 If you want me to continue with my work, it is crucial to support the channel via Patreon. Moreover, make sure to subscribe to Bobby's perspective on Rumble. All the links are in the description box below. May Allah bless you all. Alright guys, welcome back to the channel. If you're new Mums Bobby guys, today I have a different type of video for you. I found an extremely interesting comment in my comment It reads, Hello Bobby and everyone. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to ask the question on the stream, but maybe you will see my question, which I did. I am Russian and you know how close our culture is with the Serbians. My thoughts about God and religion are incredibly similar to yours. I'm very much interested in Islam after watching your channel and keep studying it. We are living in a time of great strife. I'm wondering about your opinion about the conflict between Serbia and Albania. For example, if I accept Islam, I don't understand which side I should be on. Culturally, traditionally, I have to support my ethnic group. I think you've probably put yourself in that situation. Should I support Muslims like Albanians anyway? I feel that I would go for my people despite the religion I believe is right, but it is only my judgment. Maybe it is just my feelings. I wonder what other people would say about it, like Muslims, people of other religions, and what would be the position of Islam on this question. So I chose this question because it is an absolutely fascinating one, not only for people from Russia or for people from the Balkans, because this question truly boils down to what is more important, religion or nationality. For people that have been following this channel, you know I am from the Balkans to be precise from Northern Macedonia. I personally do not agree with the politics of this country any longer. When I was a teenager growing up, I was very much into nationalism. I was identified as a Macedonian. I thought we have the truth. However, looking into the politics of Northern Macedonia, I found out that we've been fed communist propaganda, and therefore I can relate quite well here to the comment of the Russian and the Serbian influence. Macedonia has been under Serbian influence for the longest time, beat linguistically, culturally or even religiously of course, because Macedonia still falls under the Serbian Orthodox Church, which is quite hypocritical of course, because ultimately in Northern Macedonia you had the Bulgarian church that established Church Slavonic, the original Slavic language and the original Slavic alphabet, which you can see here tattooed on my hands. And therefore growing up as a teenager with my Macedonian consciousness, with my Orthodox Christian consciousness, with my Serbophile consciousness, if you will, I had a certain set of values that I took for granted and took for reality, essentially the baseline of normality. I thought that my perspective is the right one. And this is how we go throughout life, especially in our younger years. We're not only ignorant, but arrogant as well. Look at the situation right now when we're talking about Russia with the Russians and the Ukrainians. Depending on which side of the fence you are born on, you will take a stance and you will be 100% convinced that your position is the correct one. It's only natural. This is tribalism. If you're Ukrainian, you will say Slava Ukraine and you will believe that the Ukrainians are right and oppressed. If you're on the Russian side, you will think that you are a freedom fighter and you are getting rid of the Nazis in Ukraine. Who is the right side? I let you decide this. The point of the story is, depending on which side you are born on, you will take this story that is fed to you as absolute reality. And this is how we are as people. This is why we have a thing called social engineering. What is happening through social media? What is happening through pop culture? What is fed to our children? As long as we see it on our smart devices, on our phones, on our laptops, we don't really see it as a true threat, as a true invasion. But people that have a little bit of more common sense and reflect upon the situation do see how this propaganda is socially manipulating our children. But the same can be said about governments. So who tells you now, you growing up in Russia, have the truth? Who tells you now that the Serbs are the good guys? If you look into Srebrenica, for example, when the Serbs invaded Bosnia and innocent humans, who was right, who was wrong there, the Serbs back then, the government back then would have said that the Bosnians are actually just Turks and they are the remainers of the Ottoman Empire and therefore we have to get rid of them. And this is what it truly boils down to. I was born into a certain culture. That culture had a history with the Ottomans. The Ottomans were associated with Islam. Is that 100% accurate? Depends who you asked. I talked to Muslims that will say yes, the Ottomans were the legitimate caliphate. Others on the other hand will tell you that they were kafir. So if we truly look into it, we find out as so often it was a political conflict. This political conflict, however, had a certain impression on the minds of the people of that region. And so therefore I've been born into an Orthodox Christian family. Those people without ever witnessing it themselves told me over and over and over again that the Ottomans are the bad guys and therefore Islam is evil. And later on, as he mentioned here in this comment section, we had an altercation with the Albanians. Was the conflict with the Albanians a conflict between Christians and Muslims? Well, on the surface level, surely it was. However, it was political yet again. This was not a fight about establishing Islam. This was not a fight about establishing the caliphate. Quite the opposite. This was yet again a fight about nationalism. And so therefore, as you can see, it circles back to nationalism yet again, nationalism versus religion. I totally understand that as men, we want to support our fellow men. We want to fight for our countries, etc. etc. You name it. That is just natural. However, for me personally, after realizing that I've been fed communist lies, I saw the flaws within the political system within northern Macedonia. And in many ways I'm truly blessed because I was asking the question, how come that those 1.5 million Slavs, Macedonia is such a small country are so different than all the other Slavs? How are we different from the Bulgarians? How are we different from the Serbs? And how come that only we have the birthright to say, yes, Alexander the Great was our ancestor and we are those ancient Macedonians? It didn't make any sense whatsoever to me. So I further investigated, further investigated and saw the history of Macedonia, saw the history of the Orthodox Church within Macedonia. And this is when I truly realized, oh well, this has all been political after all. Go figure, right? It doesn't take a genius to see that. But once you realize this is all political, this is all national, this about establishing certain borders, the same borders that looked totally different a few years ago. Borders change all the time, countries change their names. And now I should identify with that. Once you see how wrong that is, you could kind of break out of nationalism. And then in many ways, this happened on the Balkan as well, you see a pen-ethno-nationalism. Because all of a sudden you realize, oh well, we the Slavs on the Balkan, we are the Southern Slavs. And actually, we have so much in common. Maybe we should unite as the Slavs. And then you have Yugoslavia. You have something similar of course with Great Russia. You unite ethnically similar people under one language, under one religion. Right? That is the claim, that is what you're trying to do here. But then we see that Yugoslavia breaks apart. How can that be? In my opinion, it breaks apart because it's not based upon truthfulness, but it is based upon lies about fabrications. In many ways, if you look into the project of Yugoslavia, you will see that this was a project for a greater Serbia under the name Yugoslavia. But be that as it may. Yet again, you're trying to unite people under ethnocentrism, under race. But the point of the story is anybody that reflected a little bit further will understand that we're not just our bodies, right? We're not just this flesh. So I look totally different than I looked 10, 15, 20 years ago. So I'm already changing. I am decaying the older that I get. And at some point, guess what? I will die. And so will you. We will all die. So therefore, I'm not taking my bald head with me and I'm not taking my skin with me either. All of this will decay. And as a believer, yes, I do believe in the afterlife. And I do not believe that in the afterlife, I will keep this skin. It will decompose, as I said. So therefore, if my skin is temporary, if my body is temporary, if everything around me is temporary, how can I then redefine truths within those physicalities? And this is where religion plays in, of course. Religion, God transcends the physical. So this is the whole claim of religion, of course. We believe in something supernatural, something greater than this reality. And this is why I particularly love the name of Allah al-Haqq, which means the ultimate truth, the ultimate reality. How beautiful is that? Once you realize God is the ultimate reality, anything else fades in comparison. And once you have that connection, everything else seems silly. Really, when I see people fighting over countries, black lives matter, white lives matter and what not, it is so really. It is like looking at my kid, which is two years old, fighting over cars. This is my car. This is my shovel. Give it to me. And I'm not saying this because I don't see any value in defending your country. Of course not. We have to defend our countries. We have to protect our countries. I get that idea. However, for me, the most important thing in life was and always will be truth. Truth is the most important thing. So therefore, if I am born on the wrong side of truth, I don't want to die upon that. I want to die upon truth. And if the truth is found within enemies territory, because my ancestors told me that those guys are the enemies, then I will have to master up the courage and look elsewhere. If you look at Islam, when Islam originated, you had the Arab tribes fighting each other over and over again. They were battling each other and Prophet Muhammad may peace be upon him was born amongst those Arab tribes, amongst those pagan Arab tribes in Mecca. And this is something that many, many people don't realize, especially the Islamophobes always like to twist this. They always like to display it as if Prophet Muhammad went to certain pagans somewhere else and he started fighting them viciously, needlessly. That is not the case whatsoever. Prophet Muhammad may peace be upon him was born a pagan ultimately. He was born in Mecca. Everybody around him was pagan. This was the zeitgeist at the time. This was the religion at the time. This was the culture at the time. The Arabs fought each other and within his own tribe, everybody was pagan and he started preaching monotheism, aka Islam. So he stood up against his own people. Do you understand this? So now we're not even talking about who should I support externally Serbs Albanians. No, Prophet Muhammad stood up against his own people for the truth. The pagans of Mecca told him back in the day to stop. They tried fighting him. They tried bribing him, but he stood up against his own people to spread Islam. This is how important the truth was to him. This is how much he loved God. He loved God more than anything within creation, which brings us to the famous saying, love the Creator, not the creation. So this is a beautiful example for us. In Islam, we believe the Prophet Muhammad is the best example and look at this example. It shines absolutely because we are facing those issues to this very day. One more thing that many people do not reflect upon is that all of the first followers of Prophet Muhammad, Prophet Muhammad included, were not Muslims. They all came from a pagan background and they all accepted Islam during their lifetime. So therefore, in a sense, the original Muslims were all reverts to Islam. And this is why if you look into the struggles that the Sahaba, the followers of Prophet Muhammad had, you will find a story that absolutely resonates with your own struggle. In the Qur'an we read, and certainly we shall test you with something of fear, hunger, loss of wealth, lives and fruits, but give glad tidings to the patient ones. So as you can see, this means we will be tested by God, especially after accepting Islam. And what do you think happened to me, man? The same happened to me. I accepted Islam. My family stopped talking to me. My family members in Macedonia turned their back on me. Not all of them, but many did. They don't want to hear anything from me any longer, because now I am an Albanian. This is how much religion and ethnocentrism nationality has been conflated. Those people really think that if you accept Islam, you're either a Turk or you are an Albanian. They cannot see the theology of Islam. And why is that so? Because people have no idea about religion. This is why if you go to Germany, everybody is a Christian. Yeah, of course. But Germany is a secular country. Most Germans pride themselves that they have exited the church. They do not care about the church, but still they see themselves as Christians. Why? Because we celebrate Easter and Christmas. Does this make you truly a Christian? Of course not. And it's the same thing on the Balkans, of course. How often did I go to family celebrations? Today is saint so and so day. Who is this saint? What does he stand for? Nobody has any idea whatsoever and nobody cares. They just want to eat pork and drink alcohol. That's basically the gist of it. So when I looked into the theology, people got really outraged. Why do you have to look into Islam? This doesn't make sense. This is not who we are. Everybody will stand against you. But if you ask them about the theology, they cannot tell you anything about it. They have no idea about the Trinity. They don't understand why God is actually three in one. Why God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit? Supposedly. And the people that have no idea about theology, they are of course the loudest when you then convert to Islam. Because for them, it's nothing but culture. Those people don't really go to church. Those people just celebrate their holidays and that's it. But people that truly go into the theology really look into it. They will find Islam inshallah someday because it is rational. It is logical. It makes sense. It adheres to our human nature. And now I want to read a part of an article that we find on leislam.org. Islam and nationalism as two opposite poles. Simple patriotic sentiments so long as they do not contravene the higher conviction of men is permissible in Islam. Like the affection one feels towards one father, son and family. But as already shown, nationalism does not stop at simple sentiments. It is a socio-political creed and an actual way of life which aims at a full control of men's individual and social conduct. Islam too, being a school having its own independent spiritual, practical, political and social system and comprising a particular set of beliefs, it naturally comes into conflict with the school of nationalism. So in a nutshell, two opposing beliefs. Unlike other religions such as Christianity, Buddhism etc. Islam is not confined to religious rights and metaphysical convictions. Had Islam been only a religion of devotions, it might have agreed with nationalism. But Islam is a religion with a social and political worldviews and provides for economic and political principles. Nationalism too has its own social and political principles based however on different beliefs and criteria. Therefore, conflict between Islam and nationalism is inevitable. The Islamic ideology is not compatible with any other ideology on the question of sovereignty over the private and social life of Muslims. A Muslim cannot at the same time be a Muslim and a polytheist. That is crystal clear. Or a Muslim and a communist. In Islam there is no room for one to be a loyal and genuine nationalist. It is a question of identity and one negates the other. And now let's crawl down to the Prophet's combat with Quraish nationalism. The Quraish is the tribe of the Prophet, so his nation if you will. At the advent of Islam and the Islamic revolution, the only social and political organizations of the pre-Islamic Arabs were the tribe, race and language, which were used as a measure of superiority or inferiority. Blood and tribal bond was the basis of unity. A rough and raw form of modern nationalism and racism. Language too was regarded as a sign of superiority and for this reason the Arabs considered non-Arabs as a jam. Which means done. The progress of the Islamic revolution did away with the idea and with tribal organization. With the tempestuous slogan of there is no God, but God. It made conviction and ideology prevail over all attachments to blood, territory and language. The Prophet s.a.w. who founded the classless and universal society of Islam actually brought various nations together and removed their tribal hues. At a gathering of three Muslims from three countries, namely Salman from Paris, Soheb from white Romans and Bilal from black Ethiopia and Arab named Reis bin Motabah entered and addressed the above as foreigners. The Prophet s.a.w. said in anger, your father is the same and your religion is the same. And the Arabism of which you seem to be proud belongs neither to your father nor to your mother, meaning Adam and Eve are the parents of all of you. Then he declared, he who propagates the creed of tribal solidarity or fights for its sake or offers his life for it is not of us. So as we just read the Prophet s.a.w. said it best of course. Nationalism and Islam are two opposing worldviews. This is why we see so many black Americans, for example, reverting to Islam because Islam goes against this national identity and can free people from racism on both ends. It does not matter if you're black, white or what not. Nationalism, racism, that ideology can be held by all people alike of course. But this is not what Islam is. The Prophet s.a.w. in his saying here reminded the people that hey, those are not your parents that we are addressing here. We are speaking about Adam and Eve. This is yet again a metaphysical message that is supposed to transcend the flesh. And this is what I really hated about Orthodox Christianity. Orthodox Christianity, if you look at the churches, for example, they are divided by nations. You have the Serbian church, you have the Bulgarian church, you have the Romanian church, you have the Russian church, the Greek church, etc. So those churches are divided by language and based upon nations. And there you already have great conflicts. But how can this be of God? Truly, we're going to base the church, the eternal church, on nations that will potentially, probably, perish anyways. Look at the world. It changed every few years. If you look at the map, names like Macedonia came and disappeared, Serbia, Russia even. All of those names came, changed, again disappeared. It is nothing but a man-made structure. This cannot be from God. You cannot tell me the Greek Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church is the eternal one. How could it be? If we make a metaphysical claim, this metaphysical claim needs to transcend nationalism, physicality, time and space. We're talking about the one true God. And this one true God I make the argument is only found in Islam. Alright guys, and this is it for today's video. I hope this was informative. If you liked it, leave it a thumbs up. If you haven't subscribed already, guys, please do so. And if you want to support this channel via Patreon, for example, all the links are in the description box below. Thank you so much for your ongoing support, guys. And as always, may God bless you all. Much love and peace.