On this episode of the podcast, we have a special guest on the show, Dr. Daniel Blumberg. Daniel is a professor of Islamic Studies at the Islamic Studies Center at the University of Toronto and has been a long-time member of the Muslim community. He is also a frequent guest on Conspiracy Theories and has a long history of writing about Islamic topics.
00:00:00.000if the saudi government says that daniel should be killed tomorrow would you agree with that and
00:00:04.480they said yes they said yes absolutely are you serious oh that that yeah yeah they were they
00:00:10.720were issuing issuing death threats against me this is wahhabism like this is wahhabism for you0.84
00:00:15.840iran is is a major power now they've proven themselves like they're able to bring the0.68
00:00:20.960united states to its knees in this war by controlling the strait etc iran has a long0.91
00:00:26.240history of trying to build bridges with Sunnis and Sunni countries, because they realized that
00:00:32.200the US and Israel want to take over the Middle East. They want to kill Muslims. They've always0.99
00:00:37.400had this understanding, and they've realized that them by themselves, they can't withstand that.
00:00:41.680They need a broader coalition. And so they've tried to build that for the past 47 years.
00:00:46.580Moving to China and this Trump visit, why is Trump in China? It's because he needs to find
00:00:52.420a new way to boost the economy. It's to save the GCC. What's the objective? Because he's there with
00:00:56.44030 CEOs. A bunch of billionaires came with him. Elon Musk. You have Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock.
00:01:01.880What is the objective? The U.S. and China are enmeshed. So many U.S. companies depend on
00:01:07.500Chinese manufacturing. But what China has been doing is China has been pivoting towards
00:01:13.240independence, redirecting investment out of the United States and into other foreign partners.
00:01:19.320And China is deliberately doing it because they want to get to a position where they can basically cut the cord.
00:01:26.300They want to be able to cut the cord with the United States and be independent in a way that they can exert their will in Asia and the rest of the world, ultimately, as a superpower.
00:01:36.660So I have a lot of white nationalists, for example, who ask me this.
00:01:39.460They ask me like, look, Daniel, I'm interested in Islam, but, you know, I also like being white.0.52
00:01:44.460Like, I like being white. I like hanging out with whites.0.96
00:01:46.740can i still be a muslim like can i accept islam yes you can there's there's no contradiction there0.97
00:01:59.060so i'm like can you hear me hey why i'm sorry i can hear you how are you doing good to see you
00:02:04.180daniel good how are you good we should have done a stream when you were here but i you know jet
00:02:09.940lagged and stuff but chat i don't know if you know but daniel came through we got to to hang out
00:02:14.660in new york it was good to meet you irl after years of speaking on discord
00:02:19.940yeah it was a good time really enjoyed hanging out with you i asked uh mirandy professor
00:02:25.620mirandy just came on the stream earlier today i asked him the same question i brought up to you
00:02:29.620about she has the had a response from a she i didn't know how to respond to
00:02:33.860i said we shouldn't say ya ali because it's uh invoking others than a law and their response
00:02:38.820was in the quran it says don't say the martyrs are dead for they are alive i'm not sure if i'm
00:02:43.620getting it exactly right and so they're saying that they're not asking alif they're asking a lot
00:02:48.420ali to make dua and because the martyrs aren't really dead i'm like i'm stuck i don't know how
00:02:52.740to respond yeah so that's it's not a shia thing it's uh sunnis as well have this concept it's like
00:03:02.500called toasol toasol and it's this concept of um i saw the clip actually mirandi explaining it like
00:03:11.140Like you're asking someone else to make du'a for you.
00:03:15.580So asking, can you ask the Prophet ï·º to make du'a for you, to pray for you?
00:03:22.820Can you ask others who are not in this life to make du'a for you, like imams or pious people?0.85
00:03:32.540And historically, Sunni scholars have always said yes.
00:03:43.260Like he has a book about what you should do when you visit Medina.
00:03:47.720You should specifically go and visit the grave of the Prophet ï·º and give your salutations basically.
00:03:54.540So, yeah, this is something that's been accepted like to Wessel.
00:03:59.000You're making a request of the dead, but the request is specifically like making dua.0.64
00:04:05.540Like with the assumption that those pious people or it's like literally a prophet, they are, you know, beloved by God, but beloved by Allah.
00:04:16.280And so they'll be able to grant that request.
00:05:01.780And I'm not saying I'm going to say, yeah, anybody, I'm just going to say, yeah, Allah, I'm going to keep it simple. I'm not encouraging that. I don't want to. I'm just saying I didn't know how to respond to that.
00:05:12.120Yeah, but it's like what the Shia person was telling you is not like particular to Shia. It's also Sunnis, like Sunni, traditional Sunnis, Orthodox Sunni have that same idea, have the same concept.
00:05:50.860That's why we can't be united with them.1.00
00:05:53.160we have to keep them separate from the sunnis like that's their whole propaganda line and then0.95
00:05:59.400what you say is well actually no this is a concept that sunnis have as well the sunni scholars have
00:06:05.040it imam ahmed has it even ibn taymiya who the wahhabis claim to follow doesn't consider this
00:06:11.960to be shirk um so yeah so this is like a tactic of sectarianism against iran against shia but
00:06:21.520it just doesn't work like it's not a good argument i think you had a good answer i did
00:06:25.640more pushback on professor marani today than i've done in any of our calls
00:06:29.180to get people you know i was getting a lot of requests but i think uh i think i said what i
00:06:35.200could have said i spoke uh oh no i saw you i gotta give you props people kept saying oh you
00:06:40.600didn't know there's 20 000 hadiths i'm like dude so many of those are repeated i saw you debated
00:06:44.820uh that what the i don't remember his name and you got that corrected and then you asked him
00:06:49.760how many were caught in wudu or something he had no idea so that was it seemed like it went well
00:06:54.340yeah the guy is uh completely astroturf like he's someone that's being propped up like all
00:07:01.880these bot replies whenever he debates and he just came out of nowhere he claims that he's not jewish
00:07:08.540but i think he is uh he he claims that he's noahide so if you know what the concept of
00:07:14.600noahide it's basically a non-jew who submits to judaism because in judaism you can't really
00:07:21.660if you can go through a process of converting but they don't even encourage it like they don't want0.90
00:07:26.840it's not like islam or christianity where we want people to accept the truth
00:07:30.480of islam and worship god in judaism no it's like we're the chosen people and you don't have that
00:07:36.960bloodline so it doesn't really make sense for you to practice judaism judaism is not meant for you
00:07:42.720you can never be a chosen person but they do have like a kind of long extended conversion process0.71
00:07:49.800and you'll never have like the full status of of a jew because you don't have the biological basis0.97
00:07:55.880for that but you can also be a noahide so noahide is meaning that you just accept the noahide laws0.62
00:08:04.060like not killing not stealing not doing adultery etc and but you acknowledge that the jews are0.61
00:08:10.880superior to you so so he openly says that he's a noahide and debates the goyim oh so he's he's a0.60
00:08:18.840good goy it's a good goy religion speaking of jews aiden just texted me of course chat
00:08:22.720asking me to fight somebody on brand risk i don't know we'll have to see that's uh funny timing
00:08:28.780and it was good to see you we saw watch the hamzat shimaya fight that was super
00:08:34.020disappointing but i liked you know what did you think of that apology and what did you think of
00:08:39.440them making it i think it's good over it's not i i don't think a lot of us wanted that that wasn't
00:08:43.960the ideal outcome but what was funny is that ariel hawani i think he's israeli he was seething
00:08:50.160afterwards about them making amends what did you think yeah i saw your comments on that like
00:08:57.620they just want muslims and christians to keep fighting yeah i mean the fight was disappointing
00:09:02.880um it seemed like you know i don't have experience watching hamzat uh in his fights but
00:09:11.060um he seemed like the first round was really dominant and then he got gassed or whatever i
00:09:17.860don't know what your full analysis is on we talked obviously i think he was way trained
00:09:21.920he looked a little bit way he was supposed to fight 205 against jiro prejaka but i think that
00:09:26.640they offer this fight instead so i don't think he's gonna ever fight in middleweight again
00:09:31.280unfortunate yeah so why do you why did he even accept it then like for the title like you didn't
00:09:38.420have that middleweight title right no hamza was the middleweight champ he that was his first
00:09:43.360title defense shot so he would have been able to have a one title defense he just got the belt
00:09:48.380and it made sense i mean in the middleweight division you know when they offer you a challenge
00:09:52.960like that you're supposed to take it so he did what he was supposed to do you got it you have
00:09:56.380to be an active champion or else they strip the belt from you it wasn't a rigged fight guys was
00:10:00.400why was he trying to weight up was he like trying to get another title and in a higher weight
00:10:06.100division yeah i think he was trying to go double champ at light heavyweight but we'll see inshallah
00:10:11.900maybe it gets uh the belt back but it was very different than the habib fight i did cliff farm
00:10:17.440it a little bit i don't know if you're upset about that my apologies if i was speaking up
00:10:20.960or when i but i just i was talking about it was funny you came with your uh your friends and they
00:10:26.800were like yeah just i was talking about strategy and stuff and they're like we just watch him
00:10:30.000because he's muslim like they didn't care at all about the fights i'm like i didn't realize how
00:10:34.640many muslims are just watching it for that angle and you see that maybe sean has a point to make0.77
00:10:38.420when he's saying that he's there to sell the fights even though there's no no more pay-per-view
00:10:41.660it does add another element to make it interesting they turn it into habib mcgregor too
00:10:45.840yeah they sold it well um that's why i was interested like this guy is going and running0.74
00:10:53.380his mouth like strickland against muslims also like the dirty stuff he did against you
00:10:58.860statements he made about you in the past so you know we have to support our muslim brothers in0.71
00:11:04.580that situation and yeah that's it draws a lot of interest so as for apologizing yeah okay that's0.65
00:11:12.460good like i'm happy that there was an apology to muslims and yeah strickland is not as bad as
00:11:18.760conor mcgregor because mcgregor is a zionist like he's openly he's like going against his
00:11:24.420own country and supporting israel over palestine because the irish are very pro-palestinian they
00:11:30.020are shut up to the irish but yeah so strickland is not like that strickland is not a hardcore
00:11:35.780zionist he has a lot of criticism like do you see the the apac joke i'm sure you saw they got a cut
00:11:41.700from the paramount youtube channel yeah we didn't see it like because we watched that interview and
00:11:46.880i guess there was a cut but we just didn't notice it so they cut it off but yes and he's also
00:11:53.220against the war in iran so yeah he's he's much better than conor mcgregor but i guess he was
00:11:59.260just trying to sell the fight and it's not like a genuine hatred of muslims so that's i think he's
00:12:04.940waking up to so many people like tucker megan kelly they're realizing through israel's control
00:12:09.780like oh wait muslims aren't really the problem this is part of the propaganda i've been duped
00:12:14.020and i think strickland's in that category and on the theme of unity what do you think about the
00:12:19.720the jq implosion there's been a lot i know you're you're pretty good friends with uh dan
00:12:24.140balzerian right and jake she you've yeah so we both said the same thing people are saying this
00:12:28.920stuff about dan but you know i went to dan's house too i didn't i didn't see anything and
00:12:33.940asked me to lock on my phone it was it was a good hangout i don't even know like what's the
00:12:39.180implication of this accusation that oh he told us put our phones away like that when that did
00:12:47.020happened when i was there actually that did happen in that uh this was in august 2024 um it was a
00:12:52.900gathering like the the video was leaked like someone posted the video of me being there and
00:12:58.900nick was there myron was there jake was there and yeah well like we all know like even like
00:13:05.620you were when i was visiting you in new york um you not noted that all these phones have listening
00:13:12.200that can be tapped in at any time through the mic daniel said that i should mute my blue yeti mic
00:13:17.360when i'm not streaming i'm like bro they're they're listening like they tap everything i do
00:13:21.860it's like i don't have privacy we all don't but i'm definitely under profile and you too you know
00:13:28.080we're they're listening yeah so i mean it's not like a strange thing to say like okay let's put
00:13:34.840our phones to side it doesn't mean like oh we're planning a assassination operation or something
00:13:40.040like uh illegal um but it's just like to have privacy yeah let's and it's not like we put our
00:13:46.820phone we just put our phones like on the kitchen counter like his living room if you know like is
00:13:52.540connected to the kitchen and there's like an island there's counters and we just put a little
00:13:56.820bit at a distance it wasn't like some you know put your phone in this metal case and we have to
00:14:03.160go to a secret location it wasn't anything like that so yeah i think they're just getting carried0.96
00:14:07.500away i think it's just ego it's just um really stupid fighting i do think nick is responsible0.93
00:14:13.900like nick i don't think nick's a fed i want to put that out there the allegations that he's a0.85
00:14:18.140fed i have no information to i also don't believe that not only have i not seen anything but i just
00:14:23.180don't believe it and i would say that i think he is if i did but i don't think so
00:14:29.740i don't think he's a fed but i think that he might have like certain backers that might be
00:14:36.140within the deep state. He might have backers that are in the deep state. And so some of the things
00:14:41.900like there's been a big shift in his attitude on a number of different issues. And it comes out
00:14:48.920like the whole Venezuela situation, if you remember, like he became a big supporter of
00:14:55.040U.S. intervention and basically, you know, using an iron fist to exert America's will
00:15:02.200across the globe like these kinds of statements i don't think historically that's been his position
00:15:07.040like having a really muscular global empire like u.s empire like i don't think that's been
00:15:14.000his position historically i think he's adopted that recently maybe he has i see clips from back
00:15:19.640in 2018 19 when that happened we had a back and forth about it because i was very against
00:15:24.320venezuela regime change i think i've been vindicated they're sending all this oil to
00:15:27.240israel but he's been consistent about monroe doctrine for years yeah okay i i just see that
00:15:34.560as contradicting um a kind of america first mentality because it's america being overextended
00:15:41.980across the globe and trying to control and um you know basically control all these economic
00:15:47.740corridors like that's what's causing the trillion dollar defense budget like that's directly tied to
00:15:54.900this massive defense budget and all of this, all these funds going into the military instead of
00:16:01.140the U.S. infrastructure, for example, or other domestic needs that we have. So I feel it's
00:16:07.380inconsistent. The response would be that Venezuela regime that gives us oil and controlling a lot of
00:16:13.500the world controls the choke points and we get to dictate and we get to boost our economy by
00:16:19.040weakening others. And it's not world dominance. Monroe Doctrine does say the Western Hemisphere
00:16:24.280specifically i think it was early 1800s where it says that the whole western hemisphere belongs to
00:16:29.440the american empire so america for people who make their whole thing america first fully believe in
00:16:34.420monroe doctrine that's why they're also pro taking over greenland canada i think that that whole and
00:16:40.420cuba so again like it makes sense to have like okay you're america first and you're thinking
00:16:48.780from the perspective of the founding fathers and you want to extend u.s power but we acknowledge0.69
00:16:56.220and fuentes acknowledges that the u.s government is occupied it's a zionist occupied government
00:17:03.820you have a oligarchy a jewish oligarchy that exerts this much control over the u.s so the more
00:17:13.020power like when venezuela comes under the control of donald trump that means it's under the control0.54
00:17:18.540of this oligarchy it only benefits that oligarchy it benefits those elites and israel not the
00:17:25.980american people so how do you square that circle how do you reconcile that and i don't think he
00:17:31.340has effectively done that it's like a kind of schizophrenia that he expresses like you can't be
00:17:37.100beating your chest when donald trump decides to invade another country
00:17:41.660but also on the other hand acknowledge that well the trump is cook trump is basically a controlled
00:17:48.060president like this is everything that he does is in the interest of a foreign entity or a fifth
00:17:53.340column like these things are irreconcilable but we're supposed to just ignore the contradiction
00:17:58.860yeah we i don't agree on everything but what's your thought how do we get to some more unity
00:18:04.620right now because clearly i saw you like my tweet saying that the new strategy is not censorship
00:18:09.380it's division it's rage bait it's getting people focused on things like george floyd instead of
00:18:13.740the major issues. How do we try to get more? I've been trying my best. I really I think you see
00:18:19.160that I put in effort to try to especially unite anti-Israel people. But what's your perception on
00:18:25.240the on the outside looking in from Texas? I think unity requires compromise. You have to
00:18:35.680have this mindset of compromise and that not all of your allies within a coalition
00:18:43.460are going to be exactly on the same page on every issue there are going to be differences
00:18:49.280between you and sometimes there are substantive differences but you're supposed to overlook those
00:18:54.500differences for the sake of the coalition and this is critical like this is why i advocate when
00:19:00.740it comes to muslims like sunni and shi yeah we have differences theologically and there's been
00:19:07.060a history of war there's been a history of fighting but the whole point of coalition is
00:19:12.380that you look past those or you put those aside for the sake of a larger goal and in the case of1.00
00:19:18.920muslims like it's existential like we're going to be wiped off the face of the earth like they're1.00
00:19:22.760actively trying to take over muslim land they want to control the middle east they want to1.00
00:19:27.740secularize muslims they want to literally change and reform islam so given that existential crisis0.94
00:19:34.680those high high stakes it doesn't make sense to quibble and fight over certain theological0.95
00:19:41.840distinctions okay you know should we say ya ali doing tawassal or not or does this make you a
00:19:49.820mushrik or not or all these kinds of um aqida debates or theological disputes same thing on
00:19:57.340you know when it comes to america first or it comes to the this kind of new right wing there's
00:20:03.460a bigger like strategically it doesn't make sense to have this constant civil war when i look at
00:20:09.920this schism that's happened between fuentes bilzerian um what's the what is the substantive
00:20:16.780difference between the two like how does fuentes differ from bilzerian can you like explain like
00:20:24.600what is the substantive difference like do they have a difference on i know that they have a
00:20:28.860difference in terms of supporting certain candidates in ohio like supporting the democratic
00:20:33.200candidate as opposed to vivek um but okay is there anything beyond that i don't know either and i
00:20:41.480want to see them get on the same page but man it's it's brutal sometimes like they say things
00:20:47.200or i hear things where it's like i don't know how you guys come back from that but jake shields he'll
00:20:51.860have beef with somebody over and over again they always come back you know people seem to understand
00:20:55.540the bigger issue i forgot when we were hanging out i brought it up that i don't know if you want me
00:20:59.920to talk about that but you were well you you are a revert you you did grow up uh shia and i i was
00:21:06.540asking this to in the theme of unity i asked this to professor morani because when i was in australia
00:21:11.580these lebanese people oof they were very anti-iran they do they were going in bro whenever it came up
00:21:18.260and I talked about unity, they're like, I usually don't like to speak up. And then they started
00:21:22.060going in and saying Iran did this in Syria and they commit taqiyah and they don't actually
00:21:27.400want peace and they didn't help out Palestine until they got attacked.
00:21:32.560Is it true about the taqiyah thing that, you know, people like that accuse Shias and Iran of?
00:21:40.320No, it's nonsense. It's like a nonsense accusation. Taqiyah is like specifically if
00:21:46.280you're in danger like your life is in danger and there's like a greater power that's about to kill0.91
00:21:51.080you like imagine like some dictator has called you up and is about to kill you if you admit that0.89
00:21:57.120you're shia and then you can lie about it like that's what taqiyah means and there is a concept
00:22:02.000of that in sunnism as well like you can lie if your life is literally hanging in the balance
00:22:07.640you can lie to protect yourself to uh that's not a sin like you to say oh actually i'm a christian
00:22:13.960for example like if you're literally about to get killed there's no there's no sin on you for that0.80
00:22:19.240um that's that's what taqia is iran is is a major power now they've proven themselves like they're0.57
00:22:26.300able to bring the united states to its knees in this war um by controlling the strait etc0.73
00:22:32.060they're not in a position to like um they're not like being threatened by these sunni countries
00:22:39.500Like the Sunni countries are not in a position to destroy Iran.
00:22:44.720So they don't have the motivation to lie.
00:22:47.540In fact, Iran has a long history of trying to build bridges with Sunnis and Sunni countries.
00:22:54.880It actually predates this war and it predates Syria.
00:23:01.620From the beginning of the Islamic revolution, they've had this kind of mentality because they realized that the U.S. and Israel want to take over the Middle East.0.95
00:23:19.700And so they've tried to build that for the past 47 years.
00:23:23.620and they've had some success like there's been sunni institutions like azhar university for
00:23:28.440example in egypt you've had um other sunni scholars that have come together to try to
00:23:34.580build bridges there's an entire amman message a man message from jordan like sunni scholars
00:23:40.740and shi scholars and like khamenei himself like sistani who all signed um mufti taki uthmani if
00:23:48.500you know him from pakistan and other major like muftis from both sunni and shia and they signed
00:23:53.380the statement that we're all muslim like we're all muslims and we shouldn't be takfiring each
00:23:58.140other we shouldn't call each other kafir um we shouldn't like be fighting so that statement of
00:24:03.640unity at the highest levels has existed for a long time it predates the current war and if you want
00:24:10.660to point to things like oh well iran is um has backed bashar al-assad and bashar al-assad was a0.55
00:24:16.860dictator who murdered hundreds of thousands of sunnis in syria um that's true like iran did
00:24:25.120back bashar al-assad i'm completely against that i can completely condemn that but but you know
00:24:31.340bashar al-assad's army was you know majority sunni actually his armed forces were majority sunni
00:24:38.860the top generals weren't they were alawi um which is a different like religion even it's
00:24:46.080that's what obl was right obl was one of those no oh okay okay how do we know obl was like it was
00:24:54.100like salafi uh jihadi basically so that's okay so yeah so then why did they back uh assad
00:25:03.280iran like iran viewed um iran viewed the revolution because this is what happened
00:25:10.960There was an Arab Spring. And in 2011, like the Arab Spring was in Tunisia.
00:25:16.500It was in Egypt. It just kept spreading like this is a protest movement.
00:25:20.640You had Arabs who are just tired of being under the thumb of these authoritarian governments who are corrupt.
00:25:28.120Like they're not providing any kind of public resources and poverty is increasing.
00:25:32.360Economic woes are increasing. So the Arab Spring is like protests.
00:25:36.420And it was successful in Tunisia and Egypt in deposing those dictators or those authoritarians who were basically U.S. puppets.
00:25:48.220And then in Syria, this was happening as well with Bashar al-Assad.
00:25:53.900And Bashar al-Assad was crushing the protest, basically.
00:25:57.900He was violently reacting to the protests.
00:26:00.880And the U.S. and Israel realized that this is a great opportunity to take over Syria basically because Bashar al-Assad had historically been aligned with Iran and was kind of not a proxy but it was providing a pathway for Iran to get weapons to Lebanon where Hezbollah is.
00:26:22.320So they wanted to cut that off by taking over Syria by toppling Bashar al-Assad.
00:26:29.280So they started arming these protesters and sending like all of these kinds of jihadi groups, like including ISIS.
00:26:53.620And then these Syrians are getting armed and you have radicals coming in across the border and they're being funded by the U.S. and Mossad.
00:27:08.700Like Iran could just stay out of it or Iran could like try to support Bashar al-Assad to prevent him being toppled and basically a U.S. slash Israeli proxy getting installed.0.66
00:27:21.360That was Iran's calculation. But the thing is, as the death toll mounted, as more and more Syrians were getting killed, I think that Iran should have been much more stringent on Bashar al-Assad and reining him in and preventing him from engaging in as much bloodshed as he did.
00:27:41.200I think that was he engaged in atrocities and massacres that should not have been defended by Iran or supported by Iran.
00:27:49.260he should have been condemned so this is iran made a calculation this is 20 yeah this is the
00:27:53.840arab spring and then the syrian revolution that came out of it okay do you get well how about this0.61
00:28:00.600why did you switch well not switch but why did you convert to true islam
00:28:06.280yeah i i left shiism because in high school i started interacting more with sunnis um there
00:28:15.580was like a high school msa muslim student association and um i was a proud she you know
00:28:21.540i i wasn't shy about she being a she and yeah i wasn't doing any of that oh no that's like
00:28:30.220it seems like the coolest part that's the one thing i wish as well yeah i wasn't doing that
00:28:37.480um but you know i was a proud she you know i i followed the imams i thought like this is
00:28:42.540you know clearly the um successor of the prophet muhammad peace be upon him was ali imam ali
00:28:49.280clearly like all the virtues of ali etc so i was it wasn't like i was just marginally she i i really
00:28:55.420was she uh in my in that belief but then you know i started interacting with sunnis and they weren't
00:29:01.720talking about theology um they just wanted to pray they wanted to pray they wanted to like do dawah
00:29:08.620like in the high school they wanted to play ball like we'd play basketball and just hang out and
00:29:14.380have fun and i enjoyed that but you know i was myself like wondering like okay what what are
00:29:20.660their beliefs and sunnis and then i want to do more of an investigation of what as a she like
00:29:27.360what are the what are the books that i should be reading because these sunnis they have this
00:29:31.640concept of hadith and they have this thing called sahih bukhari like what's that i had no clue
00:29:38.460So, okay, they have Sahih Bukhari, what do we Shia have?
00:29:43.280And then, so there are these books of Shia hadith, like Al-Kafi, one of them is Al-Kafi.
00:29:48.560It's like big because it has the narrations from the Imams, like the alleged narrations from 12 Imams.
00:29:55.720So I started reading that, translations of that.
00:29:57.760I also started reading Nahjul Balagha, which is, it translates as the peak of eloquence, which is compiling the letters and speeches and statements of Ali.
00:30:08.460and so i was reading that and while i was reading that especially i had an english translation that
00:30:14.180i actually got from iran and the it was like in my grandma's house i just found it and it just
00:30:22.480keeps repeating sunnah sunnah sunnah like you need to follow the sunnah you need to follow the quran
00:30:27.460and sunnah this is what ali is saying in this very important shi text natural balaga so like wow even
00:30:34.420adi is saying follow the sunnah even adi is saying this concept of the sunnah and that makes sense
00:30:39.360to me like shouldn't we follow the prophet peace be upon like prophets like he's the final prophet
00:30:44.980so whatever he is uh practicing and the things that he's doing that should be prioritized
00:30:50.700above statements of imams or the practice of imams so that's one thing that came to mind the second
00:30:57.660thing that came to mind is that um you know when it comes to these hadith found in kafi in their
00:31:05.820hadith collection there's some shocking hadith in there there are some shocking hadith um that i
00:31:11.760was like i never knew this i never believed in this like for example there's a narration that
00:31:16.800says that you know uh gabriel jibriel the angel who was responsible for bringing revelation to
00:31:23.020prophet muhammad peace be upon him um he continued to bring revelation continued to bring a quran
00:31:30.620um after the prophet saw passed away and that revelation came to who it came to fatima his
00:31:37.500daughter it's like what like i this is not something that i believe that and then like
00:31:42.540narrations about the quran like being a much larger than the actual mushaf the quran that we have
00:31:49.500so like i never i never believed that the quran that we have is like an abridged version or it's
00:31:53.980like a short version like missing verses like so these ideas i never heard of and i'm finding
00:32:01.500narrations about that in kathy so i asked a shi scholar and i asked him like what what about these
00:32:08.380hadith like i don't believe this are these hadith authentic and he he said no they're not authentic
00:32:14.380like we don't accept these hadith i'm like oh okay you don't accept the hadith but it's in kefi like
00:32:20.560this is supposed to be like your version of sahih bukhari it's supposed to be like authentic
00:32:24.340and you have like complete fabricated hadith in there like completely false hadith that are
00:32:30.400shockingly false like not just a little bit like they're shockingly they're going against like the
00:32:34.420pillars of islam like cursing the sahaba is that what some of the stuff says the false ones
00:32:39.160uh no that wasn't like what really shocked me i didn't come across those narrations
00:32:44.760in kiafi i didn't read it cover to cover it's like thousands of pages
00:32:48.860um but it might have 20 000 narrations and actually a lot but um but the shocking things
00:32:57.580were about the quran that was like shocking because you know as a shia muslim uh from young0.93
00:33:04.040age we learned that this is the quran it's preserved it's the revelation it's the final
00:33:08.340revelation and here it is and we read it and we um you know and that's these these narrations in
00:33:15.620the she she book the most authentic she book al kefi is contradicting that so that was shocking
00:33:22.100to me as a she and then i ask about it and they say that well this is a um these are fabrications
00:33:28.580so that i thought like okay if your most authentic book has fabrications like how can we trust
00:33:34.180anything else like how can we trust like that other teachings like within the she school or the
00:33:41.040she um history are aren't fabricated like how do we know like it just it just causes me to doubt
00:33:49.200like the whole thing basically um and so that was a big that was a big thing and with sunnis like
00:33:57.940you don't have that issue like there and then you when you actually study the hadith and you study
00:34:02.300hadith tradition and the method of preservation of the hadith then you see very clearly like okay
00:34:07.660that's a much more rigorous much more solid history of preserving hadith and um you know
00:34:15.900that it speaks for itself like you don't have hadith about the like that you see in al-kafi
00:34:21.980like when you compare and yeah so i mean that's and the fact that the thing is that the she themselves
00:34:29.820like the majority vast majority today acknowledge that your most authentic book has fabrications
00:34:35.260in it um that's i think a huge that's a big deal and that was one of the main reasons and then
00:34:42.780i became sunni and then the other thing sorry to make it long but the idea of imams also
00:34:49.020like when you think about it it doesn't exactly make sense because i thought that
00:34:53.980the whole idea is that the 12 imams they preserve first of all the 12 imams aren't found in the
00:35:00.780quran okay they're not mentioned in the quran so it's kind of strange that one of the main pillars
00:35:06.300of belief is not found in the quran like in islam we know like the pillars of you know the six
00:35:12.620pillars of belief right like the core of what makes you a muslim i thought there are five
00:35:16.460there are five pillars of islam like you you the five practices like the shahada
00:35:24.140prayers fasting and hajj yeah those are the five pillars of islam but the five the six pillars of
00:35:32.220iman like iman so the things that you have to believe and and shia believe this but they just
00:35:37.180have additional things so sunnis and shia they believe this anyone who is a muslim you believe
00:35:42.060in allah the angels the books the messengers the last day meaning the day of judgment and the
00:35:50.860hereafter and the qadr of allah the the qadr of allah which can be translated in different ways
00:35:57.420but it's like the uh pre-ordainment um you know allah has power every everything and knowledge
00:36:05.260over everything and ordains everything like the qadr of allah so those are the six pillars
00:36:10.060they're based all of them you can find them very clearly many verses in the0.99
00:36:14.200Quran obviously right but she'll say no but there's also Imams like you have to
00:36:20.200the 12 Imams that's that's part of being a Muslim like a correct true Muslim but
00:36:25.900it's not there like there's no doctrine of 12 Imams like Imam is mentioned yeah
00:36:30.580the idea of an Imam like the word Imam is mentioned but that's a far cry from
00:36:36.040the doctrine of 12 imams um and there are all descended from of descendants of the prophet
00:36:43.180peace be upon him so that that's one issue that the imama is not in the quran the second issue
00:36:49.120is that it doesn't really make sense like what is the purpose of imams like if you have a final
00:36:54.100prophet you have a final prophet he's bringing you the final message and the the revelation and
00:37:01.380his practice you have the quran and sunnah so what is the purpose of the prophet the imams and
00:37:06.940the shia will tell you that no the imams are not bringing anything new okay they're not bringing
00:37:12.980anything new new revelation the imams are there to give you the correct understanding of the quran
00:37:19.280and sunnah the correct understanding because if me and you try to interpret the quran or the
00:37:25.220statements of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam if me and you do it we have you know
00:37:29.560deficient intellect or deficient iman and so we'll make mistakes in the interpretation but the
00:37:36.04012 imams they are masoom like they are they have isma which means they are divinely protected from
00:37:42.460mistakes in interpretation and the prophets as sunnis we believe we know that the the prophets
00:37:49.800the messengers they have isma as well they're divinely protected from making mistakes and doing
00:37:55.000sins but the shia extend that to the imams and they say the imams also have isma they are also
00:38:01.160divinely protected from sins and mistakes and interpreting the quran so we need the imams
00:38:07.160because they are masoom uh and and that's why we need them in order to understand uh the quran and0.98
00:38:15.800sunnah that's their argument that's their so so you might think oh well that makes sense you know
00:38:21.960know that makes sense you have 12 imams the problem though is that well i don't have access
00:38:28.220to the 12 imams personally like do you know any of these imams personally you don't i don't we
00:38:36.200don't so where are we getting our information like even if we were she even if we were she
00:38:40.940we're following the 12 imams like where are we getting the teachings of the 12 imams it's still
00:38:45.680coming up to us through reports it's still coming to us through other people and those people aren't
00:38:51.220masoom like those intermediaries of that knowledge aren't masoom like they're not you know divinely
00:38:57.220protected they're just normal people so at the end of the day we're still getting things we're
00:39:02.480still getting knowledge of the religion through fallible people who can make mistakes so there's
00:39:10.580no difference between that and sunnism like do you get the point like there's a there's a gap like0.93
00:39:16.640um between us and the imams because the imams are not we're not like sitting at their feet and
00:39:24.380learning from them directly so there's not like there's not a connection to some infallible source0.99
00:39:30.800of religion in either case and we also talked a lot about wahhabis i want to say there's one
00:39:37.860funny thing about can i say the thing about medina sure so i i told uh daniel because i
00:39:44.420am getting uh actually i hit up sheikh with man i don't want to get into that some people in the
00:39:48.260chat are asking i love sheikh with man great friend great brother i don't want to get into
00:39:51.960the division stuff but i was thinking about you know what if i would study medina for some time
00:39:57.340and you know become better at quran because i am looking for a tutor and daniel's like don't go to
00:40:01.780medina don't go to just can you just say what you said i was like what's going on with studying
00:40:06.320medina i love medina it's one of my favorite cities yeah i love medina too but if you go to
00:40:12.060the islamic university of medina that's like just wahabi central it's like wahabi training grounds0.99
00:40:16.600it's like their propaganda center and so you're not going to and it doesn't even make sense to
00:40:23.060go there just to learn how to read quran like um you can learn how to read quran especially if
00:40:28.940you're in new york like there are plenty of people who can teach you in a sound authentic way um but
00:40:34.980yeah medina unfortunately it's occupied like this is occupied just like the u.s is occupied
00:40:41.920um unfortunately like the arabian peninsula is occupied so they are they um you will learn if
00:40:52.220you go to islamic universe of medina that you the number one thing is that you cannot criticize the
00:40:58.800government at all you can't criticize anything that the government of saudi arabia does or
00:41:04.500saudi arabia's allies do and um that's gonna and they're going to try to convince you that
00:41:11.740oh that's actually the sunnah that's actually the sunnah so that's the ideology of who that's
00:41:16.660the ideology of rabbi ferris um uh which is something that they invented like this was an
00:41:22.760idea that was invented in the 90s like that's when they really saudi really pushed this why
00:41:29.600because saudi was being used as a launching point in the gulf war against saddam hussein
00:41:35.700The United States was using Saudi land and airspace to launch a ground invasion against Iraq, and this met a lot of backlash because Muslims were saying against the Saudi monarchy that why are you using a Muslim land so close to Mecca and Medina, by the way?
00:41:58.860Why are you using our land to invite non-Muslims to come, the United States, to come and kill our Muslim brothers in Iraq?0.54
00:42:33.980We're like, we have to like, we don't want to lose power.
00:42:36.580We don't want people to get so upset that they overthrow us.
00:42:39.100So they started pushing this line, this idea that criticizing the ruler, criticizing the Saudi ruler or any of these Gulf countries' rulers that are aligned with us, that is equivalent to rebellion.
00:42:55.880And so if you criticize, like if you criticize Saudi for hosting these bases or participating in attacks against Iran or Iraq, or if Saudi decides tomorrow to normalize with Israel, like if you criticize any of this, that's equivalent to rebellion.
00:43:13.060That's a therefore it's it's equivalent to terrorism.0.86
00:43:15.980And the government, the Saudi government is justified in putting you in prison and even executing you.0.59
00:43:21.840So then what happened with me, like what happened with me about three years ago or almost four years ago is that I started criticizing Saudi for secularization projects and Vision 2030, where basically MBS is trying to secularize Saudi.
00:43:37.820They're bringing in – they're having Shakira concerts.0.70
00:43:40.240They're bringing on these kinds of like Coachella, Coachella for the Middle East, like this kind of degeneracy.
00:43:47.860they're um they had like this massive halloween celebration like people are dressing up in you0.94
00:43:54.760know whatever costumes and celebrating halloween christmas and they're supposed to be muslim and
00:44:00.020the saudi state is like actually facilitating all this so i was criticizing this i was criticizing
00:44:04.700that saudi went from a very religious country and now all those values are being eroded and you're0.95
00:44:11.460basically opening the doors to globo homo that was my critique and then i got it you know viciously0.99
00:44:18.820attacked like all these graduates of the islamic university of medina came out and said you're0.97
00:44:24.680doing huruj like you're a rebel you're a terrorist how dare you criticize the ruler don't you know0.59
00:44:30.420this is this makes you a deviant you're a heretic you're outside of the fold and like just a massive0.67
00:44:37.700media campaign against me simply because i'm criticizing the ruler of this country and
00:44:46.320they're false like this is false by the way this is just a invention like a political invention0.79
00:44:52.160there's nothing in islam that says don't criticize the ruler like in islam like we're supposed to0.88
00:44:58.280as you know enjoy the good and forbid the evil we're supposed to speak the truth even if it's0.99
00:45:03.520you know the it's bitter even if it's something that will bring us into danger we still have to0.94
00:45:08.600be brave and speak the truth especially against the tyrant when he's violating islam like when0.88
00:45:14.100he's violating justice when he's violating morality you have to you have to do that0.80
00:45:18.960enjoy the good and forbid the evil and if you don't do that then that's when corruption happens
00:45:23.180that's where problems happen for society when people stay silent and there are many examples
00:45:28.760in the quran of this so there's no asterisk or exception for the ruler like you can enjoy the
00:45:34.820good and it's funny because you have a lot of people the people who are constantly saying oh
00:45:38.440remove your tattoos take off your tattoos nico like they credit they're constantly criticizing
00:45:43.600you even though you're in the process of learning islam like they're the ones who are the very0.89
00:45:49.460critical of every detail of what you do but if the saudi king does much worse okay the saudi0.86
00:45:57.580government does much worse openly does much worse and is like working with israel and the united
00:46:02.880states that literally kill muslims you can't say a single word like you can't make a peep
00:46:08.700about that and even one of their big biggest scholars abdullah aziz al-raiz in saudi who0.95
00:46:16.460gives lectures like at these big mosques in medina mecca everywhere and he's like a palace scholar
00:46:23.200He says that even if the rule – like this was his infamous statement from this scholar.
00:46:28.660He said that even if the ruler every day comes on TV and like basically fornicates, like basically does porn on TV and that's broadcast and he drinks alcohol and that's on TV, you cannot criticize that.
00:46:44.920You cannot say shame on the ruler.0.98
00:46:47.500He shouldn't be banging women on TV.0.96
00:46:50.720Like you can't say anything against that.0.99
00:46:53.200And if you do, like, that makes you a deviant, like, and you can be executed for that.
00:47:04.660You know, I don't, we have, that's your.
00:47:09.680And I asked them, I asked them explicitly.
00:47:12.100I asked, hey, you know, if the, if the Saudi government says that Daniel should be killed tomorrow, like the ruler says, the king says Daniel should be taken out.
00:47:22.700would you agree with that and they said yes they said yes absolutely are you serious that that
00:47:29.820yeah yeah they were they were issuing death threats against me like people like people
00:47:35.120following this crazy ideology this is wahhabism like this is wahhabism for you and uh yeah you
00:47:42.700should be aware you should be aware that's why okay you don't want to mention uthman fine i won't0.67
00:47:47.140mention uthman but a certain person that you know that was great yeah great i'm sure0.69
00:47:52.520But he, I asked him to criticize the UAE, like criticize the UAE, just say that it's wrong for the UAE to normalize with Israel.0.71
00:48:01.380And there are reports now that Netanyahu actually was visiting UAE personally, like flying to the UAE and meeting up with the ruler there, the king there.
00:48:14.520And I asked, you know, this, this day, this preacher condemned the UAE.
00:49:41.000and allah doesn't want you to do hajj you're not going to do hajj it's all in the hands of allah
00:49:46.200it's not in the hands of any kind of worldly person or authority so yeah may allah um facilitate
00:49:52.600that for us and i'd love to go to hajj with you of course inshallah i love saudi dubai is great
00:49:59.760place and no uh you know it's uh you gotta so um okay well where does this go from here because
00:50:11.800jang i was watching his lectures and he keeps saying that the uae's finished but it seems like
00:50:16.780they recovered decently well it doesn't seem like it's all doom and gloom where does the gcc go from
00:50:22.100here it's not clear um i i'm not optimistic about where especially the uae like maybe a saudi
00:50:31.880has better options but the uae has come out so strongly in favor of this alliance with israel
00:50:40.920and they basically don't care it seems like they don't care if they're like the black sheep and0.86
00:50:47.180that's why they pulled out like the OPEC. They might pull out of the GCC itself. Like they're
00:50:53.620not they have basically pledged allegiance to Israel, to Tel Aviv. And so things are going to
00:51:01.920be bad for them in particular. But the rest of the Gulf countries, it just is a matter of how
00:51:07.080long Iran can hold the strait because Saudi is really desperate. Like they put on a brave face.
00:51:13.400They claim that they could survive without using the straight like they can use pipelines to get oil through their Western side.
00:51:20.820But behind closed doors, they're begging Trump to like make a deal like and that's part of why Trump went to China just just the other day yesterday is because he's getting pressure from these GCC countries saying that we're dying here and we need a change.
00:51:39.700Like, Iran has the strait and they're not allowing our oil to get out.
00:52:03.340Like, there could be – the people there are great.
00:52:05.400and you know i can understand people wanting to speak about the leadership i'm not getting 7k
00:52:11.140from saudi i keep people saying that it's just it's just it's i want to keep i'm not someone
00:52:16.660said tommy rubenshine's getting paid by the uaes that's that's not true yeah he was wasn't he like
00:52:23.220a uh he was an honored guest to the uae oh yeah i did like he he got like he was there and then
00:52:30.660there was like a massive outcry and then like the uae i think you know deported him but it was only
00:52:37.260after a massive outcry but you know how was he issued the visa in the first place like how did
00:52:42.480he actually get into the uae you have idf soldiers that are going and vacationing in the uae like
00:52:49.520netanyahu is going there like it's just uh open door policy with the uae but like someone like me
00:52:56.240no so like me is like in danger they're gonna like arrest me as if i set foot in in the airport
00:53:02.820like that's you think i'm cooked double standards i have i just went to saudi but everything was
00:53:06.800fine a lot of saudis were upset when the war started i was speaking positive things and i
00:53:11.520was saying that you know allah says to stand with the oppressed and iran is fighting back against
00:53:16.440israel they were saying that i should get banned so do you think that there's potential for that
00:53:21.060to happen uh maybe there's potential in the future right now i guess they're not making that move so
00:53:30.300but in the future they might if you just keep insisting on unity like that's their big problem
00:53:35.440like that's the big problem that they have because it undermines them like they the thing about
00:53:41.940saudi's history you have to realize is that they are afraid of any kind of islamist islamic movement
00:53:48.480why because they're a monarchy and the idea of a islamic movement or islamic government that
00:53:55.720threatens them and when you had a revolution in iran in 1979 that was like very scary because0.53
00:54:03.020they're like okay this is a revolution you had a king the shah of iran and he's being replaced by0.73
00:54:08.760a religious government we we have a king we have a monarchy we don't want to be replaced
00:54:12.960So immediately, Saudi allied with the United States to counterpressure Iran.
00:54:20.100And there is a lot of evidence to show that Saudi was supporting Saddam Hussein to launch a war in 1980 against Iran.
00:54:29.380Like as soon as Iran becomes like Islamic Republic, 1979, they immediately get into war in 1980.
00:54:36.320Saddam Hussein in Iraq borders Iran launched an attack on Iran.
00:54:42.960and saudi was backing him saudi and the united states was were backing him and this was a long
00:54:49.500war like a million over a million deaths like it lasted nine years almost 10 years this war between
00:54:55.700iraq and iran and that's what like all the chemical weapons that saddam had like the weapons of mass
00:55:01.040destruction that the u.s was claiming that he had to justify invading in 2003 bush if you remember
00:55:07.100um that was those were chemical weapons that he got from the u.s
00:55:11.380so tom got those weapons from the u.s and that led to the first gulf war the second gulf war etc
00:55:17.580but the saudi is like very deeply concerned about any kind of islamic movement so if you
00:55:23.060come on and start preaching we need unity as muslims we need you that's like a polit that's
00:55:30.040inherently political message and it freaks out you know the this government the saudi monarchy
00:55:37.040And so they can't say the Saudi monarchy can't come and say that we're against Islamic politics.
00:55:43.060They can't openly say that because they also want to have legitimacy, like Islamic legitimacy, because they have a deeply religious society.0.77
00:55:52.260So what they do is they deploy these agents like these Wahhabi agents and the Wahhabi agents want to constantly counter signal unity.0.89
00:56:03.320they want to say that no we cannot ally with iran because they're shia we also can't ally with the0.95
00:56:10.200palestinian resistance the palestinian resistance we can't ally with why because they're grave0.70
00:56:15.220worshipers quote unquote okay like some b some bs accusation against the palestinian resistance
00:56:22.080and we can't ally with um other sunni groups because they're ikhwan or they like some other
00:56:30.160reason so muslims have to just be like the true muslims are just the ones who are allied with0.74
00:56:37.780saudi arabia and everyone else is a deviant or a heretic or a non-muslim we can never have unity0.92
00:56:44.360because they don't have the right aqidah so this is i don't know if you saw there was a clip0.96
00:56:50.340that i posted of muhammad hijab saying that this is like a tia project like this is a u.s based
00:56:57.220project of creating nonstop division and infighting in civil war to like constantly nitpick
00:57:03.780oh your akidah is this your akidah is that therefore we can't have unity
00:57:07.620um but it like serves the interests of the powers in these countries
00:57:12.320that's unfortunate and yeah it's it's just not it's just not ideal it's just not ideal and the
00:57:20.200sudan genocide is horrible and i think a lot more people it's just we don't see as much information
00:57:25.560about that than we do about Gaza. So moving to China and this Trump visit, and when we were
00:57:32.400speaking, I could tell you're a lot more geopolitically versed than a lot of your videos
00:57:36.400show. Not saying that you're not, or that it's not giving you credit, but you just don't speak
00:57:42.180about it as much as I think you could be. Why is Trump in China? It's because he needs to find a
00:57:48.500new way to boost the economy. It's to save the GCC. What's the objective? Because he's there
00:57:52.420with 30 CEOs, a bunch of billionaires came with them, Elon Musk. You have Larry Fink, CEO of
00:57:58.220BlackRock. You have Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. What is the objective?
00:58:06.100There's definitely an economic objective. There's also a geopolitical objective with Iran.
00:58:12.740They're trying to pressure Iran from the China side, since other avenues haven't really worked