 Islamophobia is a real issue and many may try to ignore it But the fact is that it's present in the life of in the lives of many many Muslims across the world How would you feel and how would you react if someone called you a terrorist or a towel head? It's not easy to deal with such insults that come at you And the fact is is that many of us me you or a friend or a family member or someone across the world who? has experienced this insults or such such Insults now how do we deal with it? The only way we deal with it is to actually deal with it. That's the solution to Islamophobia, how do we do that? We'll continue watching today for we are joined with a very special guest who is here to talk about How do we deal with Islamophobia? Whether we live in the east or we live in the west it is Sayyid Hussain Qazmini. So Asalaamu Alaykum Sayyidina Alaykum Asalaam Wa Rahmatullah Alaykum Alaykum Asalaam Wa Rahmatullah Alaykum Asalaam Wa Rahmatullah Can we begin by sending our salams as usual and then we can continue our discussion? Absolutely Alaykum Asalaam Wa Alaykum Asalaam Wa Alaykum Asalaam Wa Alaykum Asalaam Wa Alaykum Asalaam Wa Alaykum Alaykum Asalaam Wa Rahmatullah Alaykum respected viewers once again Asalaamu Alaykum rahmatullah wa barakatuh we do welcome you to the third episode of deal with it with me and host Ahmad Ali now for the dear viewers who are just tuning in for the first time you can visit our YouTube channel at Imam Hussein 3 TV to view the previous episodes we are live on Facebook and the phone calls are ready to be received, as well as your comments and questions revolving around how to deal with Islamophobia. This will be discussed with my dear Anubu Ghassid, Hussain Qasim. Peace be upon you, Hussain. How are you? Peace be upon you, too. Peace be upon you, too. Peace be upon you, too. The past few nights we have been celebrating the birth of Mahmoud Hussain. We talked about social media and dangers of social media on the night of his birthday. And yesterday we talked about early marriage. And today we chose to talk about dealing with Islamophobia. Now, as a person who has been living in the West and really experienced what went on in 9-11 and post 9-11 and what happened earlier in the West, a lot of people began to be scared of Muslims, have the tension to always, you know, not be friends with Muslims, you know, to keep away from them. So how do we deal with Islamophobia? The first question that comes to mind is why does it exist? To what extent do we actually go to realize that, you know, to overlook our differences and look at our similarities? I remember 9-11 very vividly. I remember exactly what happened and what I did on that day. It was, you know, it was a normal day. I would get up early in the morning to go to college. And I remember it was my second year in college. I got up early in the morning and without watching the news, I got in my car and I drove and I turned on the radio to hear that two twin towers in New York, you know, have been attacked by airplanes and they've fallen. But we don't know who's done it. Obviously, you know, you could tell that it's... It's unplanned. Yeah. No, it's going to be terrorists. Who? Muslim terrorists. Yeah, terrorists, yeah. So I wasn't sure. Should I go to college? Should I not go to college? Should I stay home? What should I do? What's going to be the reaction to this incident? Is someone going to attack me? Am I going to get arrested? I went to school and that day not a lot of people showed up and I remember it was an anthropology class. Instead of talking about anthropology, the teacher decided to talk about 9-Eleven and what happened and what are the possible, you know, scenarios, who did it, why did they do it and what's next. For me, that was the start of Islamophobia. Of course, I was still young. I was maybe 18, 18 or 19. Islamophobia had started before that. It's not something new. It has started before that. But I think that 9-Eleven was a turning point. If Islamophobia had existed, it wasn't as strong as it was after 9-Eleven. 9-Eleven came and changed everything. It changed the entire world view. Not just people in America. People in Canada. I'm pretty sure you could relate. I'm assuming you were in Canada during 9-Eleven. People in Europe, everywhere. These crazy Muslims are crazy enough to take hijack four planes and drive them into a building. That's what a typical non-Muslim American or European or Canadian would think and it started. Of course, it was not easy. I remember some people that were living in the United States and they said, stand for us to leave. We are no longer welcome here. A lot of people were attacked. Yeah, they said, you know what? That day, I remember from my family, no one loved the house, especially the females who were hijab. They were asked to remain at home. For several days, we only left for necessities and for emergency cases. Otherwise, we didn't leave the house because we didn't know what is going to be the reaction. Obviously, there was going to be an immense hatred and fear of Islam. Islamophobia is fear of Islam. Of course, the backlash wasn't as bad as we expected. On the contrary, I remember that a lot of churches opened their doors for Muslims. They opened their doors for religious scholars. Muslim religious scholars, come and tell us about your religion. Does 9-Eleven represent you? Does it represent all Muslims? Are these actions justifiable in your faith and religion that you kill random people, civilians? There could be children on those flights. Does your religion encourage this? I think that not everything was negative. To some degree, it was positive. People came to know about Islam. There were so many books published on Islam. There were so many articles. Churches had their doors open. But at the same time, there were people that were seriously afraid, that were seriously scared of Muslims. Any Muslim is a potential hijacker. Any Muslim is a potential terrorist. I remember I was on a flight once from Detroit, Michigan to Florida. I was doing the month of Ramallah and I had spent the first half of Ramallah in Detroit, Michigan. In the second half, I was going to Miami, Florida for the second half of Ramallah. I was reading a book in Arabic. No, I'm sorry. It was in English, but it was on Islam. I believe it's called the Crisis of Islam by Bernard Lewis. I was reading that book and I remember calling my brother on the flight, telling him that I'm on the flight safely. The passenger sitting next to me, they were an African American couple. They were frightened. I'm young. I'm speaking Arabic. I have a book called the Crisis of Islam. I might have been holding a Misbah or signing prayers, as I always do when I ride a plane or a car for safety. These guys assumed that, you know. You're about to blow up yourself. Either blow up myself or hijack the plane as soon as it takes off. So the gentleman sitting next to me, he said, sir, I don't know what is it that you've planned or thought of or whatever it is that you're planning on doing, or maybe you're not planning on doing, but we just want to tell you something. That me and my wife were on a business trip here in Michigan and we've left our eight-year-old daughter in Florida and she's waiting for us. Right now we're going back home to our daughter. Whatever it is that you've planned, just please think about our daughter. Wow. First I thought he was joking. I thought this guy's, you know, I started laughing. You know, I thought that's the punchline. But no, he was not laughing. He was dead serious and his wife was tense. Are you serious? Are you joking? Just because I'm a young Muslim and I spoke in Arabic and that means I'm going to hijack the plane. What about security? I passed through security. That means I'm not carrying any weapons or bomb on me. I said, I know. I'm sorry. He kept on apologizing. I said, you know what? You out of all people, you know, I said he was African-American. Why? Because African-Americans, they're discriminated against in the United States. Way more than Muslims. Way more than Muslims. You know, a lot of white people, they consider every black person they see as a criminal. As a potential killer, murderer, rapist. I said, how would you like it if I, you know, generalized and told you, please don't rob me? I want you to think of my kids back home and please don't rob me. Would that be okay with you? Even though a great deal of inmates in the United States are African-American but not a lot of Muslims are terrorists. Anyhow, I don't know if that analogy made sense or not. He said, you're right. But I think that he was afraid the whole two hours. Until we got home safely in Florida, he gave me a hug. He's like, I'm so relieved that we actually landed. You know, this is not a simple incident. I think a lot of people, a lot of people have been through that. Why? What are the main causes of Islamophobia? You know, this is not something that we could do in 40 minutes on a 40-minute show. It's something that, you know, researchers have been talking about. They've written articles, books on why the fear of Islam. But I like to mention three main reasons. Number one is because there's a group of Muslims, a small minority, who are brainwashed, who are barbarians, who are violent and aggressive, and they're called Wahhabis. They ascribe to the School of Thought of Wahhabism, the School of Thought of Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab. This is a strict, fundamentalist School of Thought that believes they are God's chosen people, so to speak. They are the only people on the right path. And everyone else are infidels. Sufis are infidels. Shi'is are infidels. If you celebrate the Prophet's birthday, you're an infidel. If you visit these shrines, you're an infidel. So basically 99% of the Muslims? Absolutely. Anyone other than them, Wahhabis. Now they believe that infidels should be killed, and when I say infidels, they mean shia. Shi'is are also infidels. You know, a lot of times, when I get stopped by officials at the airport, and they ask me, where have you been? Have you contacted? Do you know anyone from ISIS? My guys, let me tell you something. If ISIS were to see me and you, you as an American officer, and me as a Muslim, they'll kill me first, and then they'll come after you. I'm their arch enemy. Shi'is are hated by Wahhabis. That's why they kill so much shia in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Iraq, and you name it. These shrines, to them, are polytheistic mausoleums that need to be demolished, put to the ground. That's what they did in Baqiyah, in Medina, and what they did in Samarra. They tried to do it to the Prophet's grave as well. And if they could do it to the Prophet's grave, this is an ideological matter. Wahhabis are a major source of Islamophobia. It is because of them that we're paying the price. Me, you, our family members, our friends in the West, any female that wears hijab, anyone that has a beard, even Sikhs for God's sake. Even Sikhs are paying the price of the evil of Wahhabism. How many Sikhs were killed and stabbed because wearing a turban and having a long beard? Mistaken for a Muslim. Wahhabism is a major problem when it comes to Islamophobia. It is, they played a major role in spreading fear of Islam. ISIS is only one part of it. We've been dealing with ISIS for centuries. For centuries. Well, people don't know about this. They think that ISIS was created a couple of years ago. No, ISIS, you know, existed from the day that Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab announced his movement. Or even before that. Even before that. Even before that. So, Wahhabism is a major problem. But the thing is, they take their teachings from Islam, don't they? They take their teachings, they take their teachings from narrations that they ascribe to Prophet Muhammad. They think that Prophet Muhammad said this. For example, they take a narration that Rasulullah said that I was sent with the sword. Supposedly, allegedly, Rasulullah said this. While the Qur'an says, We have sent you as a mercy. The prophet says I was sent by the sword. Do we take the Qur'an or do we take a narration allegedly stated by Rasulullah in Bukhari or Sahih Muslim or in these books? Their understanding of Islam is twisted. Their understanding of Islam is distorted. And it's the fault of their scholars have given them this twisted image of Islam. The problem, I wish it was just a problem of a couple of Bedouins in Arabia. No, the problem is that they have major support by their government, Saudi Arabia. Wahhabism, Wahhabi clerics and Al Saud have formed an alliance, a pact that you scratch my back and I scratch your back. Al Saud want political allegiance from Wahhabis. Wahhabis want religious allegiance from Al Saud. You scratch my back, I scratch your back. So this oil-rich nation has put its wealth for the use of Wahhabism. That's how Wahhabism has spread in Africa, Nigeria, you name it. Many of the countries in Africa, South Africa and all over Africa, and in Kosovo, in Bosnia, even in Algiers, in Morocco, especially they go to areas where people are less educated and they go and they spread in Wahhabism. They go and they spread Wahhabism in those areas. So it's safe to say that basically Islamophobia is within Islam? Or I'm saying that one of the elements of Islamophobia is some Muslims as in Wahhabism. Wahhabists are one of the reasons why Islamophobia has risen. This is one. I said I will mention three. I will mention three factors. And the problem is that they're not just Bedouins, they're not just Bedouins that are supported by a country, but this country is a Western ally. Supported by the United States of America and Europe and is a major Western ally. And they know this. They know that Wahhabism comes from Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia is the main ally. Where does ISIS get their ideology from? Where does Al Qaeda get their ideology from? Where does Bokeh Haram get their ideology from? And all other terrorist organizations, all of the other Sunni terrorist organizations, they all stem from Wahhabism. Their their ideological, you know, mentor is Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab, Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al-Qaim al-Jawzi. These are their their their teachers. But at the end of the day, they are called Muslims. And one of the facts that we have to face is that they abide by the teachings that are Islamic. They are Muslims. So what? The KKK, the Ku Klux Klan, are Christians. Yeah. Does that mean that all Christians are guilty of white supremacy? That's where I'm trying to get at. See, the problem with us is that, you know, when someone does a good thing, even everywhere across the world, when someone does a good thing, they say, okay, that's good, good job, good, good for you. But when someone does a bad thing, either in a family or a country, the whole family or the whole country or the whole religion is looked at in the same way that they looked at that, you know, discrimination or whatever that person did. Right, right. So it's a problem. This is a problem. This is one factor. A second factor, unfortunately, is that some Western politicians, they need to create an enemy. Yes. In order to pursue an agenda. How do you get to office? You have to create an enemy. You have to say that they're out there to get us. They're going to attack our country. They're going to attack the United States. They're going to attack Europe. So build a wall. Let's build a wall. Let's ban Muslims. A complete shutdown, total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the country. You create a fear in the minds of people that there's a real enemy and I'm going to protect you and there's no one else to protect you other than me. Well, there's a saying that goes, if you create fear in the hearts of those you rule or the citizens, you will rule over them and that's basically what's happening. And especially if you put yourself as the savior. Yes. That there's no one else that could save you, not these politicians. The only one that has a solution. I'm the only one that has a solution. I'm the only one that could rescue you from the evil of Islam. You need to fear them. There's something. There's something about their book. There's something about the Quran. Do you know we hear this from President Trump during elections? Before Trump, going back to 9-11, if we were to look at it, how many people died? Do you have an account? How many people died? On 9-11? On 9-11. 2,996. Almost 3,000. Almost 3,000 people died on that day. And Terry Jones comes out burning 2,996 Qura'ans on that day as an anniversary of what happened at the tragic event that happened on 9-11. I mean, I'm sorry to say this, but how stupid to do that when Muslims died in that event as well. So you burned the Qura'an. There were hundreds of Muslims that worked at the World Trade Center and they died. Wow. That tells you that real Muslims have nothing to do with it. By the way, you mentioned Terry Jones. Terry Jones had an interview on Fox TV and my older brother, Hassan Kazouini, was part of the interview. I don't know if you've seen it or not. I've seen it, yeah. I want my dear viewers to, after they watch this, not while they're watching our show, once you finish, look up you know Terry Jones. I'll be sure to put the link in the description box. Yeah. Terry Jones said Kazouini, I'm not saying this out of a bias towards my brother, but he really made Terry Jones look like an idiot. Yeah. Because he asked him that the book that you want to burn, the Qura'an, have you read it? He said no. But I know enough about it. I don't need to read it. Terry Jones was saying that Islam is against Christianity. The Qura'an is against Christianity. He told him, did you know that the Qura'an that you hate and you think is against Christianity, it has an entire chapter called Mary? And that Jesus has been mentioned so many times in the Qura'an? He said, I didn't know this. He told him, what do you hate about the Qura'an? He said it promotes, do I have to take a break? Just finish that and then we'll, he said it promotes Sharia Allah. He said, okay, what is Sharia Allah? When did it exist? After Prophet Muhammad came? He said, I hate the Qura'an because it promotes Sharia Allah. He said, what is Sharia Allah? He said, stoning an adulteress. My older brother said, Hassan, he told him, let me give you a fact. The Qura'an doesn't mention anything about stoning an adulteress. Nothing about stoning. Whipping? Yes. But stoning? No. You know which book talks about stoning? The Old Testament, the Bible. And he mentioned him the chapter and the verse in the Bible. Mary Manglin, yeah. That tells believers to stone adulterers. Yeah. So this is in the Bible. It's not in the Qura'an. Let's go to a short break and then we can continue that. Very interesting, respected viewers, do stay tuned for, insha'Allah, you presented during the break the blood drive donation which happened in Karbala. So do stay tuned. We'll come back to you shortly. Coinciding with the auspicious birth anniversary of Imam Hussain, peace be upon him, and based on the commandments of the grand jurist, Grand Ayatullah Sayyid Sadaq Hussain, A block donation campaign is held under the slagon of the master of giving in the holy city of Karbala. The block donation campaign takes place in the main streets, neighbouring the holy shrines of Imam Hussain and his brother, Bufud Al-Abbas, peace be upon them, on the 3rd of Sha'ban, where the block donated will be distributed among hospitals to help those who need it, particularly the wounded of the popular mobilization units. The event is organised under the leadership of Grand Ayatullah Shirazi, who presented him, Sheikh Abdul-Rawam Aash. Respected viewers, one second, peace be upon you, and blessings be upon you. We welcome you back at the second part of today's show, where we have been talking about Islamophobia and the causes behind Islamophobia. Now Sayyidna, Sayyid Al-Qazmini, is joining us once again in tonight's episode. Welcome back, Sayyidna. Allah khaleekum. Now, before the break, just to sum up everything before we go answering the question, because the majority of the questions we're getting is that, yes, we do know what the problem is, tell us what the solution is. A few people did mention a few solutions. So, and we talked about how from within Islam, it came Islam for, but it exists within Islam, and then what was powered by some people, you know, motivated by some people outside of Islam. And then we talked about how, people started to fuel the flame, started to put. There's one more thing that I'd like to add on one of the reasons. Yes. And that is the media and Hollywood specifically. The media has an agenda to portray, it keeps, you know, it keeps the media industry entertaining. If you don't go after these extremists and cause a threat, you know, or show something that's quite small, make it big, how do you get attention? How do you get attention? If you've known as the media, as soon as any bomb goes off, any incident goes off, immediately who's the possible, who are the possible perpetrators? And one of them is always Islam, a Muslim, Islam and Muslim. They give out the answer before the search has been already done. So the media plays a major role, the way they portray certain events. You know, if it's a Muslim, immediately he's a terrorist. If it's a white guy, he's delusional. He has psychological problems. It's never a Muslim delusional guy, a Muslim guy with psychological problems. No, if it's a Muslim, he's always a terrorist. But if he's white, he's never a terrorist. If he's white, he's always, you know, delusional. He's a lone wolf. He works by himself. He doesn't work as a pack. But if it's a Muslim, there's always a pack working up. I don't know if you remember the Virginia attack, the attack that happened in Virginia where I think an Asian attacked the high school and killed almost 18 students. You know, they called me as psychological problems and they met with his mother and his teachers. Exactly. They always make justifications and they find solutions. They find an excuse for the white guy, you know, committing an atrocity. But now with Hollywood, Hollywood plays a major role in the Islamic world. We see the movies as well. Movies, it's all... The majority of the terrorists are Muslims. The majority of Muslims, the majority of terrorists are Muslims. I remember back in the day when Chuck Norris played in these movies on Muslims and hijacking planes and all that. From the early days, from the 80s and from the 90s, Hollywood played a major role in the Samophobia, making people scared and fearful of Muslims. So that's also a reality that we have to pay attention to. The media in the West plays a major role in spreading fear against Islam. Now, can we talk about the cure? Now, before we go into the cure, I think, actually, let's just ask the questions. Vicky Sabah, she says, okay, we know what the problem is. We need to start discussing positive solutions. Now, I think today, like, the cure for this is linked to our first episode that we talked about, social media. I think one of the cures we can begin is, you know, everyone has Facebook now, everyone has Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, you know, a lot of people are scared to come to Karbala to come to certain religious areas in Iraq or other Arab countries because they think that it's not safe, bombs are there. Last time, it's funny to mention, me and my friend, he's also from the West, he has an app on his iPhone where he goes on the app and does a random search to anywhere across the world. And the majority that we're getting calls, like accepting our calls, is from the US. Whenever someone picks up, he says, because it shows your IP as Iraq. So it says, oh my God, are you a terrorist? The first question they ask, who are you working with? Are you a terrorist? And it makes us laugh. You know, like, no, bro, we're here, it's safe, we're working. It's like, wow, really? To that extent, people are getting out of Islam. I think social media, it could be a major factor in reducing social media. Can reduce Islamophobia. Yes. How many Muslims are there on social media? There's millions, there's millions of Muslims. I'm talking about Muslims in the West, teenagers and youth, Muslims in America, in Canada, in Australia, in Europe. If you're on social media, if you're on Twitter, on Facebook, and on Instagram, show a good image of Islam. What do I mean by that? That might be a bit vague. If you have a lot of non-Muslim friends, show them what an ordinary person you are. If you're a doctor, take a picture of you in a hospital with your patients. Right? Show them that you're an ordinary doctor, that you love your country, you love your job, you love your work. You're an ordinary citizen. You're an average American. Except your Muslim. Except you pray five times a day. You believe in American values. You believe in the American dream. What's the American dream? To live in a nice house with a wife, two kids, and a dog. Right? That's what they say. Well, you don't want the dog. Instead, put a cat. Yeah. Show them that you also want the American dream. You're a normal person. Show them you're a normal American or you're a normal Canadian, you're a normal European, an Australian. You have the same aspirations that they do. You have the same ambitions that they do. And you're a good component of society. You're a doctor, you're an engineer, you're a lawyer, you're a teacher, you're a student, you're a college professor. Show them who you really are. Yeah. Show them your love for your country. Show them your house, your kids, your pets. Show them the place where you work. Right? Let people know that we're normal people. That we like to live. We don't like to kill. We don't like to commit suicide and take people's lives by committing suicide. No, let's show them that through social media. That will play a major role. If I were a non-Muslim and I had a friend, a Muslim friend, and I would look at his posts on Facebook or tweets on Twitter, and I'll be like, this guy's a good person. This person doesn't want to kill me. I'd happily get on a plane with this guy because he's a normal guy. We share the same aspirations. Right? That plays a major role. At work, go out there, speak. There's a lot of Muslims, they're passive. They go to work, they come back, they don't speak to anyone. No, be talkative. Talk to your friends at work. Let them know who you are. Let them know what your religion's all about. Let them know who ISIS is and that they have nothing to do with Islam. If each one of us, let's say there's three million Muslims in America. Right? Let's say one third of them are children below 10. That's, you know, let's take out a million. We'll keep two million that are adults, teenagers and adults. If each person talks to at least five people a day about who they are, what Islam is all about, who Muslims are really are. Muslims are ordinary people. You have a sense of humor, joke with them, show them, you know, that you're funny, that you live just like them. Right? If you speak to five different people every day, how many, how much is that? Two million, multiplied by five. That's 10 million. If we do that every day, America's 300 million. If we talk to 10 million people every day. In one month, you can redraw one. In one month, we can potentially speak to all of Americans and let them know who we are. Right? It's the little things that count, believe me. It's the little things that count. Or a short attractive post on Facebook or Twitter. You know, if you have a lot of followers or a lot of friends, they can share it, they can like it. Once you like it, everybody else will get to see how magnificent Islam is and, you know, how beautiful Muslims are. You know what I mean? It's the fact that people sometimes say to them, don't really want to look at what reality is. Now, we talked about the dangers of social media. People don't want to know what dangers are. Absolutely. You know, sometimes it all it takes is one person to destroy the image of an entire religion. Absolutely. If we see, you know, if we here in Karbala, which is majority Shia, if we see a Sunni in Karbala, and he's walking in the streets of Karbala in the shops and he uses profanity, what are most people going to say? Look at Sunnis, they use profanity. Yeah. If you see a Sikh at the airport, you know, doing something crazy. You'll say, look at all Sikhs are crazy. They do this and that. People do the same thing with us. All it takes is one person to destroy the image of an entire race, to destroy the image of an entire religion. Let's be careful out in the West. Let's give a good image of Islam, the way we drive, the way we deal with our co-workers, the way with the way we deal with, you know, the classmates, so on and so forth. So this is this is a major factor, making use of social media and going out there, giving a good image of Islam. There's another point that I'd like to emphasize on, and I think it could be a major solution to Islamophobia. And I hope that Vicky Sahib and whoever else that wants to know what are the solutions to Islamophobia, I think this is this is important. Can I just read this comment? Sure. It's pretty nice. He says, Mo Sahab, he says, when I was six years old, a boy came up to me and said and asked me if I was a terrorist. I remembered feeling unsure and confused about what he meant. And I shook my head. I nodded, you know, I shook my head. I don't know what he means by shook my head. I just walked away. He means like this, like he shook his head and disapproval, disapproval and walked away. I mean, at the age of six, someone feeling like this. Right. There's something that we could do towards Islamophobia, but it takes a couple of us, we can't all all do that. And that is to go into journalism, go into journalism, either have some of us, some of us go into journalism or have influence on journalism. You see, my dear friends, you know, my dear viewers, journalism can play a major role in either the spread of Islamophobia or reducing Islamophobia. The articles that are being written about Islam and Muslims, the movies, when I say journalism, journalism includes writing for newspapers, working for news channels, even going into Hollywood, movie making, making movies on YouTube. That's also part of journalism, isn't it? Yeah. Going into movies, that's not really journalism. That's not journalism. That's the entertainment industry. But journalism is newspapers and news channels. Going into the entertainment industry can also have an effect as well. I'll get to that in a second. But if we have good writers that could write for the Washington Post, that could write for the New York Times, that could write for the Wall Street Journal about Islam, about Muslims, that give a good image of Islam, how important is that? Yes. How important is that? Okay, we can't go into journalism. I don't expect a lot of you to go into journalism, but we can have an impact on journalism. How? By writing to journalists. If you see a good article on Islam, good coverage on Islam, write an email. The author, the journalist, usually has his email at the bottom. Write him an email. Thank him. We don't do that. You know who does that? Jews. Jews in America. If there is any good article, not all Jews, but Zionists, if there is any good article on Israel, they'll see who the author is, that journalist, and they'll write to him. They'll thank him. If they see a bad article covering Israel, they'll send an email of discouragement that we didn't like your article and you shouldn't be writing stuff like this. And that has an influence. When you see 500 people email you thanking you, you're going to be like, you know what? I'm going to write another article, and a third article, and a fourth article. But we Muslims were passive. We could care less. We could care less. There could be an article that's pro-Islam. We don't thank the author. There could be an article totally against Islam. We don't write to the author telling him, you know, what are you doing? If we get in that habit, if we mobilize our youth, if we encourage our communities, and our Majalis, and our Islamic centers, write to the journalists, encourage them. When you see positive coverage of Islam, of Shi'ism, of Iraq, of Afghanistan, anything that contributes positively to Islam, let's thank these journalists. It will encourage them to do more. You see something bad, write to them. Yeah. To them, we didn't like your article. That will have a, you know, it will have a major effect. It will have a major effect. Now, one of the questions that we got is from Wahid Hassan. He says, in the Quran, there are verses encouraging to kill non-Muslims in sort of Tawba. How do you explain those? These verses are all contextual. They are all contextual. I've given several lectures on this, on the verses of fighting, or the so-called sword verses. Sword verses also fuel. They fuel if they are misunderstood. Yeah. If they are misunderstood. And I think that some religious scholars have have done a fine job in explaining these verses. I personally have given lectures on these verses, and what do they mean? I'll simply say that these verses, if you look at them all when they encourage Muslims to fight non-Muslims, it is all in self-defense. All of them in self-defense. Look at the verses. Once I gathered all of the verses, they're about 11 or 12. They're all talking about self-defense. If you're attacked, if they invade your city, if you're kicked out of your homes, if, if, if, then fight them back. It is all in self-defense. None of them are offensive. None of these verses say go and attack, you know, civilian non-Muslims, or a country next to you that are non-Muslims. None. None. These verses have all been taken out of context. They should be understood within the context that they were revealed. Yes. And the context that they were revealed was self-defense. Now, another question we have from Ammar Hussain. He says, with the rise of Trump, more people seem to be paying attention to anti-Muslim hate. What's your opinion regarding this subject? And how can Muslims benefit from this? I think we could benefit by taking advantage of hatred against us to come out and speak out, to come out and tell people. You know, it all depends on where you are. Don't say that I will leave this to the scholars. This is the job of scholars. This is a job of journalists. This is the job of high-profile people like, for example, Mehdi Hussain and others that come out on TV and are doing a fantastic job. Very fantastic. Yes, they're doing a fantastic job. But so can you. Yeah. Every individual can do their job. It's not possible to achieve things in life. If you could speak to people at work, on the bus, at the metro, at Starbucks, you're waiting in line for, I don't know, for anything. Speak to the people around you. Tell them who you are. Are you a Muslim? Say, yes, I'm a Muslim. Do you know what Islam is all about? Do you know what it means to be a Muslim? Take advantage of every opportunity for Da'wah. Not to increase Muslims. Not to invite people to Muslims. If you could do that, that's great. But number one, to clarify the misconceptions regarding this. Yes. Do your job, whether it's at work, at school, in the parking lot, at a Starbucks, at the airport, on an airplane, or on social media. Everyone has social media. You don't need to be a high-profile person. If you have a Twitter account or Facebook account, tweet about Islam. Yes. Choose good things to tweet about Islam, to post about Islam, and spread. And it will spread on social media. Beautiful things spread quickly. You could do your job. You don't have to study in 20 years to do something like that. So, let's take advantage of it. People are hitting us now. Let's show them who we really are. Let's show them the true side of Islam. Let's take advantage of it. Yes. Let's not be passive. Our problem is that we're passive. Lay people say, you know, this is a job of scholars. Let scholars handle it. Scholars say, this is a job of politicians. Politicians say, this is a job of the religious institution. And so on and so forth. Each person says, it's their job. No, it's their job. No, it's their job. It's all of our job, Rasulullah says. You're all shepherds. And you're all responsible over your flocks. Yes. We're all shepherds. We're all responsible. So, there's so much that we could do. Now, Aliyah Alawi, she says, remember the Prophet, one of, she says, one of the solutions that I think are suitable in our times is remember the Prophet since he is our role model. The Prophet was subject to horrible insults and hate crime in his life. He was patient, remained patient and tolerant in the face of Islamophobia. Even, you know, it's a nice link. We do thank you for that. You know, she linked the past and the present. Absolutely. There's some people that say, you know what? I'm not going to deal with Islamophobia. It's time for me to take my kids and go back home to Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan. I don't know where. That's wrong. If you've lived, if you've built a family in the US or in the UK or in Australia, there's no need for you to go back home. Stay where you are. Be patient. Like my dear sister is saying, be patient. Show tolerance. With difficulties comes good times. Look at the Japanese and what they had to deal with during World War II and how they were putting concentration camps. But look at them now today. One of the most developed countries. It's a developed country. You know, Japanese people come to the United States without a visa. Yeah. It's reciprocal. Yeah. To that point, one day these countries were nuking each other. They were bombing each other. The US used the nuclear bomb in Hiroshima. The next day they're now they're welcome to each other's countries with open doors. You don't even need a visa. Why? Because Japanese people were were patient. You know Hiroshima, I have a friend that went to Hiroshima. He went to a museum. He says that 30 days, either he said 13 or 30. But let's be on the safe side and say 30, not 13. 30 days after Hiroshima was nuked, they had already set up a school. Life was back to normal in Hiroshima. They had a school and they went back to learning. That's how much patience they showed. You know, they were nuked for God's sake. Yeah, life goes on. We in the West, we can't pack our bags and say we're going to go back. No, we're going to deal with it. Right? Yeah. We're going to deal with Islamophobia. We're not going to go back home. People are afraid of us. We're going to tell them, look, there's nothing to be afraid of. Ameer Al-Mumineen says, People fear that which they are ignorant of. Ignorance creates fear. So how do we tackle fear through knowledge? Yes. By eradicating ignorance? Yes. By spreading knowledge. And this is one of the points that I'd like to touch upon. Strengthening academic centers of Islamic education, Islamic studies programs. Islamic studies in the West by promoting, sponsoring and supporting Islamic studies at universities in the West. There's so much that we can do. Because when people come and really study Islam and see that ISIS or Wahhabism has only a minor factor of Islam, Islam is much bigger than that. Islam has history. Islam has art. Islam rule the world once during the Ottoman Empire. Yeah. I remember in first and second year university there were introduction to Islam and then there's a second stage Islam. Right. Where, you know, a Shia professor or any professor who was delivering that lecture honestly really showed and he did it perfectly, Dr. Alayka Attaqeem. He showed the difference between what true Islam is and what, you know, the Wahhabis and what their ideology is, which brings us to the final question. We have approximately two minutes to end our show. Hassan Al-Nasli, he says what are the main differences between Shia Islam and radical Islam? If you can sum it up in or, you know, just Islam and radical Islam. If you can sum it up in two minutes. Radical Islam. Islam is the religion of the Quran and Prophet Muhammad and Ahlul Bayt who were sent as a mercy for people, who were sent to teach through akhlaq, through ethics, through manners, not by the sword. Those who wanted people to become Muslim through understanding, through acceptance, and not by force, not by coercion. Radical Islam is taking verses literally out of context like the verses that say, kill non-Muslims and we said these verses are contextualized. They came for self-defense and they had a specific context. Taking these verses out of their context, taking them literally and applying them at a time when they are inapplicable. Yes. Taking things literally, wanting to go back to the stone ages, not knowing that Islam is for every age and for every time and for every time in every age there are different ways to apply Islam. The concepts remain the same but the applications change. The applications change. What's funny about this is that the people who are Islamophobic, they have something in common with the people who are extremists because both of them hate Muslims. Both of them think that these... They hate the majority of Muslims. The innocent Muslims who live their daily lives just like regular Americans, they're American as well. Right. They do have something in common with radicals who think that everybody is evil and all Muslims should go to hell except for them. But we do thank you very much Seina for joining us tonight. Hopefully inshallah we can continue our discussion tomorrow because I believe today and tomorrow are connected in some way but the dear viewers will have to wait and see what tomorrow has to offer. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. Hopefully we continue this. Respective viewers do stay tuned for tomorrow's episode for we will inshallah continue our discussion around such topics that affect our daily life on a daily... affect our lives on a daily basis. Thank you very much for tuning in.