When someone posts online, “I dare anyone to find me anything better than riding through LA with my dog on my lap listening to 2Pac,” it sounds like a challenge. But strip away the nostalgia and the beat, and what you have is a heart that has not yet experienced what it was created for. Eddie, host of The Deen Show, addresses this claim head-on — and with genuine compassion — in this episode of Keeping It Real with Eddie, weaving together the story of a new Muslim veteran, the spiritual cost of “audio pornography,” the responsibility parents carry, and the defining question every soul must eventually answer: what is the true purpose of this life?
The Heart Has a Maker — And Ramadan Is the Annual Reset
Islam is grounded in a clear and rational principle: the heart was designed by its Creator, and nothing truly fills it except returning to that Creator. Eddie recounts an honest encounter with a Muslim brother whose business blasted profanity-laced music all day — a man who openly admitted to depression and a persistent void he couldn’t explain. The advice was direct but full of care: cut the “audio pornography,” replace it with Qur’an and beneficial knowledge, and watch the heart come back to life. This is not about deprivation — it is about trading a hollow stimulation for something that actually nourishes the soul. And the role of parents runs deeper than many realise; children who grow up watching their fathers curse and their mothers drift from the deen are not misbehaving — they are mirroring. Ramadan, Allah tells us in the Qur’an, was prescribed precisely to interrupt that cycle and rebuild taqwa — God-consciousness — from the inside out.
“Fasting has been prescribed for you as it was prescribed to those before you, that you may increase in taqwa — God-consciousness.” — Qur’an 2:183
- Ramadan trains the soul to govern desires rather than be governed by them — the wild stallion of the nafs must be ridden, not the other way around
- Music saturated with profanity and materialism is a spiritual drain; replacing it with Qur’an and Islamic reminders charges the heart the way a battery is recharged
- Parents are the first teachers — children who grow up around cursing, smoking, and spiritual neglect will imitate it; Ramadan is the moment to break that cycle
- Jesus, Moses, Abraham, and all the prophets fasted and submitted to the Creator alone — Islam is not a new religion but the continuation of the same eternal message
- Islam is not blind faith — it is built on clear evidence and proof, and Brent, a US military veteran who spent ten years resisting it, testifies to that: the more he investigated, the more he would have been lying to himself to reject it
Trials Are the Price of Sincerity — What Every New Muslim Needs to Hear
Brent accepted Islam four months before this episode was recorded, and within that short time he lost his two-month-old son. His story, and the story of Dr. Lawrence Brown — a physician who accepted Islam and lost his house, his career, and his family before Allah returned everything multiplied — illustrates a truth that Islam never conceals: sincere belief will be tested. Allah says plainly in the Qur’an, “Do you think you will say ‘I believe’ and not be tried?” The tests are not evidence that Islam is wrong; they are the mechanism through which sincerity is verified and sins are expiated. Every prophet — Jesus ridiculed and threatened, Moses pursued, Abraham cast into fire — faced opposition not because they were on the wrong path, but because they were on the right one. They were not trying to win a popularity contest. They spoke truth and were ultimately victorious. What you lose on the path of Allah, Allah replaces.
“There is no affliction that befalls a believer except that it is good for him — not even the prick of a thorn — for it expiates his sins.” — Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
The person who dares someone to find something better than 2Pac simply has not yet tasted what this deen delivers when the heart is genuinely connected to its Maker — that deep contentment, that sense of purpose, that only comes from submitting to the One who created you. Salah five times a day, zakat for the poor, the Hajj pilgrimage once in a lifetime, and now the blessed month of Ramadan: these are not burdens, they are the architecture of a life that makes sense. Death arrives without announcement — and we leave behind either righteous deeds and children who carry this faith forward, or we leave behind nothing of lasting value. This Ramadan, whatever vice has had a hold on you, put it down. Discipline the soul. Replace what corrupts the heart with what revives it. And ask yourself, with full honesty: why have I been created, and what am I chasing?
