New Muslim Advice

One can never be too cautious.

Hey, man, I'm really sorry. Can I get you another drink? Hey, man, you just got it over my pants in my shoes, man. Man, I'm real sorry. Let me get you another cup, man. I don't want to cook.

Man, I'm sorry, I don't want any problems. I'm gonna get out of here. Okay.

We're gonna go, man, please get your hands off me. What you're gonna do about this Villa de la Assalamualaikum. What does that mean? Peace be unto you, you will not find a group of people who are more inclined towards peace, peace with their greater peace with themselves, peace with their surroundings, than those who follow that way. That way of all the messages of God, that way of submitting and surrendering yourself to the creator and not his creation. Now we're going to be talking about a very important topic like we always do.

When somebody takes that first step, and they acknowledge that there is a Supreme Lord, a sovereign God that is ruling this universe, the creator, and now they want to serve Him, they want to prostrate to him, they want to worship Him alone. They take that necessary step, which is the Shahada, that first step. Many of us have come into this way of life consciously. But now what happens from here? What do you do from here? My next guest is going to help us tackle this topic. When we come back, my good friend shake yasir cardi here on the D show, we'll be right back.

Messenger.

Jesus was his messenger.

know why I did that. Maybe, maybe it's just to break the ice. I said, I'll let go logical was said I want it was a lie. What? What do we just say? We just said May peace be unto you. We have a lot of non Muslims who are watching the show. Every Wednesday here in Chicago, if you're in Chicago, they catch us at 12 midnight, and those who aren't staying up that late and following day 2pm Mashallah. They get to learn about what we just said, these little greetings. And the most important thing is the way of life that we're trying to present to all of mankind, which is that way of all the messengers, Islam.

People who are coming to this beautiful way of life, the fastest growing way of life in the world today. But now they need some encouragement. What is the first step defining when somebody enters Islam they declare they make the declaration that there's no deity worthy of worship, except the Creator of the heavens, enter and Muhammad peace be upon him is the last in front of messenger accepting Jesus, Moses, Abraham, and all the other messages that preceded him? What do they do from here? Let's spend a minute talking about what this word what this phrase means. And then let's go on to the most important thing after that, the prayer, the establishment, the prayer, okay. Well,

one of the beautiful things about our religion of Islam is the emphasis on direct ritual and prayer to God directly. There is no intermediary, there are no superstitious rituals, no strange incantations, it's very simple and very clear. If a person wants to accept Islam, they don't need to go to a church or a mosque or a synagogue, they can do so in the privacy of their houses, even though of course, it's encouraged to publicize the conversion. But the actual conversion is a declaration before you and God is a declaration. For from the one basically, in front of the one who created you, you simply testify and you acknowledge that this creator is the only being an entity

that is worthy of worship and veneration. It's that simple. And of course, that testimony in Arabic is called the Shahada, which basically translates as testimony the very Shahada means it's a testimony, I am testifying, I am bearing witness, I am certain that there is no god that is worthy of my worship other than the one true God. And in Arabic, we call that God, Allah, the Allah only means the true God. That's the meaning of Allah is the God that is worthy of worship. So this testimony, basically singles out that one entity for worship. And then we also testify that God has sent prophets and messengers, and that final prophet and messenger is our Prophet Mohammed, may

God's peace and blessings be upon all the prophets. So after this testimony of faith, a person is a Muslim, whether he did so in front of a million people, 10 people or no person if he disowned the privacy of his house, if he testified, I bear witness that there is no god other than that one true God Allah, and that God has sent prophets and messengers in the final prophet and messenger is the Prophet Mohammed may God's peace and blessings be upon all of them. That is what makes them Muslim and Muslim. Now is Islam a new religion?

brought by Muhammad. Islam is the primordial religion it is the original religion, and the meaning of Islam is submission. So it might have been manifested in slightly different ways in terms of practice, in terms of prohibitions in terms of what you can or can't eat, or how you dress or what you are. But the basic teachings and what we call theology, ie the belief in God, that does not change. So all the prophets came with the very same message. And that message was quite simple worship God, don't take any partners along with him. That is the gist of Islam. And that just has remained constant, it is eternal, even before God created man, the same concepts were there. And

that is that only he is worthy of worship. And even after there are no men on Earth, those concepts will remain. So in that sense, Islam has been permanent, however, every prophet comes. And those prophets bring slightly different laws, the theology is the same, but laws can change from profit to profit. And this is God takes circumstances and conditions and time and place into account. And so we do believe that profits have come with slight variations in law, but not in theology. And so in that sense, Islam is slightly different from profit to profit, but that's only in legal sense, not in the theoretical or in the theological sense. Okay, before we go on to that next pillar, is the

establishment of the prayer. We want to just talk about this a little bit more was prevalent in the world today is that people, they say, Okay, yeah, I believe in God, I believe in the crater. But then you mentioned something about a partner. What do you mean, that you don't want to put that is probably the most, that's the unforgivable sin that if you die, if you put a partner next to God, like what we see people praying through Jesus, for instance, what do we got to say about this? Well, from the Muslims perspective, there is only one God, and there are no partners, no entities that are worthy of any type of veneration or worship other than that true God. So Jesus Christ is a messenger

of God. All of the prophets are messengers, that God has sent. And these prophets, they might be the best human beings, but they don't in personify God Himself. There is no element of divinity within them. So we believe that the greatest sin, any human being can do is to deny this fact that only God is worthy of worship. And in fact, this is biblical teachings as well. The very first commandment is, you shall take no God other than the true God. This is the first biblical commandment as well, that you cannot worship any other God. And it is the same in our religion as well. The greatest sin, which is a greater sin than any sin, you can do it to a human being is to transgress against God

Himself, and to say to God, basically inaction if not in speech, that you're not worthy of worship, this dead person is worthy of worship, or this idol is worthy of worship, I'm going to dedicate the most precious thing that I have, and that is my my humility, my humbleness, my sacrifice my prayer, I'm going to dedicate that to an entity that doesn't deserve it. And I'm going to worship a being that you have created. This is an insult and an affront to God. And that is why God has said he will not forgive the sin. Anybody who does so knowing that there's one true God, and he dedicates his life to another god, even if he believes in the true God, but his worship is dedicated to another

God, then this is what we call an in Arabic ship, which means associating partners with God. And that's the type of polytheism now, problem comes, when you say the word polytheism. In the English language, the only thing that comes to mind is idol worship. Yeah, that's the only thing that comes to mind. But it's, it's deeper than that. You don't have to have an idol to commit polytheism you can of course, you know, have an island and be a polytheistic. But you can be polytheistic without an island as well. If you pray to a saint, if you pray to a dead person, if you prostrate out of respect and humility and worship, to another created object, if you sacrifice trying to please like

these pagan sacrifices, ritual sacrifices, now we don't have human sacrifices in our religion, but we do sacrifice animals right we we kill animals. Now when we kill an animal, we're allowed to kill an animal because God has told us so when we kill an animal, we ritually sacrifice a cow or a sheep to eat it, we have to mention the name of the Creator who created that animal because that's the creator that give us that right to take that animal's life. Now, if a person mentioned another god person mentioned another entity, that is dedicating a ritual to other than God and that is polytheism. So let me define polytheism polytheism is to give the rights of a lot to other than a

lot to give the rights of God to other than God, anything that is due to God if you give it to other than God, you are being polytheistic gotcha. Now you mentioned blood and you mentioned sacrifice just to emphasize this point now that blood God doesn't it because some people feel that okay, God sent His Son to die for the sins that were that blood sacrifice that animal is for now what for the poor. Yeah, this is a very, very different concept from Islam compared to other religions. Yeah.

many religions have this concept that you do need to sacrifice blood in order to appease God. The Quran very clearly says the verse in the Quran that clearly says, the blood and the meat does not reach God. God doesn't need this blood and the meat rather what reaches God is your piety. Yeah, is your dedication. Now one of the ways to show dedication, especially more in the past, is to show that this animal, you will sacrifice it for the sake of God, meaning what does it mean in our religion, it means you dedicate that meat to the poor to the poor, that's what it means. Now you've got no hunger you don't eat.

What you've done is you've shown that you're willing to spend money to take something very precious, whether it's a cow, or a sheep, or a goat, and to use that money for people who need it. And that's the poor. That's what God likes. God doesn't need the blood and the meat, God wants to see your piety, that piety is shown by mentioning his name, and thanking Him, and then distributing that meat to the poor. And that is what we do every year, on the day of sacrifices called, you would have had the great the grandest festival of the Muslims is on that day of sacrifice. And we're supposed to sacrifice an animal mentioned in God's name. And we're supposed to give at least a portion of the

meat that we were allowed to eat a little bit, but it gives supposed to give a portion of the meat to those who need it. That is what sacrifice entails in our religion, what you just said, I'm sure the truth seeker, the one who's really using his mind and the good old common sense that God has given all of us, I just, it just makes sense. You don't have to jump through hoops through a bunch of mental gymnastics to make it fit. So anybody who believes this, and he testifies to it, with his lips, and then his actions, that's what we want to go to now the action, the prayer, you have many people who have submitted to this first step. But now, how do we encourage them because I've seen

some people martial law, all thanks to the created that they've come along quickly. Some people, it's been a few years, they still have not established the five daily prayers, talk to us. You know, that is definitely a major problem that we are facing in our times, and that is Muslims believe in Islam. But unfortunately, many of them don't really follow its injunctions fully. And one of the most, in fact, the fact of the matter, the most important injunction after the testimony of faith, is the prayer. And the reason is very simple. And that is because the prayer is what shows you're constantly thinking and worshiping and thanking God. And that is why the prayer is a daily routine,

it's at specified intervals are five specific intervals, that we're supposed to just stop everything. And the beauty of it, it's not an exact time at 1202, we have to stop no is always arrange between, let's say 1230 to 230, depending on the time of the year, where there's different timings. But there's 234 or five hours arrange. Within those hours, we're expected to stop what we're doing, go into a corner into a room into a mosque, it doesn't matter anywhere the whole world you can pray, you can pray in the park, and you just spent 234 minutes dedicated to a love to God. And that basically shows you're consistently thinking about God, you're consistently remembering

that I am a Muslim, and need to pray. And the prayer is there's no doubt it is the most important principle of our religion after this testimony of faith. And that is what occurs in the very first verse in the Quran. That those who established the prayer the very first chapter of the Quran praises those who established the person with a bucket I mean, after introduction and our Prophet peace be upon him the very last phrases that he said before he died, is I caution you about abandoning the prayer, make sure you guarded the prayer. Those were the last words before he died, that he wanted us to remember. So really, the prayer is a sign of your faith. Now you see this is a

key point here. Yeah, the word faith. When you say it in English, primarily, the first thing that comes to mind is what you believe theory. Yeah, it's intellectual. In Islam, it's not just intellectual. Faith is followed up by actions, yes, because the actions prove the faith exists. And that's we know this in real life. When you love a person, you will give what you want what that person wants, you will sacrifice to please that person, you will give up your time, your effort. You know, we're all married men here. We love our wives. We love our kids. you dedicate most of your day to taking care of their needs. Yeah, you sacrifice most of your paycheck for their needs. That's

what you call love. Now, if you didn't, if there's a person who, you know, God forbid, was a bad person, and he didn't take care of his wife, he didn't take care of his kids. Doesn't matter what he says he does not love them. It's that simple, right? actions speak louder than words. We all know that. So in Islam, there is no concept of faith being something that's hidden and theoretical. In Islam. Faith is manifested in actions. There's no doubt that there's a theoretical element. I believe in God, I believe I have to pray. But if I don't follow it up, and actually

Then there's a problem, isn't there? Yeah. So that action proves the true faith. And that is why the primary manifestation of faith in the life of the Muslim, the primary, not even this is the primary manifestation is the fact that he prayed he's praying five times a day. How can a person get to because when you see, and you talk to individuals, and I've had the experience, from talking to certain individuals, they're having issues problems, the first question I asked usually is, are you establishing the prayer, and if a person isn't,

I usually see that there's a problem here. Because if you're not establishing the prayer, you're not connected with the creator from above so but on the other end, you'll see the same individual reading tons of books on how to be a successful businessman, all worldly things, but they can't fathom they can't imagine the idea that okay, me praying five times a day is going to bring me this, you know, peace and serenity. And how do we deal with this? How do we tackle this?

In fact, when a person establishes a relationship with God, when a person is constantly thinking about God, two things happen. Firstly, there's the issue of God Himself, blessing that person, there's an undeniable fact, if you are a good person, God will give you blessings generally, by and large, those who are righteous and good people, they live better lives in terms of quality, not necessarily quantity, yeah, you know, but in terms of enjoying their lives, right. And the second issue is, regardless of material, what you have what you know, what you don't have, internally, you feel a sense of peace, you feel a sense of, of comfort, knowing that there's a God who cares about

you, and who loves you, and who will bless you, if none of this wasn't the hereafter. So there's two elements, there's an external element, and there's an internal element, and prayer and relationship with God, overall, even broader than prayer is the relationship with God. Prayer is, of course, the most important manifestation of that relationship. You can't have a relationship with God and not pray. It's that simple, right? Yeah, you can claim it as much as you want. If you don't pray as a Muslim, you don't have a relationship with God. So having a relationship with God, and in particular, the prayer, what it does is it brings you a coolness of the heart, the comfort of the

heart, makes you feel peace, at peace, because you are doing what you're supposed to do, which is worship of God. And along with that, it brings about God's blessings as well. God will send upon you and shower upon you, His mercy and His blessings, which is far more important than money or other material possessions. And you will start enjoying the quality of life, even if you don't have the quantity that other people have. And that's one of the biggest problems is that we judge happiness by quantity. No, it's by quality. And that is why our beloved Prophet, so the law has said mpsp, Barnum, he said, the Truly Rich person is not the one who has lots of goods. It's the one who's

content in what he has, means he enjoys what God has given him, and he loves the quality of life. He's content with what he has, and he enjoys it. So if you have 1000 10,000 a million, and you enjoy that amount, and you have that, that that quality, that is what will make you happy. Otherwise, if you're always greedy for more, the millionaire wants to become the billionaire, the billionaire wants to become the multi billionaire, always greedy for more and more and more, that's not going to bring happiness, quality versus quantity. relationship with God will give you the quality, not as that come and fall back on what we said that first pillar that now Okay, I'm not worshiping Jesus,

I'm not worshiping saints are going through saints, okay, I'm not doing any of that. But the call for prayer comes, and I can't get away from the TV, or the music or this or that something worldly, and this is becomes an annoyance. Now, we're gonna say about this. That's definitely a problem. That's definitely a problem. There's a verse in the Quran that clearly describes the believers as those who their houses, their families, their, their, their livelihood, their businesses, do not prevent them from worshipping God and establishing the prayer. They don't prevent them. Because if they do prevent, then there's another verse in the Quran, whoever false sway to the desires of this

world, at the expense of the Hereafter, that's the real loser. Because you've lost this world when you die and you've lost the hereafter after you're dead. The real loser according to the Quran, you've lost this world and the next one, you dedicate it to this world, because when you die, what's going to happen? All of the goods that you have are out of your hand doesn't matter how much you've amassed, you can't. You can't take it with the big all the billions, millions 1000s your own the people who bury you, they're going to be the ones fighting over it. The ones who supposedly love you the most, within the day that you die, they're going to be almost fist physicals and fight over your

millions and billions. That's the reality of life that we see around us. Now. Someone also okay, they come and they've been speaking the English language, all their life and now they got to learn all this Arabic and they feel like okay, this is overbearing, how am I going to memorize all these new terms and terminologies to establish the prayer? They find it difficult? Yeah, that's a very good point. That's a very good point.

A number of things can be said here, first and foremost, the immediate convert the person who converts to Islam. You know, suppose somebody converts today. So there's no doubt that you cannot memorize so much in five seconds or five minutes. Next time the prayer comes along maybe two hours from now, you're not expected to have all of this memorized, you're allowed for an interim until you memorize, you're allowed to make do with translation, make do with holding a paper and reading from it make do with saying, you know, Praise be to God and just doing what you can for that particular day or two, until you memorize the first chapter, which is so that if I had to have you memorize the

key phrases, and these should not take more than a day or two, just to memorize the key phrases, right? So go to any Muslim friend, any mosque, and they'll teach you these key phrases. So within a few days, you should have enough to basically have the prayer done. And slowly but surely, you'll memorize more and more. So that's the first point, take it easy, and realize you don't have to start memorizing the entire Quran. You know today to start your prayer, it'll take a day or two. In that Meantime, start learning how to pray start learning the moves, start learning various phrases. The second point I want to say the power of the Quran is really really unimaginable because the Quran is

the actual speech of God. So do not underestimate your capacity to memorize the Quran. You will see for yourself that after you read it a few times, it's gonna stick in your head, because it's got I don't wanna use the word magical qualities and I say divine qualities. Yes, because it's divine. It is divine, that the Koran is the actual speech that God spoke Yeah, therefore, and you will notice this when you hear the Quran I challenge you right now when you're if you're watching this online, you know, go to a website, YouTube type in Quran recitation, and listen to the Quran in proper Arabic, you won't understand a word, but it will have an impact on you that you have never

experienced in your life ticket take the challenge right now. And that is a proof that this is something that is divine. So do not underestimate your own capacity to memorize this foreign strange language in Arabic. It will be easy for you because this is the speech Oh my God and your God. So they don't have to have a whole chapter memorized right away they can do like you said the phrases start the movement. Yeah, the first day or two of course, they're not expected to memorize suit of the fact that how would they convert You know? So as a fighter how's the first sutra and it is an essential requirement of the prayer? Yeah, it's only seven lines that's it seven lines at one

paragraph. That's it. So you know the first time a person becomes a Muslim suppose he converted at 10am Yeah, then boy is gonna come to the first prayer in three four hours. He's not expected to memorize that so either he just says you know, Praise be to God or you know, All Glory be to God or he memorizes the English you know, for that time, or he holds up the Arabic transliteration Yeah, holds it up in there. So the point being, there is no difficulty in the religion. It's easy for you until you memorize and when you memorize then slowly but surely keep on adding a few more chapters as you go along and things will be easy after that. So take it one step at a take one step at a time

just like you took all them steps to finish it got a PhD? Exactly. Whatever GED you took some whatever happened you add to it. You have to start from somewhere. Didn't you have the famous saying of Confucius of a journey of 1000 miles begins with one's desktop. That's the way you have to do it. Yeah. Now Okay, a few more points before we come to a close with my special friend yasir. Qadhi, tell us now, knowledge is key. You need knowledge back to what action? Again, you can read a ton of books on one side when it comes down here to learn about your Creator. How do we get people more focused on the other side balancing it out, you don't have to obviously leave off this other good

knowledge on how to become the best whatever, scientist, doctor, lawyer, Lloyd, etc. But we want people to be more enthusiastic about seeking knowledge and the rewards of it. Yeah, this is a very important point and knowledge has always been associated with our religion of Islam. From day one, the very first revelation that came down was to recite and to read. And this recitation came down upon a group of people who were absolutely illiterate. The Arabs did not even have a sophisticated writing system that a very rudimentary system and the first revelation that comes upon an unlettered illiterate community, even our Prophet Mohammed Salah Sam could not read or write. And the first

commandment is to recite and to read and to basically get some knowledge. That's the first commandment. And it was because of that, that our, the people of our religion, the Muslims, they took this commandment, and they reached pinnacles that no other civilization ever reached before them in every single science because they were curious, whether it's Religious Science or secular science. Unfortunately, that spirit is very much destroyed in our times. And people just don't have that enthusiasm that they do, even though it is a part of our religion to have that enthusiasm. And all I can say is, being ignorant is something nobody likes. Nobody likes to be ignorant It is, it is

an insult to be called ignorant. Why would you want to have this adjective describing you and the religion? Don't be ignorant of your religion is the most important science in the world. Why?

Will you created? Why are you here? What are you doing with your life? What are you going to do after you die? What's going to happen after you're dead? These are fundamental questions that every human being has to think about and has to rationalize it and come to a conclusion. And these days, it's so easy to find out what our religion to other religions say, These days, you just find out on the internet, go to the local library and get it straight from, from the people like with a horse's mouth, get it from the people who believe get it from the proper sources, and simply read some articles, listen, some lectures, do some some research. And within the span of a few hours, you will

educate yourself about the basic belief of Muslims that basically call of God to hear after the Day of Judgment, it is essential, even just as a as an as an rational human being, that you understand what other people say and what other people believe in. And that's the first step to familiarize and to, to reach out into, you know, form neighborly connections to basically like you start off with the peace on earth. That's how we're gonna have peace on earth is to understand and to, to sympathize and empathize with what we all believe. Thank you very much for being with us again. Pleasure. Good friend. Shake. Yes. accardi and we hope to see you back again on the deen show is God

Almighty Allah reward you for all your efforts and work. And thank you for coming back every week to see us here on the dean show. You don't know if you're going to live till tomorrow.

You have to find that urgency to do the right thing right now. Get connected with your Lord, get connected with the one who gives you the air to breathe, do the good that he's told you to do. And there's nothing less than paradise. That is what we're trying to achieve. And we'll see you back here next week. Every Wednesday Midnight's Thursdays 2pm. If you're here in Chicago, if you're not you can catch us at the deen show comm where we have all of our shows there for free. We'll see you next time. In Sharla. Salt Lake and peace be unto you.

One can never be too cautious.

Hey, man, I'm really sorry. I get you another drink. Hey, man, you just got it all over my pants in my shoes, man. Man. I'm real sorry, man. Let me get you another cup. Man. I don't want to cook a watch with you walking.

Man. I'm sorry. I don't want any problems. I'm gonna get out of here. Okay.

We're gonna go, man. Please get your hands off me.

One can never be too cautious.

Hey, man, Where'd you learn that? I just said the Gracie Baja. You got time I'll show you Come on.

Remember these techniques is only for life threatening situations. Self Defense. Okay, come on.

Let's see what everyone's talking about.

You find one contradiction, it can't be from God.

But the rational idea, the rational explanation is you do your best to give up for spring guidance. I will never give up spreading this message.

The reality of life usually doesn't sink in. Until tragedy comes.

You get a few bad people. The media grabs ahold of them and spins up the way they want to

believe in Jesus, you have stepped outside of Islam, you cannot be a Muslim is attended our phase two.

Guys, let's look at the technique that we applied earlier. We call it a shoulder lock. It's gonna be where the aggressor is going to place his arm onto my shoulder. Okay, there's two variations of this self defense technique. One is if just like so the guy grabbed you by the shoulder, but you notice the elbows bent or loose. The second variation is going to be aware that he has my shoulder but his arm is stiff. Okay, this is going to be another variation. We will not cover today the one that we're going over his shoulder grab bent arm. Okay, so how does he's going to place his hand on my shoulder. Now, I'm going to use the same side that he's controlling. I'm going to use that arm to

come up and above his elbow.

I come up and as soon as I get to this point, now I'm using his grip against him. Okay, his grip, his wrist is secured tightly under my armpit. I'm going to go palm to palm and now making sure that his wrist is secure under my armpit. I'm going to start to raise his elbow up applying the pressure onto his shoulder. Okay.

Let's take a look at that one more time. Same study the taxman comes up and over the shoulder. At this point, I have to really focus on making his grip tight under my armpit. If the grip is

He's just going to pull his arm out. Okay, which gets rid of the grip that can be another way of just disengaging, but we're going to try and take advantage of the situation, okay? It comes up,

come under the elbow and go palm to palm, I secure his grip, and now I start to raise elevate the elbow up, as I raised the elbow up, elbow up tracking his wrist. That's where he starts to feel the pressure on the ligaments of his shoulder. Okay. And we saw one example of how to defuse the situation with jujitsu. The beautiful thing about jujitsu is that you don't need to hurt, okay, punish the guy to defuse the situation. If I decided earlier to punch or to kick, the aggressor, I'm not defusing the situation. I'm just increasing the chances of that becoming an extreme situation a big headache. Okay, one more time.

Over and now I have the option. Maybe he's not in the best situation to now be an aggressor. I have him at my mercy at the moment. I can talk to him I can defuse the situation. God forbid if I need to really defend my life. There is the possibility of putting the pressure on the shoulder to do some real damage but it should not come to that. Okay. We can talk the fuse and I feel that I'm the situation is diffused I can let it go and situations done without harming the aggressor. That's it for today's episode of the self defense workshop. Until next time, guys, be safe.

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