 My topic is how to make da'wah to non-Muslims. So something we have to understand initially is that the word da'wah means a call or a summons or an invitation. So an invitation can be rejected. So this goes back to a principle that we have in our religion, la ikraha fiddin, that there is no compulsion in our religion. I can't force you to believe in something. I can't inject iman into your heart. I can force you to do something, and of course I'll never do that. But I can't force you to believe in something. Now, what's interesting is that on the auspicious date of September 12th a few years ago, the Pope with the Catholic Church, he actually quoted this verse, la ikraha fiddin, in a speech he gave in Germany. And he said that this verse is Mansukh, it's been abrogated, because it's a Meccan ayah, it was revealed in Mecca. So what's interesting here is that the Catholics believe that the Pope is infallible in his doctrine, but he's just plain wrong here. This verse is from what Surah? Does anyone know the name of the Surah? La ikraha fiddin. It's from al-Baqarah, which is a Medin Surah. And then he said that the Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, did not bring anything new. Do you guys remember this speech by the Pope? It's really interesting. He didn't bring anything new. What's interesting about that comment is that the dominant philosophy in theology in the Roman Catholic Church is based on a text called the Sumo Theologica, by a medieval Dominican monk named St. Thomas Aquinas. And St. Thomas Aquinas was heavily influenced by the likes of Abu Ali al-Hussain ibn Husina, Abbasana, Abu Hamad al-Ghazali, and many other Muslim philosophers and theologians. You know in the early days of the Christians, if you look at the first few centuries, during the time of the early church fathers, there was a church father named Tertelian of Carthage, and Tertelian was debating a pagan named Chelsus about the Trinity, and they were going back and forth. And at the end, Tertelian said, I believe in the Trinity because it is absurd. That was his final comment. It's absurd. That's why I believe in it. Now a thousand years later, however, you have Thomas Aquinas coming out and saying that there's a book of reason and a book of revelation, that there's Aqal and Naqal. Where did he get that from? He came out and said there's four cardinal virtues, right, of Shuja'a, and Adala, and Iffa, and Hikma. So all of these types of things he acquired from his contact were his studies indirectly from Muslim theologians and philosophers. Rene Descartes, who is the father of Western philosophy, he was a Frenchman who lived in the 17th century, he's a staunch defender of occasionalism, of creationism, defending God's omnipotence. And he took that directly from the incoherence of the philosophers by Al-Ghazali, and he was a very devout Catholic. So when the Pope says that the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, did not bring anything new, basically he brought the Catholic Church's entire philosophy and theological system. Does it make a lot of sense? So the Urlama say that half of da'wah is dua, is supplication. Some say 9 tenths of da'wah is dua, supplication. And supplication, according to the Hadith of Bukhari, ad-Dua'a mukhul ibadah, that supplication is the essence of worship. It's the bone marrow of worship. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said in the Hadith of Imam Tirmidhi, that nothing is more honored in the sight of God than supplication. So we have to learn how to pour our hearts out to Allah s.w. and earnestly and sincerely seek for the guidance of humanity because this is a prophetic concern. When the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was in a battle on the day of Ghazwat Urkut and there was blood coming from his blessed face, he was reportedly trying to keep the blood from striking the earth and his companions asked him, why are you doing that? And he said, because if one drop of this blood should strike the earth, then immediately punishment will come upon our enemies who are fighting us. And then a short time later, they saw him with his hands raised and he said, Allahumma hadee qawmi, God guide my people for they don't know. So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, peace and blessings of God be upon him, was praying for his enemies even in the thick of battle. Because of this prophetic concern, he said, He said that none of you truly believe until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself. And the muhaditheen, the scholars of hadith have commented on this hadith of the Prophet, this statement of the Prophet and have said that the word brother in this hadith doesn't simply mean your brother in Islam, but rather your brother or sister amongst humanity. In other words, the Prophet peace be upon him is appealing to humanity. His message is universal. His message is cosmopolitan. He was sent as a mercy unto all the worlds. And what is al-alameen? Everything except God is al-alameen. So it's incumbent upon sentient beings to believe in his message, which are jinn and ins. We can establish taqlif or responsibility upon jinn and ins because they have a limited free will. But the Prophet peace be upon him is also sent to the earth. He sent to animals. He sent to angels. How is he a mercy unto the angels? It's reported in the story of the night journey and ascension that when the Prophet visited or saw the hellfire accompanied by the archangel Gabriel, the guardian of hell named Malik saw the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam and smiled for the first time in his life. And then he's never smiled after that. The very countenance of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam brought joy to people's hearts. So there are many methodologies as to how to make da'wah. There's the passive and the active. So some people believe that if you're going to make da'wah to people, you have to give a speech of some sort. One of my teachers said that sometimes the best type of da'wah is just to keep our mouth shut because oftentimes Muslims do more damage when they speak. Right? So da'wah is wisdom. Allah SWT says Call humanity to the way of thy Lord with wisdom, with hikmah and wise exhortation. So we have to know how to change things up. It's not just a script that we read for people. So for example, if we're talking to a group of elementary school students, that's going to be very different than a speech or a lecture that we deliver at a Christian seminary. The content will be different. The message will be essentially the same, but the content will be different. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he spoke all of the dialects of the Arabs. He would speak to an Arab in his dialect because he would immediately he would immediately endear himself to his heart by speaking a person's language. He sent into Medina before the Hijrah. Why did he send him there? To speak with the people and get to know them. This is the house to the Khazraj, the Bani Qureyda, the Bani Nadir, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam. He wanted information about the tribes in Medina so he can tailor the message. It wasn't hap-azard. It was a fly-of-the-moment type of thing. He wanted to do his research, sallallahu alayhi sallam. He sent Zaid ibn Uthabit, who is one of the chief scribes of the Prophet, to live with a group of Jews to learn the Hebrew language. And Zaid learned the Hebrew language in 18 days. If you know Arabic, you can learn Hebrew very quickly. And why did he do that? To make the Dawa more effective. So for the general masses the best Dawa that we can make the most effective Dawa that we can make as general masses is to have good character. Hasnul khuluk. Have good character. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam I was only sent to perfect your character. Allah s.w.t says about him in the Quran wa innaka la ala khulukin azeem. That verily, and there's emphasis in this ayah twice. The innah harfa tokid, the lamb is also for emphasis. Alaa, meaning on top of to dominate something. Verily, verily you dominate magnificent character. So I'm going to be talking about two types of Dawa. Behavioral Dawa in intellectual or academic. And these are not mutually exclusive. If you consider yourself an academic, it doesn't excuse you from having good adab with people. In reality, it's all based on your behavior. So let's look at some of the manifestations of personal khuluk in the life of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam, according to our prophetology the science of prophets was the best of creation. Yet he had humbleness. He had tawadur. He said wa man tawadu aalillahi rafa aahu allah wa man takabara wada'ahu allah He said whoever exalts himself will be debased. And whoever humbles himself will be exalted. So there's an inverse relationship. It's paradoxical. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says Many times Muslims, the only quote the first part of this verse and then they push the pause button. Kuntub khaira umatin paaz were the best people. Khalas. Listen to the rest of them. Ukhirijat lin nas What does that mean? What is the significance of lin nas? For the service of humanity according to the exigents of the Qur'an that you're only great if you serve humanity. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam was extremely humble when they were going out to Ghazwat Badr there was a shortage of camels to ride. So three men had to share one camel. So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam was sharing a camel with Sayyidina Ali and Abu Lubaba. So two men would ride, one would walk and then they'd rotate. So it came time for the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam to walk and his two companions Ali and Abu Lubaba they said Don't worry about it. We'll walk for you. Go ahead, you can ride. The Prophet said Neither of you are as strong as I am and I am not less in need of reward than you two. So the first statement is true. The Prophet is extremely physically strong as a strength of 70 men. The second statement is from his Tawadur it's from his humility sallallahu alayhi sallam The Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he used to acknowledge children and used to play with children and this was seen as something that was unmanly at the time amongst the desert Arabs. He was kissing his grandsons one time Al-Hasanayn and a tough medouin came and said You kiss your children. I have ten sons that I've never kissed a single one of them. He was proud of this idea. The Prophet said there's nothing in my religion for people who have no compassion in their hearts. When he was standing on the Minbar given a khutbah, his grandson Imam came into the masjid following the voice of his grandfather the Prophet descended the Minbar picked up his grandson re-ascended the Minbar and finished his khutbah carrying his grandson in his arms. We get mad if we're trying to watch TV and our son comes and wants to play with us. He's giving a khutbah during Friday services when Fatima would come into the room, the Prophet's daughter the Prophet would get up and give his seat to her and kiss her on the hands. He would greet children al-Badiu b-salami baree'u min al-kibir the one who initiates a greeting is free from arrogance and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam was very hard to pre-empt him in giving salam it was very hard to say salam to him even with children he would beat them to the salam with children this is how humble he was and he wouldn't talk down to them he wouldn't look down and talk to children because it was very imposing he didn't want to scare them he would actually get down at their eye level and speak to them his wife Aisha was asked how was the Prophet at home what did the Prophet do in the household she said he was in the service of humanity he was in the service of his family I'm sorry he was in the service of his wife what was he doing menial jobs around the house in another hadith she said he was just a man amongst men he would fix his sandals he would milk his own goat he would serve himself he would sit around for someone to serve him like a king sits in his throne go serve me bring me some chai bring me some coffee bring me the beryani whatever it is he would serve himself he would stand until his feet were swollen in prayer and his wife said this is related three times by imam tidmidi three consecutive times he wants to stress this point that the Prophet would stand until his feet were swollen and he was asked why do you do this she said should I not be a grateful servant the worship of the Prophet transcends just fulfilling a commandment he worshiped Allah because he loved Allah the Prophet was courteous the Jewish boy who would come and sit in his majalis sometimes and he would ask to do certain things the Jewish boy didn't show up a few times so the Prophet went out looking for him and it turns out that he's actually on his deathbed the Prophet went to his house and asked him to become Muslim and the Jewish boy looked at his father and his father said Ateer Abul Qasim Obey Abul Qasim and he became Muslim and he passed away the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam he visited six children he visited the brother of Anas who was six or seven years old because his pet bird died the brother of Anas had a bird called a Nughayr it was a nightingale and his pet bird died and he was crying and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is the leader of the messengers of God he goes to this boy's house and he says he wants to make him feel better the bird's name was Omer so he uses a Kunya O father of Omer what did the bird used to do tell me about the bird and he told the bird used to sing this song and that song this is the best of creation he was carrying a six or seven year old boy we have to think about this he stood for the man's funeral he went for the there was a neighbor of his he used to put garbage on his we know the story on his front porch and he would remove it with a stick one day the garbage isn't there so he goes again searching around for her she's not abusing me today what happened to her she's also very ill and he sat with her and immediately she became Muslim because back then people were very tribal they weren't as individualistic as they are today it was very tribal they make Taklit of their leaders so back then she was thinking something like Abu Lahab is making fun of him Abu Jahal is doing that these are our leaders so I'm going to do it this is how Islam spread over North Africa the orientalists will try to say that the Muslims forced people and killed people they don't under there's no historical consciousness of what happened at the time this is when Sa'a Ibn Musa'a Ibn Umair went to Medina they told him to talk to Sa'a Ibn Mu'ad who was the chief of one of the tribes because if he converts the entire tribe will convert so this woman sat with the Prophet a few moments and she became Muslim the Prophet had had excellent disposition Sahlul Khuluk Layinul Jannib he was very easy going disposition easy to talk to he had gentleness in the Shama'il it's related he had Mutawasilul Ahzan which is translated as he was always grief-stricken but it also says that he was always happy so how do you reconcile these two so the ulama say that when the Prophet was in his solitude that he had the appearance of being grief-stricken but it wasn't really grief it was a contemplation this is a man who had seen an angel this is a man who saw paradise and saw the hellfire so he was in this extreme type of he was raptured in the presence of his lord he wasn't grieving he was contemplative so when he was with the Khalid Mutawasilul Ahzan he had the appearance of being grief-stricken but when he was with the Makhluq when he was with the people he was always happy he was always smiling Abdullah ibn Harah said I never saw anyone smile more than the Prophet Muhammad Aisha and Ali they both relate a hadith and it's significant that it comes from these two people because they were raised in the Prophet's household from a very young age 9 or 10 years old they said he never struck a woman a child or a servant he had gentleness he didn't do things like that we all know the story of the Bedouin who came and relieved himself in the Makhs you probably heard the story millions of times he didn't do things like that we all know the story of the Bedouin millions of times and if you haven't heard it you're going to hear it again remember you haven't heard the end of the story what happened at the end of the story because when the Bedouin was relieving himself some of the Sahaba got up to address the situation which is a way of saying that they were going to attack him and the Prophet prevented that and came to the Bedouin who was rough around the edges and we don't do these things he didn't know any better he showed him lean showed him gentleness so then he became Muslim he washed himself and he prayed with them and as the Bedouin was leaving he shouted may Allah have mercy on me and on Muhammad and nobody else and he pointed to the Sahaba that tried to attack him the Prophet laughed and he said don't constrict something that's vast the Prophet had a sense of humor there's a whole chapter in the book of the Shema'il An-Nabawiyah called the joking the jesting of the Prophet the Prophet he always spoke the truth and he would become angry they wouldn't know he was angry because he wouldn't act like we do when we get angry when we get angry we throw things we start shouting the only reason the only way the Sahaba can tell if the Prophet was angry is because his face would turn red and there would be a vein between his eyebrows that would protrude that's the only way they can know he's angry so they asked him should we write things down from you even when you're angry he said he's by the one who sent me in truth nothing comes from this except the truth write down anything that I say everything he said was tempered it was guidance the Prophet was the most truthful of human beings there's two hadiths of Amr ibn al-As who was shown so much love to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam that he came to the Prophet one day and remember Amr ibn al-As used to be an enemy of the Prophet he fought against him in many battles then he became Muslim the Prophet showed him love and then he comes to the Prophet one day and he says who do you love the most expecting the Prophet to say it's you isn't it obvious and he said he said his wife he loves his wife and this was also seen as something unshivalrous for that time it wasn't seen as manly for a man to say I love my wife he loved his wife but he'd never admit it oh that woman yeah whatever but then he'd go home and I love you and so on and so forth but he said it very clear and then he said who do you love from the man and he's her father again her father and then he named a few other men meaning he wasn't one of them in another hadith he says I wish I never asked him that question because I thought I was the most beloved but the Prophet was always truthful right he didn't say things to people just to placate them just to make them feel good he was truthful when he said things right like the story of Swaraka bin Malik you guys know the story of Swaraka bin Malik when the Prophet was making hijra Swaraka bin Malik wanted 100 camel Mounti to bring the Prophet back to Mecca so he chases after the Prophet he finds him in the desert Swaraka bin Malik was a master tracksman and he sees the Prophet and immediately he's thrown from his horse and he was an intelligent man and he said to himself I've never fallen from my horse this is the first time in my life right there's something about this man so he says to the Prophet guarantee me safety see the tables have turned he's come to turn in the Prophet for a bounty and now he's asking the Prophet for a guarantee of safety so he says I guarantee you safety he says why have you come and Swaraka says 100 nuqh, 100 she-camels and he says can you give me something better and the Prophet said yes he said he said how does it grasp you that you're going to wear the bracelets of Kisra the king of Persia and this came true many many years later and Swaraka bin Malik even though he was not a Muslim at the time he turned the Prophet in for a bounty he told the Prophet can you write it down for me because the Meccans are not going to believe me he knew the Prophet is truthful he's a sadiq al-ameen this is a name his enemies gave him this is not a name that his companions gave him his enemies before Islam gave him this name a sadiq al-ameen the truthful one so this is may Allah SWT help us engender and cultivate these prophetic characteristics this is the most effective method of da'wah is good character the most effective method of da'wah is this now we're going to switch some gears and now go to some intellectual academic things so there was a Muslim scholar named Abu Bakr al-Baqalani during the Abbasid Empire and he was a brilliant man and he used to get invited to debate with Christian scholars so he was invited to debate with a Christian king one day outside of the empire somewhere so he goes to this king's palace and he goes to enter the throne room where the king was sitting and he noticed that the throne room the door to the throne room was only about this high about as high as a man's waist and the reason that it was that high is because this king obviously had some issues he wanted people to bow to him as soon as they entered into the throne room so Abu Bakr al-Baqalani is waiting outside this throne room and thinking how am I going to enter into this room without bowing to this king so he thought you know I have an idea so he turned around and he went in backwards and then the king says to him you know wasn't one of the wives of your prophet accused of adultery his response was there were two great women accused of adultery one provided a child one did not and who is he talking about he's talking about Maryam, Mary alayhi salam so a lot of times it's just kind of exposing this kind of hypocritical methodology in people I read a lot, I don't advise doing this but I have to do it for my job I guess I read a lot of polemicist apologetics written by Christians against Islam and they for example they attack the marriage of the prophet with Aisha and you hear this a lot coming from the Christian camp what's interesting is that the proto-gospel of James people don't nobody knows about these things the proto-gospel of James written in the 2nd century was revered by Christians of the 2nd century as being the word of God it didn't make it into the bible but that's a different story but it says in that document she was 12 years old at the time when she got married to Joseph the carpenter 12 years old the new advent in psychopedia says that she was 12 years old I asked a Russian or orthodox priest one day I said how old was Mary when she married Joseph how old and he said that she was 11 years old and Joseph was 90 he had grandchildren older than his wife or they say something like I don't accept the prophet because he participated in battles he fought in Ghazawat these military expeditions so I don't believe he's a prophet now if you counted up all of the casualties and all of the battles of the prophet enemy and muslim casualties over 23 years this isn't war this isn't this is in war enemy and muslim casualties there was in the entire life of the prophet in war in battle situations in exodus chapter 32 in the Torah we are told that when musa he descends Mount Sinai sees his people worshiping the golden calf and he orders 3000 of his own men killed on the spot in one night so it seems kind of strange I don't accept the prophet because he participated in battles Moses who is accepted as a prophet by these people killed 3 times as many men in one night so we have to expose that this is hypocrisy so when dealing with Ahlul Kitab it's not black and white now one of the most interesting aspects we can bring up is fulfillment of prophecy so Justin Marder who was a 2nd century Christian scholar he wrote a book called the architect of logos theology this idea that Jesus is the word of God he wrote a book called dialogue with trifo the Jew in which he tries to prove that Jesus is the Messiah based on fulfillment of prophecy this is the strongest argument he can make to convince the Jew not miracles but fulfillment of prophecy for example it says in Isaiah chapter 7 verse 14 that a young woman some say virgin actually says a young woman shall have a son his name is Emmanuel and Christians say that this is a reference to Jesus but if you read the very next chapter Isaiah chapter 8 it says that Emmanuel is born to king Ahaz how can this be a reference to Jesus so traditional Christian exegetes like origin of Alexandria will say there are multiple levels of meaning in scripture multiple levels of meaning so there is an exoteric meaning contextualized historically but then there is an esoteric meaning which foreshadows something to happen in the future in this case the birth of the Jewish Messiah right and this is something that is not foreign to our tradition we don't want to get into a theological discussion but the difference between the and the is vast according to our theology the speech of God through modes of expression and the a modal speech of God which is infinite in its meanings so we have to understand how they approach the scripture the scripture has multiple levels of meaning and I advise Muslims to do some research as far as historical dates right in Judeo-Christian history like 325 Council of Nicaea Council of Constantinople 421, 553 these are very important dates right so when the prophet when he came into Medina there was a rabbi in Medina named Abdullah Ibn Salam and he says he relates the hadith himself he says he said I can tell by looking at his face of a liar so the ulama say how can he tell that perhaps the prophet had an honest looking face or perhaps he recognized the prophet based on some sort of description of him in his scripture so this is very important for us to research Allah says those who receive the previous dispensations they know the prophet like they know one of their own sons those who follow the messenger the unlettered prophet whom they find mentioned who is mentioned in the Torah and in the gospel this is what the Quran says and the prophet has 3 possible meanings according to the mufasereen the exegits of the Quran it could mean either a motherly prophet a motherly prophet a motherly prophet because um means mother a motherly prophet meaning a prophet that has jalali attributes as well as jamali attributes or it could mean an unlettered prophet no formal education or it could mean a gentile prophet because the word for gentile or goi the word is goi in Hebrew which means a non-Jewish person Arabic is ummi like it says in the Quran there is no like it says in the Quran so it could mean a gentile prophet now I want to share with you to give you an example of what I'm talking about I hope I'm not boring people here there is a book in the Old Testament called shir ha shireem right song of songs shir ha shireem and this is a way of saying right this is a superlative in the Hebrew language like if you want to say the best king you would say the king of kings the best book is the book of books the best song is the song of songs this was written 3,000 years ago according to the traditional opinion so I wanted to quote some of it to you it is really interesting but before I do that we have to establish a few things that one of the titles of the prophet is the beloved of God so you have a sadiq you have a khalil and then you have a habib so Ibrahim Abraham is the intimate friend of God but above and beyond that you have the beloved of God right so the Sahaba were talking about the stations of the prophets one day and they were saying Abraham is a friend of God Jesus is the spirit of God the prophet walked by and he said and I am the beloved of God and I am the master of the children of Adam and I do not boast so we believe he is the beloved of God during the conquest of Mecca the prophet entered the city with 10,000 companions he was the leader of 10,000 men and he declared general amnesty on that day right now according to the Shama'il in the hadith of Ibrahim Ibn Muhammad who is one of the grandsons of Ali he describes the prophet the prophet's face was rounded not completely round but more round than slim which means white with a redness with a red tinge right and Ibn Abihala in another hadith in the Shama'il who is the maternal uncle of Imam Hussain and Hassan he describes the prophet's complexion as azhar ul loan as a pink complexion of course pink is what you get when you mix white and red azhar can also mean a luminous complexion so he is the beloved of God he is the chief of 10,000 men and he is white and red so let's read the first line of the song of songs Shira Hashireem chapter 5 verse 10 says in the Hebrew language which was written 3,000 years ago it goes on to say in the hadith of Anas Ibn Malik he says that his hair wasn't curly nor straight but between the two he had wavy hair he also says in the hadith that when the prophet was in his 60s he says that he did not have more than 20 white hairs on his head and in his beard in his 60s so he had very dark hair so we go back to the song of songs it says now what's interesting here is that the word orave in Hebrew is made up of 3 letters ayin, reish ayin, reish, andba or Arab so this is also the word for Arab you can actually translate this black like in Arab his hair is black like in Arab but I haven't seen a translation like that for obvious reasons next part says so in the shemail the hadith of Ibrahim Ibn Muhammad it says that he had big dark deep eyes his glance was passing in other words that he wouldn't stare at things sallallahu alayhi sallam he would just glance and look away that he would be more looking towards the earth than the heavens and I'm just quoting some highlights here this is obviously not all of the passages here in the Hebrew Bible his eyes are like the eyes of doves which are very big and black and delicate, dark so then we'll get to the hadith of Abu Huraira who says the prophet was white in complexion as if he was sculpted from silver his neck had looked like the ivory neck of a statue in the clarity of silver so verse 15 in the Hebrew says that his body looks like carved ivory meraahu kalyunim that his countenance is like Lebanon which means white not a pasty white, but like milk type of a dark milk and then verse 16 says in the Hebrew that his mouth is sweet he is altogether lovely this is my beloved this is my friend daughters of Jerusalem so this is the actual name of the prophet so this again is the strongest according to justin martyr this is the strongest case that we can make for the prophet is fulfillment of prophecy I know I'm running out of time here I'm sorry it's very important that before a muslim can even make da'wah in the active sense he or she must have some knowledge of their own theology so what's going on right now unfortunately is that there's a faith crisis amongst the muslim community based on some sort of intellectual trauma because muslims they don't study theology anymore a muslim it's wajib upon every muslim to have some sense of theology right and when there's a lack of theology there's a lack of real noses of god and noses leads to love the path to mahabah is ma'rifah you can't love something you don't know unless it's a love that's based on intellect al-khubbu al-akli which is possible but it's not a real type of love unless you know that person so it's incumbent upon muslims to study some level of usuluddin theology not to the point where you can construct these polemical responses to different types of deviant groups or what not but just enough to protect yourself because you know the youth at 16, 17, 18 years old they're hearing a lot of things from the university professor and the university professor has a phd so he must know what he's talking about he has a phd or this guy, this puppet on tv he's on tv so you know obviously he's credible right and he's saying all these things and it's very confusing for youth but if he has that knowledge of theology he can set up a protection against that type of thing so intellectual proof to deal with you know the neo-atheists have you heard of the neo-atheists like these guys like dockins and hitchhens and this is very appealing for some reason Sam Harris to young people these are the neo-atheists these aren't like the OGs the original gangsters of atheism like Nietzsche and Freud and Karl Marx those people actually studied theology and they actually considered what would actually happen if there was no religion in the world there would be chaos but the neo-atheists it seems like they say if every mosque or church was converted into a starbucks it would be much better but it doesn't work like that right so there's a major movement of apostasy right now actually going on in Europe people are leaving christianity in massive groups in Europe so this is going on so one of the biggest proofs that we can actually use against this is that the vast majority of humanity the vast majority of humanity the meaning of human civilization has believed in a higher being a supreme being there's been an internal calling for a deeper understanding the vast majority of humanity and the atheist feels that as well but the irony is he takes that and he rebels against it and tries to prove that there is no god whereas that is actually the calling of god towards him so someone like Dawkins will say god because obviously for him there needs to be some sort of natural explanation he'll say that it's a virus in the human DNA well if it's a virus it should be weeded out eventually but it's not being weeded out even today in this post-modern world the world of technology the vast majority of people still tend to believe in god why? because that's the nature of epistemology the nature of knowledge is that the more one actually acquires knowledge the more one comes to know that in reality he or she doesn't know anything it's like what the brain surgeon says he studies the brain and he said I thought I knew something about the brain and then I did more research and I noticed I didn't know anything so the more one studies the more one comes to realize that we don't know anything in reality so the Quran doesn't really go out and prove that Allahumma would exist, it's taken for granted that God exists but rather that Allah is one that he's unique it's a clarification of who God is so I'm totally out of time I have to stop talking I can tell people are getting antsy I just want to finish with this one story just two minutes inshallah Abu Hanifa he's known as a jurist but before he was a jurist he was a mutakelim he was a theologian he used to actually debate against the sectarians right and he would debate atheists and one day he was teaching his class outdoors it was a beautiful day in kufa in Iraq and an atheist approaches him and says to him you're a Muslim scholar he says yes he has three questions for me he says why do you believe in God when you can't see God why do you believe in God if you can't see God and how is satan punished with fire when he's made from fire and number three why does God take you to account for things that he knows you're going to do anyway answer these three questions for me and all the students are waiting for Abu Hanifa to answer these questions so Abu Hanifa he thinks about it for a minute and then he reaches over grabs some dirt makes a nice little ball out of the dirt and then throws it at this guy's head and hits him right between the eyes so the man is shocked and then he leaves so then a few days later a summoner comes to Abu Hanifa and says this man he wants to see you in court he wants to sue you for damages so Abu Hanifa he goes to the court and the qadi the judge asks him why did you throw a clay ball at this man's head and Abu Hanifa says because I answered his questions he said what are you talking about he said he left he didn't let me explain what's your explanation he said why do you believe in God when you can't see him right when you can't see pain but he knows it exists because he felt pain so it exists there's something that exists that you can't see and then he said he asked me how is satan punished by fire when he's made of fire right so I took clay he's made of clay he's from qeen he's from turab human being is made of dirt and clay so I took some clay and punished him with it and the third one was that why does God take you to account for things that he knows that you're going to do and he said God knew before he created me that I was going to throw that clay ball at his head and why am I being sued now why am I being taken to account for things that were already known by God right and obviously there's a lot more examples like this but I'm totally out of time and I apologize for going over the time Peace be upon you