Why Imam Qasim Chose Islam Part 1

Salam Alaikum peace be unto you. Welcome to another episode of the D show today we have a special guest in the studio

imaam qaseem. Han, sit tight, we're gonna be talking about his road from Christianity to the Nation of Islam to the real thing. Islam. So sit tight, we'll be right back on the deen show.

How are you? I feel almost as good as you look.

Thank you for being with us today on the deen show. Before we start, I start asking you some very important questions. The viewers sometimes because we try to reach out to a lot of the non Muslims. So some people might see what's on your head and I'll be able to get past that. Right. Can you just explain what is the turban? Yes, yeah, Mama. actually really my my reason for wearing the turban is very personal. It has little to do with very little to do with my with Islam or my religion.

Even though that I learned to wear the turban from some other Muslims, their reasons for wear the turban might be a little different from mine.

is ironic to that even some people who think that I wear to copy the Arabs. It's ironic that I've never ever in my life, met an Arab that wears a turban. Never. Even when I was in Saudi Arabia, I didn't meet not one single Arab with a turban. The only person that people I met with a turban was Muslim from Sudan. And they didn't even wear it like this. I started wearing a turban because I liked the way it looked. And then one day I tried a turban on and my wife told me she made a terrible mistake of telling me how handsome I look with a turban on. That was that was it. And plus I like the way it feels on my head. It feels like someone's massage in my head looks nice. Thank

you. So now I have a turban to match different colored turbans to match whatever outfit my wife makes me she makes most of my clothes, you know. So I wear a turban because I like to wait fields and because my wife says I look handsome and it's hurt. Well, that's good enough reason, even though that when people in public see me with a turban they identified with Islam. And so so now I use that as a dour opportunity to answer questions about Islam because when people in the public and I travel a lot see me with a turban on it makes them want to ask me questions about Islam. And so I utilize that email Suraj who has told me once he said, Never miss $1 moment. And so when someone even if I

catch them staring at me, I try to do something that will make them curious enough to ask me a question and it opens the door for Dawa. I just spray a little bit about Islam. And 100 ila some people have even taken Shahada, just from asking questions about my turban. Well, I hope now you can get past a turban. If you have something against that. Let's get right down to the issue. We're going to talk about Islam, this beautiful way of life that's embraced by over 1.5 billion people in the world today. And you are one of those that went from bringing a Christian to the Nation of Islam, which has nothing to do with Islam. Just wanted to make a note of that to the real Islam.

Let's talk about is going to pass. And tell us a little bit about your story from this point when you are a Christian. Oh, actually, before I start, right, there must be just a couple seconds of clarify one small point, the Nation of Islam has something to do with Islam, but not enough to to bring us to they would have brought us to the reality of pure Islam during that time. So there is something about Islam that's directly connected to the Nation of Islam, you know, but it wasn't it wasn't the pure Islam. And I'll explain that transition. While we while we grow through this go through this chronology. As a Christian I was born into an environment into a Christian household.

That my, my family was very active mostly because of the excitement in the entertainment aspect of it. My my father was a singer, my mother.

She was he was she prayed a lot. You know, it was very active in going to church. My grandfather, who also helped to raise me was a professional gospel singer. And, and so in that household, we fought, we found ourselves going. Sometimes we went to the Methodist Church, sometimes we went to the Baptist Church. But when we went there, when I went there, the only thing that really kept me going was the entertainment because I love singing in the choir. I love the activities, and I love for the opportunities. I've always loved the opportunity to try to stand in

front of people and do something, whether it was preaching or singing, or whatever it was. And so as I got older, just around by the time I was reaching puberty, that's when my parents, unfortunately, they got separated and divorced. But it was during that time that I began to get exposed to another denomination of Christianity called Jehovah's Witnesses. And I learned a lot from the Jehovah's Witnesses. And that's really where I got my first introduction to public speaking, because I was a young student minister, but the Christian faith, if for some reason, whether I was in the baptist church or the Methodist church or the Kingdom Hall, for some reason, I didn't feel fulfilled,

because there was questions that I had, that I was that I wasn't getting answers for. But I was being cooperative, because I was one of those good boys. I was a good little boy, you know, at least my parents thought I was a good one. But But there were basic questions that, that, that I that didn't give me the answers. I was looking for some answers, like some of the basic things like, you know, if Jesus peace be upon him, Jesus was so good, and he was such a revered person in Christianity. And even I was taught to even worship Him and pray to him. If he was so good, then why do they call the day that they said that he was murdered? Why do they call it Good Friday? And I

wasn't even allowed to ask that question that I was told, don't question God, you know, if Jesus peace be upon him was equal to God, and he had all of this power there. And he knew that this was something he was supposed to do, according to what we were taught. And he was on Calvary, on a cross there. Why did he complain about being there? He said, Eli, Eli Lama Suboxone a Oh, my Lord, Milo, why have you forsaken me? You know, if you knew he's supposed to be there. So there was little simple things. And then on some of them, most holiest holidays in Christianity, such as Easter, I'm trying to think why, even in the church that we have a bunny rabbit sitting in the middle of a nest

of eggs, you know, when rabbits bear live young, you know? And then if that's the case, then why did we borrow the eggs before we ate them? You know, so they were a lot of these little things that came up. Why did they connect Santa Claus coming down the chimney with the birth of Jesus, you know, and and if it was his birthday, then how come that birthday isn't recorded in the Bible? It was supposed to be December 25. So these are things as I grew up, I would ask these questions. And I was in the only thing I was told was, don't question God. And then as I got older, I still slipped into the Bible. And I noticed things in the Bible. Like for example, for example, in Leviticus 11, chapter

seven verse, When the Bible says, eat, don't eat the flesh of the swine don't even touch this dead carcass. But yet, we were serving pork in the basement of the churches.

Never so we were serving pork in the basement of the churches.

Check this out.

Welcome to this portion of the deen show called The mailbag. I'm your host, Yousef Festus want to talk today about the subject of some of the mail. It's coming in here. They're asking some pretty good questions. I picked it this one a minute ago, and I wanted to read it to you. And this one is saying something that I've heard from a lot of folks, I've heard this, even right here in Chicago, someone said, if I take Pulaski, which is a road here in the Chicago area, or Cicero road, either one, I still wind up going downtown. So isn't it the same way really in religion? I mean, I'm a Christian, and another person is a Jew, somebody else's a Hindu. And you guys are Muslims. But you

know, basically, we all believe in God. And really, we're all saying the same thing. There's one God, you have to be nice. You have to be kind, you have to, you know, and what if somebody would even like to give up on organized religion all the way around? Look, I don't want to go with this organized stuff. Let me make my own way to get to the Lord. As long as we're all kind. We're all nice, good people, believing God, that our work kind of remains you The old saying of all roads lead to Rome, doesn't it? And another one that came up to me the same way, in same manner was a Hindu who said that he considers God to be like a wheel at the center of a wheel like the hub, and then all

the spokes of the wheel really are just going toward this one, God and all these books are what these books are the religions, the different religions. Well, that's his opinion. But this would mean essentially then there could be any number of religions and really

Any number of Gods because at the same time people are defining how to get to God. They're also defining who God is. If they're saying, you know, well I believe God is a man or God is a spirit or God is a father, or gods all three and one. The Hindu says that all of the animals and things that he worships are also gods are a way to get to God. A Christian will say, No, you can't do that. A Muslim will say, you can't do any of those, and the Jews have their way. So how could you imagine that all these things could be right and still be opposing? In beliefs, concepts and actions all at the same time? How would that be? It's actually would be what's called chaos or confusion. Now,

according to the Bible itself, it says that the devil is the author of confusion. At the same time we look to the Quran and see what does the Quran tell us about this topic? Allah says in chapter two it's called sir of Baccarat. Yeah, Dena.

Ramen, oh, you who believe or Hulu resume a catheter can enter into the Dean of a law perfectly enter into the religion of Islam, the way of Islam submitting the garden is terms perfectly, and do not follow in the footsteps of the shaitaan don't follow the way of the devil, because barely he is an avowed enemy to you. Now we understand from this verse immediately that the devil made a big mistake, and don't follow his way, don't go the way he went. And besides that, he's your enemy, stay away from this guy. Now, if you take what the Bible says, and you take what the Quran says, you can see immediately that they are agreeing that other religions aren't going to work. They're not going

to work, it only has to be the way of God. Now, the devil being one who's going to tempt you and put stuff in your mind will come up with stuff like this. But if you want to talk about all roads lead to Rome, we see the fall of the Roman Empire don't wait. So it's clear that that really was a saying that didn't work, did it? And likewise, we can look to these kinds of teachings and realize that this isn't what was being taught anyway. This is not the message that came with any of the prophets of Islam. And we go back to Adam and Abraham and Moses and David and Suleyman, we look at Jonah, we look at Noah, and we consider what they had we come to Jesus peace be upon him and all of them. And

we see that that's not the message he had. They were all saying to believe in one God and follow the commandments. believe in one God and follow the commandments. The same teaching we find in the New Testament, believe in one God pray to Him for the commandments is the same teaching we find in the Quran and the teachings of Muhammad Sallallahu wasallam peace be upon him. There's only one God, and there's only one way,

one God, one way. Now, I know you would like to get more information on this subject, let us consider what Islam and take Islam on the textual evidences that we have with us today. We have the Quran exactly as it was revealed 1400 years ago, you don't have to make up versions of it are considered some lost manuscripts that are found in a cave. No, we know exactly how it was. And how you can find out for yourself is go to our internet website that explains Islam in detail. And at the same time very easily understood. It has picture representation, along with audio, you can just follow along with it. It's called what's Islam? What Islam

make it don't say what is say what's what's islam.com. And check that out. While you're at it. Don't forget our other website, the deen show.com, because you want to watch these and other great programs. We're going to take a break and get back to the show and progress more later about the mailbag.

To jump on Leviticus 11 chapter seven verse

when the Bible says, eat, don't eat the flesh of the swine don't even touch this dead carcass. But yet, we were serving pork in the basement of the churches, you know, so I said, Well, this is I don't understand, you know, but I was then again told don't question God. So this and in addition to many other examples, for and we have the Bible that's supposed to be God's word, and God is beautiful and perfect and holy and sacred. Then why was that taught that it's okay to sit in the bathroom and read the Bible? You know, so, after a while, I just got it, you know, I begin to rebel. Even through my my moral ethics. You know, I was in a street gang as a Christian, you know, I was a

womanizer or girl. Iser, you know, because I was a teenager. As a Christian. I use drugs as a Christian. I drank alcohol as a Christian.

Smoke, you know, play with the ladies, you know, all these things I did as a Christian, not that I'm blaming Christianity for my actions, because there's a lot of Christians that have very good morals, I must add that, but the fact that for my own internal growth, I was not nothing was given to me that that made me feel a strong sense of self worth and a responsibility to uphold strong basic human ethics. Let me ask you tell me what if someone says, Well, you didn't know your Bible? Well? Were you very familiar with the Bible? Had you read it through? Were you really familiar with his teachings? Is this maybe why you lacked?

I wouldn't say even though that I admitted I didn't study the Bible very carefully, I relied on people who I respected who did study the Bible. And so as I mentioned, I asked questions about things in the Bible, that gave me a problem. And many of the things some of the people are the older people, the elders that are asked such questions to, they took my questions as a challenge, rather than as an inquisitive young man who really just wanted to know. So I was being I was repeatedly being accused of challenging the Bible, and challenging God, rather than to be inquisitive, so that I can improve myself. Tell me, give us a couple more examples. So you grew up believing that Jesus

was God? Yeah. That He died for your sins. Right? And that he was one in the Trinity right. Now when you go up to your higher ups and where the some of the things that you'd question the Trinity him dying for your sins? Are these some energy to get answers for these chords? If you did go as well, that type that question there. I never asked anybody, you know, I was pretty well, I was I was prepared to accept that without explanation. I was prepared to accept Jesus died on the cross. You know, regardless, even though I disagreed with him dying there, I was prepared to accept, okay, died on the cross. I even had a crucifix. I was sometimes myself, I was prepared to accept that I was

supposed to pray to Jesus. And I did that every night. You know, before I went to bed, I was prepared to accept that, that the scientific things that didn't make sense to me, that was connected to those beliefs, as well as the questions that I asked. So an insert in this in this kind of fortunate for me, because the fact that they didn't answer my questions, is one of the things that brought me to Islam. It had to answer my questions are probably right now, we'll probably be still preaching Christianity somewhere. But but because if I, if I would have any, if I would have

carried my questions, to those particular theological questions, rather than the scientific questions, my theological issues, if I, if my questions had been centered around theological issues, then they probably would have satisfied me by best just saying, Just have faith. If I just said, Oh, Jesus, he died, he died for our sins. I never question that part. What I question was, was that during the time that he supposedly died for our sins, why did he complain about it? It was things like that, you know, I never questioned why God told us not to eat pork. I said, What if he told us eat pork? And why are we eating it? Those are the type of questions that are asked. And so I didn't

ask the logical questions, because you have to understand, a learned scholar of Christianity is prepared to deal with theological questions. They're prepared for that. They study for years to deal with theological issues, but they never prepared themselves to deal with basic common sense questions. And so that's what drove me to start paying attention to other things that came my way. And that opened the door for my curiosity that brought me to my next stage.

Check this out.

We're back and you're watching the mailbag. Here on the deen Show. I'm used to Festus we were talking about Original Sin. The original sin as far as we know in Islam is when the devil refused to obey because of his arrogance. And he said, I'm better than Adam created from a better substance that he was created from a smokeless fire, whereas Adam is created from mud. So that's the beginning of the original sin. But now where does it go? Now in Judaism and Christianity, you'll find and what remains to the Bible today in the English language, something that they refer to as original sin, and they're talking about the sin of Adam.

What happened was that in the paradise where Adam was residing, along with his wife, Eve, they were ordered by a law to enjoy and take part of anything that they wanted, except for one tree, don't eat the fruit of this specific tree and the paradise. It was the devil according the story that we have in Islam as well that came to them and

Got them to partake of this. Now according to the Bible, it was the devil talking to the woman, and then she did it. And then she got the husband to do the same thing. According to Islam, the devil went to both of them. And they both did it. So there's no blame, and Islam on Eve over atom, they're both guilty. They both did it. And there's not any special punishment for her versus him. They were both guilty. And all of them, including the devil were put down out of the paradise onto the earth to begin their lives. Because this was always intended, by a law from the beginning. He always intended for them to come to the earth, and he already knew what was going to happen. This is a

test. That's the belief in Islam. And now let's understand something about the original sin, according to Islam. How does this work? Well, if you said that all of the children are going to inherit this sin, because of what the parents did, according to Islam, this is not logical. Allah says in the Koran that he doesn't task, any soul for more than they can bear, nor does he put the burden of one onto another. That's not in the way in Islam. Allah says in the Quran,

thou ukulele Pula, who absent eludes Haha, the harmonica is about what la hammock talks about. So we understand right away that each and every person will be responsible for what they do. And Allah says that in the Quran do that on the Day of Judgment. Even somebody did a small weight of good they'll see it then and whoever did a small weight of evil, they'll see it then.

So how about this idea that a child is born into sin, Islam refuses this notion altogether, and categorically denies that that's even possible, because the old saying, which says, innocent as a newborn babe, may have originated in Islam itself, because it was the Prophet Mohammed who said that every child is born in the natural feature of all Islam, every child is born innocent. Islam has to be innocent, and sincere and submissive, and totally at peace with Almighty Allah. And this is the condition of a baby. And this is the condition of what the true Muslim should be the same way. And this is what was told to us by Mohammed, and it's not different from the teaching of Jesus, if you

really look to Scripture, if you look to Scripture, what they have today anyway, it says that Jesus told them suffered the children to come on to me, which means allow it didn't mean for some punish them or whatever it meant, allow the children to come because they were driving the children back that was crowded and they died, no room for kids. But no, he said, Let them come to me, for such as the kingdom of heaven. And Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him confirms this by saying that when a child dies, they go to heaven, regardless of the religion of the parents, regardless of the religion, the parents, let's go back and revisit this statement. Again, he said that every child is

born on the fitrah, the natural inclination of Islam, to submit to God but it's the parents who raised them up to become a Christian or a Jew or a viral worshiper.

But Islam is showing us when a child dies, regardless of the religion of the parents, the child is going to paradise and the child will be in paradise calling. Oh, God, please let my parents can be with me that my parents be with me.

This is a teaching Islam Original Sin.

I think we better really look at that one again. Let's go back to the deen show and see what's happening over there. And we'll be right here.

to the next stage, you didn't go straight into Islam, you went into what's called the Nation of Islam. Yeah. Now can you educate us on what the Nation of Islam is and how you came to this before you came to true? Yes.