Pearl - April 30, 2024Are Christian Countries Better to LIVE in than Muslim Countries？ ｜ THE SITDOWN ｜ @MohammedHijab
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Summary
In this episode, we talk about the best places to live in the world and why people choose to emigrate to other countries. We discuss the economic and social benefits of living in the Muslim and Christian worlds, and whether the best place to live is actually where people want to live.
Transcript
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so i have a question do you think that the best places to live in the world is the muslim world
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no i mean it depends on what you're looking for
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um what are you looking for you know it depends on what you like i don't know i don't know much
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about like i've been to i've been to dubai but i wouldn't say that that can't be i wouldn't imagine
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that's like what you think of when you think of the muslim world because i guess when i was
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thinking about this through a couple of years ago, my thought
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again is God would make countries that where if you follow him,
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this is where people want to go. And it seems like more of
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Christian nations are that some would argue that like that the
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West is like terrible. And I could see where they're coming
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from. But I think where you find the best places to be is where
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people are going look um the assumption is wrong because the assumption is the more money you have
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the more right you are effectively that's what the assumption is if you think about it no i wouldn't
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put it to money alone because then you could look at like um gdp per capita i think in singapore
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would be high i do think people go there but i i still wouldn't say it's like people want to go
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so what which ones should we look at what material should we say material conditions
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if the material conditions are better i wouldn't say material conditions i would say if i was god
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this is just how i think about it i'm not saying this is like a scholar level this is just how i
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think i would think that the places that follow god and what god wants those would be the places
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where people want to go it's not necessarily about material possessions because i don't i don't think
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it's based on income alone what is it based on them where people maybe have the highest quality
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of life but that doesn't but that doesn't mean income how do you um assess that i would say that
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you can find the best places to live by looking where people are immigrating to okay and in my
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lifetime it's always like people like it didn't because my dad he hired people from around like
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he had an office in india like we kind of grew up like traveling the world i had nannies from around
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the world and people always wanted to come to america maybe the uk yeah yeah sure um but here's
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what i think dubai is a new one so you know you could argue dubai but here's what i'll say to
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pearly look um the reason why people go to different countries probably the most like the
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biggest reason is because of economics like people don't travel from the muslim world or parts of the
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muslim world to go to let's say the west just because the west has tall buildings and cleaner
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streets, although that's changing now. They do so because there's more money to be made here,
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and they can help their tribe and their family, etc. And that's happening now in the reverse.
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You've mentioned Dubai. If you look at the top 10 countries GDP per capita, four of them are Muslim
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in fact. So you've got Kuwait, you've got Qatar, you've got obviously the UAE and Brunei. So that's
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four out of 10, according to World Population Review, which is a website that tracks this kind
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of thing. So a lot of Westerners are going to those places. What I'm saying is that
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the reason why people move anywhere or the main reason it seems to me is because of economics but
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the assumption is um okay well where the material conditions are better that would indicate that the
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truth is there but if that was true then jesus would be the biggest falsehood because he he
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lived an impoverished life yeah i guess it wouldn't really be money alone i when i say quality of life
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um i i i think of like low crime i think of like like nice place it's got a very high no no and
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that's that's what i think like when the us and the uk have fallen like away from its christian
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values it's kind of gone to you know and i think less people have wanted i would say well i guess
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let's look at the christian world because the demographic heartland of christianity now seems to
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at least move in direction of africa sub-saharan africa in fact according to pure research london
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and the uk is not a christian country anymore by population it's 40 now it's gone below the
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the threshold where you'll find most christians in the world is sub-saharan africa and the material
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conditions there pound for pound are probably less than the muslim world another place which is you
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could say another chunk of demographic heartland we could say for christianity is latin america
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i wouldn't consider that to be a great place for people to want to emigrate or something like that
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in terms of economic conditions the reason why these countries or it seems to me like the biggest
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reason why these countries sub-saharan africa latin america parts of the middle east are in
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a similar position economically it seems to me because of colonialism that is the most recent
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thing that's happened okay so obviously now they have to build their countries up some some have
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like if you look at rwanda rwanda is a beautiful example go to rwanda it looks like one of the
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cleanest countries you've ever go to in your life it's in africa because they had the crisis the
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right the genocide there and so on they they decided to turn it all around you've got a
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collection of countries in the muslim world now that are doing very well remember there's 60
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muslim majority countries effectively right so look i guess i guess my question this is just
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how i think as a westerner we would look at it it's like if you know the islam world produces
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such like an amazing you know country or whatever like why why do we have this like mass immigration
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to come to the west you know because of economic conditions okay so you think it's a money thing
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of course it is i mean i can tell you for a fact today i can tell you that 100 hands down that's
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the reason why people come to these countries is because there's there's money in these countries
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okay look um uh gdp and gp capita employment all these kind of things there's money in these
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countries they don't they don't come here because they love the weather look look outside because
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the weather looks like uh i can tell you that for a fact and they don't come here because they love
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the you know the the quote unquote ideologies of the west in fact they probably despise some of
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those ideologies and that's part of the problem that the west has or right-wing people have with
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muslim people other people come that countries uh but i would say this is like when we say quality
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of life we have to be careful here because there is a there's an indicator in economics called the
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happy index okay and it puts all these scandinavian countries yeah yeah no but if you look at what the
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happy index says itself if there are books and even their website if you go happy index i think
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they've changed the name of it but if you go to their website it says this is not a um this is
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not a scale of who's happier and who's not they it's just so called and they put different kinds
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of measures in there including but not limited to hdi human development index life expectancy
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gdp recap etc so that's one thing the other thing is that actually i came across from a psychological
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perspective i came across a study that was done in the university of munich in 2019 by a woman
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called Laura Tobin, okay, and others, non Muslims. And they said that they use psychological
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assessments and questionnaires and so on. And in their estimation, the most satisfied people in
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life are actually Muslim people. This is a non Muslim, you know, academic study. So one can use
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that. But the point is, is, I still think I take issue with the premise, because the premise
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suggests that when someone is in a good material condition, or they're having a good life, or
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money is there or let's say standard of living is there whatever it may be that indicates uh for
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example that that person is in in a good position or whatever then there are many parts like for
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example if you look at islamic history right islam has been around for a thousand four hundred years
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95 of that time islam has either been one of the superpowers or the superpower of the world
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and a lot of that time for example you'll find uh that the european countries has been in the dark
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ages okay i'm not there are some stereotypes someone can make about european so-called time
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of european dark ages but if you consider from the from the let's say time of uh 600 700 a.d
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until 1600 1700 1700 right this time period of a thousand years what the west produced
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in that time compare it with the last 300 years what they produced in the last 300 years is much
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much more notable than what they produced the thousand years that preceded that, in terms of
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inventions, in terms of discoveries, etc, etc, etc. So this is not, it cannot be said to be an
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argument for anything. And look at Japan. Japan is a country that has got their own culture.
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They're developing. Yeah, exactly. So if it's not about Christianity, because Christianity is
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not, is not there in Japan. So there are so many counter examples, that the point
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Do you feel like people are like dying to go to Japan?
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But once again, it's just when I looked at like immigrate, I haven't recently.
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But like, I didn't remember Japan being that high.
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Yeah, no, I mean, people want to come to the West now because the West has money.
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Greece, for example, doesn't have that much money.
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Spain doesn't have that compared to, you know, Scandinavian countries per capita, for example.
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Those countries are more connected to or comparable to countries in the Middle East.