Meem, etc.). From this discovery, Dr. Khalifa concludes that the complexity of this mathematical code’s pattern in a literary work of the Qur’aan’s size is far beyond human capabilities, and that it alone constitutes the only real miracle of the Qur’aan which proves its divine origin. He further concludes that 19 and its multiples represent the key to the correct interpretation of the Qur’aan and Islam, and the reason why 19 was chosen is that 19 means “God is One,” which is the message of the Qur’aan.
Many Muslims at first received Khalifa’s theories with uncritical enthusiasm. However, when more rigorous critics began checking his numbers, they found numerous discrepancies and some outright fabrications in his data. His claims were based on the number of times a given letter or word occurs in a given soorah or group of soorahs. It was discovered that he would sometimes treat hamzahs like alifs and sometimes he wouldn’t, depending on the totals he needed in a given soorah to confirm his theory. Sometimes he counted letters that weren’t there, sometimes he failed to count existing letters, sometimes he counted two words as one, sometimes he added to the Qur’aanic text and sometimes he deleted from it, all for the purpose of making the letter and word counts conform to his theory. On top of that, his letter counts changed over time, depending on whether he wanted to establish a pattern for a soorah by itself or as part of a group of soorahs. When confronted with inconsistencies in his data, he began claiming that certain verses had been inserted into the Qur’aan that did not belong there. After this clear statement of disbelief he went on to claim knowledge of the exact date of the Day of Judgment and eventually claimed prophethood for himself. He attracted a group of followers in Tucson, Arizona, but his career was cut short when he was stabbed to death by an unknown assailant in 1990.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. See Rashad Khalifa’s presentation of his theory in the article “Problem of 19,” Impact International, 13-26 Nov., 1981, pp.14-15.
2. Quran: Visual Presentation of The Miracle, pp.70-73, 243.Note: This calculation is based on the Abjad system of numerology in which the letters of the Arabic alphabet are given numerical values, a system borrowed from the Jewish mystical system known as Kabbalah.
3. See Mission to America, pp. 137-168. A detailed refutation of this theory can be found in my book, The Quran’s Numerical Miracle: Hoax and Heresy.
War on Drugs began 14 Centuries ago
War on Drugs began 14 Centuries ago
Written by Dr Bilal Philips
Page 1 of 3
The State of Qatar is to mark Anti-Drugs Day on June 26 as part of a global campaign against illicit drugs. The production, sale and consumption of intoxicating addictive drugs have become a world-wide problem. Today, hardly any country is safe from its destructive influence. The number of lives lost and ruined yearly because of drugs is unimaginable.
Furthermore, the problem has been increasing exponentially with every decade. Due to the increased awareness of law-enforcement agencies around the world to the problem, an international war against drugs was declared some years ago and international bodies, like the UN, have made it a significant part of their agenda.
However, for one-fifth of the world’s population, the anti-drugs campaign began 1,400 years ago, when the rest of the world was drowning in drug-crazed debauchery. It began in a small city called Madinah, in the north of Arabia when the following Qur’anic verses (5: 90-91) were first revealed to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and his followers:
“O Believers! Intoxicants, gambling, idolatry and fortune-telling are abominations devised by Satan. So, avoid them in order to be successful. Satan seeks to stir up enmity and hatred among you through intoxicants and gambling, and hinder you from the remembrance of Allah and from regular prayer. So, will you not then desist?”(Qur'an, 5:90-91)
The term used in the revelation, khamr, refers to all forms of intoxicating drugs as Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) stated, “Every intoxicant is khamr and every form of khamr is haraam (forbidden).” The Prophet (peace be upon him) was also quoted as saying: “Every intoxicant and every narcotic is unlawful,” and, “If a substance intoxicates when taken in large quantities then even small quantities of it are forbidden.”
The most common and popular intoxicating drug in the seventh century was alcohol and it remains until today, in spite of the wide variety of synthetic drugs which are currently on the market. Consequently, its production, sale and consumption were all absolutely abolished with the revelation of this verse in the heart of Arabia 14 centuries ago.
Clauses in the Prohibition
It is worth noting that the prohibition of drugs in these two Qur’anic verses addresses a number of socio-religious issues with far-reaching implications.
Label: Branding Drugs as an Abomination (Rijs).
By labeling drugs as filth in this verse, Allah addresses the natural inclination of human psychology to avoid what is filthy, dirty and nasty. No matter how clean and pure something might seem at first, once someone informs that it is, in fact, impure and filthy, humans are naturally inclined to avoid it. The divine label of “filth” also counters the various enticing names which people may give to drugs, like ecstasy, ice, etc. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) also referred to drugs as filth saying, “Intoxicants are the mother of all filthy and evil acts.”
Classification: Equating drugs to Gambling and Idolatry
The Almighty put intoxicating substances in the same category as gambling, where most people lose their savings, become addicted and destroy their lives. The harm of gambling is so well known that most countries have laws prohibiting most of its forms. Taking drugs is a big gamble. Many people die from it and most have their lives ruined. Only a few who become addicted to it manage to escape its clutches and return to a normal life.
In these verses drug consumption is also put on par with sacrifice to false gods; something so objectionable that most societies today have abandoned it. When a person takes drugs, he sacrifices his health, his wealth and his faith to the false gods which his own desires have become, as the Almighty said,
“Have you seen the one who makes his desires his god?” (Qur’an)
Health and wealth are blessings from God which are to be used in beneficial ways pleasing to God. They are responsibilities about which everyone will be asked on the Day of Judgment. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said,
“No one’s feet will move from his place of resurrection until he is asked about five things: his health and how he used it, his wealth from where he earned it and how he spent it, ...”
Drug consumption is also made equivalent to fortunetelling, which is absolutely forbidden in Islam. Fortunetelling, which claims knowledge of the unseen and the future belonging exclusively to God, is a major act of disbelief. Thus, Allah implies that the very faith of those who consume drugs comes into question. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) reiterated this point by saying, “A person is not a believer while he drinks alcohol.”
By classifying drugs on a par with games of chance, idolatrous practices and the fortunetelling, all of which have been pronounced as absolutely forbidden, the prohibition of drugs is further emphasized.
Satanic Origin: Branding them as devised by Satan.
Allah identified the origin of drugs for humans to realize that they are weapons of their most avowed enemy, Satan. In the battle for human souls, Satan uses a variety of tools which he beautifies and makes alluring in order to trap human beings.
Avoidance: Emphasizing the Prohibition by using Avoidance.
Allah’s use of the imperative ‘avoid’ makes the injunction much stronger and more comprehensive than it would have been had the word ‘prohibited’ been used instead. The implication here is that one should not only refrain from the consumption of drugs but also anything to do with their production and distribution should be avoided. Consequently, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said,
“Ten people are cursed due to intoxicants, the one who prepares it, the one for whom it was prepared, the one who consumes it, the one who carries it, the one to whom it is carried, the one who pours it, the one who sells it, the one who benefits from its sale, the one who buys it and the one for whom it was bought.”
He further emphasized the importance of avoidance by stating, “One should not sit at a table at which alcohol is consumed.” Furthermore, the Prophet (peace be upon him) prohibited Muslims from even keeping the containers in which alcohol was traditionally kept.
Success: Linking the avoidance of Drugs to Prosperity
In the above verse, the Almighty also made the avoidance of intoxicants a precondition for prosperity. People naturally desire success and wealth and they despise failure and poverty. Thus, Allah addresses the human psyche by promising success to those who avoid intoxicants. When the wealth normally consumed by addicts is recycled, the financial benefits to society are quite tangible. However, the social benefits to both the individual and family are even more priceless. Furthermore, real wealth, is as the Prophet (peace be upon him) said “richness of the heart and soul, and not an abundance of property.” It is contentment which those who take drugs seek but never find, and that only comes from a sober search for God.
Ultimate success is paradise, so the Prophet (peace be upon him) informed that,
“One who consumes drugs and does not repent will not drink it in the Hereafter even if he enters Paradise.”
Sows Discord and Hatred
In these verses, the Almighty points out that Satan uses drugs to create enmity among people. It has been proven statistically that the majority of hate-crimes are committed by those under the influence of drugs.
Hinders Remembrance of God and Prayer
The Almighty warned of the most evil consequence of drug consumption; that it prevents people from remembering God and making regular prayer, which is their regular means of remaining in contact with God. Once the consciousness of God is lost, corruption quickly fills the vacuum and those under the influence easily commit the most heinous of crimes without any sense of shame or morality. Intoxicated people are very susceptible to the most perverse suggestions. They lose their shyness and moral values leading to some of the most incredibly evil acts.
Reports of drug-crazed fathers raping their own baby daughters, husbands killing their wives and eating them, and so on, abound in newspapers around the world. In one narration from the Prophet (peace be upon him) he was reported to have said,
“Intoxicants are the mother of despicable acts and the greatest of major sins. Whoever consumes them abandons regular prayer, and rapes his mother or his aunt.”
Prayer is a deterrent against indecency and sinfulness, as the Almighty said (Qur’an) and it is the foundation of remembrance of God. Allah points out that the consumption of drugs breaks the believers’ main link with God and thereby destroys spiritual well-being. In order to further emphasize its danger to prayer, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said,
“The prayer of one who drinks alcohol will not be accepted for forty days and nights.”
A Rhetorical Question
This verse is concluded with a rhetorical question, “Will you not, then, desist?” This grammatical construction creates the strongest possible threat. On hearing it, the Prophet’s companion’s response was, “We do, Our Lord: We do!” After hearing all the expressions of prohibition and grasping their implications, can an intelligent person ignore warning? This question addresses common sense and reason. It invites the thinking person to make the necessary steps to help remove this destructive channel from society.
History Repeats Itself
Descriptions of Madinah at the time when these verses were revealed to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) illustrate the impact that they had on the fledgling community there. Historians reported that the streets of Madinah flowed with wine, as containers were broken and poured in the streets, and even those who had cups of wine in their hands and others who had wine glasses at their lips, stopped immediately and emptied them in the streets.
The prohibition of drugs has remained a way of life for Muslims from that day until today. Though some elements of Muslim society have indulged at different points in history, and many modern Muslim governments have become lax and permissive, for the vast majority of Muslims, the production and consumption of drugs remains prohibited.
In the West and East, governments of countries like, USA, Canada, Russia, etc., have at varying times in the 20th century and for varying lengths of time prohibited the production, sale and consumptions of alcohol, however, these periods of prohibition all came to an end. Drugs cannot be eliminated by legislation alone. Legislation is a beginning, it is a tool, but the will to implement the legislation has to come from the power of faith within the population as a whole. The various successful anti-addiction programmes, like Alcoholics Anonymous, which were developed in the secular West all require individuals trying to overcome their addictions to call on God, the Higher Power, to help them succeed.
Written by Dr Bilal Philips
Page 1 of 3
The State of Qatar is to mark Anti-Drugs Day on June 26 as part of a global campaign against illicit drugs. The production, sale and consumption of intoxicating addictive drugs have become a world-wide problem. Today, hardly any country is safe from its destructive influence. The number of lives lost and ruined yearly because of drugs is unimaginable.
Furthermore, the problem has been increasing exponentially with every decade. Due to the increased awareness of law-enforcement agencies around the world to the problem, an international war against drugs was declared some years ago and international bodies, like the UN, have made it a significant part of their agenda.
However, for one-fifth of the world’s population, the anti-drugs campaign began 1,400 years ago, when the rest of the world was drowning in drug-crazed debauchery. It began in a small city called Madinah, in the north of Arabia when the following Qur’anic verses (5: 90-91) were first revealed to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and his followers:
“O Believers! Intoxicants, gambling, idolatry and fortune-telling are abominations devised by Satan. So, avoid them in order to be successful. Satan seeks to stir up enmity and hatred among you through intoxicants and gambling, and hinder you from the remembrance of Allah and from regular prayer. So, will you not then desist?”(Qur'an, 5:90-91)
The term used in the revelation, khamr, refers to all forms of intoxicating drugs as Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) stated, “Every intoxicant is khamr and every form of khamr is haraam (forbidden).” The Prophet (peace be upon him) was also quoted as saying: “Every intoxicant and every narcotic is unlawful,” and, “If a substance intoxicates when taken in large quantities then even small quantities of it are forbidden.”
The most common and popular intoxicating drug in the seventh century was alcohol and it remains until today, in spite of the wide variety of synthetic drugs which are currently on the market. Consequently, its production, sale and consumption were all absolutely abolished with the revelation of this verse in the heart of Arabia 14 centuries ago.
Clauses in the Prohibition
It is worth noting that the prohibition of drugs in these two Qur’anic verses addresses a number of socio-religious issues with far-reaching implications.
Label: Branding Drugs as an Abomination (Rijs).
By labeling drugs as filth in this verse, Allah addresses the natural inclination of human psychology to avoid what is filthy, dirty and nasty. No matter how clean and pure something might seem at first, once someone informs that it is, in fact, impure and filthy, humans are naturally inclined to avoid it. The divine label of “filth” also counters the various enticing names which people may give to drugs, like ecstasy, ice, etc. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) also referred to drugs as filth saying, “Intoxicants are the mother of all filthy and evil acts.”
Classification: Equating drugs to Gambling and Idolatry
The Almighty put intoxicating substances in the same category as gambling, where most people lose their savings, become addicted and destroy their lives. The harm of gambling is so well known that most countries have laws prohibiting most of its forms. Taking drugs is a big gamble. Many people die from it and most have their lives ruined. Only a few who become addicted to it manage to escape its clutches and return to a normal life.
In these verses drug consumption is also put on par with sacrifice to false gods; something so objectionable that most societies today have abandoned it. When a person takes drugs, he sacrifices his health, his wealth and his faith to the false gods which his own desires have become, as the Almighty said,
“Have you seen the one who makes his desires his god?” (Qur’an)
Health and wealth are blessings from God which are to be used in beneficial ways pleasing to God. They are responsibilities about which everyone will be asked on the Day of Judgment. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said,
“No one’s feet will move from his place of resurrection until he is asked about five things: his health and how he used it, his wealth from where he earned it and how he spent it, ...”
Drug consumption is also made equivalent to fortunetelling, which is absolutely forbidden in Islam. Fortunetelling, which claims knowledge of the unseen and the future belonging exclusively to God, is a major act of disbelief. Thus, Allah implies that the very faith of those who consume drugs comes into question. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) reiterated this point by saying, “A person is not a believer while he drinks alcohol.”
By classifying drugs on a par with games of chance, idolatrous practices and the fortunetelling, all of which have been pronounced as absolutely forbidden, the prohibition of drugs is further emphasized.
Satanic Origin: Branding them as devised by Satan.
Allah identified the origin of drugs for humans to realize that they are weapons of their most avowed enemy, Satan. In the battle for human souls, Satan uses a variety of tools which he beautifies and makes alluring in order to trap human beings.
Avoidance: Emphasizing the Prohibition by using Avoidance.
Allah’s use of the imperative ‘avoid’ makes the injunction much stronger and more comprehensive than it would have been had the word ‘prohibited’ been used instead. The implication here is that one should not only refrain from the consumption of drugs but also anything to do with their production and distribution should be avoided. Consequently, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said,
“Ten people are cursed due to intoxicants, the one who prepares it, the one for whom it was prepared, the one who consumes it, the one who carries it, the one to whom it is carried, the one who pours it, the one who sells it, the one who benefits from its sale, the one who buys it and the one for whom it was bought.”
He further emphasized the importance of avoidance by stating, “One should not sit at a table at which alcohol is consumed.” Furthermore, the Prophet (peace be upon him) prohibited Muslims from even keeping the containers in which alcohol was traditionally kept.
Success: Linking the avoidance of Drugs to Prosperity
In the above verse, the Almighty also made the avoidance of intoxicants a precondition for prosperity. People naturally desire success and wealth and they despise failure and poverty. Thus, Allah addresses the human psyche by promising success to those who avoid intoxicants. When the wealth normally consumed by addicts is recycled, the financial benefits to society are quite tangible. However, the social benefits to both the individual and family are even more priceless. Furthermore, real wealth, is as the Prophet (peace be upon him) said “richness of the heart and soul, and not an abundance of property.” It is contentment which those who take drugs seek but never find, and that only comes from a sober search for God.
Ultimate success is paradise, so the Prophet (peace be upon him) informed that,
“One who consumes drugs and does not repent will not drink it in the Hereafter even if he enters Paradise.”
Sows Discord and Hatred
In these verses, the Almighty points out that Satan uses drugs to create enmity among people. It has been proven statistically that the majority of hate-crimes are committed by those under the influence of drugs.
Hinders Remembrance of God and Prayer
The Almighty warned of the most evil consequence of drug consumption; that it prevents people from remembering God and making regular prayer, which is their regular means of remaining in contact with God. Once the consciousness of God is lost, corruption quickly fills the vacuum and those under the influence easily commit the most heinous of crimes without any sense of shame or morality. Intoxicated people are very susceptible to the most perverse suggestions. They lose their shyness and moral values leading to some of the most incredibly evil acts.
Reports of drug-crazed fathers raping their own baby daughters, husbands killing their wives and eating them, and so on, abound in newspapers around the world. In one narration from the Prophet (peace be upon him) he was reported to have said,
“Intoxicants are the mother of despicable acts and the greatest of major sins. Whoever consumes them abandons regular prayer, and rapes his mother or his aunt.”
Prayer is a deterrent against indecency and sinfulness, as the Almighty said (Qur’an) and it is the foundation of remembrance of God. Allah points out that the consumption of drugs breaks the believers’ main link with God and thereby destroys spiritual well-being. In order to further emphasize its danger to prayer, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said,
“The prayer of one who drinks alcohol will not be accepted for forty days and nights.”
A Rhetorical Question
This verse is concluded with a rhetorical question, “Will you not, then, desist?” This grammatical construction creates the strongest possible threat. On hearing it, the Prophet’s companion’s response was, “We do, Our Lord: We do!” After hearing all the expressions of prohibition and grasping their implications, can an intelligent person ignore warning? This question addresses common sense and reason. It invites the thinking person to make the necessary steps to help remove this destructive channel from society.
History Repeats Itself
Descriptions of Madinah at the time when these verses were revealed to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) illustrate the impact that they had on the fledgling community there. Historians reported that the streets of Madinah flowed with wine, as containers were broken and poured in the streets, and even those who had cups of wine in their hands and others who had wine glasses at their lips, stopped immediately and emptied them in the streets.
The prohibition of drugs has remained a way of life for Muslims from that day until today. Though some elements of Muslim society have indulged at different points in history, and many modern Muslim governments have become lax and permissive, for the vast majority of Muslims, the production and consumption of drugs remains prohibited.
In the West and East, governments of countries like, USA, Canada, Russia, etc., have at varying times in the 20th century and for varying lengths of time prohibited the production, sale and consumptions of alcohol, however, these periods of prohibition all came to an end. Drugs cannot be eliminated by legislation alone. Legislation is a beginning, it is a tool, but the will to implement the legislation has to come from the power of faith within the population as a whole. The various successful anti-addiction programmes, like Alcoholics Anonymous, which were developed in the secular West all require individuals trying to overcome their addictions to call on God, the Higher Power, to help them succeed.
Islam's Position on Polygamy
Islam's Position on Polygamy
Written by Dr. Bilal Philips
Muslims are often accused of being promiscuous because polygamy is legal in Islam.
1. Islam did not introduce polygamy. Unrestricted polygamy was practiced in most human societies throughout the world in every age. Islam regulated polygamy by limiting the number of wives and establishing responsibility in its practice.
2. Monogamy of the West inherited from Greece and Rome where men were restricted by law to one wife but were free to have as many mistresses among the majority slave population as they wished. In the West today, most married men have extramarital relations with mistresses, girlfriends and prostitutes. Consequently the Western claim to monogamy is false.
3. Monogamy illogical. If a man wishes to have a second wife whom he takes care of and whose children carry his name and he provides for he is considered a criminal, bigamist, who may be sentenced to years in jail. However, if he has numerous mistresses and illegitimate children his relation is considered legal.
4. Men created polygamous because of a need in human society. There is normally a surplus of women in most human societies.1 The surplus is a result of men dying in wars, violent crimes and women outliving men.2 The upsurge in homosexuality further increases the problem. If systems do not cater to the need of surplus women it will result in corruption in society. Example, Germany after World War II, when suggestions to legalize polygamy were rejected by the Church. Resulting in the legalization of prostitution. German prostitutes are considered as workers like any other profession. They receive health benefits and pay taxes like any other citizen. Furthermore, the rate of marriage has been steadily declining as each succeeding generation finds the institution of marriage more and more irrelevant.
5. Western anthropologists argue that polygamy is a genetic trait by which the strongest genes of the generation are passed on. Example, the lion king, the strongest of the pack, monopolizes the females thereby insuring that the next generation of lion cubs will be his offspring.
6. Institutional polygamy prevents the spread of diseases like Herpes and AIDS. Such venereal diseases spread in promiscuous societies where extra-marital affairs abound.
7. Polygamy protects the interests of women and children in society. Men, in Western society make the laws. They prefer to keep polygamy illegal because it absolves them of responsibility. Legalized polygamy would require them to spend on their additional wives and their offspring. Monogamy allows them to enjoy extra-marital affairs without economic consequence.
8. Only a minority will practice polygamy in Muslim society. In spite of polygamy being legal in Muslim countries, only 10-15% of Muslims in these countries practice polygamy. Although the majority of men would like to have more than one wife, they cannot afford the expense of maintaining more than one family. Even those who are financially capable of looking after additional families are often reluctant due to the psychological burdens of handling more than one wife. The family problems and marital disputes are multiplied in plural marriages.
9. Conditions have been added for polygamy in many Muslim countries. For example, in Egypt, the permission of the first wife must first be obtained. This and similar conditions are a result of colonial domination. No woman in her right mind will give her husband permission to take a second wife. Such a condition, in fact, negates the permission given by God in the Qur'an.
10. Others have accepted polygamy on condition that it not be for “lust”. That is, if the wife is ill, or unable to bear children, or unable to fulfill the husband's sexual needs, etc., taking a second wife is acceptable. Otherwise it becomes “lust” on the husband's part and is consequently not acceptable. The reality is that “lust” was involved in the marriage of the first wife. Why is it acceptable in the case of the first and not the second? As has already been pointed out, men are polygamous by nature. To try to curb it by such conditions will only lead to corruption in society.
11. Feminists may object to this male right by insisting that women should also be able to practice polygamy. However, a woman marrying four husbands would only increase the problem of surplus women. Furthermore, no child would accept his or her mother identifying the father by the “eeny meeny miney mo” method. The question which remains is, “If God is good and wishes good for His creatures, why did he legislate something which would be harmful to most women?” Divine legislation looks at the society as a whole seeking to maximize benefit. If a certain legislation benefits the majority of the society and causes some emotional harm to a minority, the general welfare of society is given precedence.
Written by Dr. Bilal Philips
Muslims are often accused of being promiscuous because polygamy is legal in Islam.
1. Islam did not introduce polygamy. Unrestricted polygamy was practiced in most human societies throughout the world in every age. Islam regulated polygamy by limiting the number of wives and establishing responsibility in its practice.
2. Monogamy of the West inherited from Greece and Rome where men were restricted by law to one wife but were free to have as many mistresses among the majority slave population as they wished. In the West today, most married men have extramarital relations with mistresses, girlfriends and prostitutes. Consequently the Western claim to monogamy is false.
3. Monogamy illogical. If a man wishes to have a second wife whom he takes care of and whose children carry his name and he provides for he is considered a criminal, bigamist, who may be sentenced to years in jail. However, if he has numerous mistresses and illegitimate children his relation is considered legal.
4. Men created polygamous because of a need in human society. There is normally a surplus of women in most human societies.1 The surplus is a result of men dying in wars, violent crimes and women outliving men.2 The upsurge in homosexuality further increases the problem. If systems do not cater to the need of surplus women it will result in corruption in society. Example, Germany after World War II, when suggestions to legalize polygamy were rejected by the Church. Resulting in the legalization of prostitution. German prostitutes are considered as workers like any other profession. They receive health benefits and pay taxes like any other citizen. Furthermore, the rate of marriage has been steadily declining as each succeeding generation finds the institution of marriage more and more irrelevant.
5. Western anthropologists argue that polygamy is a genetic trait by which the strongest genes of the generation are passed on. Example, the lion king, the strongest of the pack, monopolizes the females thereby insuring that the next generation of lion cubs will be his offspring.
6. Institutional polygamy prevents the spread of diseases like Herpes and AIDS. Such venereal diseases spread in promiscuous societies where extra-marital affairs abound.
7. Polygamy protects the interests of women and children in society. Men, in Western society make the laws. They prefer to keep polygamy illegal because it absolves them of responsibility. Legalized polygamy would require them to spend on their additional wives and their offspring. Monogamy allows them to enjoy extra-marital affairs without economic consequence.
8. Only a minority will practice polygamy in Muslim society. In spite of polygamy being legal in Muslim countries, only 10-15% of Muslims in these countries practice polygamy. Although the majority of men would like to have more than one wife, they cannot afford the expense of maintaining more than one family. Even those who are financially capable of looking after additional families are often reluctant due to the psychological burdens of handling more than one wife. The family problems and marital disputes are multiplied in plural marriages.
9. Conditions have been added for polygamy in many Muslim countries. For example, in Egypt, the permission of the first wife must first be obtained. This and similar conditions are a result of colonial domination. No woman in her right mind will give her husband permission to take a second wife. Such a condition, in fact, negates the permission given by God in the Qur'an.
10. Others have accepted polygamy on condition that it not be for “lust”. That is, if the wife is ill, or unable to bear children, or unable to fulfill the husband's sexual needs, etc., taking a second wife is acceptable. Otherwise it becomes “lust” on the husband's part and is consequently not acceptable. The reality is that “lust” was involved in the marriage of the first wife. Why is it acceptable in the case of the first and not the second? As has already been pointed out, men are polygamous by nature. To try to curb it by such conditions will only lead to corruption in society.
11. Feminists may object to this male right by insisting that women should also be able to practice polygamy. However, a woman marrying four husbands would only increase the problem of surplus women. Furthermore, no child would accept his or her mother identifying the father by the “eeny meeny miney mo” method. The question which remains is, “If God is good and wishes good for His creatures, why did he legislate something which would be harmful to most women?” Divine legislation looks at the society as a whole seeking to maximize benefit. If a certain legislation benefits the majority of the society and causes some emotional harm to a minority, the general welfare of society is given precedence.
Who was Muhammad ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhaab?
Who was Muhammad ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhaab?
Written by Dr. Bilal Philips
Muhammad ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhaab, was born in 1703 in the city of al-‘Uyaynah, seventy kilometres northwest of Riyadh, the current capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. His father ‘Abdul-Wahhaab ibn Sulaymaan, was himself a notable scholar and the judge of al-‘Uyainah and his grandfather, Sulayman ibn ‘Alee, was one of the leading scholars of the region during his lifetime.
Ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhaab acquired his primary Islamic education from his father and by the age of ten he had memorized the whole Qur’aan by heart and had begun the study of the major books on Tafseer (exegesis), Hadeeth and Fiqh. When he began to speak out against the innovations and pagan practices in ‘Uyainah, his father was dismissed from his post and the family was obliged to leave al-‘Uyaynah for the nearby town of Huraymilah in 1726. Muhammad remained for some time in al-‘Uyaynah attempting to rectify the polytheistic tendencies of its residents, before joining his father in Huraymilah.
On attaining the age of maturity, he went for Hajj and later proceeded to Madeenah, where he studied under, ‘Abdullaah ibn Ibraaheem an-Najdee and Muhammad Hayaat Sindee (teacher of Shah Waliullah Dihlawi) for an extended period. In Madeenah, much of his time was spent studying the works of Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328). Muhammad travelled extensively to the centers of learning to the north of Arabia. He first went to Iraq and spent four years in Basrah in a village called al-Majmoo‘ah. There he preached against innovations and pagan tendencies, without much success. He then intended to visit Damascus, but lost the money needed for the journey, and instead returned to Huraymilah by way of al-Ahsa. There is an anonymous account that he spent five years in Baghdad where he got married. He then went to Kurdistan for a year, two years in Hamadhan after which he went to Isfahan in Iran at the commencement of Nadir Shah’s reign (1736). There he studied Sufism for four years before journeying to Qumm.
By the 18th century, the practice of Islaam in Arabia and much of the Muslim world was particularly degenerate. Grave worship was rampant involving veneration of tombs, performance of religious rites at such tombs, praying to saints, angels, prophets and even the Jinn. Fortune telling and magic were popular forms of entertainment and Sufism in its most corrupt forms was also wide spread with individuals claiming divine inspiration and the right to discard the obligatory rites of worship. In Najd reverence was even being paid to sacred trees and gifts of food were placed on graves.
On Muhammad ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhaab’s return to Huraymilah, he began, once again, to call to his doctrines of reformation; a return to Islaam of the first three generations, as set forth in a manual, Kitaab at-Tawheed, which he compiled there. He met with some initial success, but also with much opposition. After his father’s death in 1740, he returned to al-‘Uyaynah under the protection of its governor, ‘Uthmaan ibn Mu‘ammar, who swore loyalty to the propagation and defence of Tawheed which he was preaching. The alliance was cemented by Muhammad’s marriage to al-Jawharah, the aunt of ‘Uthmaan ibn Mu‘ammar. Muhammad then ambitiously embarked on a program to free al-‘Uyaynah from the numerous tombs, caves, and trees, etc., which were worshipped by Muslims of that area. The most ambitious project was the demolition of the tomb of Zayd ibn al-Khattaab, a Companion of the Prophet () and brother of the second caliph, who had died in the battle of Yamaamah against the false prophet, Musaylamah. However, his own brother, Sulayman, wrote a tract against him, declaring him to be a heretic. During this period a woman came to him for purification form the sin of adultery and after investigation proved her to be of sound mind, he ordered that she be stoned to death. People began migrating to ‘Uyainah to seek his guidance in increasingly larger and larger numbers.
His views attracted attention outside ‘Uyainah and Sulayman ibn Shamis al-‘Anazee, prince of al-Ahsa, sensing potential danger wrote to the governor of al-‘Uyaynah, demanding that he be expelled. Muhammad departed with his family and was received at Dar‘iyyah (at the time a village of 70 houses near present day Riyadh) where the chieftain, Muhammad ibn Sa‘ood welcomed him, accepted his doctrines and pledged to him its defence and propagation. The alliance of Ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhaab, as religious head, with Muhammad ibn Sa‘ood, as political and military chief, was sealed by the marriage of Ibn Sa‘ood’s daughter to the reformer.
Within a year of Muhammad ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhaab’s arrival at Dar‘iyyah, he won the assent of all the inhabitants except four, who subsequently left. He proceeded to build a simple mosque with a floor of uncarpeted gravel where he taught his doctrines of reform. The people of Dar‘iyyah beginning with Ameer Muhammad ibn Sa‘ood and his family became his students. Dar‘iyyah became a bustling center of learning with a constant flow of students eager to learn from the Shaykh. Scholars from Makkah, Madeenah and Yemen who had responded positively to his communications, supported his call to reform and some of them joined him. People started migrating to Dar‘iyyah in large numbers. Shaykh Muhammad lectured continually in the various branches of Islamic knowledge namely, ‘Aqeedah, Tafseer, Fiqh, Hadeeth, Seerah and Arabic language. His enemies accused him of sorcery, heresy, blasphemy, and some excommunicated him. However, this did not deter the Shaykh. Instead, he debated with his opponents logically and respectfully and managed to win some of them over to his mission. Delegates from every corner of the Arabian Peninsula visited Dar‘iyyah to pledge their support to the Shaykh, to study with him and return to their areas to teach the same to their people.
Shaykh Muhammad continued to write letters to the rulers, and scholars of Eastern and Western Arabia as well as the scholars of Syria, Iraq, India and Yemen drawing their attention to pagan practices which had become rampant among Muslims. In 1746 Jihaad was officially declared against all who did not accept the correct understanding of Tawheed which the Shaykh taught, as they were considered non-believers, guilty of shirk and apostasy. The movement soon became involved in a military struggle with the ruler of Riyadh, Dahhaam ibn Dawwaas which, commencing in 1747, lasted for 28 years. During this period, Ibn Sa‘ood and his son ‘Abdul-‘Azeez, who proved a capable general, gradually expanded the realm of the emerging state to include most of the town of eastern Arabia.
A year after Ibn Sa‘ood’s death in 1765, ‘Abdul-‘Azeez sent a deputation to Makkah, which was honourably entertained by the Shareef, and satisfied the theologians appointed to discuss matters with it, that the “Wahhaabee” doctrine accorded with the math’hab or legal system of Ibn Hambal. In 1773, the most stubborn opponent of the movement, Dahhaam, fled from Riyadh, which was occupied by ‘Abdul-‘Azeez, who was now ruler of the whole of Najd, from Qaseem in the north to Kharj in the south. Meanwhile relations became strained with the new Shareef of Makkah, Suroor, who banned Wahhaabees, as they came to be called by their enemies, from making pilgrimage. However, owing to the difficulties that resulted to pilgrims from Iraq and Persia, this prohibition was withdrawn in 1785.
In 1792 Muhammad ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhaab died, at the age of 89. As a result of his continued Da‘wah, vigorous struggle and Jihaad in the way of Allaah for almost 50 years, the entire region of Najd was purified of grave worship, innovation (bid‘ah) and Sharee‘ah was established, mosques were filled with worshippers.
Most of the Shaykh’s time was spent in teaching and leading the emerging reform movement, consequently, his writings are few and they mostly took the form of brief compilations of hadeeths and Qur’aanic verses as well as sayings of the Companions and their students, and some condensed classics.
Kitaab at-Tawheed (the subject of this work), Kashf ash-Shubuhaat (Riyadh, 1968), Masaa’il al-Jaahiliyyah (Madeenah: al-Jaami‘ah al-Islaamiyyah, 1975), al-Usool ath-Thalaathah (), and Mukhtasar Seeratur-Rasool (a condensation of Ibn al-Qayyim’s Zaad al-Ma‘aad). A compilation of his works was made by Imaam Ibn Saud University entitled, Mu’allafaat ash-Shaykh al-Imaam Muhammad ibn ‘Abdil-Wahhaab.
Written by Dr. Bilal Philips
Muhammad ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhaab, was born in 1703 in the city of al-‘Uyaynah, seventy kilometres northwest of Riyadh, the current capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. His father ‘Abdul-Wahhaab ibn Sulaymaan, was himself a notable scholar and the judge of al-‘Uyainah and his grandfather, Sulayman ibn ‘Alee, was one of the leading scholars of the region during his lifetime.
Ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhaab acquired his primary Islamic education from his father and by the age of ten he had memorized the whole Qur’aan by heart and had begun the study of the major books on Tafseer (exegesis), Hadeeth and Fiqh. When he began to speak out against the innovations and pagan practices in ‘Uyainah, his father was dismissed from his post and the family was obliged to leave al-‘Uyaynah for the nearby town of Huraymilah in 1726. Muhammad remained for some time in al-‘Uyaynah attempting to rectify the polytheistic tendencies of its residents, before joining his father in Huraymilah.
On attaining the age of maturity, he went for Hajj and later proceeded to Madeenah, where he studied under, ‘Abdullaah ibn Ibraaheem an-Najdee and Muhammad Hayaat Sindee (teacher of Shah Waliullah Dihlawi) for an extended period. In Madeenah, much of his time was spent studying the works of Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328). Muhammad travelled extensively to the centers of learning to the north of Arabia. He first went to Iraq and spent four years in Basrah in a village called al-Majmoo‘ah. There he preached against innovations and pagan tendencies, without much success. He then intended to visit Damascus, but lost the money needed for the journey, and instead returned to Huraymilah by way of al-Ahsa. There is an anonymous account that he spent five years in Baghdad where he got married. He then went to Kurdistan for a year, two years in Hamadhan after which he went to Isfahan in Iran at the commencement of Nadir Shah’s reign (1736). There he studied Sufism for four years before journeying to Qumm.
By the 18th century, the practice of Islaam in Arabia and much of the Muslim world was particularly degenerate. Grave worship was rampant involving veneration of tombs, performance of religious rites at such tombs, praying to saints, angels, prophets and even the Jinn. Fortune telling and magic were popular forms of entertainment and Sufism in its most corrupt forms was also wide spread with individuals claiming divine inspiration and the right to discard the obligatory rites of worship. In Najd reverence was even being paid to sacred trees and gifts of food were placed on graves.
On Muhammad ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhaab’s return to Huraymilah, he began, once again, to call to his doctrines of reformation; a return to Islaam of the first three generations, as set forth in a manual, Kitaab at-Tawheed, which he compiled there. He met with some initial success, but also with much opposition. After his father’s death in 1740, he returned to al-‘Uyaynah under the protection of its governor, ‘Uthmaan ibn Mu‘ammar, who swore loyalty to the propagation and defence of Tawheed which he was preaching. The alliance was cemented by Muhammad’s marriage to al-Jawharah, the aunt of ‘Uthmaan ibn Mu‘ammar. Muhammad then ambitiously embarked on a program to free al-‘Uyaynah from the numerous tombs, caves, and trees, etc., which were worshipped by Muslims of that area. The most ambitious project was the demolition of the tomb of Zayd ibn al-Khattaab, a Companion of the Prophet () and brother of the second caliph, who had died in the battle of Yamaamah against the false prophet, Musaylamah. However, his own brother, Sulayman, wrote a tract against him, declaring him to be a heretic. During this period a woman came to him for purification form the sin of adultery and after investigation proved her to be of sound mind, he ordered that she be stoned to death. People began migrating to ‘Uyainah to seek his guidance in increasingly larger and larger numbers.
His views attracted attention outside ‘Uyainah and Sulayman ibn Shamis al-‘Anazee, prince of al-Ahsa, sensing potential danger wrote to the governor of al-‘Uyaynah, demanding that he be expelled. Muhammad departed with his family and was received at Dar‘iyyah (at the time a village of 70 houses near present day Riyadh) where the chieftain, Muhammad ibn Sa‘ood welcomed him, accepted his doctrines and pledged to him its defence and propagation. The alliance of Ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhaab, as religious head, with Muhammad ibn Sa‘ood, as political and military chief, was sealed by the marriage of Ibn Sa‘ood’s daughter to the reformer.
Within a year of Muhammad ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhaab’s arrival at Dar‘iyyah, he won the assent of all the inhabitants except four, who subsequently left. He proceeded to build a simple mosque with a floor of uncarpeted gravel where he taught his doctrines of reform. The people of Dar‘iyyah beginning with Ameer Muhammad ibn Sa‘ood and his family became his students. Dar‘iyyah became a bustling center of learning with a constant flow of students eager to learn from the Shaykh. Scholars from Makkah, Madeenah and Yemen who had responded positively to his communications, supported his call to reform and some of them joined him. People started migrating to Dar‘iyyah in large numbers. Shaykh Muhammad lectured continually in the various branches of Islamic knowledge namely, ‘Aqeedah, Tafseer, Fiqh, Hadeeth, Seerah and Arabic language. His enemies accused him of sorcery, heresy, blasphemy, and some excommunicated him. However, this did not deter the Shaykh. Instead, he debated with his opponents logically and respectfully and managed to win some of them over to his mission. Delegates from every corner of the Arabian Peninsula visited Dar‘iyyah to pledge their support to the Shaykh, to study with him and return to their areas to teach the same to their people.
Shaykh Muhammad continued to write letters to the rulers, and scholars of Eastern and Western Arabia as well as the scholars of Syria, Iraq, India and Yemen drawing their attention to pagan practices which had become rampant among Muslims. In 1746 Jihaad was officially declared against all who did not accept the correct understanding of Tawheed which the Shaykh taught, as they were considered non-believers, guilty of shirk and apostasy. The movement soon became involved in a military struggle with the ruler of Riyadh, Dahhaam ibn Dawwaas which, commencing in 1747, lasted for 28 years. During this period, Ibn Sa‘ood and his son ‘Abdul-‘Azeez, who proved a capable general, gradually expanded the realm of the emerging state to include most of the town of eastern Arabia.
A year after Ibn Sa‘ood’s death in 1765, ‘Abdul-‘Azeez sent a deputation to Makkah, which was honourably entertained by the Shareef, and satisfied the theologians appointed to discuss matters with it, that the “Wahhaabee” doctrine accorded with the math’hab or legal system of Ibn Hambal. In 1773, the most stubborn opponent of the movement, Dahhaam, fled from Riyadh, which was occupied by ‘Abdul-‘Azeez, who was now ruler of the whole of Najd, from Qaseem in the north to Kharj in the south. Meanwhile relations became strained with the new Shareef of Makkah, Suroor, who banned Wahhaabees, as they came to be called by their enemies, from making pilgrimage. However, owing to the difficulties that resulted to pilgrims from Iraq and Persia, this prohibition was withdrawn in 1785.
In 1792 Muhammad ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhaab died, at the age of 89. As a result of his continued Da‘wah, vigorous struggle and Jihaad in the way of Allaah for almost 50 years, the entire region of Najd was purified of grave worship, innovation (bid‘ah) and Sharee‘ah was established, mosques were filled with worshippers.
Most of the Shaykh’s time was spent in teaching and leading the emerging reform movement, consequently, his writings are few and they mostly took the form of brief compilations of hadeeths and Qur’aanic verses as well as sayings of the Companions and their students, and some condensed classics.
Kitaab at-Tawheed (the subject of this work), Kashf ash-Shubuhaat (Riyadh, 1968), Masaa’il al-Jaahiliyyah (Madeenah: al-Jaami‘ah al-Islaamiyyah, 1975), al-Usool ath-Thalaathah (), and Mukhtasar Seeratur-Rasool (a condensation of Ibn al-Qayyim’s Zaad al-Ma‘aad). A compilation of his works was made by Imaam Ibn Saud University entitled, Mu’allafaat ash-Shaykh al-Imaam Muhammad ibn ‘Abdil-Wahhaab.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
My Way to Islam by Dr. Bilal Philips
My Way To Islaam
Written by Dr. Bilal Philips
Page 1 of 6
I was born in Jamaica, which is an Island in the Caribbean, on the shores of Central America. I’m sure most of you know about it. It seems to be most important for Reggae, in the world of music, and rum for those who are into drugs. It is also known as an area of tourism.
I was born into a Christian family, my mother being an Anglican and my father a Presbyterian. My father’s father was one of the leading church scholars in Jamaica who had learned Greek and Hebrew, and was quite a figure in the world of Christian ministry.
I did not spend much time in Jamaica. At the age of 11, I migrated with my family to Canada; so I really don’t have too many recollections of religious practice there beyond, as a child, not wanting to put the penny in the plate. We were all given coins to take to church and when the plate was passed around you had to put the penny in. I remember doing so only because parents were there and you couldn’t put it in your pocket. But I used to do so reluctantly, wondering to myself “Why are we doing this? I would much prefer to use it to buy candy or something else. ”
What has left the biggest impression on me while growing up in Canada in my primary and secondary education was having to go swimming naked. We weren’t allowed to swim with swimming trunks, unless you had a special permit, something from the doctor to get you out of it. So we all had to go swimming naked and of course showers after gym were just in a big hall with showerheads and everybody showered naked. I felt shy about it. I couldn’t really understand why we had to do it, but this is what we had to do.
Much later in life, I came to realize that there was a philosophy behind this. This was something being introduced as a means of breaking down the feelings of shyness that people naturally have to exposing themselves in front of others. This is a product of the Darwinian approach to sociology and psychology wherein feelings of shyness are looked at as being a sickness, a sign of some kind of mental problem. Since animals are not shy; and we don’t find dogs and cats etc being shy of being naked amongst their kind, why should human beings be shy?
With regards to Christianity in my primary and secondary education, Christianity was Sunday school. Sunday school was where you met girls, and arranged parties, but in terms of religious instruction, although I guess it was going on, most of us as children or young people were oblivious to it.
My only exposure to Islaam at that time was in some of the cartoons that I watched. They gave an image of an Arab riding on a camel with a sword in one hand and the Qur’aan in the other; with the basic idea that you either accept the Qur’aan or lose your head. I can remember one song called, “A-hab the Arab”. Later on I came to find out that there was no Arabic name called Ahab, and there are no Arabs by the name of Ahab; but this was the name of the song, “A-hab the A-rab, Shaykh of the burning sands”. This was the image. And in terms of reading, the only reading material I can remember really is the “Thousand and One Nights”, which was basically a book of pornography, about the sexual lives of the sultans and the caliphs.
After completing high school, my family and I traveled to Malaysia. Both of my parents were teachers, and they came to Malaysia to join the Colombo plan. This was a project to help the Malaysian government in their educational program.
There my friends were mainly expats, and I can honestly say that there were no visible signs of Islaam in the society, beyond the impression which was made very clear to us as expats that you don’t mess with Malay girls, otherwise you will get killed. It had no connection with Islaam; it was just Malay really.
Years after becoming a Muslim and on making Hajj, I encountered a number of women in Makkah and Madeenah wearing white coverings, and they looked similar to the people that I had seen in Malaysia. I then asked a few of my friends who these people were, and they said that they were from Malaysia. I was very surprised because I had never seen women like that in Malaysia. My friends then explained to me that in Malaysia, women didn’t dress like that, but they would carry their Islaamic dress in a bag to the mosque. All the time I had spent in Malaysia, I had never seen these white garments covering their heads and bodies, because people didn’t wear it in the society!
During this period my parents adopted an Indonesian boy, whose name was Aws Suleiman. His name was contracted to “Wesman”. He was born in Malaysia but was from Indonesian parentage. And because of the fact that at the time, Indonesians who were born in Malaysia would not be given an opportunity for higher education beyond high school or A levels, he didn’t have a chance to go to University/College.
My mother had taken a liking to this particular boy, and being concerned about the fact that he didn’t have any future, wanted to take him to Canada so that he would be able to continue his education. As the Canadian government insisted that the only way he could be taken was if he was adopted, my parents adopted him. And so, my brother, my sister, and myself, lived together with him for some years there in Malaysia before going to Canada.
Now, here was a Muslim element in my family, which had no real impression on me. I should mention that according to Islaamic law adoption is not permissible. His father was dead and my parents took him in, and his name was changed. His family name was changed to our family name.
He was a quiet and shy Muslim. He never said anything to us about Islaam. Sometimes we opened his room door, and if he happened to be praying near the door, the door would bounce him in the head whilst in he was in prostration. We would close the door and ask each other, “What is he doing in there?” But I felt embarrassed to ask him about it and he never said anything to us though he was Muslim within the family. If my mother was preparing pork for all of us, she would prepare fish for him. We understood that he was eating different things than we ate. During the month of Ramadan my mother would get up early and prepare sahur for him, so he could fast. He fasted, he prayed, he did his basic Islaam in the family but he never said anything to us.
As for myself, during my school days I got involved in music. I came to be known as the “Jimmy Hendricks” of Sabah, emulating his style of dress and the type of music he used to play. I had my own rock group. This was basically the focus of my life until I finished off high school and decided to go back to Canada to further my education on a tertiary level in University. I was accepted into the University of Simon Fraser and I went to do a degree in biochemistry.
Simon Fraser University was at that time one of the more experimental universities in the sense that they were introducing the credit hour system. This was not followed by the other universities, which were following the British system of the single course throughout the year. What you found there was a great looseness in the whole structure of the University. There were a number of American students in this University who were influencing the others with their ideas. The professors in the liberal arts program, Sociology, Humanity, Sociology, Psychology and Anthropology, were from the Timothy Leery School.
Timothy Leery (who died a few years back and had his remains shot off into space on a rocket) was the discoverer of LSD, psycodelic drugs. At any rate these professors, following the tradition of Timothy Leery, used to begin classes by passing out a bag of marijuana, and after everybody had smoked up, discussion began. As I said Simon Fraser was quite different from most universities at the time. The situation was quite fluid.
At the same time, there was a separate introduction of ideas of Communism in the minds of the students. Though my major was Bio-chemistry, we had to take these other subjects as electives and these ideas of communism were being introduced so that they would guide and provide leadership for that student revolt. Eventually the campus was shut down and the students took over the administration. The protest at the time was against Canada’s involvement with America in the Vietnam War.
During this period I was directly involved and I began a conversion to what was called revolutionary politics. I scrapped Christianity because it was really something that was not implemented in my life so to speak. If somebody were to ask me if I was a Christian up to that point I would have said, “Yes I am a Christian”. But what it meant to be a Christian; that was left to the individual’s interpretation, and I guess that’s the way it is today for most people who are Christian.
I began to do a lot of reading in Marx/Leninist literature, and I was exposed briefly to some Islaam through the autobiography of Malcolm X. However, it was read as a part of required reading. For you to be a solid revolutionary in those days you had to read certain books. You just had to get through these books to be able to say, “I read these books”. So I read it amongst a lot of other books. There was some interesting information, probably I would say regarding his early life, in terms of the type of racial injustices that existed in America. This awoke me more, along with other such books, to the oppression which existed in Western society and made me more open to embrace the Communist ideal of a just society. The Communist banners of equality, justice and fair distribution of wealth etc, were very attractive at that time.
So, I converted to Communism, I dropped out of school and finished basically what was called an associate degree, two years in bio-chemistry. I left Canada and went down to the United States because this was where revolutionary activities were taking place. I joined a group there in Los Angeles and San Francisco known as the “Soledad Defense Committee”, which was basically involved in gathering funds for a court case that was going on at the time for both the Soledad brothers, as well as Angela Davis who was imprisoned at the time.
I had gone down there with a lot of ideals about Communism and its implementation. What I noted was that there were a number of discrepancies in terms of the morality of the people involved.
After one rally, where we had marched with placards through the city; there was a set of donations collected and taken back to the headquarters. I wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes but I didn’t have any more money so I asked the person in the office if they could lend me some to buy a pack of cigarettes. He said, “Oh it’s OK’. Next thing, he pulled open the drawer and gave me some money out of the donation box to buy cigarettes. I took it, and went and bought the cigarettes. But something struck me. How could this be? Here we were, gathering this money to help these peoples’ legal cause, and then so easily they would take from this money to buy me cigarettes. And they even told me “It’s OK, we all get our basic things out of it.”
I came to find out that in fact everybody’s rent was being paid out of these funds. People were buying cars for transportation, parties were organized with these funds, drugs and alcohol were bought with these funds. It really bothered me. I continued with them, but this thing kept eating at me, and just left me really disheartened.
The final straw was at a major rally held in Los Angeles, where the leaders of the various organizations such as the Black Panthers and others that were active at the time, got together. Everybody there was drunk. It was done in a big park and people were just drunk out of their minds! After a lot of talk, it was just a whole drunken scene. This to me, though I won’t say I wasn’t involved in drugs at that time like everybody else, was something like: you don’t do this when you are involved in party activities and things.
It was supposed to be controlled. I mean that’s what people said, but the fact of the matter is that there was this wide-open lack of discipline amongst these people, and I felt inside myself, that this was not going anywhere. I could see there was no real future in it.
Probably one of the most popular books for standard reading at that time was a book called, “Soul on Ice”. The person who wrote it was a member of the Black Panthers. The book was basically about raping white women; about how many different white women he had raped. However, it was presented in such a way that people were looking at this as being his reaction to racism in America, which was all perfectly justifiable.
But I couldn’t get over it! To me, this just seemed to be the book of a serial rapist! I couldn’t see the other side of it.; but this was standard reading.
After the rally in the park in Los Angeles I decided to go back to Toronto, and get involved there with the people who I was more familiar with.
I went back and joined a group called Black Youth Organization, which worked with the black students union in the University of Toronto campus. This was still an extension of Communist politics with some element of Nationalistic teachings.
We would focus on black Canadians and try to elevate their consciousness towards the oppression which existed at that time. But again, I found myself in a situation where it was mainly students, and young people talking to young people. We weren’t really affecting anything in the society. Probably, my biggest exposure here was the further reading of books of famous writers of the past.
The most striking thought I can remember of that era, was that of a writer Fredrick Douglas. A black man who had been freed back in the 1800’s, and was quite outspoken for the cause of black people in America. He made a statement saying, “The limits of oppressors are defined by those who they oppress”, where he put the responsibility on the oppressed, that they are the ones who ultimately define how much they will be oppressed.
That left an impression on me, in that it indicated that the state of a people is determined by their own consciousness. If they don’t want to be free, if they don’t want to be liberated, if they don’t want to be educated, then they won’t be. You really can’t make people free; people have to want to be free
During this period I had some exposure to Islaam. We had a standard movie that every body had to watch known as “The Battle of Algiers”, which documented the Algerian struggle for independence. Of course the battle cry during that struggle was “Allaahu Akbar”.
There were women wearing hijab and hiding weapons under their outer garment, so there was something of Islaam there. I also came in contact with the black Muslims, Elijah Mohammed’s followers. I went to the States again and visited some of their temples. Although I was impressed with what they had in terms of personal discipline, outwardly at least, the idea that God was a black man struck me as being ludicrous. I’d given up on the idea of God anyway, becoming Communist, but that God could be a black man who should be worshipped, became even more ludicrous to me!
I didn’t really find anything attractive about Islaam at this period, so I just continued to be involved in the activities of the organization. I continued to play music and at that time I used to play in nightclubs and for rallies to raise money for the activities of the organization.
But slowly again, I found myself in a state where I didn’t see any future in what we were doing. We were not affecting any major change in the society; it seemed really not to be going anywhere.
At this time what caught my attention was a movement in South America. I think they were called, the “Tuparaymous”, or “Ttuparmarous” or something like this in Argentina. They were urban guerillas and had taken the struggle to the streets, fighting the government directly. In the States too there were movements like the SDS (Students for Democratic Society) which were also taking that route.
It seemed like that was the only thing left. Talking and rallying didn’t seem to be going anywhere. The only thing left now was to take the battle to the streets. So, I decided to apply and to go study urban guerilla warfare in China. I went to the Chinese embassy in Ottawa because Canada maintained relations with China during this period. I went to see the Ambassador and the person in charge of education to make this application.
What struck me was that the person who came to see me was a chain smoker. I mean he was smoking the whole time! Very strong cigarettes without filters even, the whole time! He would start another cigarette after fininshing the current one, and to me, the idea of control of cigarettes, drugs and these types of things, was important. It struck me as something that wasn’t very good. Here was a person, who was a representative of the revolution and he had no personal discipline!
At any rate, I filled out my application and they told me, “We’ll send you word as soon as the OK comes”. I went back to Toronto and waited. This was over the Christmas holidays of 1971,
At this point what I found was that a good friend of mine who was in the leadership committee of the organization which I belonged to, had accepted Islaam. She became the wife of a known speaker today, Dr. Abdullah Hakim Quick, who is currently involved in lecturing in different parts of the world. Knowing that she had accepted Islaam caused me to say, “Well let me have a look”, because she was, perhaps, even more of a fervent communist than I was. She was a Moaist, which was like the extreme wing at that time. She had virtually memorized Mao Zedong’s Red Book and would be able to make quotes, almost any time quotes were needed from Mao. For her to convert meant, to me, that there’s got to be something behind this. So I asked her for some books and began to read.
The first book I read was called “Islaam the Misunderstood Religion” written by Muhammad Qutub. This book basically was a comparison between Islaam and all of the other systems that were out there such as Christianity, Communism, Capitalism, and Socialism, from a social point of view, political point of view, economical point of view; from all of the various aspects. So after reading that book I was convinced that Islaam really had the best program for human society. I was convinced that Islaam was the best system for establishing justice in human society.
I continued to read other books, among them “Towards Understanding Islaam”’ by Mawdudi, and I became more and more convinced of the reality that Islaam really did have the best program.
But the concept of God was something, which didn’t just re-appear immediately. It isn’t that merely because you would like to believe, you start to believe. Having denied God for some years, it would take time before belief in God was something that became a part of my life again.
Having reflected and discussed etc about God and belief in God, the turning point for myself came for me at a time while I lived in the commune. I had my own room where I kept a lot of books, and people would come in to read them in my room. I didn’t allow people to take them out of the room. They would come in and sit at my desk and read. On one occasion, I was lying on my bed, and some people had come in and were sitting at the desk reading. I had gone into a state that was between waking and sleep. I was aware of people in the room, but yet I was dreaming.
I saw myself going into this warehouse with a bicycle of mine. I was walking it into the warehouse, and the farther I went into the warehouse the darker it got. I started to get this feeling of fear because of the fact that I had a fear of darkness. The farther I went in, the more this feeling started to overcome me that perhaps I might not be able to get out of this place. I would continue, turn back to make sure the entrance through which I came in was still there, and each time I turned I could still see it, although it was getting smaller and smaller. Eventually a time came when I turned around and there was no entrance. I was in total darkness.
I got this fear that was basically saying to me, “If you don’t get out of this, you will never get out.” I guess it was a fear of death or whatever, but I was just overwhelmed by it and I wanted to get out, so I started to scream. I was aware of the people in the room. I started to scream out to them “Help me!”, but the words wouldn’t come out. They were stuck in my throat so they couldn’t hear me. I wasn’t able to get out of the situation. I kept screaming until I reached a point when I realized that there was no way out. I was lost, totally!
At the point when I realized this, I gave up. I woke up and sat and thought about this. To me, it was like a confirmation that there was a force beyond me. A confirmation of the existence of God in that, I wasn’t able to get myself out of that situation. The people in the room were not able to help me, and were it not for that which was beyond me to get me out of the situation, I couldn’t have come out of it.
That had a marked effect on me. Shortly after, I decided to accept Islaam
When I was taught how to pray, the sujood in particular, I realized that my adopted brother was a Muslim! At that point, I was happy, but I was shocked that he had understood all this, and had never said anything in all these years.
I went out to Ottawa, because my parents were there, and he was out there studying with my parents in the University. He was very happy to see me. I was happy too, but upset at the same time. I was upset with him, because, as I asked him “Why all these years that you were with us, did you never say anything?!” He said he felt embarrassed, and also that for him to say anything to us that might influence us to become Muslims, would be a disservice to my parents who had helped him and he felt shy about causing any problems in the family.
But I told him that he has an obligation to God, and that obligation is above all else. As he had that knowledge, he should have shared it with us, and given us the right to make that choice for ourselves.
After that I returned to Toronto and began to study Arabic and Islaam. I continued to play music for a little bit as nobody had told me it was haraam or forbidden; but at that point I found myself there in night clubs playing with the other members of the group, and everybody else in the group would be high on drugs. Here I was playing in a club where everyone is drunk, and you know it’s like being in another world. I was amongst them, but I was not a part of it. The corruption there became so obvious to me that I felt myself out of place and that I shouldn’t be there. So it wasn’t too long after that, that I decided to just pack it in, sold all my musical equipment, records and everything, got out of it and started to focus on studying Islaam.
At this point I traveled to England. I joined the Jamaat Tableegh because they were the most active Islaamic group at the time.
There was a particular individual known as Colonel Saab or colonel Amiruddin from India who was a very, very vibrant personality and he took a group of us to England for the first major Ijtimaah there called the Sheffield Ijtimaah.
I spent about three months in England with the Jamaat Tableegh. I had gone there for seven days. That was my initial commitment, seven days; but they have a way of getting you to make sacrifices that you don’t necessarily want to make at that time. So I ended up being there for almost 3 months and I was recently married. Actually I was married about three weeks before I went off for this seven-day trip, and in their gatherings they would point me out and say, “Look at this brother, look at the sacrifice that he made! He just got married and he’s out with us, he’s spending time and he’s going to spend even more time.” Of course after saying that I was obliged to spend another couple of weeks, till eventually it became three months. My wife was writing me frantic letters, “If you don’t come back…” Finally I managed to extricate myself and get back before my marriage was destroyed.
That was a learning experience for me. I had gone there with the intention of increasing my knowledge about Islaam. Alhamdullillah, Colonel Amiruddin taught me Tajweed, proper recitation of the Qur’aan. I had been told that in England, at the many mosques that they had, were scholars who you could learn with. So, wherever I went, whenever we stopped at any of the mosques, I would sit under the scholar there and take my notes, asking questions etc.
I came back to Canada and announced to my wife that we were now Hanafees. She said, “What is a Hanafee?” I explained to her that we are Hanafees because the Jamaat was teaching that you had to follow a Madh-hab. You had to follow one of these schools of Islaamic law. And although they did say that the four Imams were all the same, somebody would come along and tell you, “You know who the greatest Imam was? Imam Abu Haneefah! He was the first, most Muslims are Hanafees, so then we’re all Hanafees, and that’s the best thing to be.”
So I became a Hanafee and I informed my wife that she should be a Hanafee also. Whilst I was there I also learned the prayer for women, because the Hanafee’s teach a separate form of prayer for them. It was quite a tricky form of prayer. If a woman has to learn how to pray the Hanafi way and has not learnt it early on, she’ll find it quite tricky. It involves a certain degree of gymnastic ability. In any case I learnt it so I could teach it to my wife. I taught it to her, and after that we moved and were living next to the masjid in the house of a brother from who we had rented an apartment.
His name was Mahmoud Hayaal and he was originally from Egypt. His father had been a scholar in Egypt and was part of the Ikhwani movement, and one of the students of Hasan Al Banna. I started to learn Arabic and Fiqh from him. We started to look at the books, and he was explaining different things to me.
I started to find these discrepancies between what I was now learning, and what I had learned when I had gone with the Jamaat Tableegh. He was from the Shaafi‘ee school of thought, and he explained that this is the Shaafi‘ee position and showed me the evidence for it. I began to see these differences that led me to believe that I needed to learn Arabic thoroughly and study Islaamic law from the sources myself. So I applied to go and study in Saudi Arabia at the University of Madeenah. I was accepted there and began my studies.
I completed a BA in Usool-ad-Deen or Islaamic Studies, and following that I went to Riyadh and did a Masters in Islaamic theology.
When I went to Riyadh my parents were actually there before me. They were teachers. They had left Malaysia, gone back to Canada and then to Nigeria, where they taught for some years and then proceeded to Yemen. From there they came to Riyadh and began teaching at a school called the Minaret School and I was invited there while doing my Masters to start teaching Islaamic Studies.
I took on this responsibility of teaching students who were mainly expatriates. These were the children of expatriates working there. Their parents had studied in America or England and wanted their children to continue studying in an English medium school. Most of the students were Westerners from a Western background, and the previous Islaamic studies teacher was originally from Pakistan; whom they had brought there to teach. The students just wore him down. They were thoroughly westernized and he just couldn’t handle them.
In Pakistan and India students are quiet. The teacher comes in, everybody stands up, the teacher speaks and the students are quiet until the class is over. While students in America, have a sort of rebellious attitude. They like to talk in class, and if they find a teacher is weak and doesn’t have a strong personality, they will just chase him or her out of the classroom, by throwing spitballs at them or whatever.
Thus this individual didn’t last any more than half a term. He packed his bags and left, so they asked me to step in. And of course, having come from a western background I really knew how to deal with these students. We developed a good rapport and I continued to teach there.
In the course of teaching, I came to realize that there was a major lack of materials in English to convey the type of basic information that I felt needed to be conveyed about Islaam, which was not from a particular Madh-hab point of view, but an open approach to the presentation of Islaamic teachings. It required me to start doing a lot of writing, and preparing notes for the students. Eventually I prepared some books and tried to publish them back in 1981. I wasn’t successful. I couldn’t find a publisher. It wasn’t until about 1985 that I published the first two books, one was called “Polygamy in Islaam”, and the other “The Devil’s Deception of the Shia”. These two books were addressing particular problems that existed in America at that time.
Polygamy was a big issue from the point of view that when a person is a convert Muslim, the first thing that non-Muslims like to ask is “Why do Muslim men have four wives?” This was the first question, so I felt that it was important to write something on the topic.
The other problem was that of Shia’ism, which was being promoted at that time very strongly in America amongst convert Muslims. This was after the revolution in Iran. This was an unfortunate situation because the revolution on the one hand was claiming that we’re all the same, we’re all Muslims, there’s no difference between Sunni and Shia’ and so on; but at the same time the Shia’ites would focus on Muslims to convert them to Shia’ism. It seemed to me to be a definitely devious approach; because on one hand they were saying there was no difference, but on the other hand they were trying to convert ignorant Muslims to Shia’ism as apposed to going to non-Muslims and clarifying what Islaam was.
During this period, I finished my Master’s at Imam Ibn Saud University or King Saud University, and I began a PhD in University of Wales, with the focus of my PhD being that of “Exorcism in Islaam”. A lot of people were asking me “Why exorcism? Couldn’t you find anything else to write about?”
For me, I began this study of exorcism, which involved traveling to different parts of the Muslim world and investigating, because it was something that was out there. And although I had studied all the way up to a Masters level, I really didn’t get a clear picture as to what was involved, as to the rights and wrongs of exorcism. So I decided to make that the focus of my PhD. At the same time I wanted to utilize it as a means to provide in the Orientalists’ circles, material that was authentic on the Islaamic teachings about the spirit world: the human spirit, the world of the jinn, and the world of the angels, because this would become a major part of the thesis. Anybody researching the spirit world in Islaam will find the writings of Orientalists in which they have gathered folk tales and myths of Muslim people from all around the world and have presented this as being the Islaamic view of the spirit world. This in fact puts a lot of confusion in the minds of people, and anybody studying it would come out thinking that Islaam has a very confused concept of the spirit world. So I felt that this thesis would also provide a foundation for the correct understanding.
Whilst doing the PhD, the Gulf War came up. Prior to the Gulf War, I was invited out to the base in Tehran. A Saudi Arabian cultural information tent had been set up. There we provided information about Saudi Arabian culture, much of which of course is from Islaam, so it meant explaining things about Islaam to them. We took the troops into the city, helped them purchase things, showed them different aspects of Islaamic society, took them into mosques etc, and in the course of six months before they were processed out of the country, Alhamdullillah more than 3000 of them had accepted Islaam.
Following that, I joined the Saudi Arabian Air Force headquarters in Riyadh in the Islaamic Affairs department, and continued to do work amongst the American Military who were in the country. I went to the United States with the American military and helped them set up an organization known as the “Muslim Members of the Military” which established places of worship and little libraries in the entire major American bases across the world. The whole momentum for Islaam within the military picked up to such a degree, that within two years after that, the first Muslim Chaplain was designated for the military. The Navy and Air Force followed soon. Islaam has continued to grow in leaps and bounds within the American armed forces
After two years, I transferred to the UAE where I joined up with a charitable organization by the name of Dar ul Birr. I set up a Da’wah center for them in Dubai, where I had with me four other brothers and sisters who were involved in Da’wah, and Alhamdullillah it has been quite successful.
We had on average about a person daily accepting Islaam, most of whom were from the Philippines. There was a large number also from India, and from Hindu and Christian backgrounds as well as Americans. The American navy ships come through there, so we had set up a network of people to help us. We worked with the taxi drivers, who were mostly Pathans from Pakistan, and when they drove anybody who questioned or asked them anything about Islaam or anything related to Islaam, they immediately brought them to our center so we could provide information for them. A number of them also carried pamphlets inside their taxis.
I’ve also been involved in giving lectures about Islaam on Sharjah television as well as Ajman television, two television stations of the UAE. I have set up a department of foreign literature in Sharjah for publication of Islaamic material, which besides supporting the Da’wah center by providing pamphlets for distribution also continued the publication process which I began in Saudi Arabia of trying to produce good material in English that conveys the body of Islaamic knowledge which is available in Arabic.
At the same time I also began to teach at the American University in Dubai, which is an American University, very western. The students there were very westernized.
I taught a course there called “Introduction to Islaam”. It is again an issue of Da’wah or explaining Islaam to students. Many in my class were Muslims, but the vast majority of them didn’t pray or fast. Many of them that had taken this course as an elective thinking it would be an easy few credits. They were quite surprised to find me there shaking them up. Alhamdullillah it was a good experience, after the term was over a number of them came and told me “You know we started praying now, we appreciate what you had said to us”.
And of course I have and currently am involved in lecturing in different parts of the world; such as Australia, Philippines, Malaysia, England, India, North America, and the Caribbean etc.
So, this path has not only been my way to Islaam in the sense of my conversion, but my way to understanding Islaam. Because coming to Islaam didn’t end with my conversion, but has been a continual process of education, continually increasing my knowledge and also sharing that knowledge with others. This process or this path as you can see began in a state of ignorance, where the only images of Islaam were very distorted images. There were contacts on that path with Muslims, but those Muslims had no effect on my life either because they were not practicing Islaam as it should be practiced, or because they didn’t feel a responsibility to convey the message of Islaam to the non-Muslims around them.
As such, it would be my advice then for you to know that it is a responsibility on yourselves to live Islaam. Whether you have enough knowledge to propagate it and explain it to others or not, at least by living Islaam, by being examples of Islaam, you may give others who are non-Muslims an opportunity of being exposed to Islaam.
Whether it’s in a work situation, at school, with your neighbors or whatever, this is a continual responsibility on you. You should feel ashamed if you are not involved in it. You should feel sinful because, in fact, you are in sin if you do not share this information. To have knowledge of God’s revelation and to not share it with others around you to the level of your own ability is in fact a crime. This is a sin. And for those of us who have sufficient knowledge to convey it and to propagate it, it is very important for us to be actively involved in this matter.
We need to work together where others may help us, because it’s always difficult when one is on one’s own and one is by one’s self, to have the courage to share. But when we are with others, when there are others supporting us, encouraging us, then it becomes a lot easier. So I would hope that out of this you all would reflect on this responsibility.
And for those of you who are non-Muslims I hope you have not been offended by anything I said, especially if you are Christians. I’m just telling it like it was for me. I’m not saying that every Christian experienced what I experienced, but I know till today Christianity for most people tends to be very nominal. We are Christians because our parents were Christians, but what it means to be a Christian, few people really know. And as such I would invite you to look at the teachings of Islaam and see what it has to offer.
Islaam, in no uncertain terms, represents the way of life which Prophet Jesus himself brought, but which became distorted and diluted to the point where it has very little effect on the lives of Christians today.break}
Written by Dr. Bilal Philips
Page 1 of 6
I was born in Jamaica, which is an Island in the Caribbean, on the shores of Central America. I’m sure most of you know about it. It seems to be most important for Reggae, in the world of music, and rum for those who are into drugs. It is also known as an area of tourism.
I was born into a Christian family, my mother being an Anglican and my father a Presbyterian. My father’s father was one of the leading church scholars in Jamaica who had learned Greek and Hebrew, and was quite a figure in the world of Christian ministry.
I did not spend much time in Jamaica. At the age of 11, I migrated with my family to Canada; so I really don’t have too many recollections of religious practice there beyond, as a child, not wanting to put the penny in the plate. We were all given coins to take to church and when the plate was passed around you had to put the penny in. I remember doing so only because parents were there and you couldn’t put it in your pocket. But I used to do so reluctantly, wondering to myself “Why are we doing this? I would much prefer to use it to buy candy or something else. ”
What has left the biggest impression on me while growing up in Canada in my primary and secondary education was having to go swimming naked. We weren’t allowed to swim with swimming trunks, unless you had a special permit, something from the doctor to get you out of it. So we all had to go swimming naked and of course showers after gym were just in a big hall with showerheads and everybody showered naked. I felt shy about it. I couldn’t really understand why we had to do it, but this is what we had to do.
Much later in life, I came to realize that there was a philosophy behind this. This was something being introduced as a means of breaking down the feelings of shyness that people naturally have to exposing themselves in front of others. This is a product of the Darwinian approach to sociology and psychology wherein feelings of shyness are looked at as being a sickness, a sign of some kind of mental problem. Since animals are not shy; and we don’t find dogs and cats etc being shy of being naked amongst their kind, why should human beings be shy?
With regards to Christianity in my primary and secondary education, Christianity was Sunday school. Sunday school was where you met girls, and arranged parties, but in terms of religious instruction, although I guess it was going on, most of us as children or young people were oblivious to it.
My only exposure to Islaam at that time was in some of the cartoons that I watched. They gave an image of an Arab riding on a camel with a sword in one hand and the Qur’aan in the other; with the basic idea that you either accept the Qur’aan or lose your head. I can remember one song called, “A-hab the Arab”. Later on I came to find out that there was no Arabic name called Ahab, and there are no Arabs by the name of Ahab; but this was the name of the song, “A-hab the A-rab, Shaykh of the burning sands”. This was the image. And in terms of reading, the only reading material I can remember really is the “Thousand and One Nights”, which was basically a book of pornography, about the sexual lives of the sultans and the caliphs.
After completing high school, my family and I traveled to Malaysia. Both of my parents were teachers, and they came to Malaysia to join the Colombo plan. This was a project to help the Malaysian government in their educational program.
There my friends were mainly expats, and I can honestly say that there were no visible signs of Islaam in the society, beyond the impression which was made very clear to us as expats that you don’t mess with Malay girls, otherwise you will get killed. It had no connection with Islaam; it was just Malay really.
Years after becoming a Muslim and on making Hajj, I encountered a number of women in Makkah and Madeenah wearing white coverings, and they looked similar to the people that I had seen in Malaysia. I then asked a few of my friends who these people were, and they said that they were from Malaysia. I was very surprised because I had never seen women like that in Malaysia. My friends then explained to me that in Malaysia, women didn’t dress like that, but they would carry their Islaamic dress in a bag to the mosque. All the time I had spent in Malaysia, I had never seen these white garments covering their heads and bodies, because people didn’t wear it in the society!
During this period my parents adopted an Indonesian boy, whose name was Aws Suleiman. His name was contracted to “Wesman”. He was born in Malaysia but was from Indonesian parentage. And because of the fact that at the time, Indonesians who were born in Malaysia would not be given an opportunity for higher education beyond high school or A levels, he didn’t have a chance to go to University/College.
My mother had taken a liking to this particular boy, and being concerned about the fact that he didn’t have any future, wanted to take him to Canada so that he would be able to continue his education. As the Canadian government insisted that the only way he could be taken was if he was adopted, my parents adopted him. And so, my brother, my sister, and myself, lived together with him for some years there in Malaysia before going to Canada.
Now, here was a Muslim element in my family, which had no real impression on me. I should mention that according to Islaamic law adoption is not permissible. His father was dead and my parents took him in, and his name was changed. His family name was changed to our family name.
He was a quiet and shy Muslim. He never said anything to us about Islaam. Sometimes we opened his room door, and if he happened to be praying near the door, the door would bounce him in the head whilst in he was in prostration. We would close the door and ask each other, “What is he doing in there?” But I felt embarrassed to ask him about it and he never said anything to us though he was Muslim within the family. If my mother was preparing pork for all of us, she would prepare fish for him. We understood that he was eating different things than we ate. During the month of Ramadan my mother would get up early and prepare sahur for him, so he could fast. He fasted, he prayed, he did his basic Islaam in the family but he never said anything to us.
As for myself, during my school days I got involved in music. I came to be known as the “Jimmy Hendricks” of Sabah, emulating his style of dress and the type of music he used to play. I had my own rock group. This was basically the focus of my life until I finished off high school and decided to go back to Canada to further my education on a tertiary level in University. I was accepted into the University of Simon Fraser and I went to do a degree in biochemistry.
Simon Fraser University was at that time one of the more experimental universities in the sense that they were introducing the credit hour system. This was not followed by the other universities, which were following the British system of the single course throughout the year. What you found there was a great looseness in the whole structure of the University. There were a number of American students in this University who were influencing the others with their ideas. The professors in the liberal arts program, Sociology, Humanity, Sociology, Psychology and Anthropology, were from the Timothy Leery School.
Timothy Leery (who died a few years back and had his remains shot off into space on a rocket) was the discoverer of LSD, psycodelic drugs. At any rate these professors, following the tradition of Timothy Leery, used to begin classes by passing out a bag of marijuana, and after everybody had smoked up, discussion began. As I said Simon Fraser was quite different from most universities at the time. The situation was quite fluid.
At the same time, there was a separate introduction of ideas of Communism in the minds of the students. Though my major was Bio-chemistry, we had to take these other subjects as electives and these ideas of communism were being introduced so that they would guide and provide leadership for that student revolt. Eventually the campus was shut down and the students took over the administration. The protest at the time was against Canada’s involvement with America in the Vietnam War.
During this period I was directly involved and I began a conversion to what was called revolutionary politics. I scrapped Christianity because it was really something that was not implemented in my life so to speak. If somebody were to ask me if I was a Christian up to that point I would have said, “Yes I am a Christian”. But what it meant to be a Christian; that was left to the individual’s interpretation, and I guess that’s the way it is today for most people who are Christian.
I began to do a lot of reading in Marx/Leninist literature, and I was exposed briefly to some Islaam through the autobiography of Malcolm X. However, it was read as a part of required reading. For you to be a solid revolutionary in those days you had to read certain books. You just had to get through these books to be able to say, “I read these books”. So I read it amongst a lot of other books. There was some interesting information, probably I would say regarding his early life, in terms of the type of racial injustices that existed in America. This awoke me more, along with other such books, to the oppression which existed in Western society and made me more open to embrace the Communist ideal of a just society. The Communist banners of equality, justice and fair distribution of wealth etc, were very attractive at that time.
So, I converted to Communism, I dropped out of school and finished basically what was called an associate degree, two years in bio-chemistry. I left Canada and went down to the United States because this was where revolutionary activities were taking place. I joined a group there in Los Angeles and San Francisco known as the “Soledad Defense Committee”, which was basically involved in gathering funds for a court case that was going on at the time for both the Soledad brothers, as well as Angela Davis who was imprisoned at the time.
I had gone down there with a lot of ideals about Communism and its implementation. What I noted was that there were a number of discrepancies in terms of the morality of the people involved.
After one rally, where we had marched with placards through the city; there was a set of donations collected and taken back to the headquarters. I wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes but I didn’t have any more money so I asked the person in the office if they could lend me some to buy a pack of cigarettes. He said, “Oh it’s OK’. Next thing, he pulled open the drawer and gave me some money out of the donation box to buy cigarettes. I took it, and went and bought the cigarettes. But something struck me. How could this be? Here we were, gathering this money to help these peoples’ legal cause, and then so easily they would take from this money to buy me cigarettes. And they even told me “It’s OK, we all get our basic things out of it.”
I came to find out that in fact everybody’s rent was being paid out of these funds. People were buying cars for transportation, parties were organized with these funds, drugs and alcohol were bought with these funds. It really bothered me. I continued with them, but this thing kept eating at me, and just left me really disheartened.
The final straw was at a major rally held in Los Angeles, where the leaders of the various organizations such as the Black Panthers and others that were active at the time, got together. Everybody there was drunk. It was done in a big park and people were just drunk out of their minds! After a lot of talk, it was just a whole drunken scene. This to me, though I won’t say I wasn’t involved in drugs at that time like everybody else, was something like: you don’t do this when you are involved in party activities and things.
It was supposed to be controlled. I mean that’s what people said, but the fact of the matter is that there was this wide-open lack of discipline amongst these people, and I felt inside myself, that this was not going anywhere. I could see there was no real future in it.
Probably one of the most popular books for standard reading at that time was a book called, “Soul on Ice”. The person who wrote it was a member of the Black Panthers. The book was basically about raping white women; about how many different white women he had raped. However, it was presented in such a way that people were looking at this as being his reaction to racism in America, which was all perfectly justifiable.
But I couldn’t get over it! To me, this just seemed to be the book of a serial rapist! I couldn’t see the other side of it.; but this was standard reading.
After the rally in the park in Los Angeles I decided to go back to Toronto, and get involved there with the people who I was more familiar with.
I went back and joined a group called Black Youth Organization, which worked with the black students union in the University of Toronto campus. This was still an extension of Communist politics with some element of Nationalistic teachings.
We would focus on black Canadians and try to elevate their consciousness towards the oppression which existed at that time. But again, I found myself in a situation where it was mainly students, and young people talking to young people. We weren’t really affecting anything in the society. Probably, my biggest exposure here was the further reading of books of famous writers of the past.
The most striking thought I can remember of that era, was that of a writer Fredrick Douglas. A black man who had been freed back in the 1800’s, and was quite outspoken for the cause of black people in America. He made a statement saying, “The limits of oppressors are defined by those who they oppress”, where he put the responsibility on the oppressed, that they are the ones who ultimately define how much they will be oppressed.
That left an impression on me, in that it indicated that the state of a people is determined by their own consciousness. If they don’t want to be free, if they don’t want to be liberated, if they don’t want to be educated, then they won’t be. You really can’t make people free; people have to want to be free
During this period I had some exposure to Islaam. We had a standard movie that every body had to watch known as “The Battle of Algiers”, which documented the Algerian struggle for independence. Of course the battle cry during that struggle was “Allaahu Akbar”.
There were women wearing hijab and hiding weapons under their outer garment, so there was something of Islaam there. I also came in contact with the black Muslims, Elijah Mohammed’s followers. I went to the States again and visited some of their temples. Although I was impressed with what they had in terms of personal discipline, outwardly at least, the idea that God was a black man struck me as being ludicrous. I’d given up on the idea of God anyway, becoming Communist, but that God could be a black man who should be worshipped, became even more ludicrous to me!
I didn’t really find anything attractive about Islaam at this period, so I just continued to be involved in the activities of the organization. I continued to play music and at that time I used to play in nightclubs and for rallies to raise money for the activities of the organization.
But slowly again, I found myself in a state where I didn’t see any future in what we were doing. We were not affecting any major change in the society; it seemed really not to be going anywhere.
At this time what caught my attention was a movement in South America. I think they were called, the “Tuparaymous”, or “Ttuparmarous” or something like this in Argentina. They were urban guerillas and had taken the struggle to the streets, fighting the government directly. In the States too there were movements like the SDS (Students for Democratic Society) which were also taking that route.
It seemed like that was the only thing left. Talking and rallying didn’t seem to be going anywhere. The only thing left now was to take the battle to the streets. So, I decided to apply and to go study urban guerilla warfare in China. I went to the Chinese embassy in Ottawa because Canada maintained relations with China during this period. I went to see the Ambassador and the person in charge of education to make this application.
What struck me was that the person who came to see me was a chain smoker. I mean he was smoking the whole time! Very strong cigarettes without filters even, the whole time! He would start another cigarette after fininshing the current one, and to me, the idea of control of cigarettes, drugs and these types of things, was important. It struck me as something that wasn’t very good. Here was a person, who was a representative of the revolution and he had no personal discipline!
At any rate, I filled out my application and they told me, “We’ll send you word as soon as the OK comes”. I went back to Toronto and waited. This was over the Christmas holidays of 1971,
At this point what I found was that a good friend of mine who was in the leadership committee of the organization which I belonged to, had accepted Islaam. She became the wife of a known speaker today, Dr. Abdullah Hakim Quick, who is currently involved in lecturing in different parts of the world. Knowing that she had accepted Islaam caused me to say, “Well let me have a look”, because she was, perhaps, even more of a fervent communist than I was. She was a Moaist, which was like the extreme wing at that time. She had virtually memorized Mao Zedong’s Red Book and would be able to make quotes, almost any time quotes were needed from Mao. For her to convert meant, to me, that there’s got to be something behind this. So I asked her for some books and began to read.
The first book I read was called “Islaam the Misunderstood Religion” written by Muhammad Qutub. This book basically was a comparison between Islaam and all of the other systems that were out there such as Christianity, Communism, Capitalism, and Socialism, from a social point of view, political point of view, economical point of view; from all of the various aspects. So after reading that book I was convinced that Islaam really had the best program for human society. I was convinced that Islaam was the best system for establishing justice in human society.
I continued to read other books, among them “Towards Understanding Islaam”’ by Mawdudi, and I became more and more convinced of the reality that Islaam really did have the best program.
But the concept of God was something, which didn’t just re-appear immediately. It isn’t that merely because you would like to believe, you start to believe. Having denied God for some years, it would take time before belief in God was something that became a part of my life again.
Having reflected and discussed etc about God and belief in God, the turning point for myself came for me at a time while I lived in the commune. I had my own room where I kept a lot of books, and people would come in to read them in my room. I didn’t allow people to take them out of the room. They would come in and sit at my desk and read. On one occasion, I was lying on my bed, and some people had come in and were sitting at the desk reading. I had gone into a state that was between waking and sleep. I was aware of people in the room, but yet I was dreaming.
I saw myself going into this warehouse with a bicycle of mine. I was walking it into the warehouse, and the farther I went into the warehouse the darker it got. I started to get this feeling of fear because of the fact that I had a fear of darkness. The farther I went in, the more this feeling started to overcome me that perhaps I might not be able to get out of this place. I would continue, turn back to make sure the entrance through which I came in was still there, and each time I turned I could still see it, although it was getting smaller and smaller. Eventually a time came when I turned around and there was no entrance. I was in total darkness.
I got this fear that was basically saying to me, “If you don’t get out of this, you will never get out.” I guess it was a fear of death or whatever, but I was just overwhelmed by it and I wanted to get out, so I started to scream. I was aware of the people in the room. I started to scream out to them “Help me!”, but the words wouldn’t come out. They were stuck in my throat so they couldn’t hear me. I wasn’t able to get out of the situation. I kept screaming until I reached a point when I realized that there was no way out. I was lost, totally!
At the point when I realized this, I gave up. I woke up and sat and thought about this. To me, it was like a confirmation that there was a force beyond me. A confirmation of the existence of God in that, I wasn’t able to get myself out of that situation. The people in the room were not able to help me, and were it not for that which was beyond me to get me out of the situation, I couldn’t have come out of it.
That had a marked effect on me. Shortly after, I decided to accept Islaam
When I was taught how to pray, the sujood in particular, I realized that my adopted brother was a Muslim! At that point, I was happy, but I was shocked that he had understood all this, and had never said anything in all these years.
I went out to Ottawa, because my parents were there, and he was out there studying with my parents in the University. He was very happy to see me. I was happy too, but upset at the same time. I was upset with him, because, as I asked him “Why all these years that you were with us, did you never say anything?!” He said he felt embarrassed, and also that for him to say anything to us that might influence us to become Muslims, would be a disservice to my parents who had helped him and he felt shy about causing any problems in the family.
But I told him that he has an obligation to God, and that obligation is above all else. As he had that knowledge, he should have shared it with us, and given us the right to make that choice for ourselves.
After that I returned to Toronto and began to study Arabic and Islaam. I continued to play music for a little bit as nobody had told me it was haraam or forbidden; but at that point I found myself there in night clubs playing with the other members of the group, and everybody else in the group would be high on drugs. Here I was playing in a club where everyone is drunk, and you know it’s like being in another world. I was amongst them, but I was not a part of it. The corruption there became so obvious to me that I felt myself out of place and that I shouldn’t be there. So it wasn’t too long after that, that I decided to just pack it in, sold all my musical equipment, records and everything, got out of it and started to focus on studying Islaam.
At this point I traveled to England. I joined the Jamaat Tableegh because they were the most active Islaamic group at the time.
There was a particular individual known as Colonel Saab or colonel Amiruddin from India who was a very, very vibrant personality and he took a group of us to England for the first major Ijtimaah there called the Sheffield Ijtimaah.
I spent about three months in England with the Jamaat Tableegh. I had gone there for seven days. That was my initial commitment, seven days; but they have a way of getting you to make sacrifices that you don’t necessarily want to make at that time. So I ended up being there for almost 3 months and I was recently married. Actually I was married about three weeks before I went off for this seven-day trip, and in their gatherings they would point me out and say, “Look at this brother, look at the sacrifice that he made! He just got married and he’s out with us, he’s spending time and he’s going to spend even more time.” Of course after saying that I was obliged to spend another couple of weeks, till eventually it became three months. My wife was writing me frantic letters, “If you don’t come back…” Finally I managed to extricate myself and get back before my marriage was destroyed.
That was a learning experience for me. I had gone there with the intention of increasing my knowledge about Islaam. Alhamdullillah, Colonel Amiruddin taught me Tajweed, proper recitation of the Qur’aan. I had been told that in England, at the many mosques that they had, were scholars who you could learn with. So, wherever I went, whenever we stopped at any of the mosques, I would sit under the scholar there and take my notes, asking questions etc.
I came back to Canada and announced to my wife that we were now Hanafees. She said, “What is a Hanafee?” I explained to her that we are Hanafees because the Jamaat was teaching that you had to follow a Madh-hab. You had to follow one of these schools of Islaamic law. And although they did say that the four Imams were all the same, somebody would come along and tell you, “You know who the greatest Imam was? Imam Abu Haneefah! He was the first, most Muslims are Hanafees, so then we’re all Hanafees, and that’s the best thing to be.”
So I became a Hanafee and I informed my wife that she should be a Hanafee also. Whilst I was there I also learned the prayer for women, because the Hanafee’s teach a separate form of prayer for them. It was quite a tricky form of prayer. If a woman has to learn how to pray the Hanafi way and has not learnt it early on, she’ll find it quite tricky. It involves a certain degree of gymnastic ability. In any case I learnt it so I could teach it to my wife. I taught it to her, and after that we moved and were living next to the masjid in the house of a brother from who we had rented an apartment.
His name was Mahmoud Hayaal and he was originally from Egypt. His father had been a scholar in Egypt and was part of the Ikhwani movement, and one of the students of Hasan Al Banna. I started to learn Arabic and Fiqh from him. We started to look at the books, and he was explaining different things to me.
I started to find these discrepancies between what I was now learning, and what I had learned when I had gone with the Jamaat Tableegh. He was from the Shaafi‘ee school of thought, and he explained that this is the Shaafi‘ee position and showed me the evidence for it. I began to see these differences that led me to believe that I needed to learn Arabic thoroughly and study Islaamic law from the sources myself. So I applied to go and study in Saudi Arabia at the University of Madeenah. I was accepted there and began my studies.
I completed a BA in Usool-ad-Deen or Islaamic Studies, and following that I went to Riyadh and did a Masters in Islaamic theology.
When I went to Riyadh my parents were actually there before me. They were teachers. They had left Malaysia, gone back to Canada and then to Nigeria, where they taught for some years and then proceeded to Yemen. From there they came to Riyadh and began teaching at a school called the Minaret School and I was invited there while doing my Masters to start teaching Islaamic Studies.
I took on this responsibility of teaching students who were mainly expatriates. These were the children of expatriates working there. Their parents had studied in America or England and wanted their children to continue studying in an English medium school. Most of the students were Westerners from a Western background, and the previous Islaamic studies teacher was originally from Pakistan; whom they had brought there to teach. The students just wore him down. They were thoroughly westernized and he just couldn’t handle them.
In Pakistan and India students are quiet. The teacher comes in, everybody stands up, the teacher speaks and the students are quiet until the class is over. While students in America, have a sort of rebellious attitude. They like to talk in class, and if they find a teacher is weak and doesn’t have a strong personality, they will just chase him or her out of the classroom, by throwing spitballs at them or whatever.
Thus this individual didn’t last any more than half a term. He packed his bags and left, so they asked me to step in. And of course, having come from a western background I really knew how to deal with these students. We developed a good rapport and I continued to teach there.
In the course of teaching, I came to realize that there was a major lack of materials in English to convey the type of basic information that I felt needed to be conveyed about Islaam, which was not from a particular Madh-hab point of view, but an open approach to the presentation of Islaamic teachings. It required me to start doing a lot of writing, and preparing notes for the students. Eventually I prepared some books and tried to publish them back in 1981. I wasn’t successful. I couldn’t find a publisher. It wasn’t until about 1985 that I published the first two books, one was called “Polygamy in Islaam”, and the other “The Devil’s Deception of the Shia”. These two books were addressing particular problems that existed in America at that time.
Polygamy was a big issue from the point of view that when a person is a convert Muslim, the first thing that non-Muslims like to ask is “Why do Muslim men have four wives?” This was the first question, so I felt that it was important to write something on the topic.
The other problem was that of Shia’ism, which was being promoted at that time very strongly in America amongst convert Muslims. This was after the revolution in Iran. This was an unfortunate situation because the revolution on the one hand was claiming that we’re all the same, we’re all Muslims, there’s no difference between Sunni and Shia’ and so on; but at the same time the Shia’ites would focus on Muslims to convert them to Shia’ism. It seemed to me to be a definitely devious approach; because on one hand they were saying there was no difference, but on the other hand they were trying to convert ignorant Muslims to Shia’ism as apposed to going to non-Muslims and clarifying what Islaam was.
During this period, I finished my Master’s at Imam Ibn Saud University or King Saud University, and I began a PhD in University of Wales, with the focus of my PhD being that of “Exorcism in Islaam”. A lot of people were asking me “Why exorcism? Couldn’t you find anything else to write about?”
For me, I began this study of exorcism, which involved traveling to different parts of the Muslim world and investigating, because it was something that was out there. And although I had studied all the way up to a Masters level, I really didn’t get a clear picture as to what was involved, as to the rights and wrongs of exorcism. So I decided to make that the focus of my PhD. At the same time I wanted to utilize it as a means to provide in the Orientalists’ circles, material that was authentic on the Islaamic teachings about the spirit world: the human spirit, the world of the jinn, and the world of the angels, because this would become a major part of the thesis. Anybody researching the spirit world in Islaam will find the writings of Orientalists in which they have gathered folk tales and myths of Muslim people from all around the world and have presented this as being the Islaamic view of the spirit world. This in fact puts a lot of confusion in the minds of people, and anybody studying it would come out thinking that Islaam has a very confused concept of the spirit world. So I felt that this thesis would also provide a foundation for the correct understanding.
Whilst doing the PhD, the Gulf War came up. Prior to the Gulf War, I was invited out to the base in Tehran. A Saudi Arabian cultural information tent had been set up. There we provided information about Saudi Arabian culture, much of which of course is from Islaam, so it meant explaining things about Islaam to them. We took the troops into the city, helped them purchase things, showed them different aspects of Islaamic society, took them into mosques etc, and in the course of six months before they were processed out of the country, Alhamdullillah more than 3000 of them had accepted Islaam.
Following that, I joined the Saudi Arabian Air Force headquarters in Riyadh in the Islaamic Affairs department, and continued to do work amongst the American Military who were in the country. I went to the United States with the American military and helped them set up an organization known as the “Muslim Members of the Military” which established places of worship and little libraries in the entire major American bases across the world. The whole momentum for Islaam within the military picked up to such a degree, that within two years after that, the first Muslim Chaplain was designated for the military. The Navy and Air Force followed soon. Islaam has continued to grow in leaps and bounds within the American armed forces
After two years, I transferred to the UAE where I joined up with a charitable organization by the name of Dar ul Birr. I set up a Da’wah center for them in Dubai, where I had with me four other brothers and sisters who were involved in Da’wah, and Alhamdullillah it has been quite successful.
We had on average about a person daily accepting Islaam, most of whom were from the Philippines. There was a large number also from India, and from Hindu and Christian backgrounds as well as Americans. The American navy ships come through there, so we had set up a network of people to help us. We worked with the taxi drivers, who were mostly Pathans from Pakistan, and when they drove anybody who questioned or asked them anything about Islaam or anything related to Islaam, they immediately brought them to our center so we could provide information for them. A number of them also carried pamphlets inside their taxis.
I’ve also been involved in giving lectures about Islaam on Sharjah television as well as Ajman television, two television stations of the UAE. I have set up a department of foreign literature in Sharjah for publication of Islaamic material, which besides supporting the Da’wah center by providing pamphlets for distribution also continued the publication process which I began in Saudi Arabia of trying to produce good material in English that conveys the body of Islaamic knowledge which is available in Arabic.
At the same time I also began to teach at the American University in Dubai, which is an American University, very western. The students there were very westernized.
I taught a course there called “Introduction to Islaam”. It is again an issue of Da’wah or explaining Islaam to students. Many in my class were Muslims, but the vast majority of them didn’t pray or fast. Many of them that had taken this course as an elective thinking it would be an easy few credits. They were quite surprised to find me there shaking them up. Alhamdullillah it was a good experience, after the term was over a number of them came and told me “You know we started praying now, we appreciate what you had said to us”.
And of course I have and currently am involved in lecturing in different parts of the world; such as Australia, Philippines, Malaysia, England, India, North America, and the Caribbean etc.
So, this path has not only been my way to Islaam in the sense of my conversion, but my way to understanding Islaam. Because coming to Islaam didn’t end with my conversion, but has been a continual process of education, continually increasing my knowledge and also sharing that knowledge with others. This process or this path as you can see began in a state of ignorance, where the only images of Islaam were very distorted images. There were contacts on that path with Muslims, but those Muslims had no effect on my life either because they were not practicing Islaam as it should be practiced, or because they didn’t feel a responsibility to convey the message of Islaam to the non-Muslims around them.
As such, it would be my advice then for you to know that it is a responsibility on yourselves to live Islaam. Whether you have enough knowledge to propagate it and explain it to others or not, at least by living Islaam, by being examples of Islaam, you may give others who are non-Muslims an opportunity of being exposed to Islaam.
Whether it’s in a work situation, at school, with your neighbors or whatever, this is a continual responsibility on you. You should feel ashamed if you are not involved in it. You should feel sinful because, in fact, you are in sin if you do not share this information. To have knowledge of God’s revelation and to not share it with others around you to the level of your own ability is in fact a crime. This is a sin. And for those of us who have sufficient knowledge to convey it and to propagate it, it is very important for us to be actively involved in this matter.
We need to work together where others may help us, because it’s always difficult when one is on one’s own and one is by one’s self, to have the courage to share. But when we are with others, when there are others supporting us, encouraging us, then it becomes a lot easier. So I would hope that out of this you all would reflect on this responsibility.
And for those of you who are non-Muslims I hope you have not been offended by anything I said, especially if you are Christians. I’m just telling it like it was for me. I’m not saying that every Christian experienced what I experienced, but I know till today Christianity for most people tends to be very nominal. We are Christians because our parents were Christians, but what it means to be a Christian, few people really know. And as such I would invite you to look at the teachings of Islaam and see what it has to offer.
Islaam, in no uncertain terms, represents the way of life which Prophet Jesus himself brought, but which became distorted and diluted to the point where it has very little effect on the lives of Christians today.break}
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