Dr Brown And How He Came To Islam
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Bismillah Alhamdulillah Salam aleikum, which means peace be up to you. Welcome to another episode of the deen show. You want to know about Islam, you've come to the right place you want to know about Muslims, you've come to the source. Our next guest is the author of some very unique books. We're going to be talking to him. We're going to be talking about how he came to Islam. Sit tight. You don't want to go nowhere. With our next guest coming up. Dr. Brown. We'll be right back on the dean show.
Peaceful peaceful, peaceful.
calm.
Dr. Brown, thank you for being with us on the show. It's a treat. My pleasure, sir. Dr. Boehner, Officer Brown? No, no. Dr. Brown. Okay. So the people, our audience, just got to read a little bit about you. Once you just briefly tell us they got to see that you had graduated. You're a doctor, you're an officer, retired major in the Air Force? Is this correct? Tell us a little bit about this. Well, I don't know if you really can say retired because that in most people's minds means that they spent 20 years in the military. Yeah, I was 16 years, eight years inactive reserves and eight years active duty. But the bottom line is that I'm an ophthalmologist, I'm a specialist in cataract and
refractive surgery. I'm the medical director of a major Eye Center.
During the last 10 years, I've authored a number of books about Islam.
I first became Muslim about 14 years ago. And in the first
in the first few years, it was just accelerated learning.
I got to a point where I realized that there was basically
an absence of literature with regard to certain subjects. And I felt that that, that that void needed to be filled. And that's what started me on writing. So over the last 10 years,
I wrote a series of five books. Many readers might know the first one, it's called the first and final commandment.
However, I have now rewritten that into two books, one is called misguided and the other is called called got it, those are basically volumes one and volumes, two of the first and final commandment.
The latest book, The one I'm most excited about is the eighth scroll. And the reason that I'm excited and I feel others should be as well is that that's actually an action adventure. It's a novel. And it's very exciting, very fast paced book. And it's a book that people will read because they enjoy it. But at the same time, they'll take home a deeper message.
Now, let's talk about people are excited because you mentioned the word excited, I'm sure they're excited to hear how you came to Islam. Talk about this. Talk about your past religious experiences and what led you to Islam? Sure, actually, you know, it's, it's kind of a fun topic for me.
Because most people assume that I was Christian before I became Muslim. And I have to correct them, I have to tell them no.
I was trying very hard to be a Christian. I had tried for many years to be a Christian in many different ways. And it just never worked out for me. And I get a lot of funny looks when I say that.
But the bottom line is that what happened was that I started on a spiritual search.
About 19 years ago,
I had a daughter who was born with a with what's called a coarctation of the aorta. It's a it's a lethal problem, meaning that a child born with this condition most often dies. And they usually die in a particularly bad way, meaning that they have open heart surgery. And then a few years later, they repeat the open heart surgery and then a few years later, they repeat it as the child is growing, they have to increase the size of the graft and in the end, these children die. So this was the first time when I got the news
of her condition. This is the first time in my life I felt I had no control. I couldn't do anything about this situation. Every time before in my life. When there was a problem. I dealt with it on my own if I needed more money, I worked harder if this needed fixing. I found somebody or I fixed it myself etc etc.
Everybody knows what I'm talking about.
When this baby was born, her name was Hannah, she went straight to the intensive care unit. Her body from here down was almost the color of my suit closer to the color of your suit, just kind of a dusky, gunmetal blue because her body was not getting oxygen, her body was literally starving in front of our eyes, oxygen starved in front of our eyes. And that part of her body was was literally dying. And when I saw that,
like I said, it was the first time in my life that I needed to turn to some greater power.
I was atheist, up until then, I had been raised in a family that was basically Quaker, and one of the Protestant sects, but not practicing. And I myself had never taken on any religion. So I had to leave the intensive care unit because they brought in a team of doctors, a team of specialists in the field. And while they were doing their thing, I just went to the prayer room. And for the first time in my life, I really prayed. And I pray kind of the typical atheist prayer, there's, there's a prayer called the prayer of the skeptic. The prayer of the skeptic goes like this, oh, God, if there is a God, save my soul, if I have a soul, okay, that's the prayer of the skeptic.
And most atheists, when they pray, they pray this way. They say, Oh, God, if you are there, you know, because they're not quite sure. And that's basically what I prayed. I just said, Oh, God, if you're there, I don't know if you're there or not. But if you are, I need help. And I made a promise to my Creator. On that day, I promised that if he would save the life of my child,
and then guide me to the religion that was most pleasing to Him,
that I would follow. And that was the that was the simple promise. And I was only away for maybe about 15 minutes, 15 or 20 minutes. But when I went back into the intensive care unit, my daughter was on the other side of the intensive care unit. And when I entered the door, and looked across the room, the doctors raised their faces from my, from my daughter.
And I could see right away, something had changed.
Their faces were mystified, as if they didn't really understand
what was going on. Maybe a little bit shocked.
When, when I walked up to them, they simply told me that she was going to be okay. And
that she wouldn't, you know, she wouldn't die.
And sure enough, she went back to being a completely normal child in all respects. I mean, you know, normal quirks, but, but completely healthy, she didn't have surgery, she didn't need medication.
Just her condition completely reversed. And here's the thing we had, we had an ultrasound film of her heart beforehand. And we had an ultrasound film of her heart after. And before she had the problem I told you about after it was completely gone, stone, cold, normal. And the doctors, I remember the doctors sort of went through an explanation, trying to make sense of it to me trying to make sense of it to themselves. I feel that they bought that explanation. But I remember standing there looking at them just thinking, you know, I know that explanation works for you. But it just doesn't work for me. And that's, I mean, I pray, pray this prayer.
And I just have to believe that this was the hand of my Creator.
So I knew he had made good on his promise, and I had to make good on mine. So that started me on a religious search. And I was, I thought I would find the truth in Christianity. I studied Judaism first. That led me to studying Christianity. I thought I'd find the truth there for years, years, I tried to convince myself I tried to non Christian. I mean, I went to Seventh Day Adventist, Mormon, Quaker, Southern Baptist, Roman Catholic, a Greek Orthodox orthodox. I don't know exactly how many different sets are many different churches, I went to trying to find the truth of Christianity. And I always kept coming up against the same thing. I always kept liking some part of it, but having
trouble with others. And when it came down to the tenets of faith, I would talk to the priests. And I would say, Well, how about this and they couldn't explain it. How about that? And they couldn't explain that and well, what about this? They kind of shrug their shoulders and I just say, Well, you know, thanks anyway and move on.
To the next congregation.
It wasn't until I found Islam that all of my questions were answered. And it wasn't until I found Islam, that peace entered my heart. And I realized that this was where all of the puzzle pieces of the puzzle came together. What were some of these? I'm sure the viewers want to know, what were some of these questions that you had? that weren't? They weren't able to answer. When you were going to some of these higher ups in the church? Well, you'll find you'll find these as central themes in my books. But the simplest ones were,
were simply that I didn't find foundation to the tenets of faith. Okay.
For, for example, the Trinity.
It is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible. You know, where do you find the word Trinity.
It was a doctrine that was derived 300 years after the time of Jesus. And in my simple mind, I just thought, Well, if this were a true doctrine, you would have thought that Jesus Christ would have spoken about it explicitly. So I would ask for justification, you know, how do the Christians justify
the concept of the Trinity, and they would always go to certain passages, you know, where Jesus was quoted as having said, You know, I and the Father are One, or there are three on Earth, you know, the,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? And
I would say, okay, fine, that's written in the Bible. But here are the arguments that cancel those, you know, for example, the Trinitarian formula, the strongest evidence is, is this quotation about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And that is not written in the original manuscripts. That was a marginal note. That was written by a scribe into the, into the margin of one of the manuscripts, which was later copied into the, into the Scripture. And so I would point this out to priests. And, you know, the frustrating thing is, I would talk to them and they would finish the sentence for me. I would say this thing that you just told me, it's not in the Scripture, it was a
margin, and they would say, a marginal note added by a scribe. Yeah. Okay. We know that. Okay. Well, the next point is, and I'd be thinking Subhanallah, if you know, this is not the Bible, if you know that it's an insertion, an illegitimate insertion? Why are you preaching it as if it's gospel truth?
There are many instances like this, and you can read about this in my books. But one of the one of the biggest things that disturbed me was that I believed in Jesus Christ, as man and as a prophet. So I would ask them, prove to me where Jesus Christ is God, or even a son of God.
And, again, we would we would go through that explanation they would, they would say their piece, and I would say, look,
at eight times in the Bible, at a times Jesus Christ calls himself the Son of Man, yes. Nowhere does he call himself the Son of God, nowhere. Now there are a couple of places where it's mistranslated. Or it's spoken of metaphorically. But that is very different from literal meaning. And I just pointed out that up to them. I said, you know, this place here, this is metaphorical. This place here, this is mistranslation. And again, they would finish the sentences for me, they said, Yeah, okay, we know it's taken out of context, and so on. And I'm thinking, Well, you know, who's, who's the one who's supposed to know the scripture here? And I'm a novice at this. They're a priest.
So So now, if somebody didn't do his homework, like you did, you can see how somebody can see how somebody can kind of get led in a way that they want to lead that individual.
You know?
Exactly. I mean, I think that the Bible itself is it's difficult to understand.
But there, there are some very simple lessons that I think people can take home of it and
it's stressing those lessons. I think that brings out the truth. One of the one of the central lessons to me was that you have to make a choice. Jesus Christ. And Paul taught opposite opposite things. Yes. Now you can. You can rectify this in different ways. But in a nutshell, Jesus Christ taught that God is one three times in the New Testament he is quoted as having said, you know, no, Israel.
The Lord is one God. Okay, one God, that's what Jesus Christ okay?
On the other hand, Paul, and the Pauline theologians who followed in his way develop the concept of the Trinity.
That's one point. When it came to the Lord Jesus Christ was a rabbi. He followed Old Testament law. That's why we call him Rabbi Jesus. He taught Old Testament law, Paul came along and said, it doesn't apply anymore, he canceled the law. Jesus Christ taught that he was the son of man. Others taught that he was the son of God, Jesus Christ taught atonement taught accountability, that everybody is accountable for their own actions. Again, he was an Orthodox Jew. It's written in the Old Testament that no son shall bear the iniquity of his father, no son shall bear his iniquity of the Father. And yet the crux of Christianity is that we all bear the sin of Adam.
How do you how do you make these two concepts fit? Well, Paul did it just by saying justify justification by faith, all you have to do is believe and you will be justified in whatever you do. Okay? And it goes on, and it goes on. But the point, the point is that if you take the teachings of Jesus, and you take the teachings of Paul, these are opposite. I haven't found a single instance where they were the same.
And this is why you find Paul, and James, the, you know, alleged brother of Jesus at odds with one another in the Bible. And it's also why we, in our minds, should should recognize this conflict and make a choice. You have to make a choice. If two people are teaching opposite things, you have to choose which one you're going to follow. Yes, now, I believe, I believe we should choose to follow the Prophet
Trinitarian church for the last 1700 years, what they what they have said, is take these two teachings, even though they're opposites, and put them together and make them work. Jesus said, God is one, Paul says God is three. So God is one and he's three. Jesus said, the Old Testament law applied, Paul said it was cancelled. So we'll take what the last person said, last person said is canceled. So we'll kind of we'll kind of try to make that work against the teachings of Jesus, I take the top part of the suit that fits the pant don't fit, you know, put it together doesn't fit at all? Well, you know, it's different ways of looking at it, each person has to find their own
formula. But, but this is, you know, we're just talking about what happened with me. And I just looked at it and said, that doesn't work for me. What works for me is he was a prophet, he's a man, I'm going to believe what he said, I'm not going to believe what the person who cancelled his teachings, Said. And that's, that's why I could never accept Christianity. Dr. Brown, let's kind of reverse you mentioned atheism. And being from a family of Quaker Protestants, I think the majority of people they can relate to this simple thing as far as being in a Christian household, not practicing Christianity. And you know what, many people are just doing their own thing? And a lot of
people probably borderline agnostic. How are you living at time? Were you just doing your own thing until that moment hit where you found out that I need, you know, I'm not self sufficient talk about this, I was living in the way that I think a lot of
close Christians live, you know, I mean, people who are close to Christianity, but for one reason or another, they have not fully embraced the tenets of one particular faith. And that is I was living with with the golden rule.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And the opposite of that, of course, is don't do unto others as you would not want them to do to you. Yeah. So I was basically living, according the golden rule, I was trying to live with as sound principles as sound moral principles as I felt I could.
But I don't think that's such an unusual experience. I think, I think in America, that's probably the majority of people. I think the majority of people in America are in this position, where they have foundational beliefs that they hold on to, but they simply cannot accept the full package of what they're being taught by any particular church. And what I mean by that is just that they may have sound moral values, they may have sound spiritual values.
They believe in certain fundamental things they believe they believe in God. They believe in his prophets, including Abraham and Ishmael, Isaac, Noah, Moses, Jesus, and they see,
you know, they see certain truths in the biblical teachings. But then when it comes down to the tenets of Christian faith, they find maybe points one and two and three, they can accept but other things they find that they cannot accept.
So they're searching. They're searching for how to make sense of all of this. And that's the position I was in until I became Muslim. It was Islam that, to me made sense of everything. And it was trying to convey that
which was the reason behind my books. I always believed in continuity in the chain of prophethood, I always believed with, without it needing to be explained to me, I always believed that Moses was a prophet, and that Jesus was a prophet. I always believed that. But when I found Moses, speaking of three prophets to follow, and the Jews are still waiting for those three prophets, this is no mystery.
And then I found Jesus Christ. Speaking of one more prophet to follow, it raised a very big question in my mind. Okay, Moses spoke of three prophets to follow john the baptist, we have to count as one, Jesus Christ, we have to count as to, and that leaves a third.
And then you find Jesus Christ speaking of a final prophet, and a lot of people are gonna say, Where did he do that? Where did Jesus Christ speak of the final prophet read my book, and you'll know.
But the point is, this is why Christianity is a messianic religion. For for 2000 years, people have been looking for the completion of the, the prediction. And and that was the question in my mind. Moses spoke of three, we have to Jesus spoke of the last one also, who is that last one, when I studied the life of Muhammad, peace be upon us. And when I learned about Islam, that, that fit the niche for me, that made sense, and that to me, explain the continuity of the chain of revelation up to its completion. Tell us Dr. Brown, we went from atheism, to trying to make Christianity fit to Islam. They want to know what happened, how did you stumble across Islam and accept all the tenants
and the teachings and now you're Muslim? Well, basically, I had all of these unresolved questions in my mind.
I believe in God is one God, I never believed in the Trinity. I believed in Jesus Christ as a man. And as the man, you know, the second to last one who predicted the final prophet, and I didn't believe in Him as God or Son of God. I believed in the chain of prophethood, I believed in the mercy of our Creator. And I believe that our Creator would not leave mankind without guidance, and without definitive guidance, guidance that once a person saw it is easy to understand and easy to make part of your life.
I gave up on Christianity.
I studied and studying and studying until the point where I felt
I felt hopeless. Basically, I felt like I could not find any Christian sect that represented my beliefs. And a lot of you out there know exactly what I'm talking about. A lot of you out there are in the exact same position you have studied, you have looked, you have certain beliefs, you know what I'm talking about. They you have not been able to find a church, that that in its completeness embodies those beliefs. And I'm just I'm just telling you, that when I studied Islam, when I learned about Islam, read the Holy Quran, I read a book by Martin lings called Muhammad his life based on the earliest teachings. And those books just clarified everything for me, that's when I became
Muslim. So Dr. Brown now, your Muslim tell us, you know, many people, they assume that, you know, Muslim is someone with a we do have a beard, but a turban, I know, someone from living in Arabia, what you do live in.
But tell us some of these stereotypes, some of these misconceptions people have, I'm sure you've dealt with them. But, you know, we look at you, you're a doctor, you know, you look like a very well dressed vote.
intelligent human being, you know, you know, wants what everyone else wants. Tell us, you know, some of the misconceptions that people have and how this is far from the truth. Can you share some of these things that you've come across? And
I think I think the easiest way I can put it is the observation of one of my Muslim friends.
When they came to when they came to the west, and saw how we were living in America, how we were living in England, they just said, everything's upside down. And I can't put it better. Everything I feel is exactly upside down to my understanding. You know, in the West, in the West Islam is portrayed with a media bias. That is no mystery.
to anybody who has studied it, we were raised, I was raised to believe that Muslims were a bunch of towel headed terrorists riding camels out into the desert, yeah, planning, planning on how next they're going to destroy Western civilization. And,
and it was only learning about Islam as its true teachings are, and coming to know Muslims and living amongst them that I just found out, as I said, everything's just upside down.
Look, you find good and bad people everywhere, you can't avoid that you find good and bad people everywhere. And it's from the bad people, it's from picking up on the example of the bad people that the media can spin things any way it wants to.
But the fact of the matter is, the vast majority of people in all walks of life are basically good people.
They basically want the same things they want to, they want to go to bed at night,
knowing that they have a peaceful night ahead of them with, you know, in the security of their homes, that they're not going to be attacked in any particular way. They want to wake up to a morning of hope and promise where they can, they can go out and earn a decent livelihood for their family, they want to kiss their kids and send them off to school, knowing that, that they're not going to face any kind of persecution or or,
or problems, you know, either going or coming. They want to have a normal life.
That that is the vast majority of all humanity. You get a few bad people, the media grabs ahold of that and spends it the way they want to. And what I found was just that, I just found that everything I'd ever heard was media spin, just trying to make Islam look bad.
And the real truth was that
I just, I just found that Muslims were my family.
The vast majority of them I felt,
have softer hearts,
better manners.
Just just more kindness and more of that.
Humanity that I was looking for.
In the West,
in the west to me, things are getting harder. people's hearts are getting hardened. They're not as generous with one another.
The kindness, the kindness is is disappearing. materialism is taking over the tensions the tensions of, of the rat race of life and the West is controlling people.
And I just found amongst Muslims, it's the exact opposite. I found these things I told you more. And the living example of Islam the living example of Islam is an example of modesty as an example of kindness, generosity, truthfulness. And most of all, it is the is the example of submission to our Creator.
And that to me, is life the way it's supposed to be lived.
It's very simple. I like to thank you Dr. Brown for being with us. My pleasure. You can visit Dr. Brown at level truth calm. Level truth.com or eight scroll.com. It scroll is spelled exactly as the book er gh T h s er o l dot com. And I'd like to thank you for tuning in to another episode of the deen show. I hope you've enjoyed this week's show with Dr. Brown. You've got to learn about Islam coming to the source. Islam simply means submission and surrender to one God alone, submitting to him on his terms. And a Muslim is one who does the action of Islam. And now from here if you've enjoyed what we got, we have to say continue to come back every week here on the deen show. You can
contact me if you have any questions. You can also contact Dr. Brown if you're interested in any of his books, and we hope to see you next time here on today's show until that I sit on the legal peace be unto
Allah
is His Messenger.
There's only one Jesus was his messenger.
There's only one Moses was he's missing
There's only one