 Save 10% with my code Bobby10. Just kidding guys, today's offer is much greater than a saving of 10%. I teamed up with my Muslim brothers and we created pure passage. Imaging sending the reward of Umrah, this Ramadan, to someone you really loved but had already departed from this Dunya. For they're really sick and they cannot perform Umrah at all. Imaging the feeling of honoring his or her memory and expressing your love and devotion while still ensuring that they receive this gift. The reward of performing Umrah. As a new revert I just learned about this but you know better than me that performing Umrah is a profound spiritual journey that most Muslims aspire to undertake and you understand the rewards of it. However, for some this journey can be challenging especially when their loved ones are sick or have already passed away. At pure passage we understand how important it is to fulfill this obligation for your loved ones. That's why we offer our professional and reliable service to perform Umrah on behalf of your sick or deceased parents, spouse or any other relatives. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to fulfill this sacred act even if they are unable to do so themselves. And equally understand that the physical and financial challenges of performing Umrah yourself on behalf of your loved ones can be overwhelming. That's where pure passage comes in. We take care of everything and make sure that your loved ones Umrah is performed with the utmost care and attention to detail. So let us help you earn this immense reward for your loved ones by performing Umrah on their behalf. Contact us today and let's make it happen. All right guys, welcome back to the channel if you're new Muslims. But we guys today we have a more light-hearted video. We're going to check out the channel Elena Dansmore with her video Non-Muslim Explains Islam. For people that see my face the very first time, guys, I haven't been Muslim all my life. Quite the opposite, I have been Muslim for the past 10 days. I just reverted recently and prior to that I wasn't Orthodox Christian. Don't let the beard fool you. So therefore I'm extremely curious to see how other non-Muslims are forming opinions about Islam. With no further ado, let's have a look. I'm going to explain how me a current non-Muslim understands current Islam. For the last three years I've been on a journey to explore and understand Islam. I studied Islamic studies for one term at university. I lived in the Muslim country of Malaysia. And I've talked to many of my Muslim friends about Islam. And I do want to say that this journey over the last two years has made me realize how misinformed and kind of uneducated non-Muslims in the West are. Welcome to the club. It can be quite judgmental, but Islam's very beautiful religion. So let's understand why. So first and foremost I can totally relate here. It took me two years to revert to Islam after opening up the Quran. I studied Islam by myself for two years straight before I was able to accept it because I had so much prejudice as well coming from the West. I grew up in Germany, even though I am not German. Nevertheless, I was confronted by the Islamophobia and moreover many so-called Muslims that were involved in all kinds of criminal behavior. Therefore I had a very tainted image of Islam. But that being said, I went to Malaysia as well. And this is where I had my first absolutely amazing positive experience with Islam. The people were so welcoming, so friendly. It was so beautiful to be surrounded by the Malaysians. And they really changed my perspective on Islam forever. There is the Quran. The Quran is really like the guidance from Muslims. You can go to the Quran, you can read parts of the Quran if you're ever having a problem. How does the Quran advise you to address this problem? This is really the holy book and the fundamentals of Islam. Muslims also can refer to the Hadith. The Hadith is really in simple words the teaching and words from the Prophet, Prophet Muhammad. He was sent here by Allah, the God, to really help Muslims on earth guide them on how to do things correctly in accordance with Islam. Nice. I like how she translated Allah to the God and not the God of the Muslims. Send them on how to do things correctly in accordance with Islam. So Muslims really look at both books and both books are really seen as very vital when understanding Islam. One of the first things I ever learnt about Islam is to preserve life at all costs. Now I thought this is such a beautiful thing. It's stuck in my head since day one learning about Islamic studies. Since going into my Islamic studies class where my Islamic teacher was like, What are you doing here? As one of my non-Muslims at my university, she was quite confused as to why I was in the class. But I just want you to learn. And I remember one of her first things she ever taught me about Islam was reserve life at all costs. And that fundamentally does mean that if you have to bend some of the guidance from the Quran in order to preserve your life for others then you can do so. Islam is built on five pillars. I wouldn't say that is correct whatsoever. You don't have to bend anything that is within the Quran. However, the Quran itself is very clear that there is a time for everything. There is a time for war and there is a time for peace. So therefore, no, God forbid, you're not bending the Quran to your will here. However, yes, preserving a human's life is as if you saved all of humanity. As my understanding, first of all, we have the Shahada. The Shahada is your profession of faith. And this goes by saying there is no God but God and Muhammad the messenger of God. So you're saying that there's one God, Allah and also his messenger that came to spread the word of Islam here on earth. Islam in general is really such a beautiful religion because it's just all about being such a good person. It's not like a cult or something like this. It's about being such a good person. And I'm going to get on to this in just a second. But yes, absolutely, I agree. It's not only being a good person by the metrics of today's standard. Society tells you you're good because you're doing something that they will applaud you on. No, you're good under the eyes of God. Of course, you're living up to the standard that has been prescribed to you by God. This makes you a good person. But moreover, it makes you a good Muslim, a real believer. Islam is the Salat. And these are the five Muslim prayers that you will do throughout the day. And you will pray through God. And it's actually quite important to do these five prayers in Islam. As long as your intention is good, your intention is clear. It's mandatory. It's honest for what matters so much. If you can't do everything that the Quran expects or wants of you, if your intention is clear, but you just can't quite get to it today, it's okay. I think the third pillar of Islam is... Okay, I do understand her point here. God is all merciful and therefore we should try to be our best, of course. But we should always repent to God and always seek forgiveness, seek refuge within God. We cannot just go astray and expect God to forgive all of our sins just because we had some good intentions here. About the prayer, however, I want to mention as well that since I started praying five times per day, and this is before my reversion because I want to see how it will make me feel, what will happen if I prostrate to God. Once I did this, I realized to have this schedule in place changes everything. As a Christian, I didn't had to pray whatsoever. However, if you open up the Bible, it will say pray without seizing. But what does that even mean? How often do I have to pray? Do I pray all day? Can I skip days of praying? How do I truly pray? And within Islam, you have a fixed system of five prayers per day. They are mandatory. You will have to do them. And through that, you're showing your commitment, of course, to God as well. You're taking it serious because what else would you take serious in your life? You're taking it serious to go to work, I assume. Every morning you wake up at 6 a.m. and you go to your job. So what is more important? Your job or God? The third pillar of Islam is Zakat. Zakat is doing into charity. Usually every year, a percentage of your wealth, you should try and do charity. Again, what a beautiful idea. We should all be doing this anyway. The first pillar of Islam... Yes, absolutely. Think about this. We have a mandatory tax in the West, but we do not have mandatory charity. Which is you're fasting during Ramadan. During the whole month of Ramadan. You're fasting right now. You try and refrain from eating and drinking during the sunlight hours. But it goes more than that. Ramadan is really about cleansing your mind. Try not to gossip. Definitely swear. Definitely not drinking alcohol. Which you shouldn't be doing in Islam anyway. But it's also about doing good deeds, giving to charity. Every good deed that a Muslim will do during Ramadan is actually double in the good deeds. Not even doubled. It's like time 70. It's really a lot. So during Ramadan, the whole month, you should try and give and do as many good things as you can. And just forget about bad things. We as humans sin every day. But God forgives us for this. During Ramadan, you really take that extra effort to try and not do these bad things. The fifth pillar of Islam is Hajj. Hajj is your pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia to Mecca. And you go there to all the holy things that the Prophet once did. You kind of follow in his footsteps around doing what he did before. What I will say here is you only do this if you can afford to do it. Because it's a little bit expensive. And if you're actually healthy enough to do so. Alright, moving on to Haram and Halal. We all know these terms. Even if you're non-Muslim, we know them. That's so beautiful. Nowadays, everybody knows those terms. When I was growing up, nobody knew about it. But social media really has spread such a humongous light on Islam. And nowadays, everybody knows what's Haram and Halal. Haram and Halal. So Haram is something that is forbidden in Islam. Now, I wanted to get onto this as soon as possible. Because I know in the West, non-Muslims are like, Oh, how can something be forbidden? That is just so restrictive. It's not like this. Things that are Haram are Haram for our reason. There is always a reason behind something that you should or shouldn't do in Islam. For example, as we all know, Muslims are forbidden to drink alcohol. Alcohol is Haram. As I believe before, people were actually, This might be wrong, but this is what I have read and discussed with some of my Muslim students. Back before, you actually were allowed to drink one glass of wine. However, there was two problems here. First of all, the size of the glass. Everyone's glass was different and meant that everyone was consuming different amounts of alcohol. Number two, this led to some people getting drunk of maybe even one glass. I don't know if it was one glass. I know that the alcohol consumption was restricted at first and then after that it was completely prohibited. The reason being here is it was weaning off the Muslims of alcohol slowly but surely because if the Sharia would have been revealed in one day, nobody would be able to follow it. It was forbidden and why fundamentally was alcohol forbidden in Islam? Because as we know, if you do drink alcohol or as you are aware, if you don't drink alcohol, alcohol makes you drunk. What happens when you're drunk? Sometimes your vision is blurred. You certainly can't remember what you're doing. You're unaware of your actions and how they are affecting others. You can definitely sin and do bad things. Another example, pork. Pork is forbidden because of that. Absolutely correct. If I think back and I had my fair share of different drugs, believe me, however alcohol was the worst, the most atrocious, sinful behaviors that I would put on that given day were always under alcohol. No other drug comes even close to the detrimental effects of alcohol, domestic violence, drunk driving, people overdosing, dying. It's absolutely repugnant. Anxives that can be bad for our health. This is seen as a dirty animal because a pig eats anything. In the Bible as well. It eats plastic. It eats, honestly, anything. And that is why, again, it is forbidden in Islam. Everything that is halal has a reason. It's unhealthy. Everybody knows it. Halal. Halal things. What does halal mean? Halal is something that is forbidden in Islam. So, for example, halal meat is slaughtered in a very specific way. That is an importance with the Sharia law. It means that the prayer has been done on the animal and the animal is not made to suffer during the slaughter, which is obviously very beneficial for the animal because we do eat meat and we don't want the animals to suffer when we do slaughter them. Now, moving on to a topic that is definitely misunderstood in Islam for non-Muslims in the West specifically is the woman in Islam. So, there was the only halal thing she was thinking of? About the status of women in Islam. This is a very lovely book. I do suggest you go and read it by Dr Jamal A Badali. As I have gone with Islam and learned about Islam over the last three years, I definitely understood something here. Now, non-Muslims specifically in the West do look at Islam as this is oppressive, restrictive. Now, I want to put a clause here because there are some countries that have become extreme. Now, that moves away from the fundamentals of Islam and becomes extreme. If we stick in the realm of good Islamic practice, if we look at a country like Malaysia, the fundamentals of women in Islam is really to protect the woman. The woman is seen as this precious, beautiful flower and rose guidance is in place to make sure that she has a beautiful life. She plays to her strength. In Islam, men and women are physically, psychologically different and I know people in the West. It's not only in Islam, it is in reality. Yes, women and men are psychologically, spiritually, physically different from each other. Thank God. The best thing about women, for me personally, is that they're not like men. Like, men and women are exactly biologically the same, but biologically, we're not the same. We are more emotional to women and that's why guidance is put in place in Islam. But in the West, even a woman can have a pee pee. That woman can at least protect you. She's a woman. She's very interested because it is saying that pre-historically in Christian times, in Catholic times, women were not equal like men. Women were seen as down here. But all this period of time, when in the West, women are starting to get more rights, which is fantastic and all for that. But in Islam, the rights of all who've been there, women have always had the right to own their property, lease out their property. In Islam, the woman's money is for her. It is the man's responsibility to even ensure the wife is cared for, the children are cared for, the family is cared for. That responsibility has to be passed to the man to ensure the woman can do her womanly things that come naturally to her. Child, women, having children, taking care of the family. I'm not saying that this is... Every human has their burden. The woman has the burden of giving birth, taking care of the children the man has to provide. There are different roles. However, they're predetermined by God. And when we fulfill those roles, we actually get happy. This is why everybody is depressed in the West. Exactly correct. Women want to be men and men want to be women. It's that the woman placed her strength, which is the emotional bond with children, raising the family. The man goes out, he provides, takes care of the family and doesn't give that stress to the woman. That is honestly the fundamentals that I understand for Islam. And I do think that's very beautiful. If you are a woman who wants to have a family, if you marry into a Muslim family, if your partner is Muslim, he is going to want to take care of you so that you can take care of the children if that's what you want. This book explains that Islam has never stopped women from having a job. It has been the case where if she needs to get a job, she can get one. But if she doesn't need to, she can choose not to have a job. That's what I understand. I guess my jump to conclusions with things about inheritance because there are very interesting laws when it comes to inheritance when there is a daughter and a son. I don't know specifically, I would have to go and research more, but I know that... Yes, sure. You don't have to know specifics here. Yes, the man gets more than the female. How do I think about it? As you described yourself, the woman gets into a new relationship through the marriage to her husband and then the husband provides. So obviously, naturally, the son needs to inherit more money so he can provide. The male will get more money than the female and of course we jump to conclusions and think, this is so wrong. But again, as I've explained, if the female is marrying into a Muslim, how is she supposed to marry into a Muslim? He will provide them for her. Any money she earns, she keeps for herself. But the son will then have to provide for the wife and the children, so that's why he gets more. And just on the topic of women in Islam, I just want to read one very interesting passage from this book that said Prophet Muhammad said the most perfect believers are the best in conduct and the best of you are those who are best to their wives. It means that in Islam, they've always wanted the best for women. You treat women so well. Again, in Islam, your mother is so important. Paradise is beneath your mother's foot in Islam. There's another beautiful thing that Prophet Muhammad said when someone asked Prophet Muhammad like he said, a man came to Prophet Muhammad asking messenger of God who among the people is the most worthy of my good company. The Prophet said, your mother. The man said, who else? Prophet said your mother. The man asked, then who else? Only then did Prophet Muhammad say your father. So like the women are just so important in Islam is what I understand. And above all else guys, in the Quran it says always ask questions. Muslims, men and women does it matter how always? That's exactly what convinced me about Islam, reading the Quran. The Quran didn't tell me, hey, believe it. You have to believe it. No, it was about using my own brain, my own intellect. It asked me to reason. It asked me to reflect. Don't you see? Can't you understand the truth? Don't you see it with your own eyes? Can't you feel it with your heart? This is what I saw within the Quran. I believe that truth is always presented through asking questions. Being told that it's okay to ask questions. They can even ask questions about their religion. They can go to a man and ask him why, why do we do this? And can you get a valid response? It's more than okay to ask questions in Islam and that being able to be free to ask those questions means that Islam is not worried about saying the wrong answer and they know the answer will be correct. They know how to teach, how to be a good friend. And they're going to answer for everything. I know you're going to love this video where I ask some friends more questions that non-Muslims like me are really confused about. All right guys and this is it for today's video. Very cute, very bubbly, very positive video and I appreciate the positivity in regards to Islam of course. Not all but most things that she mentioned here were absolutely accurate so therefore I applaud her research. Guys if you liked this video head over to Elena Dansmo and leave her a thumbs up, subscribe to her channel and support her in her journey finding out more about Islam. For me it's just beautiful to see that yet again another westerner is seeing Islam in a positive light. This reminds me of Surat al-Nasr. And you see that the people enter our last religion in crowds. And this is truly what has been happening since 2020. If you really think about this whole lockdown situation at first it seemed so detrimental, so negative but quite the opposite, the exact opposite to be true was the case. People had time to reflect, many people started reading the Quran, watching YouTube videos on Islam and now we have an avalanche of people returning to the religion of Allah. Alright guys but this is it for today's video. 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 all the links are in the description box below. Thank you so much for your ongoing support guys as always may God bless you all much love and peace.