Why Baba Ali Accepted Islam

Hi, this is Bob Ali from oma films. I'm here on the D show and in a few minutes I'll be talking about my story to Islam.

This little Al Hamdulillah Assalamualaikum Welcome to another episode of the deen show. Thank you for tuning in we got some great news. When we come back he's gonna be telling us his story how he went from

living according to his desires which led him to doing some funny and unique things crazy things to the submission and to surrender to the One God we'll be back with our next guest Baba Ali here on the deen show you don't want to go nowhere

there's only one

is His Messenger

Jesus was his messenger

Why did that maybe maybe it's just a break the ice.

A salaam aleikum? wa rahmatullah. How are you brother? hamdulillah How are you doing? Hum did Allah all praises to the creator who's given us His ability as united us to be together again? I'm here on the deen show. How to be here, Baba Ali. It's gonna be some fun today inshallah. inshallah. So I was introducing

the train introduce the topic, but is very unique because you came to Islam. And you mentioned something about witchcraft. I don't know how to. I've had guests come over from Christianity from this isn't that isn't. But is this actually? Or was this a religion, you can say it was somewhat of a religion, because it's actually called the religion of Wicca. And when you don't have guidance, you really have no guidance. And I resort down to trying to find something to clinch onto. And I start putting rocks around my neck. And believing that these rocks and these pebbles had, just like the people, we used to worship idols, that these things can actually give me something. And

let's talk about your past. Now, let's get right into the topic. This is very interesting for me and for a lot of our viewers, because I'm we never covered something like this. And I'm sure there was, is this a big?

What was going to be called a cult of religion is a big following. There's a lot of people practicing this. And it is it is strange. It's a strange world. You have people who write books in blood. And in the they have spells and you have people who wear albums and think that these things will actually bring them good things and unfortunate. You see some there's a crossover to people who are quote, unquote, religious. Yeah, for superstition. All this stuff is all nonsense, by the way. Yeah. And when I came to Assam I didn't. I didn't. I finally was enlightened, and saw the truth. But realize that these things mean to have nothing, they can do nothing for you. Well, let's back it up.

Tell us how did you now where you're obviously, you know, usually, as we're taught that everyone is born in a pure state in a pure state that if you left that child to grow up alone, that he would grow up not worshiping the sun, the moon or you know, witches or whatnot. But usually this is nurtured. And he gets kind of influenced by the surroundings

that are around him. What were your surroundings? While you were growing up? Were there witches around you? Or were No, I just called her? What were you? Were you born into a family? That was predominantly What? My family was predominately secular? So they really didn't practice any type of religion whatsoever. Yeah. And this is why they say basically can do whatever you want to do, as long as you get good grades. Yeah. So like, just a typical Yeah, you don't worship rocks, go ahead, worship rocks, as long as you get your A's, as always, yeah. And unfortunately, they don't realize that these things are even more important than education. Education is very important, but at the

same time, the way your behavior your attitude, you're not just disliked More importantly, hereafter. Yeah, no one thinks about the hereafter. You always think about this dunya they think about successes in this dunya. But the real successes and hereafter that doesn't mean you ignore the success in this life. But unfortunately, many parents who are secular they don't think about

giving you the guidance for the next life. Yeah. So now you're growing up and now you're a teen at around what age? Did you get into this freaky stuff?

I think was about the age of like, 18 by 18 years old. I'm like, just looking for something the door just bored looking for something because I had no religion. Nothing. Yeah, I just knew there was a there was a God, but I didn't know what the answer what the truth was just like many people who are looking for the truth out there. That's how it usually is, right? Yeah, yeah. So the first thing I found I clinched onto it and tell us go on this. So I was taking these rocks and putting them around my neck thing, these rocks are gonna benefit me. And eventually it came to a point that I realized that these rocks are the creation and either you have a choice of working with either either the

creation or the Creator.

So these rocks can't even save themselves, how they're going to help me. And I put those rocks down, I said, I need to start looking for the truth. So and that's where I started my quest of looking for the truth. Tell us some other ways of life that you came upon that you were and what were the things that you were looking for. So that person who's also sincere, and he's wanting to know the truth, he can kind of take a shortcut of setting, taking that long way around to learn from some of your mistakes. Well, first of all, I said to myself, okay, if the Creator is unlimited, and he's all powerful, and he's perfect, then his religion must be perfect. So let me start looking at all these

different people who say, oh, our religion is the truth, because everyone you speak to, there's Oh, this religion is the truth. And this were sent by God and blah, blah, blah, says, Okay, I'll give everyone the benefit of doubt. Let me try everything out. Let me see what was out there. Every time I came into a study of religion, every time I found a mistake, or I found an error, or I found has been changed by man, I put it to the side. I mean, how can that be a religion from God? It has mistakes in it. Yeah. Also, I realized that, okay, if if God like for example, they say, oh, God can die, or God is a statue. Yeah, if I can break your God, then that can't be God. Yeah. So it's okay.

Every time I find a mistake, I put it to the side. Eventually, I came across

the last religion, which was left with which was Islam. And it's interesting how I got to that point, because at the time where it came from me to look into Islam, my father got on to his a

heart attack, and he was in the hospital. And the doctor said, He's gonna need triple bypass surgery. And that surgery was unsuccessful. So they told us, he was gonna die. So I'm sitting at UCLA hospital, and sitting at my base, my father's deathbed, and I was supposed to go to a winter camp to learn about Islam. And my mother said, don't go stay here. Because this is more important. Because your father can pass away, you can go to your little quest in the future. Yeah. And I told my parents, okay, I'll stay. And as I sat there next to my father, on watching him on his, quote, unquote, deathbed, I realized that this could be me. Because when you go to a graveyard, they don't

die when they're old. They die in all types of ages. They have infants, they have toddlers, they have teenagers, that people my age, they have people who are old, it's all these every no one knows when death is going to come. So I told myself, I can be dead. If If Islam is a truth, let me go least investigate it. Because I can die before he this guy passes away. Yeah. So I told my mom, I'm changing my mind. And I'm going to go, she was completely against it. And I went.

And when I went there, I was just has zero idea what Islam is about zero, took my girlfriend to Islamic camp with me. But before that you had investigated all the different religions like Buddhism, and this, you looked at life in that way of life. Yeah, whatever. Whatever was out there. Yes. And it just for the face of it. It just didn't fit. I came from a science major. Yeah. When you look at the Bible says the earth has four corners. Yeah, basically, it's just the whole argument between the Earth is flat and the earth is round. does wrong? Isn't that flat? I mean, the scientists are fighting it. And the church was throwing these people into prison. It's and now they

realize, Oh, yeah, maybe it's not flat. Muslims. We knew this 1400 years ago, that is not flat. And when I found the scientific miracles of the Quran, that was amazing to me. I mean, if you any science person, they always always science versus Christianity. And there's always a debate, trying to discover each other always debating it. Even when I was in junior high school. They're debating Christianity, or what they call creation, creationism versus science. But Islam and science, they don't conflict. I mean, some people, yes, you come up with theories. But that's not fat. But fact it doesn't conflict with Islam. Yeah. And that, to me was amazing. And the miracles within the

scientific miracles was amazing to me. So that's one of the first things that I caught my attention when I started looking into Islam in that winter camp. Now, before we go on, and we talk about how finally you were overtaken, or you found that this was indeed the truth. Let's talk about quickly some of these other ways. Because now if somebody came to you, and was talking to you about God being a man, for instance, yes, like some people today they take, you know, one of the greatest messengers of God is a man. Yes. Did you ever come and have a dialogue with someone about this? Yes, to talk to them and say why this didn't make sense to you? Yes, there's actually a person knocked on

my door, and you're, you know, knocking on my door trying to preach the message. And at that time, I was still searching. And I hadn't really said the Quran too much, but I just started to get into it. And the guy knocked on my door and said, I'm here to spread the good message, and Jesus is coming and blah, blah, blah. So I said, Okay, and he's opened up his books. Do you have any proof of this? Because I'm actually looking for the truth. And he says, Yes, let me read you this passage. And I said, before you read it to me, who wrote this passage.

He says, Well, this is written by so and so as a way second

Are you 100%? Sure? He says, Well, I think so let me he looked open in the back of it. And it shows, some of them. They know some of them they don't know some of them are question marks that say is this original language that this book was revealed? It says no, it was then it was translated to Latin, then translate to English. And me having English as my second language, I know that when you translate something from another language to another language, it loses meaning. So first of all, the book is not you're not sure who wrote it to. It's been translated as it has a book been changed as a yes, it's been changed as well. You're asking very good questions. Yes. And then I just think

you say, you know what, he's a very good things. You're talking about these guys knocking on my doors. But what do you think? I say, you know, what, I don't know. I'm still looking for the truth, too. So what have you come across when you're truth seeking? I said, the last book I'm trying to get into is the Quran. So what is that about? So we are having this dialogue with each other. And I tell him that so far, to kuranda I've been looking at so far, just just before I even look at the text. There's only one version of it. Even though it's different people have different ideas. There's only one version of the Quran in Arabic. That's it. And the book has not been changed. And the book has

the same style all the way from beginning to end. as well. This is very unique. So yeah, so by the time the guy left, I'm gonna go look at the Quran. knocking on your door, priest to you and try to have you come over, but look into the Quran. That was it. Yeah.

Okay, I guess I'm looking into it too. And we just ended up and it was a very nice conversation. This is amazing. How about the idea that now somebody, and I heard you talk about this before? I forgot exactly how you explained it. But the idea that someone is coming to die for your sins? Yes. You made an analogy about this. Can you talk about this idea? You know, if you take a situation, like, let's say, I have one of my co workers I work with, he says, you know, XYZ came, and Jesus came and died for your sins, and you have basically a green light. I mean, everything's okay. And if we thought the same way, if we thought in this, and the world thought this way, that someone has

taken care of everything. It's like giving you a credit card says, You know what, no matter what you charge your bill we paid for. Imagine what type of chaos you would have in this society. If people didn't know that they were gonna be accountable for their deeds, that someone else will be taking care of everything for you. It'll be complete chaos. You know what, I kill somebody, but it's okay. Jesus will forgive me. I know what song So I did that. But Jesus will forgive me, you know what had this temptation to cheat on somebody, or cheat him in business or cheat on a woman or cheat on this. But you know what, Jesus will take care of it because he died for me because I'm sinful, and he will

take care of it. If people had this mentality, imagine how much chaos there would be. But Islam teaches the exact opposite, says no one's going to take care of it. You will be held accountable. Everyone will be held accountable. If you do good, you get good. If you do bad, you get back. This is what we in this society teach. You don't go to the court and say, You know what, I kill people. But guess what I know, the judge will take care of it. Imagine how they'll be so to us is like, when you go to court says What did you do? Did you do this? Yes. Did you? You can be accountable for it. If you did good, you get good. If you did bad, you're gonna get punished for it. And that's what

Islam teaches us. Now, that just makes sense. It goes down, easy goes down. Well, easy to digest. Tell us now. You're at this camp. You said yes. Okay. Tell us what happened now. So I go to the camp. And it's interesting, because what happens is my girlfriend's on one side, and on the other side, and men and women are separated. We never seen when men and women separated before. And I've never seen this before. Yeah, this is all new to me. And, and we see, I sit at a table for lunch, and dinner at my table surrounded with all these people with different colored faces. Because when you go to high school, you go to college, you see everyone, the Hispanic people hanging out

together, black people hang out together, why people hanging out together, the guys with the punk music, they hang out together, the guys with basketball, they hang out together by default, just like animals, we segregate based on our color or find some type of simple band to connect with. Well, I know we're all from Persia, we're all from here. And when I went to the camp, I realized, wow, these people are all different. And they're all hanging out with each other. So as you guys must know each other for like, 10 years now, right? So you know, we just met yesterday.

And I was like, wow, there's something unique about these people. I want to know more. What binds you guys together. And he tells me a song. And I quickly learned that we don't have a choice of what color skin we're born in. Your skin is white. I'm darker and more barbecued. And there's people who are black people, green yellow. We no one asked us what color skin you're gonna be born in. What were you Where do you want to be born in? What language do you want to speak? So that's very, very weak bond for us to connect ourselves with but

We do have a choice of the ideas we want to carry. And we bond to people together with ideas as you carry, that makes a strong bond. And that is what I saw, and seeing a psalm implemented by action, and not just by a bunch of words or a pamphlet. That's What amazed me and made me want to learn more about it. Now, you asked a very important question, when that person individual came to your door, you said, What's the proof? Was the proof for Islam that also had you along with this? convinced there was a couple of things. There's one the linguistic things, yeah, within it, I was amazed on

the simplicity of it. What Islam taught, be good to your parents, you know, some of the religions Yes, they do teach some similar things, don't be bad, do good, blah, blah, blah. But some of the things were just, it was just amazing how things just clicked and made sense. You know, the, until recently, we we had a black president, this was a very big deal in America. Wow, we choose a person with dark skin, they're only talking about US intelligence, which is far more intelligent in the last president, they don't choose talk about this is just the very fact that his skin pigment of his skin is a little bit darker than our skin, this should be a very big deal that look how far we've

come. You go back to Islam and what Islam taught. It got rid of racism by the time of the second belief, which is appointment like the second president here. Yeah. And by that time, the person who was a slave in Egypt was a governor in Egypt. And this was a black man. It wasn't a big deal, didn't make the newspapers and make the oldest in the history books. Islam came to teach us and to enlighten us to go away from these animal instincts of animal desires and animal mentality, to come us to enlighten us to raise raises, to make us better than everything else, to not follow our desires, but to follow our Creator inshallah. And that's what amazed me. Okay, so what happens now?

Now, you're amazed you're convinced. I mean, did you have to go get dipped in a pool? What? A big, big ceremony? No, did you have to jump no ropes. I told myself, if I ever find the truth, I'll follow it. And this means if you have to sacrifice things that you desire, yeah. And I like my girlfriend very much.

But this thing was much more than just a girlfriend. I mean, this thing was more important than this is if I found the truth. So if I were convinced this is the truth, I will follow it. And I was convinced. And I said, I'm gonna I told my girlfriend that look, I can't be girlfriend, boyfriend anymore. Because I want two things. islamically. And Islamic, please look, you take responsibility. It's like, Okay, well, you just go around, just grow with this, go with this girl. You want a girl, you can have a girl, but you have to accept the responsibility of taking care of her, providing for her feeding her, you know, and if she has a child, you take care of that you take every

responsibility. Again, accountability is here. No more. You know what, who cares? Do just think about me, me, me. Now I have to think of my Creator, and make sure I please Him. And by pleasing Him, I have to take care of my wife, my children, etc. So I told you, I can't have girlfriend boyfriend relationship anymore. And that wasn't easy for her. So I told this is over, the relationship is over. Unless we get married, the relationship is over. From there, I my friends, some of my friends I came with, they came to just check out what I'm learning about. And Tom, look, I used to be Persian, but I'm not Persian anymore. I'm Muslim now. Which what that means basically,

is that, not that, okay, I can take away from where I'm born in. But that culture, part of the culture that is a practice that will conflict with someone that can practice anymore, the mentality that men are better than women, you know, and we have this pride of my country is better than because our Persian ancestors, all this stuff is out the window now. You know, now people are people. This is a it's like a clean slate. It cleared up my mind. It's like he's put these glasses on that you can actually see now, I've been blinded for all this time.

And that's it just enlightened my thinking. So what did you have to do to become a Muslim to become Muslim is very simple. All you do is give your Shahada I should either hide the law by Shana Muhammad Rasul Allah, which means I bear witnesses, there's no God but Allah, and Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him is the final and last messenger. That's it, the same God, that was from Abraham, Jesus, Moses, and the final prophet is Mohammed and we accept all the prophets before him, and the messages before them. But our book for us as Muslims and for not just Muslims, for the whole world, is the Quran and to follow it, it will give you success in the hereafter. And inshallah that

is more important than anything that we can gain here in this dunya tell us before we come to an end and a close that for you live in the typical life as a youth getting involved in a lot of the things that are out there. You know, you stopped you started to really ponder and think about more important things, you started to actually search for the truth. Many people. They don't want to do that. They're not thinking about death.

You're not thinking about the Hereafter, what advice would you give someone? Because you're very young and at the age you were younger, when you accepted the truth for somebody who is at that age that you were to give them some encouragement, advice to really think and stop. And no, it's not all about the nightclub is not all about chasing and get the rims on the car is not all about chasing the women in the good times. What advice do you give to somebody like this to stop and think,

you know, the thing that we're there's so much stuff that we're not sure about in this life, I can go study all as much as I want, and may not even get my degree at that. I may be my life may be taken before that. I'm sure many of us know people who didn't know the death was coming for them. You have situations where you struggle for so much that you think is so important is so so important for you, and you get it and like that's it. Now something else becomes so, so important. And then you get that easy. That's it. Everything in this life is so temporary, and something is so important today becomes nothing tomorrow.

But Paradise is forever. And I said to myself, I'm not sure but a lot of things that's going on in this world. But one thing I am sure about and no matter what religion you are, no matter what you use your atheist, whatever one thing is guaranteed, guaranteed. Is every social taste death, everyone's gonna die. Do you know what's going to happen when you're going to die? Are you 100%? Sure you know what's going to happen when you die?

Because unless you are 100% sure you better start investigating. I'm not saying just look into it. Look at some tasks to think not to blindly follow. Look at all these religions, compare them see, look at the systems of life. And you'll be amazed. I mean, it's very clear, it's not very complicated. It's very clear. And hopefully made a lot of banter enlighten you and make you towards the right path. Now there's some tone is because you did say and it's the third one, we caught some Arabic words, you're gonna have to define them, they heard Islam, they heard Muslim and you just said Allah, you have to find these. Audience the word

Allah means one gut. So Arabic way of Arabic word for one guy.

It's very clear. The word Islam is submission to one god ism. And this is the religion that Muslims practice, which is Muslims are the ones who submit to God.

That's it.

It's not as simple as they replicate it. People think you know, this whole, if you got to be someone who is religious, or you follow this God conscious lifestyle, that you have to be some weird person, and you have to be somewhat locked in. Most people, I mean, you hang out with me, I go play basketball, I go do this, I go do it. I have a normal life. But I do everything within the boundaries of Islam. And that means like, if I'm going to go have fun, I do it. And I have to without alcohol without drugs. Without this. If I want it, sometimes, I just have this against my own desires. I want to go do something and my parents will tell me, I don't want you to go. Now

before a song, who cares, I'll go do it. But after a song, I realized I'm responsible of listening to my parents. And they raised me they took care of me and Allah subhanaw taala wants us to listen to our parents, as long as it doesn't conflict with the song, I have to listen to it. So sometimes you have to follow something you don't even desire. But you do it with the hope that you will gain reward for it in the hereafter. inshallah, what are some of the misconceptions that nowadays you travel a lot, you're all over the place that you've seen that people have about Islam. I think a lot of people Unfortunately, because of,

you know, the media, like Fox News, and all this stuff you see on television, they have this, they put people on TV that are unfortunately a very, very small fraction of what's out there. And they, they, they get this, people that may not may know very little about Islam, and they're the ones who are the voice.

They're the loudest speakers, and they give the voice and they give the misconception with Islam is really about, the best way to find out what Islam is really about is to find a practicing Muslim, and go ask them and that will clear everything up. Don't listen to the media goes to the movies. That's all stuff is for entertainment, and to get people into fear and all that kind of stuff real is to see it just like you do in real life. If I want to go see what a vegetarian does, I'll go hang out and ask a vegetarian. Why do you guys

eat veggies?

So you go see a Muslim say, how can you guys do this? And how can we do that as the person who practices it because a practicing Muslim I just some guy who his name is

you know, Ali, is because name is Ali doesn't mean he is. Many of us are born into the religion but not necessarily convinced of it. Yeah. Now tell us we got a couple of minutes left some of this wonderful work you're doing you travel a lot. You're all over the place some of some of your projects as you got going on. Well, I have a few different projects I do. I do one videos called Omar films you mm HFI lms.com and that's where I put up videos trying to clear up some of the misconceptions of what we Muslims.

People who are born to Islam are doing this incorrect. And Uh hum de la and I mean hummed away all praises due to Allah, that Allah showed me Islam before he showed me the Muslims. And the reason for that is because sometimes you see Muslims doing stuff that has nothing to do with Islam, which is really one of the main reasons that people have a lot of misconceptions of Psalms about Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I that's why it's better to study the text and see what Islam teaches. Rather than Hey, Muslim, I see this guy doing something strange. I wonder if that's what Islam teaches, like forced marriages, some Muslims practices for forced marriages, things and has nothing to do

with some sexual assault forbids it. And if you look at samick text, a woman can doesn't get married, her marriage is not valid, unless she approves of the person she's married, getting married to. Yeah, so and that's one project and I have board games ba ba league games calm and I'm writing board games that both Muslims and non Muslims complain. I have a project called half our Deen which logo I'm wearing and I try to help people find each other for marriage to suck. Aloha, thank you very much for being with us here on the deen show. Thank you very much for inviting me had a great time. Thank you. And thank you for tuning in to another episode of the deen show. I hope you got to

benefit we're here every week trying to help you understand Islam and Muslims and we look forward God willing to have you back again for another episode of the D show next week. Until then, Salaam Alaikum. Peace be unto you.

banyuwangi

Bismillah

Well, hello, gentlemen.

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