Ali Dawah - December 20, 2018
ARE MUSLIMS OFFENDED BY CHRISTMAS? - THE Y FILES
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
187.40305
Summary
In this episode, we talk about the controversy surrounding Christmas and why we should not be offended by it. We also talk about why the Bible does not agree with the Christmas tree and why it is against our religion to worship it.
Transcript
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They have this big misconception that we as Muslims find it so offensive.
00:00:04.660
So this Christmas tree behind me, it's so so offensive to me.
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When I see it, I start crying and I'm like, oh no.
00:00:09.680
Now, what I wanted to mention to you guys, brothers and sisters, is that on that day, a man came and invited me to a Christmas carol.
00:00:36.000
Yes, they said that, you know, why don't you come and join us?
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Yeah, okay. And I'm going to play that little video of the man himself.
00:00:42.620
Actually, let's watch that first. Let's watch that first, inshallah.
00:00:48.460
While I was at Speaker's Corner, I had an interesting little dialogue with a gentleman that we're all probably familiar with.
00:00:59.560
And Ali Dawa seems to want to come and speak at our events.
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So I went up to Ali, I said, Ali, what about coming to the carol service?
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Yes, I would like to cordially invite you to come and sing praises to God.
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Of course, Ali turned me down very, very politely, very polite young man that he is.
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And he said to me, he said, well, would you pray with me?
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But I'll be praying to my God and you'll be praying to your God.
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So then I went backwards and forwards and it was good-humoured.
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And I thought, what a terrible tragedy Ali Dawa's life is.
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A nice, polite, intelligent young man who is zealous and passionate about what he believes.
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Now you can see from this gentleman his take on the matter, how he came and invited me.
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The reason I rejected is because it's against my religion to be involved in that.
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Because we believe that shirk is the biggest sin.
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So I'm not going to go there and glorify Jesus, when I believe Jesus is a prophet.
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And the reason I refused to do so is because if I said to him, would you come and pray with us?
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He said, yes, I would, but I would praise Jesus.
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So the thing is, I have no problem with you celebrating your Christmas or whatever it may be.
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Singing Christmas carols or whatever it may be.
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To be honest, if you go to the book of Jeremiah, chapter 10, Jeremiah 10, verse 1 to 5,
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This is a description where it says, do not cut trees from the forest and bring them to your houses and decorate them.
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So the Bible is against the Christmas tree concept.
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And even if you look at some of the scholars who have given exegetes of this verse,
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they say that this is not referring to Christmas trees,
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but even still they agree that Christmas and the Christmas tree has got nothing to do with Jesus or his birth.
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And this is one big misconception that a lot of people have.
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So they have this big misconception that we as Muslims find it so offensive.
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So this Christmas tree behind me, it's so, so offensive to me.
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When I see it, I start crying and I'm like, oh no.
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There's this misconception that when you guys, like non-Muslims, have pork,
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And even at one instance when the far right came to the park,
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we had a lady called Amy who was waving ham at us.
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When the vampire sees a garlic, we're just like, oh no, stop it.
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So this misconception out there of whatever it may be,
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like Muslims have a problem with Easter, that's why Tesco's have stopped selling eggs.
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Because if we look in history, for example, when the Prophet, peace be upon him,
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The lives of the people of Najran, Christians, and its surrounding areas,
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their religion, their land, their property, their cattle,
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their messengers, their places of worship are under the protection of who?
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Their present states shall neither be interfered with,
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nor their rights meddled with, nor their idols deformed.
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The intentions being that no change in whatever state everyone is
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Now, the question that needs to be asked is this.
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When the Muslims were ruling over the Christians and the Jews,
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So when they were in power, they did not come and say,
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you're not celebrating Christmas, you cannot do this.
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Your churches, whatever you had, can stay with you.
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Not like when the Crusaders came and slaughtered men, women, and children,
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like his happy days, in the book of Samuel, chapter 15, verse 2-3,
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where it talks about God ordering to go to the Amalekites
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and slaughter men, women, children, babies, donkeys, you know?
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they did not impose their ideas and stop the Christians or the Jews
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So what makes you think that when we're in power,