 So, I'm going to talk about ISIS and Jihad, but before I do it, I want to just share with you how I came to Islam because it's intertwined and why I had to interest in matters of war. So, when I was a student, at that was, we had this assignment where we were assigned to summarize the biographies of all the eminent scientists and philosophers in the message of the day, so quite a task. Those are the libraries that were in the book. And then came across this message and really grabbed my attention. It basically said that the majority of these materialists and scientists and philosophers in Western civilization were believers in the transcendental, which is an academic mutual term for God, that the world was a created universe. So, that was a shorter statement that the majority of bearded white studies are respected minds, and it wasn't so that they would believe in their God that their life's worth were inspired by their desire to build a created universe. So, like when Isaac did talk about the origin of the ocean, you can understand the point at which Allah created, God created the universe. When, you know, Rene Descartes was studying the Cartesian coordinates, you can understand the geometric relationship of the created universe. So, it really opened up a new horizon for me. So, from that point, I launched on a personal quest of people to find out what this is all about, because nobody had told me such, nobody had made that connection in the past. So, I went through my many years at the Naval Academy, I read, I researched, I talked to people, and this is the best I can to get my answers and questions that I had. And it's still during I walked away with a certain standard of criteria, whether it was social, philosophical, or spiritual, or scientific, on what type of religion that I would adopt. For example, the scientific standard. I felt that, since we're talking about the created universe, that revelation must necessarily be ahead of all scientific discoveries, that in no circumstance should science debunk revelation. Right? So, I found that standard quite challenging from most of the world's religions, except Islam. Islam answered those questions and they were just all sorts of scientific proofs in Islam that we're still trying to discover and come to a better understanding. Let's give you one quick example. I was a navigator in the 80s, and it's still a mystery of how certain bodies of water dealt with chemical, facility, content, temperature, gradient, the pressure. For example, the way that the Mediterranean flows into the Atlantic, there's a pressure gradient difference, causing weather disturbances, etc. The Quran talks about that. From an illiterate prophet, 1600 years ago, who'd never seen the ocean. Right? So, there are hundreds of these total types of scientific proofs, and again, understanding whether it's social or in bed bystanders, therefore, I became a Muslim. Now, I started, because I was a military naval officer, or a fire brigade officer, I was very interested in what Islam had to say about the conduct of war. Because war, we were taught, it happens. If combat is not conducted with the highest of moral standards, you will literally lose your humanity of power. Because the most brutal act that human beings can engage in, if you don't live and conduct war by certain moral codes, you will literally become an atom. So, you know, PTSD, all of these are sentences of our soldiers expressing extreme threats and distress in combat. Anyway, there's lines of both ways about this. You can look it up yourself. But that's why it's so important. What does Islam say about war? Well, it turns out that Islam says quite a bit about it. And what I discovered is that they had a very refined and high standard regarding the reasons for war and conduct during war. In the Quran, it says that permission to fight is given to those against whom war is made, because they have been robbed. Those who have been driven out from their homes unjustly, only because they said our Lord is God. In another verse, it says, And if God did not repulse some men by means of others, there will surely have been pulled out, temples, churches, et cetera, and mosques. So those two things are clear, unequivocal, saying that fighting is sanctioned for self-defense. And secondly, for the freedom of worship. Notice it doesn't say it's just mosques. It's a synagogue and churches. So all religions were obligated to protect. So the freedom of religion managed for self-defense. The motivation to fight is sanctioned. So there's a lot more to be said about it. So when I started thinking in deeper, the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, had quite a bit to say about war as well. I'm sure it's just one thing. It is what we call the rules of engagement. The manner in which you engage the enemy, again that moral code, right? Because there has been certain rules and regulations on how you conduct yourself in the battlefield. Even the instructions he engaged in his role during war. Taking one step back, by the way, you might ask yourself, Well, you know about the Prophet of God, why is he concerned about war and combat? Well, we believe that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is a final messenger. So as such, he has to be complete in his totality of all human aspects, whether you're a brother, a parent, a husband, a son, a businessman, a student, a teacher, and even a warrior. So he exemplified those traits and left us plenty of examples of how to conduct yourself in all those aspects of the Prophet's existence. So in matters of combat, these are the instructions he gave me. She said, Number one, do not harm women, children, elderly, or the sick. Do not commit treachery and never relate with this figure. Do not uproot, cut down, or burn trees. Do not harm any livestock, except for food. In combat, avoid striking the face for God to create all of us in the image of battle. Do not kill monks and monasteries. Do not kill those sitting in places of worship. Do not destroy the villages and towns. Do not destroy the cultivated fields and gardens. So that you can't starve people out there anymore. Do not wish for an encounter with the enemy, pray to God to guide them to security, but when you are forced to encounter them, exercise patience. No one may punish with fire except the creator. So in this, our love is a massive traffic camera for people in Nepal, all of those will be forbidden. And finally, accustom yourself to do good, and do not do wrong even if they commit wrong. So, you know, taking in totality, there are no other rules of engagement that I've come across during my time as a nail officer that were higher standards than those. None. The Nuremberg trial of Geneva Conventions, post-World War II, a lesson to learn, all was embodied today of what we in the U.S. military utilized for what we believe is the highest level of engagement. So those 10 things I didn't rattle down to you is the highest level of engagement I came across. Okay, so let me just now talk about jihad. So the term jihad in Nuremberg does not in and of itself have anything to do with what we all think it is. Jihad comes in the root word juhad, which means to make an effort. So consequently, the highest form of jihad is to struggle with your own self, with your own ego. That's the highest form of jihad. The lesser form of jihad is the military component. And by the way, jihad is not, when they say holy war, that doesn't ring true. That's because we see nothing holy in war. There's nothing holy about it. It's the means of last resort, if you will. So again, just to give you a couple of examples on the greater versus lesser jihad, the problem is that the best jihadist is being true to a tyrannical leader. And in another instance, he said, perform jihad by serving your parents. And there's on and on, all again, about being the best you can. That's the higher form of jihad. That's the form of the military. So ISIS, we believe through their vigilances, is what happens, ISIS, by the way, there wasn't ISIS prior to the Iraq war. We all hope you all know that. We created a power backing by beating Iraq in the lead and that power backing is filled by this vigilante group called ISIS. So if you look at it, let's say Russia came and invaded our country and left. So who filled the power back? If they destroyed our police apparatus and security and government system, the Mississippi militia, right? They were the ones with the weapons and organized that cause. And somebody in some other part of the world would call them cases. So it's a geopolitical phenomenon, the rising crisis. They are not sanctioned at all by the barter of the security. The easiest way to look at it is, ISIS is what the KKK is in Christianity. Or maybe what fascism is in Christianity, right? I mean, I read my cop and in the books, a lot of Christian, you know, thinking and theology, obviously, why he's doing what he's doing, right? So it's similarly, ISIS is an extreme operation of our religion and now we're down for it. That's it. No, I'm done.