stupid Muslims. Um,
>> I like that.
>> Do you guys know who Charlie Kirk is? A
Jeff thing like Jeffrey Epstein with a
standing army. That's basically
Muhammad, right? I don't I can I don't
speak Turkish or Arabic. I don't read I
don't have time to study the Quran. I
don't want to study that crap. I know
it. I know it enough. The spiritual
battle is coming to the West and the
enemies are wokeism or Marxism combining
with Islamism. Well, today me and my
guest are going to go ahead and react to
his latest not having them have to hear
the Muslim call to prayer five times a
day. That's important. Now, my guest has
a pretty unique story. He used to wear a
WWJD
bracelet. Do you know what that is? He
was once a hardcore fundamentalist
Christian just like Charlie Kirk, which
is, by the way, Christendom. But then he
went on a 3year journey to seek out what
was the true message of Jesus. We'll
also be reacting to the very popular
well-known nutritionist Dr. Acts. And
from a biblical standpoint, when you
read Leviticus 11:7-8, here's what it
says.
>> And along the way, learning more about
my guest incredible, I mean, amazingly
incredible story here on the Dean Show.
This is the angel.
Time for the
people. Are you ready for the for the
[Music]
show?
[Music]
Welcome my next guest, Dr. Jonathan
Kazales.
>> Thank you so much.
>> How are you?
>> Grateful to be here.
>> It's good to have you on the program.
So, Jonathan, uh you're living your
life. Life is in the beginning without
religion, without God. How was the
beginning stages of your life before you
started to take religion or God serious?
So when people think about their
transition of going from prior to Islam
to Islam, actually my upbringing was
more of an atypical upbringing where I
would say we actually were more
religious than most of my friends, most
of my family. Uh so we we went to church
weekly. Uh raised in a Catholic
household. Uh born and raised in
Louisiana. So it was certainly I think
compared to many of my friends an
atypical upbringing where it was quite
religious compared to others.
>> And then at what point I mean atypical
for many Americans is working through
the week or if you're in college you got
the frat parties drinking partying or if
you're working and then the weekend
comes and then it just uh to the pub
you're a little you're halfIrish right
absolutely Scottish there's a lot of uh
drinking going on right
>> side Irish.
>> Yeah. a lot of drinking going on in the
Irish community
>> after allahel. I uh really appreciate
and I thank my parents who have both
passed but I I would say that they
raised us very well that I never even
forget doing drugs. I never saw a drug.
I never saw until now I have not seen
drugs. Alcohol was not a thing when I
went to college which is when I learned
about Islam. I was not doing the
parties. I was not getting I don't think
I've ever been drunk in my life which
>> wow
>> part of me some people say man that's so
sad you had an opportunity to go enjoy
pre-Islam and I never experienced those
things.
>> Mhm.
>> Yeah.
>> So then at what point did you realize
okay so I'm Catholic now my parents'
mother and father are Catholic.
>> So you take a shift a turn and you
became a fundamentalist hardcore
Christian.
>> At what point did that happen?
>> Yes. Why did that happen? What it was
when I started learning about different
faith traditions, learning about Islam,
meeting some Muslims when in college I I
went from Louisiana
>> to Daytona Beach and
>> from Louisiana. Yes. There's a lot of
Christian That's a big Christian
Absolutely.
>> community there.
>> Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Uh more large
Christian community, but in particular a
large Catholic community.
>> Yeah.
>> But okay, so why didn't you just stick
with Catholicism? They they actually the
numbers are bigger with Catholics than
uh Protestant Christians. Correct.
>> Absolutely. So I I I went to Daytona
Beach, went to college, living my life,
uh met some people, met some Muslims in
particular, happy to share more about,
but met some Muslims who made me start
questioning.
>> And uh very quickly left Catholicism and
became more of, as you said, a
fundamentalist Christian.
>> Tell us about this. Um you're in
calculus class.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Sure.
>> And that's when you had your first
encounter with a Muslim.
>> My first encounter with a Muslim was in
my calculus class. uh where I was
learning. Growing up in the 80s, the
only encounter with Islam was Saddam
Hussein in Iraq war. It's literally all
we knew. And my first encounter with a
Muslim who was actually talking to about
Islam was in my calculus class. I was
not a great student. I actually left
school several years later, but in my
calculus class, that that was the one
course I paid attention to. We were the
two nerds. We had this, I say jokingly,
this nerd connection. And I shared this
with people because I'm I'm a computer
science professor now, right? We had
this nerd connection and it was just one
Friday night. I saw him in the dorm. He
was coming back. I was looking for
something to do, trying to be cool. I
was like, "Where are you coming from?"
He's like, "I'm coming from the masid."
I'm like, "Oh, the masid." I thought of
some new dance club, something I hadn't
been to.
>> Find out the masid was the Islamic
equivalent of a church, right? And he
went on and elaborated more and we had a
conversation then. Only lasted 10 or 15
minutes, but it started a fire.
>> So, it started a fire. What kind of
fire?
>> A fire where I couldn't answer a lot of
his questions.
>> Mhm.
>> And I remember I didn't realize it then
cuz he had great intention. I didn't
realize it then that his questions were
somewhat condescending because of the
nerd connection we had. He had a respect
for me that oh man this this is an
intelligent person knows his calculus.
We had that nerd connection. So it was
he told me it was the first time his
conversation with me that he had the
opportunity to chat with another
Christian. And so he was asking me
questions and he I remember it's 20
years later I remember like yesterday
his expression of disappointment when he
said but do you really believe that
Jesus is God and I remember that hit me
and what do you do even if you're not
practicing what do you do is you stand
up and you fight right and I wasn't
practicing while in college in the sense
of I wasn't going to church anymore not
because I was off the path but I just
with your parents not bullying you and
making you go to Sunday church I had
stopped but I was still I thinking a
good overall Christian and Catholic. But
when he questioned me, I could I didn't
have the answers. I didn't have the
ammunition. I tried, but I found out
that I was deficient with ammunition
with knowledge and that started. And he
and I didn't even chat again after that
about religious topics, but he started
this fire with planted those seeds and I
went on this mission of trying to find
the truth.
>> In the college campuses, do they have
they have uh priests there? Do they have
where you can go? Did you still go on
Sundays do the confession box? That's
one of the differences with and how
would you explain because people think
okay this is all together because you
have Catholics who are Christian also
but then you have Christians who are not
Catholic how would you explain that the
difference
>> the difference between the two faith
traditions Catholicism and non-atholics
yes I mean just the word Protestant
right they broke away from the church
all other this is like the Catholic
answer they would say they are the true
faith tradition and then everyone else
broke away from the quote unquote church
yeah
>> so they were if they broke away they're
apostate right there If you can go to
history, there's big wars that were
happening right because of this.
>> Absolutely.
>> Okay. So now now you end up this fire
gets lit. You are at what point what
starts happening next?
>> What happen starts happening next is I
start reading. I start now having more
conversations with other Muslims getting
more questions that I can't answer.
Right. One of them ultimately said, "How
about we make a deal? You come with me
to the masid. I go with you to the
church." I was like, "Let's do it." And
I did. I learned a lot. It was a
tremendous experience.
>> Who said that?
>> A friend of mine back in college.
>> A friend of Okay. He's Muslim.
>> Yes.
>> So he said, "Come with me to the masid
and I'll go with you to church."
>> The church. Absolutely. And we did that
tremendous experience for me. For him,
it probably wasn't the best experience
going to the church, but for me going to
the masid was incredible because there's
something the imam said that had an an
amazing impact. I'm happy to share with
you if you'd like.
>> Tell me please. The im and every Friday
right after the at the end they say in
English what translates in Arabic what
translates to English as that the best
of guidance is the guidance of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and
the worst of matters are new practices
in the dean every new practice is an
innovation every innovation is in the
hellfire that had an impact on me
because I I was not interested in Islam
at that very moment zero interest in
Islam what was the impact as I was
looking around this audience of all of
these Muslims and I'm wearing my WWJD
what would Jesus do bracelet and I
called myself a Christian which means
what by definition follower of Christ
and I'm looking at all these people I'm
pardon I'm pointing out this way as if
the audience they didn't call themselves
Muhammadans they called themselves
Muslims I was calling myself a Christian
but what how this impacted me is I saw
all of these people who were Muslims and
I felt that they were so more sincere in
their desire to follow what I was
calling at the time their guy Muhammad
but they didn't call themselves
Muhammadans I called myself a Christian
follower of Christ but in reality when I
looked at the evidence I wasn't
following Christ I left that day wahi I
was angry you can hear the passion in my
voice I was angry I said how dare these
people be so excited and willing to
follow their guy Muhammad. And they
don't even call themselves Muhammadans.
I'm here like a hypocrite calling myself
a Christian. And I was following
everyone other than Christ. I was
following the Pope. I was following
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I was
following Paul. Very little of my
actions were following Christ. And I
left that day on a mission.
>> I'm going to find the message of Christ.
I'm going to follow his message to the
tea. And that's going to be my life.
That was the fire that started as well.
>> So that's the the next progression of
your journey now trying to find the true
message of Jesus.
>> Absolutely.
>> What happens next?
>> Almost as a revenge. If they can follow
their guy, I'm going to follow my guy
better. I implemented
>> He's our guy, too.
>> I I know that. I know. I'm talking about
back then.
>> Jesus is our guy.
>> I didn't know that back then. Of course,
let me be very clear. That's just for
the audience. For the for the listeners,
any Muslim that says that they don't
believe in Jesus, peace be upon him as
the one of the greatest prophets and
messengers of God, born of a Virgin
Mary, coming back at the end of time,
this person is not a Muslim. That is a
requirement of our faith, right?
Requirement of the faith to believe in
these things.
>> So, what happened next? You said, "I
left I left that day on a mission."
>> You became an apostate of of
Catholicism, right?
>> Uh very quickly.
>> You apostated absolutely very quickly.
Why? Because I said I'm going to
implement, check it out. I said, I'm
going to implement that Muslim teaching
with my Christianity. Meaning, I said
the best of guidance is the guidance of
who? From a Christian perspective, the
guidance of Jesus. And the worst of
matters are new practices in the
teachings of Jesus. Every new practice
is an innovation. Every innovation is is
a misguidance. So, I went home and I
said, "Let's go.
What teachings am I following that are
not from Jesus?" As a Catholic, I was
like, everything. The example I gave
earlier was eating meat on Fridays. That
has nothing to do with the Bible.
Nothing to do with Jesus, peace be upon
him, only to do with who? The Pope.
Right? I was like, well, I'm not a
Pope's jin. I hope the audience gets the
play on words. Christ, Christian, pope,
popes. I'm not a Pope's. I'm trying to
be a Christian. And when I started
looking at other teachings of the
Catholic Church that were not founded
from the Bible, from revelation that I
felt was revelation, I exed it out. I
exed this out, exed that out, exed this
out. I very quickly left Catholicism
because I realized that was man-made
teachings.
>> What? Give some more examples. What
about the uh wine and crackers? I mean,
the wine and crackers, uh, the Eucharist
from the from the Catholic patriotism.
>> That's that's symbolic for your like
pretty much eating the flesh.
>> To literally think that they're eating,
they literally think they're eating the
body of Jesus, peace be upon him. They
literally think they're eating and
drinking the blood of Christ.
>> I'm not trying to offend nobody, but
people can think that's like
cannibalism.
>> Absolutely. And if when you look back at
where it comes from, right, as far as
the the the pagans and the Romans and
their belief system, it's very clear
when it comes from when someone begins
to study the history and and is is more
receptive to looking at where where
those uh origin origins are. I was
seeing online they had these uh pictures
and they were showing some video of when
the pope the recent pope had died and
they had these outfits and then people
were dissecting these symbols and
connecting it back to some pagan rituals
and other things. Have you ever seen
that like secret societies and you know
the kind of hopefully we can get some
pictures to show exactly what I'm
talking about? But then you have all
these different symbols that they're
wearing in the robes and then they're
connecting it to something from far back
away that's connected to some kind of
strange
>> it's movements in the past.
>> Studying the history of in particular
the Catholic Church and again I'm not
trying to cast shade on the Catholic
Church. There's a lot of great things in
that faith tradition. A lot of great
things that you will we all Muslims will
agree with. A lot of praiseworthy things
including their love for Jesus peace be
upon him. including that Allah says in
the Quran that the closest of people to
the Muslims are who the Christians
because of their piety because of that
they have uh those who are priests among
them right and and so we're not trying
to cast shade and that's not your
intention not my intention for the
audience but we're just talking about
some realities and when one studies the
history of the church coupled with the
history of the the government and the
politics that were going on at that time
trying to get a unified Roman Empire.
It's very clear how things made their
way in.
>> Okay. So now, how did you make you're
making the transition? Did you get
around a particular preacher, teacher
who is Protestant Christian, who was
helping you along the way,
>> mentor, what happens next?
>> So, what happens next is kind of related
to the last question you asked, which
was what are some of the other things?
And after I left Catholicism, which my
parents weren't happy with, but they
could see I had and I had other examples
where I I picked some examples. I said
here, and these things I made very clear
to them. I said, "This is not a makeorb
breakak deal to me. It's not the most
important thing, but I want to give
examples of where we're not following
the message of Jesus, peace be upon
him." Jesus, peace be upon him was a
Jew, right? I'm wearing this WWJD
bracelet. I'm from not only Louisiana,
I'm from New Orleans. And if anyone's
familiar with with Forest Gump, right?
They always talk about shrimp. Shrimp
this, shrimp that. New Orleans, it was
pork this, pork that. Everything had
pork, right? Familiar, most familiar or
popular and uh chicken and gumbo, which
is going to have some pork and dewy and
other things. The last time I ate pork,
I was at home. It was probably like a a
winter holiday time, Christmas time. I
was I was not a Muslim yet. And I was
wearing my WWJD bracelet. my mom wearing
uh my mom had made her famous chicken
and gumbo with pork on dewy and I picked
up the spoon and I'm looking at my
bracelet. What would Jesus do? He was a
Jew.
>> Mhm.
>> He would not have eaten the pork.
>> No way.
>> No way. And in fact, the only dealing
that Jesus peace upon him had with pork
in the New Testament was casting the
devils into the swine that drowned
themselves.
>> Yeah.
>> And in fact, he said, "I've not come to
abolish but to fulfill the law." He
lived the letter of the law. And when I
said, "What would Jesus do?" Looking at
my silicone bracelet as a reminder, I
put that spoon down. I'd never touch
pork again.
>> Can I was an example?
>> Yeah. I just posted something on on uh
my ex regarding this pork subject. And
this is a Christian. He's a very
well-known Christian. His name is Dr.
Axe. Anybody who's into health and uh
nutrition, he's one of the
>> leading people in this area. I want to
show you this clip and get your reaction
to this.
>> Your study proves this. In fact,
according to a CDC study, they said pork
is the primary source of tchinosis
infections in the entire world. It's
also one of the top for tapeworms
according to the World Health
Organization CDC. It's one of the top
sources of toxopplasmosis.
And from a biblical standpoint, when you
read Leviticus 11:7-8, here's what it
says. And the pig, because it parts the
hoof and is clovenfooted, but does not
chew the cud, it is unclean for you. You
shall not eat any of their flesh and you
shall not touch their carcasses for they
are unclean. So there are so many
reasons not to eat pork. Pork carries
parasites. Pork has poor detox channels.
The Bible recommend you not eat it.
Science supports this. Functional
medicine lens. Pork is also very high in
omega omega-6 fatty acids. It doesn't
have omega-3. So it's inflammatory just
in terms of their tissues themselves.
There are a lot of reasons not to
consume pork.
Here's what I want to tie into this is
that okay, he's um a practicing
Christian and he gives all of these
references to what's CDC and then he
comes to the Bible and he quotes
Leviticus and then he says the Bible it
clearly says you shall not eat, you
shall not touch it but then he says the
Bible recommends you shouldn't.
>> It's very clear the Bible says you
cannot eat this.
>> Where does he get recommend from? And it
just feels like Christians uh like him
and and others, it's like they want to
make it haram, like prohibit it, but
somehow they feel like maybe they'll be
outcasts, they'll be pushed back or what
what is it? But if you really want want
you have it in Islam, it's clear. This
is where obviously in Judaism also it's
something forbidden. What do you think
when you see this?
>> I mean, it it's it's it's obvious the
Bible says not to do it. As a Muslim, we
have the belief of
we hear and we obey. And good Christians
have this belief as well. Hey, we hear
and we obey. The challenge and the
disconnect is, oh, but there's a New
Testament and there's a a new message.
And many Christians don't read the Old
Testament. There's a complete
disconnect. They're out of touch with
what they claim to be almighty God
>> telling them, "Don't eat this thing, yet
they're eating it." You want a better,
not I think it's a slightly better
example I use all the time, which is one
of the other points I would make.
>> I don't care about circumcision from
when I was a Christian. I it wasn't my
I'm going to die on this hill. Yeah. I
said but here's very important example
God in the Old Testament per Christians
said circumcision is an and this word's
important everlasting covenant
everlasting covenant
every prophet of God was circumcised
Jesus peace upon him was circumcised one
could argue well it wasn't their ch
their choice they were a baby fine but
he was a Jew he was circumcised now if
you go to the mass majority of
Christianom today they will say you
don't have to be circumcised and you Say
why? Because Jesus was circumcised. God
said it's everlasting for me. This was
my issue. I want to remove innovations.
I want to know am I following Christ or
am I following Paul or am I following
Matthew or Luke or the Pope? And
Christians don't believe you have to be
circumcised. Why? Because of who was
arguably one of the greatest salespeople
to ever live on a sales.
>> Oh yeah. Paul.
>> Paul. I would I would hire Paul in a
minute. great salesperson because what
did he do? Jesus peace be upon him was
circumcised. He said follow the old law.
He also said by the way that I only came
my message was to be delivered to who?
The lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Jesus unlike prophet Muhammad peace be
upon him did not come to everyone. He
came to only the lost sheep from the
house of Israel. His own words. Paul
wanted to bring his message to the
Gentiles to the listener. That's the
non-Jew. Paul wanted this message to be
brought the message of Jesus to the
non-Jews to the Gentiles. Now imagine
Paul's preaching this message and the
message of Jesus is beautiful peace be
upon him. It's a delicious it's a
wonderful message and imagine people are
lining up. They're wanting to come to
this message. And then Paul says, "Wait,
wait, everyone, we need you to stand in
a line. Drop your drawers." And he pulls
out a knife and some scissors. We need
to circumcise you. What's going to
happen? Everyone run in the other
direction. So what did Paul say? It was
so beautiful.
It's so heart touching. I say it with
sarcasm, right? But it was so heart
touching.
>> It's not circumcision of the body, it's
circumcision of the heart.
>> Like, oh my gosh.
>> And one swoop, he took the message of
Jesus, peace be upon him, threw it out
the window, spit on it,
and then said, "No, it's circumcision of
the heart." So a Muslim and a true
Christian, I would argue, should have a
hatred for anyone who has the audacity
to innovate. Going back to that teaching
that I heard at the mid to innovate and
bring new practices in the dean. Not
only did he bring a new practice, he
kicked out the practice of Jesus peace
upon him. Wallah, that made me so angry.
So what did I do? If you want me to
continue, what I did is you asked me who
did I speak with.
>> I wanted to be fair. My father saw that
I was on this path of going away from
Catholicism.
>> He said, "Jonathan, do me a favor. Reach
out to this priest." It was a Jesuit
priest. A Jesuit priest who were
considered among Catholic priests the
most knowledgeable and educated. I was
going to a masid in Daytona Beach with
the imam there who I love and was
wonderful. And I was going back to this
Jesuit priest and we were talking on the
phone. First conversation, Jesuit priest
said,"Jonathan, I hear you're having
some issues. What's your issues?" Like,
I said, 'I don't have any issues. I
don't have a problem, but my father
wanted me to chat with you. So, he said,
'Well, what are the issues? So, I I laid
them out. I mentioned pork. I mentioned
circumcision. He couldn't answer any of
these these things to be very honest.
But what he did was incredible. He said,
"I want you to go get a book for me. The
book is called I I remember it to this
day. Concise History of the Catholic
Church by Thomas Boken Carter. I
memorize it till this day. I wanted to
be diligent and fair. I went to Barnes &
Noble. I purchased the book. Why I have
two of them? I don't know why, but I
have two of them until this day on my
bookshelf. Chapter three
simply gave me all of the same
ammunition I already had. What it said
in this book recommended to me from a
priest was that Paul in an effort to
bring the message of Jesus peace be upon
him to the Gentiles, the word was
incredible. The author said that Paul
made he made palatable the message of
Jesus. He liberalized it to make it more
acceptable to chew and to swallow the
message of Jesus so the Gentiles would
accept it
>> and they they went through the
circumcision and other things. So very
quickly I'm say look at all these
teachings. Those are just two examples
where we literally took the message of
Jesus threw it out the window and
instead went to the message of Paul. And
I said, "No, I'm not here to be a Pulse
student. I'm here to be a Christian.
Let's go." And that was that was my
journey, my path.
>> Wow. This is truly amazing. I want to
tie your story into another
fundamentalist Christian who's very well
known and he's on the college campuses.
I'm going to show you this video, but
I'm sure you also went through a journey
and a point where you're dealing with
many of the misconceptions that are
thrown at Islam. I think he's and his
followers and many have been affected by
many of these misconceptions. Let's go
ahead and look at what he has to say and
we can tie it all in. The spiritual
battle is coming to the west and the
enemies are wokeism or Marxism combining
with Islamism to go after what we call
the American way of life. And the
American way of life is very simple. I
want to be able to get married, buy a
home, have kids, allow them to ride
their bike till the sun goes down, send
them to a good school, have a low crime
neighborhood, not to have my kid be
taught the lesbian, gay, transgender
garbage in their school,
while also
while also not having them have to hear
the Muslim call to prayer five times a
day. That's important.
We want the American way of life which
is by the way Christristendom.
>> Christians our sacrifice, our toil, our
vision, the outgrowth of the scriptures
gave us western civilization. And this
is where I think is a great rallying
cry. Doesn't matter if you're Hispanic.
Doesn't matter if you're Asian. Doesn't
matter if you're black or white.
Everybody, if you are Christian and
Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior,
these two threats are combining forces
to come after us. And it's time that the
church stands and rises up against it.
>> So you uh recognize uh this gentleman
Charlie Kirk?
>> I think most would recognize him.
>> Yeah. He had a lot to say. He talked
about the spiritual battle is coming to
the west and then he didn't talk about
many of the other ills that are
affecting society. But he wanted to
throw in this term uh Islamism
>> which I think this is a derogatory term
that's been just developed now. Just
another way to attack Islam. But I could
say a lot. What do you think? There's a
lot to unpack there. A lot. Let's tap
let's let's go step by step.
>> So So the first thing I mean I can
appreciate his desire to rile up the
audience to to say the things that he
should say from his perspective. Anyone
who's on that side. He didn't say
anything other than to rile them up and
get them going. Yeah. The Islamist this.
The sad thing is that I would argue
Muslims would argue just like a
Christian argues that the American way
of life is the Christian way of life.
Well, what we want what I want is
American. I would say perfectly aligns
with what I want as a Muslim. Right?
Allah tells us in the Quran,
"Oh you who believe, protect and save
yourselves and your families from the
hellfire." That is the fundamental job
description that I have. And Christians
would argue that is their job
description that he mentioned to keep
their children away from these bad
things. And he mentioned certain bad
things, drugs, alcohol, whatever else
that is. That's what we care about and
it's them. other things that he
mentioned. We care about keeping our
children on the on the right path. And
what's incredible Islam when people say
the dean of Islam as opposed to
Christianity,
Islam, the dean, this is a way of life.
It's not something we do on Sundays. So
our working a job, our being good to our
neighbors, our smiling, which is an act
of charity. All of these things are acts
of worship and part of our everyday way
of life. And that's what we are as
Muslims. We follow this way of life. And
in fact, it has no conflict with the
western goals that I have as an
American. And he's just either severely
misguided, which I don't think he is. I
think he's just riving up his audience.
He talks about, okay, the spiritual
battle is coming to the west. What do
you say are the top ills of society? We
had pornography, which outdos it
actually outdoes football, basketball,
all of the sports combined. That's how
much money is being brought in. How much
that is damaging the youth? How it's not
just youth, adults, uh, male, female,
you have gambling, you have these
institutions of only fans, you have the
interestbased system, you have just so
many things. So many things.
>> I mean, what else did I miss?
>> There's a lot of things.
>> So, what when when we unpack a spiritual
battle, what do we This is the devil
>> against the human race, right? The
devils. We have El Satan, Lucifer. We
believe we're on the same page. You have
his army. He's attacking. That's the
spiritual battle. So how we're against
all these things.
>> That's my point. It's not a battle. His
message is, oh, that's a battle of the
west against this. No, this is a battle
that we're all facing. We are all
constantly facing this battle. And for
clarity, Muslims are not free from
dealing talking about Muslims in
general. We are not free from dealing
with the battle and the ills of
pornography. You mentioned a variety of
sources. This is something that is
plaguing I could say our youth but other
than youth it's it's it's a it's a big
problem and the fact that we have such
free access to it. This is a huge issue.
It's not a Christian issue. It is not a
Muslim issue. It is an issue an issue
that the entire world is dealing with
just that one issue pornography because
we can agree to disagree on theology.
There's a lot that we have in common.
And that that was something that you
know I would always think like if we
just sit with people like Charlie Kirk
if we sit because they're not only
extremely ignorant about Islam like you
were ignorant at one point. I mean
you're a professor you're a doctor
you're a professor and now your story
goes that you're like hey you going to
the guy say where you going to the masid
you're like what the hell is a masid but
you got but you got a PhD but you don't
know that what a masid is. So same thing
with uh
>> absolutely
>> same thing with people like Charlie they
have no clue about Islam but they've
been taught to hate Islam.
>> Absolutely. So when you but he he throws
us in with wokeism.
>> He's just spreading I would say
spreading Marxism.
>> Yeah. But I actually not only is he
spreading misinformation, he's doing one
worse. I think it's intentional
disinformation just to again rile the
people up, spread that hate. And it's
unfortunate
>> because how do you put us together with
wokeism and Marxism? What Marxism is
communism?
>> I woke. Wokeism. What is wokeism for
people that don't know? What do they
what is that? blue hair and uh all the
alphabet soup and all that stuff.
>> I have no idea. I'm not even going to
try to define these things.
>> He goes on to say going after the
American way of life. What's the
American way of life? And then he
defines here getting married.
That's I mean you can't do it any other
way.
>> I think about growing up in the before
my time in the 80s they'd say that the
white picket fence the the two
>> we're down. This is all
>> like this is this is what Muslims want.
But he'd have to eliminate because
what's hindering that is the dating
culture prom. We don't let our daughters
go to prom.
>> Sure. Is that right?
>> I don't imagine that Jesus peace upon
him would have let let's link it back to
Jesus.
>> Family members go to prom. I don't think
anyone any one of them would have.
>> Is this this is something a part of the
the Christian culture also?
>> What's that?
>> Prom? I
>> I I certainly can't see how it would be.
>> Right. And and it's not supposed to be
but at least the evils that many I don't
know we we're on prom now, but the the I
don't remember too much about prom. That
was a way too long ago for me. I'm an
old man now.
>> Because that's the culture. That's
that's kind of gotten woven in the
culture. But if you go back to the real
way of Jesus, of real, you know,
following him, this is something that
he'd be totally against.
>> As far as dating and what we understand
as dating in our society here in
American culture today, it is absolutely
not in line with what I believe the
teachings of Jesus peace upon him would
have been.
>> Because I see if we we go down this as
we're going down, we have a lot more in
common. But I think this is dangerous
when you start to do the fear-mongering
and try to rally people up like that. He
said, "Okay, getting married." Yeah, we
agree. Buying a home, having kids,
riding a bike until sunset, a good
school, low crime. We're all That's
>> ironic part is some of the lowest crimes
in America are in the largest population
of of Muslim communities as well as
maybe at say over in Utah in the
communities of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. Those are
some of the lowest crime areas in
America in the Muslim communities and
the LDS communities. So if he wants low
crime, he should either move over to
Utah or maybe go to Dearbornne or other
places in the United States.
>> I mean there's stories with Muslim
imams. Uh you have Siraj Wahaj for
example. He he talks about you know the
story and others that I know personally
that they came into druginfested
crimeinfested areas like in New York
they open up the masid, the mosque
>> and now the property value starts going
up because they start ridding the
neighborhood of all the drug selling and
they start bringing life to these
neighborhoods. You've heard these
stories, right? Absolutely. Absolutely.
>> And then people also being like man the
Muslims are here and now they are
actually in the morning coming to the
fudger the early morning prayer and now
the criminals are saying we can't be
doing the same thing. Many were and like
Siraju Haj and others they were going
actually you know going toe-to-toe with
the gangbangers and they were just
cleaning cleaning house
>> just demonstrating the ignorance of
Charlie in this case.
>> Yeah. So how do you see this connecting
now to um the misconceptions that many
let's let's just almost finish this up
here. What else did he say in the video?
Okay. Riding a bike, sunset,
sunset, being out, low crime,
and then he says, u and we don't have to
hear. Okay. Then he talked about the um
the the story hour with the um trans.
Okay. We don't want this either, right?
And this is actually before
they were actually before was happening
now in Huzza. They were actually very
very happy with how Muslims were on the
front line pushing back of what
sexualization of the kids in the
schools.
>> But then what happened now and you can
see this with Israel and everything how
now they're actually um the true faces
came out the mask came off and you you
see um all all of these kind of things
the fear-mongering going on. He says
that the history the u we don't we don't
want to hear in the schools the adan the
call to prayer God is the greatest God
is the greatest which that's what it
means is uh being repeated five times a
day what do you think about that I I
haven't heard that in schools
>> but to say you don't want to hear God is
the greatest God is the greatest
repeated multiple times a day as a
Christian would be unfortunate
>> that'd be unfortunate to say you don't
want to hear that and you're right we
don't hear that in schools it's
fear-mongering
>> fear I I think they have the I think in
places like certain places in Detroit,
Minneapolis somewhere. You have a high
condensed area of of Muslims that they
allow the city is allowed the uh the
adan or something. Sure. But then you
have also freedom of religion. You have
church bells all over the place.
>> And many of them admittedly
>> don't want freedom of religion.
>> Yeah. Yeah,
>> I'm not sure if if the listeners uh saw
a recent what they call it the round
table or what did they call it on by
with Mahi Hassan
>> where he had I think it was like Mahi
versus 20 and several of those people
were self-proclaimed fascists who said
it was like with with the extreme right
this debate and they by their own
tongues said we don't want freedom of
religion we want to make rules that
support our Christian faith and then
lock it in and not allow a democracy
anymore because he said that's not a
democracy And they said that's right.
It's not a democracy. I mean that's that
is worse than the most extreme
fundamentalist Muslim perspective you
can even bring.
>> Mhm. The American would you um as a
professor agree that what he said we
want the American way of life which is
Christendom. Christianity gave us the
western civilization. Would you have
anything to say about that?
>> We want the American way of life which
is Christendom. I I think people who are
non-Christians living in America would
would would disagree with that. the the
it depends on what they mean by
Christianom. If they think that the
western way of life is accepting Jesus
Christ and as your Lord and Savior, uh I
think many would agree disagree that
that is the western way of life. They're
thinking about the output of one's life
or the result of one's life as a result
of being Christian by being good to your
neighbors by spreading love and kindness
and mercy towards one another and all of
these favorable components of one life
that of one's life that I would argue
comes with being a model Christian.
Those are the exact things that come
with being a model Jew, by being a model
Muslim, and even by being a model in
many other faith traditions that espouse
these same type of beliefs. What do you
think what comes to my mind
Dr. um Jonathan is that when you think
about this, these are common mantras
that I put out. But if you really dig a
little deep and you look at the schisms
that happen, you look at the witch
burning, you look at um the conflict
between science and religion. We never
Muslims in Muslim history, you never had
that, did you? You didn't have now that
um at the time you had religion saying
one thing contradicting science and now
they were they had to separate and
that's where you had liberalism and
everything you had that was going away
from Christianity that's why they
separated and so how can it produce the
western civilization when there was big
conflict between modernity and science
and so this is actually not true this is
not a true statement
>> 100% I have Nothing to add to that cuz
I'm agreeing with you.
>> Yeah. And then the uh so I mean this is
just ironic. I mean this is you know you
they say these things but you you come
back and you look at um all of these
things that are pushed out. How do you
look Dr. Jonathan when you see these are
many of the the ignorant statements that
people make in your journey now going
from now being a fundamentalist
Christian like Charlie. Were you
attacked by your family and others with
the common attacks? Oh, now what are you
going to be a jihadi? Oh, what are you
going to now be a terror? You know, and
and all the the um the whole array of
attacks that start to come your way. And
how did you deal with those? I'm sure
you dealt with.
>> So, I was not I was not attacked by
family or friends, but they did have a
lot of the common misconceptions that I
had to just slowly answer. I mean, Allah
says,
right, invite to the way of your Lord
with wisdom. It's unfortunate, but when
I was a a new practicing Muslim, I was
not very wise and I just wanted to go
win every debate and not tooting my own
horn, but Allah facilitated that. I
usually did I would usually beat down
that opponent and I never really tried
to lift them up because I was just so
young and I'm fiery and I wanted to show
the the the the power of the evidences
that I was bringing forth with Islam. Um
and that was a path that I was on
unfortunately just plowing through
showing why Islam was dominant and why
it's it was the correct position on
Jesus peace upon him and in other
aspects of our faith tradition. And so I
didn't get to too many people who were
attacking. They would mention
misconceptions and I would answer those
misconceptions.
>> What were what were some of those?
>> Women oppressed.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, I think of like one of the
common misconceptions. Oh, y'all are
oppressed women. You make them do this.
You make them do that. And anyone who is
aware with any semblance of the truth
knows that that's it's far from the
case.
>> Yeah. How how did you uh how did you
address those? You didn't have much
knowledge. A lot of times now when
people go uh how long's it been now that
you have been a Muslim?
>> About 25 years.
>> 25 years. It wasn't like that back then
because we didn't have the the the
YouTube and
>> Sure.
>> much of the social media. But now you go
out and you got many of these um I would
say human they're almost like human
devils who are out there. There's a pack
of them. There's many of them who you go
on and they're they spend their whole
mission in life. Not talking about their
way of life, but just 99.9% of the time
is just they're trying to cast doubt,
>> intentional misinformation and
disinformation.
>> Yeah.
>> Let's talk about that at your time.
>> At my time, there was little of that
because without YouTube,
>> how do you compare it to extent? I mean,
it's prolific now.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. It's everywhere now. There's so
much information. We're not even getting
to AI. Just pre AI. just so much
information out there, much of which is
false. Not just about Islam, about
Christian, about everything. Trying to
find the truth just becomes on the one
hand so much harder, but on the other
hand, can be maybe easier. But it's up
to we we ask Allahel for guidance.
>> You would you say that's one of the
wisdoms as God is testing your
sincerity? If you're truly like you,
you're asking God, I'm sure you are
asking the creator, guide me. And I give
people that homework. Just ask the
creator. It's so simple. Ask the creator
for guidance and do your part. And if
you're sincere, you're going to get
guided.
>> Absolutely. My mother would say, "I'm
going to pray that you come back to
Catholicism." I said, "But mom, if if
Catholicism is wrong, your prayer would
not be answered."
>> Why not do what we as Muslims do when we
pray five times a day, we don't say,
"God, keep us guided to Islam." We say,
"Guide us to the straight path." That's
what we're praying for all the time.
It's something that if you ask
sincerely, inshallah, your Lord will
open your heart and your mind and bring
you to that straight path.
>> Isn't that amazing? I just did an
interview with a brother who opened up
the Quran and he just read the first
chapter and then
guide us to the straight path. Isn't
that just so powerful? But very
powerful.
>> How does that compare with the Lord's
Prayer?
>> With the Lord's Prayer. Oh, so glad you
asked the Lord's Prayer. I love talking
to Christians and asking them, "Who do
you pray to?" I do a dao event once a
month. Uh very similar to what people
have seen with the famous Shikman and
his tent. We have a similar one here in
Florida. Once a month, it's actually
tomorrow night. And when Christians come
by and are asking us questions and
they're wanting to debate, I say, "Who
do you pray to?" And of course, who do
they say? They say they pray to Jesus.
I'm like, "Great.
>> Who did Jesus pray to?" Mhm.
>> There's only two places, only two in the
entire New Testament where according to
Christians, their Lord and Savior taught
them how to pray. And what did he say?
He said, "When you pray, pray like
this." Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,
thy will be done. And so on and so
forth. I have it memorized, not because
I tried to. This is my my Catholic
upbringing. We had to Our Father, Hail
Mary. We had to know these things,
right? Just incredible to look only two
places where per Christians he taught
them how to pray and he said pray to
who? To God our father who are in
heaven. Yet the overwhelming vast
majority of Christianom they pray to
Jesus. Now they're going to argue he's
God but fine. But why not pray that
bracelet ask yourself what would Jesus
do? Who would he pray to? How did he
pray? He put his head on the ground and
he prayed to his Lord. It's so moving
when I'm praying as a Muslim and I'm
realizing that I'm praying the way Jesus
peace be upon him prayed. When I'm
praying the way all of the prophets of
God prayed, it's so powerful in that
moment.
>> What does Muslim mean?
>> Muslim means it comes from the word,
which is a past tense verb which means
he submitted. So you could also say in
Arabic that a person submitted to God.
So means he submitted. Islam is the
which in how do you translate mustar to
English? I don't know. I'm not a grammar
person in English, but it means
submission. Islam linguistically simply
means submission to whom? To your
creator.
>> Are you like half Arab now because
you're speaking some Arabic?
>> I don't speak Arabic. It's it's people
get very much deceived when they hear
me. They think I speak Arabic. I wish I
did. I've learned some uh but not enough
to be fluent the way I would like.
That's amazing because the Quran is in
the living language. We have it in its
original. It's been memorized by
millions. It's stood the test of time.
It's been preserved by the creator. When
you go back in some of these Aramaic, we
believe Jesus spoke. And many of these
uh ancient languages, they've been lost
and you don't have the preserved text.
>> Absolutely.
>> But now, this is just an example of
somebody who's Irish, Scottish man, and
he's speaking uh Arabic.
>> You know, it's so beautiful. Again, I'm
passionate about this part, and this has
changed. My my message to Christians has
has evolved over the years. My message
used to not be about the Quran, which is
it it's so sad to me. I could cry
thinking about it. When people as a new
Muslim, they would say, "What's the
greatest miracle in Islam?" Because I
would say, "Oh, Moses did this, parting
the sea. Jesus healed the blind, raised
the dead, all through God's leave,
right? But with through the power of
God." And he admitted as much in the
Bible per Christians. But people would
say, "Oh, but what is the miracle of
Islam?" And Muslims would respond,
"Well, the miracle of Islam was the
Quran." Not that there are not other
miracles that we're aware of now that
I'm a Muslim. I'm aware of these things.
But I was like, "Oh, that seems
self-serving. Your miracle, I would say
at the time, is your book. That seems
self- serving." And I never really put
that forward for the longest time until
the last few years of my message to
Christians. But this is so powerful that
this book has been preserved, has been
memorized by tens, if not hundreds of
millions to this, right now, this day,
there's going to be tens of millions of
people. I know several extended family
members that have the entire Quran
memorized cover to cover. I love
bringing someone from over here, someone
from over there, say, "Recite this
verse. Recite this verse." And they
recite the exact same verse perfectly.
You could never do that with the Bible,
right? And so even if a hater comes
along, a Muslim hater and says, "Oh, the
Quran is written by Mohamad." And they
love to put the Ham and Mohammad. They
they love to stress that for whatever
reason. I say, "Whoever it was written
by,
>> the fact is that Christian scholars do
not even bother to debate because they
know it's true. It's never been
changed." That's powerful that we have
that original text. Look at how, again,
not trying to cast shade, but when you
go to the Bible and you have so many
different versions, then you have exact
verses where the verse in this Bible is
different from the verse in this Bible.
And then if you go to a different
version, that verse is all of a sudden
changed with a footnote saying, "Oh, it
was changed because it was the wrong
number and we wanted to match it up
because it must have been an error from
the translators or an error from those
who wrote it down." The fact is no book
from God should have errors. The Quran
is free from errors. Has never been
changed. It has scientific miracles in
the Quran. When one goes and reviews
those miracles, miracles that the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam could
never have known 1400 years ago. And
it's never been changed. And this is
something that is extremely powerful to
deliver this message to the non-Muslims.
>> What would you say if Charlie and the
like I'll give some just healthy push
back and they say no it's not true. You
guys actually were burning Qurans. You
had your man uh who was actually burning
Quran. So it's not it's not true.
>> And and we any any educated Muslim knows
the answer to that. And I would
encourage them to go look, right?
>> Any of them knows the the answer. Any
educated Muslim starting over knows the
answer to that. And they should be
equipped to be able to respond because
many Christians wouldn't know that and
wouldn't try to argue back, oh, but
that's not true. Y'all had a version
with these certain diiacritical marks
and y'all burned them. I encourage the
listener, go look up the Muslim response
to that. It's a very clear response. I
don't want to waste their time digging
into right now but it's very clear they
were not versions right they all there
was one Quran we can go look at the
different ways we can recite the Quran
now which are all different which are
all part of that same revelation right
when one person wants to recite ham
right
which is how I like to recite someone
else wants to recite in a different ria
right this is all part of the revelation
but when all of a sudden people were
saying things incorrectly because they
were written wrong and they said, "Hey,
let's remove that and burn it." That's
not removing a version or burning a
version as opposed to where Allah says
that they literally change the books
with their own hands for a price, which
is unfortunately what we have found in
the Bible where things have been edited
and things have been changed over time.
And then even like one of the great
examples, I don't have the verse
memorized. I should have come better
equipped here. But talking about uh the
the Trinity, like one of the arguments
for the Trinity where now in more modern
versions of the Bible or translations,
they'll literally say the the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit in one
particular verse. When the original
Bibles, the King James version did not
say that and instead it said it was what
is the God and then water and the blood.
>> Yes.
>> And that verse did not exist with
father, son, and holy spirit. And it was
added by the translators afterwards to
do what? To try to bring about a certain
theology. And then those same Christians
today, they use that verse to argue that
theology and it's circular reasoning.
Unfortunately,
>> yeah, that's what they did. That was the
RSV, the revised standard version. 50 of
I think it was great scholars of that
time and then with uh different churches
cooperated together to go ahead and go
to what was there of the most ancient
scripts and then they preface there that
the King James version how great it is
except that it has major
>> errors defects in it. So if you have one
defect in the word of God how can that
still be the word of God? this and this
is the other other Bible. And then they
protested and then they put so they took
these things out but then later they got
so much push back they put it back. So
they were trying to be authentic but
then the more authentic you started to
be you're you're actually uh creating
this uh push so much political push back
and and people didn't want to hear it so
then they put it back.
>> And what I love is that when anyone you
hear about all of these changes that
can't happen with the Quran.
>> No.
>> If someone tried to publish a new Quran
it would be rejected immediately. Mhm.
>> You ever listen to the leader of a
Muslim community leading the prayer,
people behind him, he makes a mistake
during the prayer, he's corrected right
then. Someone behind him corrects him
and he goes and he corrects that verse
that he was just reciting. That can't
happen with Islam because Allah promised
that he would protect the Quran and
preserve it, which we haven't preserved
until today.
>> Allah. Someone thinks you're worshiping
a different god. How do you like to
explain who is Allah?
>> Who is Allah? Allah is simply the Arabic
word for God. Interestingly enough,
Jesus peace be upon him as I like to
make sure Christians know this. Did not
speak English. He was not white-skinned,
blue-eyed from Dallas, Texas, right?
Jesus peace be upon him. He was a a very
devout Jew. Likely he spoke Hebrew. But
in fact, and this is not a secret, most
Christians I think know this that the
language his mother tongue was Aramaic.
And in Aramaic, when you go ask JPT or
go look online, there's a couple of
different ways they say you can
pronounce God with capital G.
It is either or Allah. Pretty similar to
Allah, which should not be surprising
because these are both Smitic languages.
Allahel or the name Allah in Arabic
simply means the God. And so when
Christians say, "Oh, but they're
worshiping a different God. Y'all aren't
worshiping Allah. I say, "Really?" And I
pulled out I have a couple of Arab
Bibles. I like to remind people that
Christians are not only English
speakers.
>> Yes,
>> there are Christians in South and
Central America who may not speak
English and they speak Spanish and their
Bible is translated from the original
manuscripts into Spanish. There are
Bibles, there are Christians in China
who maybe read or speak Cantonese or
Mandarin and they'll have Bibles
translated to those languages.
Similarly, as we know, there are
Christians in the Arabian Peninsula that
speak Arabic. And those Bibles, one of
the most famous verses in the Bible,
John 1:1. What is John 1:1? In the
beginning was the word and the word was
with God and the word was God. I always
memorized that one in Arabic just as a
demonstration for the listener. It says,
"This is the Bible in Arabic. This is
the Bible in Arabic."
>> John 11. John 1:1,
>> you got Allah in there twice.
>> And the word was with Allah. Allah
is and the word was Allah. Allah is the
Arabic word for God.
>> That's a great example. Yes.
>> In the Bible.
>> Wow.
>> It's the Arabic word for God. But it's
also important on that note. Christians,
I love delivering this message. I say to
them, Jesus is your Lord and Savior.
Right? What is your name? The Dean show.
Dean show with who? Eddie. Imagine I
say, "This is my man. It's my best
friend. I love him more than anybody.
You don't know him. I know him. This guy
is my best buddy. Let me introduce you
to Edward." He'd say, "Uh, how am I your
best friend? You don't even know my
name.
>> Just chop the name.
>> You don't even know my name.
>> Change."
>> And then all of a sudden, I say, "Well,
you say your Lord and Savior, not your
best friend. Your Lord and Savior is
Jesus." To me, this is important. It's a
hill I'd kind of want to die upon with
Christians.
Your Lord and Savior is Jesus. What was
his name? Do you even know his name?
Now, the learned Christian wants to puff
their chest out and they say, "Yes, I
do." And they say, "Yeshua." I say,
"It's a good guess." That was his Hebrew
name. But what was his mother tongue?
Aramaic.
>> Aramaic.
>> I love teaching Christians the name of
Jesus. And I don't do this arrogantly. I
said, "You want to pray to him? You want
to at least call him your Lord and
Savior? at least know his name.
So I tell them, don't believe me, go
look it up. Have a conversation with
Chachi. The first answer Chachi will
usually give is Yeshua. But if you tell
them, hey, Chhatri, that's his Hebrew
name. What was his mother tongue?
They'll tell you it was Aramaic. Then
you say, okay, well, what was his actual
accent dialect within Aramaic? And the
answer is where what do they call it?
Jesus of what? Nazareth. And when
Nazareth is part of Galilee, Jesus, he
was from Galilee. His mother tongue was
Galilean Aramaic. And in that mother
tongue, according to Christian
scholarship, how do you say his name?
I'm going to teach the viewer right now.
Be appreciative of this. The Muslim
teaching you the name of who you claim
as your Lord and Savior. No problem. His
name is Yur according to Galilean
Aramaic. The easy way to know it, do we
can we say yay? Clap hands. Yay. That's
yay. Shu. The thing you wear on your
feet. Yes.
And so at the end it's this Yeshua was
the Galilean Aramaic way of pronouncing
the name of Jesus peace be upon him. You
love him. This is your Lord and Savior.
The least you should have is know how to
say his name
>> instead of calling him Jesus. Because
Christianity that was going back to my
message bringing us right full circle.
It was whitewashed. It was whitewashed.
I grew up in a Catholic household. At
our diner, dining at our dining table,
we had a picture right up up there on
the front of the the head of the
kitchen. A picture of Mary, white skin,
blue eyes, a beautiful picture of
depiction of Jesus, white skin, blue
eyes, makes us feel good. Now, people
who are educated know that Jesus peace
be upon him, as is described, did not
have white skin. He had darker skin. He
had some curly hair, reminiscent of a
certain demographic in America that was
polarized, that was enslaved. Can you
imagine white slave owners thinking that
the person they called Lord and Savior
had dark skin and curly hair? That would
have never flown.
>> Wow.
>> That would have never flown. Let's
whitewash him. Let's not say he's from
the Arabian Peninsula. Let's forget
about that. Maybe we can call it
Bethlehem and we feel good about it.
>> He's a Middle Eastern man. a Middle
Eastern man. Let's change his name from
Jesus to Yeshua. I'm from I'm sorry.
From from Yeshua to Jesus. Jesus in his
name. Like how often say in his name you
don't know his name.
>> Wow.
>> You don't know. I'm passionate about
this.
>> That's deep.
>> You don't know his name. Let me teach
you his name. His name is Yeshua.
According to your belief of born in
Galilee and speaking Galilean Aramaic.
So that all started from Allah as the
Arabic name for God.
>> Mhm.
>> Just simply means the God and Christians
Eddie all around the world. Christians
all around the world pray to Allah. Arab
Christians they pray to Allah. They use
the word Allah. Allah is not an Arab
God. Allah simply means the God. The
amount of similarity that we have with
Christendom is so so so far much more
than our differences. Our differences
are important. We don't pray to Jesus
peace be upon him. We pray to the one
who he prayed to.
>> That's it.
>> That's it. Here, O Israel, the Lord our
God is one God.
>> Is one
>> right from the Bible.
>> By the way, there was uh a person in
your calculus class that really affected
you. Can you tell me about the story?
There's a story that I mentioned that I
think is just profound and this is
really maybe for a Muslim listener that
whenever I give an answer of how I
became a Muslim, a three-minute answer
or a 45minute answer and I start with
there was this guy in my calculus class.
What is impressive and to me is so
meaningful there is he never had any
more impact beyond this first 15inute
conversation yet I always mention him
and there's a great story where you
heard the whole path how I went on
became a Muslim here I am living this
life right this was in Daytona Beach
when I met him and now we fast forward
where I had traveled overseas tried to
get some Islamic education came back and
then I was at the University of Central
Florida in Orlando doing my PhD in
computer science every Friday night we
would be playing volleyball. The Muslims
there from the University Masid we
called it. We'd go play volleyball on
the grounds of UCF. They have like 15
sand volleyball courts. We'd get there
at like 9:30 p.m. Leave at like 1:00
a.m. 3 and a half hours of probably
three hours of arguing and a half an
hour of actual playing. If you've ever
been with that kind of a crowd, it was
hilarious. We were there one evening and
I came a bit late and I was walking onto
the court and I saw someone actually
lean back up. Sorry, I actually said
that wrong. I was playing. We were in
the middle of play, but I did come late.
We're in the middle of play and someone
was walking onto the court and I looked
over and I saw him and my heart was just
pounding because I recognized the face,
someone I had not seen in years. It was
that person from my calculus class. And
I said,
I walked off the court. First of all,
people started shouting, "Yeah, yeah."
Because they know me as Yah. And I was
like, "Wait, wait." I walked off and I
said, "Are you Hisham?" And he said,
"Yes." I said, "It's me. It's Yaha."
He's like, "What? Who?" And I said,
"Jonathan from Embry Riddle." And and he
was like, "Wait, what?" And he made a
connection and he remembered me from
calculus class.
We finished playing that night and
afterwards we were sitting down having
tea all of us like we did. He was
astonished
that I had been mentioning him for at
least 10 years that there was this guy
in my calculus class and he shared with
me a message and with all of us
maybe he wasn't very religious in that
moment but he said something profound.
He said if you knew anything about me
back when I was at Embry Riddle and the
life I was living the path I was on he
was trying to and he was trying to
suggest it was not a good path.
He said there would you would never
believe that there was anything that I
could ever say that would have an impact
on someone to bring them towards Islam.
He was actually embarrassed that I had
been talking about him for over 10 years
saying there was this guy in my calculus
class. He was floored that that guy me
had not only become a Muslim had gone on
and been a speaker in so many places had
traveled around the world different
countries invited to give talks on Islam
and then I'm always saying it started
with
>> this guy in my calculus class
>> so my message to Muslims who feel oh I
can't say anything I'm not good enough
I'm not practicing I'm not knowledgeable
enough the prophetatam he
If you have if if the hour has been
established and if you have in your hand
a seed or a seedling, plant that seed,
you have no clue what trees, what
bushes, what forests can sprout from the
seeds you plant. I I make dua for this
brother all the time. 15 minutes. He had
no idea. And I'm not I'm not trying to
toot my own horn. I'm a nobody. But the
fact that I've been talking about him
for all those years because of something
he did one Friday night with a
condescending attitude, mind you, asking
me how could I possibly think Jesus was
God, arguing with me for 10, 15 minutes,
setting me on this path and lighting
that fire. May Allah bless him for what
he did.
>> Amen. Before we conclude, so it took you
three years after you started this
journey at that ending of three years.
Did you finally now you were like what
did it for you that you were finally
like realize that okay the Quran is from
the creator. Islam is the way of life
submission and surrender to God. This is
Islam. This is what I want to follow.
Now
what did it for you finally that you
finally end up taking your testimony of
faith your shahada? This is from the of
Allah. It should not have taken three
years. First of all, I believed the
majority of
>> intense studying.
>> Yes. I believe the majority of the
Islamic tenants for most of those three
years.
>> This isn't just like, you know, a dream
and like, you know, I got this ghost in
me and I'm just
>> It was a three-year very studious time.
And I was often visiting the Islamic
Center of Daytona Beach. The people knew
me very well there as a single young man
in college. I was enjoying my Ramadans
there. By the way, anyone in Florida,
Daytona Beach, they have one of the best
throwdowns during Ramadan.
>> Yeah.
>> I was going there enjoying their meals.
Three years of studying and finally, you
said, "What did it? What did it?" It was
on the day of Eid.
>> Yeah.
>> The imam, the day of Eid. I went to the
Eid celebration. It was, this is on A1A,
right off of A1A, uh, in Daytona Beach,
um, looking over the inter coastal
waterway. It's beautiful outside.
Hundreds of Muslims there, maybe a
thousand. He brought me to the side.
About an hour later, we're in the
parking lot. I said, "Jonathan,
why aren't you a Muslim?" And I opened
my heart and I gave him some answers.
And a lot of the answers had to do with
fear of my family. Fear that how do I
answer? How do I do this? I won't know
what to say. And he immediately, may
Allah bless him, he immediately subsided
all of that. He said, "Look, when you
become a Muslim, yes, you need to
articulate that to your brothers and
sisters in Islam. You need to espouse
that, communicate it, proclaim it." He's
like, "But as far as your family,
they're going to bring questions to you
that you're not going to be ready to
answer. It's not that you're hiding it,
but you're not ready to answer. So, you
don't need to go immediately send an
email, make a phone call, hey, I'm a
Muslim now." You tell them when you're
ready. I had been believing Islam
probably the last thing that I was hung
up on was, do I want to accept this guy
Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam as
the last prophet of God? Because I had
in my mind, but do I want to follow that
foreign guy? This is hilarious. Do I
want to follow that foreign guy as
opposed to Jesus forgetting that Jesus
peace be upon him
>> was a foreign guy?
>> Yeah, he was foreign middle eastern.
>> And when I made that connection, I'm
like, wait, this is silly. I'm like, I'm
going to view I'm going to instead of
this white guy named Jesus as my Lord
and Savior, I'm going to follow some
foreign Middle Eastern guy. When I made
those connections and this conversation
with the imam, he said, "I don't need to
go tell the world right now. I can do so
in my time when I'm ready." A weight
went off of my shoulders. He said, "Are
you ready?" I said, "Absolutely. Let's
go. He called everyone together. At
least those 100 people got in a big
circle. He said, "Jonathan is going to
become a Muslim." It was hilarious. They
said, "Finally, I've been eating their
food for three years during Ramadan."
>> And we did the shahada and that was it.
>> What's the shahada?
>> The shahada is the testimony of faith,
which is simply, I bear witness that
there is no deity worthy of worship
except Allah. And I bear witness that
Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam is
the messenger of Allah. It is the first
pillar of Islam. The prophet Muhammad
peace be upon him he said
he said Islam has been built upon five
the five pillars of Islam. I encourage
the listener go translate that and look
up those pillars. But the first of which
is the testimony of faith, which is a
testimony on the lips, but it starts
with the heart.
>> I don't think there's anybody who's
sincere who's listening to this story of
your journey that this didn't plant a
seed for them to look further. I mean,
this is truly amazing. Look, you're
you're a professor, you're a doctor, and
this is not something there's many
people who I know who are like, I don't
want Islam to be the truth because now I
got to become a Muslim if I want to
follow the truth, the way of God. And
it's not it's in your interest, but if
you look at it from a worldly
perspective, no, my family, my culture,
the society, the Charlie Kirks of the
world, they're all going to start coming
after me. So, it can be scary. It can be
intimidating.
>> Absolutely.
>> But Islam is the truth. So if you're
sincere and you're listening to this and
you believe in pure absolute monotheism,
not worshiping Jesus, but the God of
Jesus, Islam provides all the scient the
logical the the proofs and evidences
that is in the truth. And you took
literally three years looking at all of
the evidences and the doubts that were
throw out there. It's a long time.
>> I was stubborn.
>> Yeah,
>> I was stubborn.
>> So they can uh you can save them the
trip spending three years. is they can
listen to this story and hopefully what
what would you advise people who are
stuck, you know, they just listen. They
came to the um what is this called? You
know, the one of these Charlie Kirk
events and whatnot and they he brings on
these Islamophobes and they scared the
people, fear-mongers and that, but
they're they're now, you know, they're
sincere. They're genuine. They're
listening to your story and they're
intrigued. Tell me more. But then
there's this whole baggage of all the
misconceptions, the hate and that's out
there being pushed against Islam. What
is what advice do you give for them?
>> That's a that's a broad question. I'm
going to limit my advice in particular
to advice given to Christians who were
stuck and were seeking and learning. I I
could be more applicable to everyone.
I'll talk about Christians in particular
because we're in let's go for the
Christian statistically majority
Christian country.
>> I would say if someone was truly
learning and they were learning
different faith traditions, Islam
included, and their eyes were open. They
were looking and realizing some of the
innovations that were brought into the
faith and they were maybe going a
similar path of trying to find the
message of Jesus peace upon him. That's
what should be their that their core.
Ask God for guidance. Keep doing that.
Keep looking for that truth. Keep in my
case, I kept asking what would Jesus do?
Not what would Paul do. I wasn't going
to be a Paulian. I said a Matthew Ston,
Mark, Luke, and Johnston. I wanted to be
a Christian. And when you live that life
of I want to truly follow Christ,
the path becomes super clear. Super
clear. here. If I had not learned about
Islam, I will admit the other thing I
was learning about was Ebianites at the
time, which were basically monotheistic
believers in Christ and Jesus peace upon
him, agreeing with everything that we as
Muslims believe, but simply not
believing in Muhammad peace upon him,
which is unfortunate,
>> but that's how similar it was because
the message becomes super clear once you
start getting rid of all of those
innovations. I like that example and I
give another one because my family's
from the Jerusalem of Europe, Bosnia.
>> And in there you had the name Bogamals.
You had Unarian Christians basically who
also believed in Jesus but didn't
believe in many of the teachings, the
innovations of the church. They were
pray not to Jesus but the God of Jesus.
But then when Islam came, they actually
took to it because it was part of what
they already believed. the fra the
innate nature and they were away from
any of these madeup teachings and so my
also ancestry comes from the this part
but now Muslims so there's a lot out
there I think they did a survey it was
like 30 40% or more Christians don't
believe Jesus is God they don't they
believe he was a good teacher a good man
and uh they reject this their fra their
innate nature rejects this
>> I'm a computer science professor I
encourage my students all of the time it
might surprise the listener but to Use
AI. It's a great tool. It's an
educational tool and it's getting better
and better and better. Where am I going
with this? I love if you clear your
browser because AI does it's like an
echo chamber. They want to feed you what
you're used to asking. They know your
personality. They learn about you. Open
an incognito brow browser and go to chat
GBT. And again, this is not a proof that
Islam is correct, but it's still fun to
do and say, "Look, I want you to you
have clearly analyzed not only the Bible
and the Quran, but you've analyzed all
the different translations. You have
access to all of these data sets of the
translations of all the versions. Do not
analyze theology. Ignore theology, but
instead just look at the text and tell
me your thought, your conclusion. Is
Jesus divine God or is he a prophet of
God? And the conclusion and it it it
mentions the the verses in the Bible
that might suggest he was God. It
mentions the verses in the Bible that
suggest he could not have been God. And
it comes to a conclusion and the
conclusion is very clear when it says my
conclusion is Jesus was a prophet of
God.
>> Wow.
>> It's incredible.
>> This is from doing the AI.
>> Yeah. Absolutely.
>> Wow. They make it easy for you. I mean
it it it it because what happens is
people go and they want to view the
Bible through the lens of their
theology.
>> But the writers of the Bible brought in
their theology with their translation by
corrupting those verses we were
mentioning. And so now if you want to
then use that corrupted translation that
has intentional misguidance to bring you
to a particular theology and you want to
use that exact version to argue your
theology that is a circular reasoning.
Thankfully Chad JT is able to avoid that
and just look at the data without
theology and say look based off of the
data based off of the verses there are
some verses that suggest divinity there
are many others that suggest prophet of
God when we analyze his own words it
said we land on he is a prophet of god
it's incredible and as far as the Quran
I don't know if you've known they did
this study it's called this really blows
my mind this u styometrics
science of language study that they did
and they concluded through this study
that the Quran a few things that the
Quran is only one author there's one
author of the Quran very clear it's very
clear and that when they put this also
to the test bkari and the hadith the
statements the sayings prophetic
statements of prophet Muhammad that this
is distinct from the Quran
>> so those are not his words they're two
separate so the question is right there
who then wrote the if it's not it's not
Muhammad because now you would be the
patterns you know they use this for
plagiarism studies for um Shakespeare
wannabes. So the science of today has
made it easy that you can
>> and I appreciate you mentioning that
because that was the other part earlier.
Maybe you'll connect this post editing,
but I wanted to mention that the single
authorship of the Quran that again
non-Muslim authors have argued, long
argued, whoever wrote the Quran, they'll
argue who writes it, but they all agree
there's one author because of the
textual analysis. They agree that
there's one author. Kind of like when
the textual analysis happens of the New
Testament. Now ignorant Christians may
be aware unaware of this but that same
textual analysis when they look at the
gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
Christian scholarship not Muslim not
atheist Christian scholarship very
clearly states something you know that
Matthew was not written by the disciple
Matthew Luke was not written by the
disciple Luke John not by the disciple
John nor Mark by the disciple J Mark
instead they said there's an author
called Q coming from the Latin queue l e
that is unknown but that each of those
gospels are pulling from that that other
manuscript and they're all pulling based
off the textual analysis but that same
analysis when made of the Quran they say
there's one author which is incredible
that people have memorized this one
author that book of this one author for
over 1400 years and it's never been
changed
>> that is really that's so profound you
have anonymous books here you got also
two cop copying from one you have
plagiarism coming you have also the same
styometrics and the science of language
what they did was they also determined
through this that you have forgeries
also from uh the letters of Paul the
books I think several of them are also
fake so I mean come on where you going
now
>> Paul
>> that's where you just went
>> we can go on and on this is truly an
amazing story thank you for spending
time and sharing with us what do you
think let me ask you this uh you u
people heard about this project the dean
center you actually you're here, you're
in our studio and you actually uh you
honored us with giving Juma on a Friday,
the sermon, we say the sermon or
>> the talk on a Friday prayer. What what
are your thoughts
>> of the center in general? Uh your son
was very kind and gave me the Torah is
mash extremely impressive. I see the
community growing. This is the I think
this is the first time I had come here
and it was for the was the second. I
came a month before that was the first
time and then I was invited to come give
the kutba and just it's the community is
growing number one but I had not seen
the grounds I had not been in here and
when I got the tour I was super excited
to go see uh the the the hall in the
front which I can imagine you're going
to be able to use I can think about all
the events you can have there guest
speakers coming in I was also really
excited when I then went and I saw the
workout area for the last year and a
half my son and I have been like almost
gym rats I don't look it yet but where
we're two hours a day about six days a
week in the gym um just a really
impressive facility that has been put
together and I'm I'm looking forward to
seeing the the benefits of it in the
years to come.
>> Thank you. Thank you for sharing your
story and being here with us. Thank you.
>> It's been a pleasure and amazing story.
Alhamdulillah. And if you would like a
free copy of the Quran, a gift from me
to you, go to the deanshow.com. I'll get
you one for free so you can go ahead and
put it to the test yourself. We'll see
you next time. Until then, peace be with
you. Assalamu alaykum.