with the name
compassion all Praises for prayers and
peace be upon his Prophet Muhammad s
wasallam at this time we're going to
hear from she Yousef in his response to
the questions that you have offered as
you can see he is going through them
very diligently even though he's tearing
them up don't think he's just
disregarding the questions he's actually
consolidating the questions and putting
them in a manner where where we respond
to them there's quite a volume of
questions and I'm not sure that he's
going to be able to get to all of them
tonight however we would like to
encourage you to visit his website
that's today islam.com and if there are
any questions that you have that are not
answered tonight he will be gladly
answer them for you on the internet
inshah the I'd like to share with you an
experience that uh I had on one of his
visits to our prisons in South
Carolina we have approximately 22 ,000
inmates in the South am apartment
Corrections of of which about 5% of them
are Muslim roughly 1,000 Muslims spread
out throughout uh 29 Correctional
Facilities which I have to service
throughout the state and on one of his
visits he encouraged the the the men in
in the particular facility to tell their
families
about the the website and you know if
you know anything about corrections and
inmates inmate mentality is something
that's very very delicate very and and
very guarded to say the least so he
encouraged the the inmates to tell their
families to go to the website and pull
up some information off of the website
and print it but don't read it and can
you imagine an inmate in a prison
telling his family member to go to the
website print some information but don't
read it what they going to do read
it one young man told his sister to do
that she read the information
she went to the MOs in Charlotte North
Carolina and she became a Muslim she
took her Declaration of Faith
alhamdulillah so I hope that
uh you will get I know you get your your
your
your time worthwhile answer in the
question that he he will be answering so
without any further
Ado you know this is the only this is
the only man that I've ever met who has
elevated Pizza to another
level he's elevated Pizza to another
level when he's around the youth he'll
ask him what's brain food and they look
at each other this about
material and and they'll look at each
other like brain food what is brain food
but you know if you go to any college
campus
today and you see them stay up late at
night studying cramming and you know for
the
exams and they they eat this food that
comes in a big box that come comes to
them on
Wheels and so it must be brain
food you didn't tell us the hell you
said all right he got half of it he
didn't get all of it the whole idea
behind bringing this up is not just to
talk about brain food and and so because
I work with children who are descendants
of Arabs many times in the United States
and the children are very uh
Americanized if you will and they don't
really speak very much
Arabic so the Arabic language is very
powerful and has a lot of things but
there's two things that the Arabic
language doesn't have the letter V is in
Volkswagen and the
letter P is in
[Music]
Pakistan so when uh whenever I tell the
story of the pizza I say now would you
like me to teach you how to save brain
food in Arabic they say yeah
Pizza it goes good with
[Music]
bibsy and when the and when the man
delivers it he barks the car and comes
in with
it I can't believe you stole my material
man
[Music]
I'm going to let it slide cuz you had a
long day
today in sh God willing we're going to
try to answer 12 questions the majority
of the questions that came were very
similar so what I did I took the
opportunity to compile them down then
any of the questions which deal with
issues that are for Muslims to ask their
Scholars I defer that to a scholar we do
have our own sheh with us and if anybody
has any questions Muslim questions for a
scholar he sitting right over there they
can ask him okay because that's not my
job my job is not to uh talk to you in
Arabic language and my job is not to
tell you what we call Islamic ruling or
fwa that's not my job and I'm dealing
only with the questions relative to the
topic we had tonight so if you had
questions not relative then you can
present them to him and he'll be happy
through translation if you need it to
give you any answers you would like God
willing okay let's begin and uh some
wanted statistical information about
Islam how many Muslims are in the USA
and actually I had to ask my Sheik how
many was that between 6 and 10 million
he said between 6 and 10 million then
they ask how many mosques are in the
United
States about
1,200 with more being built every day I
would like to mention this you didn't
ask this question but my colleague and I
can testify to this without any
hesitation or reservation to tell you
that without doubt that while we had our
program tonight I'm sure a lot more
people in America became
Muslim because even in his one state of
South Carolina there are literally
thousands who have come into
Islam and in my state which is I live in
Northern Virginia right by Washington DC
we also see many hundreds I've given the
what we call Shah to so many that I lost
account years ago many people are
entering Islam in America and in other
countries but you might also like to
know who are these people many of them
are
African-Americans but there are other
ethnic groups as well from the white
Americans they don't have a lot of
knowledge of it and it wasn't until
September 11th that we started to go to
their pilgrimage to Jerusalem they try
and these These are good people they you
know we should give them credit for what
they trying to do but in Islam it's very
clear that if a person leaves any of the
Five Points that I mentioned they're
leaving Islam so for the benefit of the
Muslims who thought they could just say
I love Allah and Allah loves me Allah
answered them and this is for the
Muslims I'll tell you what the Quran
said tell them if they say Allah tell
them then follow me meaning the prophet
and then and only then Allah will love
them and forgive their sins
so this is very important for us to know
that Islam requires more than belief you
have to work every day so that's to give
a little overall somebody wanted me to
do comparative religion that's as far as
I'll go the next thing it
asks they asked the question how can I
get a copy of the Holy
Quran and I appreciate that and I I wish
I could tell you how easy it is to do it
in the States but here it's more
complicated you your effort W won't be
that much harder but our effort will be
you go to our website today Islam and
look on the page it says free Quran at
the top of the page look for free Quran
and then click on that link and send his
email I have no idea how long it's going
to take to send it because it's going to
have to come what they call over the
water what do they call that kind of
shipping huh ocean Freight ocean
Freight snail Mill
oh that's right I forgot about that
Muhammad was the president of the Muslim
Association here Islamic Association uh
we made an agreement with him to send a
whole case that I didn't even tell him
how many we were going to send yet I
just told him we going to send them but
he should have those whenever the snail
mail gets here and uh which how long do
you think it will take think about two
mon one month one month yes so at that
time what I'd like for you to do right
now before you leave tonight write your
name your telephone number and your
address on a piece of paper I forgot to
say that in the talk that we do provide
free qurans we send them all over the
world it asked me the question why I
changed to
Islam this story is on the internet
itself it's 16 Pages or something when
you print out the whole thing obviously
you don't want me to use the rest of the
night just to talk about that so I'm
going to tell you go to the today Islam
website and read the story printed out
read it for yourself bottom line is I
never felt like that I really left
Christianity I felt like I became a
better Christian because I learned who
Jesus really was and what his message
was and I'm worshiping the god that
Jesus worshiped I'm sorry that's a short
answer but if you go read it it gives
the whole story how I came to Islam how
a Catholic priest came to Islam with us
and my wife and my father many about
about 1/4 maybe more of my family came
to Islam and the other stay Christian
cuz we come from a family that's been
Christian since before there was
recorded history in our family so we
built churches in America and in England
so you know they're not all ready to
just walk away yet but maybe they will
I'm not trying to be smart addict with
anybody okay but I'm going to tell you
the Quran means that which is recited it
is not a book book if somebody has a
book it has a representation of Quran
that is not Quran
explanation if you have a dollar bill in
your pocket it says
$1 but you have another dollar bill it
says
$100 are they worth exactly the same yes
or no no yes they are the paper is the
same the ink is the same the difference
is the value people gave it right right
or wrong so the money only represents
something to the people but it's not the
real wealth the wealth is somewhere else
the gold the silver or whatever backs up
that dollar is somewhere else the Quran
is not here it's somewhere else it's
with the law when you recite it and say
it you're saying it you're representing
it some of us we recite it with a better
voice than others and some of us make
more mistakes than
others just bring
me and what you will bring me is a
translation of the Bible in a language
but if I ask you to please I brought the
original Quran could you please bring
the original Bible and the answer is you
can't and that's why so many Catholic
priests have become Muslim cuz they
realized wait a minute what am I doing
what am I
saying because it's the same message
it's not different but there is a
difference in who controls everything
there is no church in Islam that pays
money to a bigger church that pays money
to a bigger Church there is no such
thing in Islam the money that I told you
that the wealth they have to pay has to
be given to the poor and
orphans there's no such thing as a big
huge Place collecting up billions and
billions of dollars in Islam never was
never will be so wealth is a big
important thing to human beings but it
means nothing to God he doesn't need
your money so the true religion of God
says what give your charity to the
people that need it and so that's what
we do just open up your heart like our
brother said when we started make your
heart like a
parachute cuz that's the only way it's
going to do any good is if it's
open open yourself to this message I did
and think about it they're looking at
everybody else trying to say what they
are don't blame Islam for what Muslims
do that answers your question about
terrorism doesn't it don't blame a
religion for what people do how many of
you heard of Oklahoma City anybody ever
heard of a place called Oklahoma City
okay there was a federal building that
blew up there in
1996 immediately they said Muslims did
it and they were dressed in Arab Garb
and they were heading for Mexico now
that's 1,500 miles away how they know
they're going to Mexico but guess what
it wasn't a Muslim it was a man by the
name of Timothy McVey how many of you
know what his religion was he was
Catholic and nobody made the pope right
an excuse for him
either and I don't blame the Catholic
church for what he did do
you he did it on his own didn't he
nobody went and looked in the Bible and
said where did he get that from did they
duh which religion is
correct no
Jewish Christian or
Islam I don't know I blame myself for
this because it means I didn't make a
very good presentation for
you I just got through telling you that
there's no religion going to be
acceptable to God except the one that he
sent that's what is lamb
means Jesus submitted to God he said I
only do what God sent me to do is't that
right did he he said I do the will of
the father did he say that yes or no
what does that mean it means is LAM so
he was a
what a what go ahead say it it's an
Arabic word you can say it he was a
so they're all right at the time they
came but people changed them and called
them by a place a thing or a
person we believe that all religions
came from God we believe that there was
only one religion and one message but
people kept changing it so they can
control other people that's right they
manipulated it so they could take the
money the power and enslave the people
this what we believe one God one
religion people changed it I want to
just say I want to submit who
cares it's not an Arabic
context in fact the only contest is
between you and your own you call NS in
Arabic between you and your heart you
got to give up some of the things of
this world so you get a share in the
next
world it's a little bit expensive but
it's worth
it so the only religion is the one God
sent
now if you say well do you believe all
Muslims are going to Paradise I'm going
to tell you Islam is a strange
religion because every religion promise
you you get in our religion you're going
to Paradise isn't that what they say
yeah you join us you're going to
Paradise is they say that yeah for sure
if you come with us you go to J Paradise
heaven right Islam doesn't teach that in
fact we're the only religion that can
guarantee you can go to hell
[Applause]
because when you enter into Islam if
you're not sincere how would I
know I would never know that would I and
you could come up and put on your best
SP every day how are you
today and I don't know I don't have a
clue what's inside your heart
right but God knows so who is going to
decide I'll let
who the best of the judges it's Allah
God will judge all of us on the day of
judgment so we don't promise Paradise
what we promise is that there is the way
if you want it good it's open for you
you want to go it's going to be hard
it's not going to be easy everybody else
promise you come to our religion going
to be easy you just do this or that and
it's easy I'm going to tell you that God
told you in the
Quran do they think they're going to be
left alone just cuz they say we believe
and that I'm not going to test them for
sure I'm going to test them just like I
tested the ones before to show you the
truth to those that are truthful and
show you the Liars in their falsehood I
want to go over something with you oh we
went through that fast I want to go over
something with you and show you how easy
it is and how simple and soft it is to
say the words doesn't mean anything for
sure if you didn't mean it but I'll just
show you the words the words are so
simple that babies say it when they're
laying on their back on on a nice day
you see baby playing making little
bubbles that they do you watch them do
that your babies do
that your babies do that now listen to
this say it
ill is that
fun
say now what' you say la means
NOA means
God
except almighty
God there's no God except the almighty
God there's nothing worthy to Worship in
this creation only the one that created
did it feel good want to say it again
now this time you know what it is so if
you don't mean it don't say it if you
don't believe there's a God don't say it
if you don't want to worship him alone
don't say it but if you feel like that
just say it with
me you can say it louder than that I got
a
microphone
ill wow that's pretty good now if you
really want to do what he wants you to
do you say the second part part the
second part means that you're going to
follow what the prophets brought on the
terms that God sent them with and that
says Muhammad is his messenger not a God
we don't worship Muhammad not a son of
God we don't think God has any sons or
daughters for that
matter but he has some great prophets
Jesus happens to be one of the greatest
most beautiful Miracles ever happened
but we still don't call him God call him
Jesus or Esa that's his name and we
always say peace be upon him when we say
his name and we never use his name in a
cuss word we never use Allah's name in a
cuss word and we never say Muhammad in a
cuss word we don't do that that's
considered horrible horrible Muslims
don't make fun of their religion so if
you want to say the second part it's a
little little bit harder than the first
part
muhamad that's it was that hard was it
mam no God to worship except Allah and
Muhammad his messenger now if anybody
wants to make that testimony of faith if
there's any Muslims here that you never
made that testimony of faith in front of
people before or if you feel you need to
renew your shahada or you know what I
mean by that if you're Muslim and for
those who would like to join us in
testimony for that to open this door
then you can just stand up with
us and
hello okay all those that will want to
you don't have to this is we're not
going to give you any
prizes but if you want to you stand up
and you say these words and then ask God
to open your heart and make it come
true that's all you're doing you don't
have to pay any money nobody's going to
chase you down the street
[Music]
ill
muhamad now we're going to say it as a
bearing witness this means now I swear
that this is
true muhamad
and now I'm going to make a little
prayer and I'm going to ask God
Allah oh
Allah we ask for you the good of this
life and the good of the next life and
we seek refuge in you from the fire of
Hell amen and we thank all of you for
being with us tonight and I look forward
to the next time I have a chance to
visit with you beautiful people here in
Carousel thank you so much for opening
your hearts and your minds to this
program and inviting us to be here I
really enjoyed it thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
and also um before you all come for
reception we added something to the shs
program for Tuesday you know it's Flag
now