Author: AlbanFejza

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. People use so many times their lack of knowledge as an argument for the existence of God. For example, many religious people argue that no one knows how rain really happens. God just sends it from the sky, and since we don’t have another explanation for it, then God sent it. So, these types of people think of God as dealing with only unexplainable things. In philosophy, this is known as the “god of the gaps”, meaning that wherever there are knowledge gaps, religious people will fill them with their god. Unfortunately, this has been true so often, across time, and it has given the non-religious people an excuse not to believe in God, because once the explanations for those things are found, then they say, “See, God didn’t do it.” But their argument is wrong also. So, let us take an example and explain how we should not use gaps in knowledge as arguments for God, and also why once we can explain those gaps, they should not reduce our faith in God, but only increase our appreciation for God.

Now, let’s say that you order toys on internet for your child, let’s say from Amazon, which is a distribution company, and let’s say that the child doesn’t know where the toys are coming from. Now, he or she asks? Where do toys come from? You tell them, “from Amazon”. Now, you believe that Amazon exists because you know, but the child believes that Amazon exists because he does not know where else they could come from.  So, it’s not his knowledge which is causing him to believe in Amazon, but his gaps in knowledge which are causing him to believe. Now let’s say that one day, while that child is watching outside of the window, sees a man, let’s say he is also a distant neighbor, and sees him dropping a package at the door. The child goes out, takes the package, opens it, and sees a toy. Now, he comes to you, and says. You have been lying to me. There is no such thing as Amazon. Our neighbors bring my toys. He totally disregards the fact that the neighbor can also be an Amazon employee. Had that neighbor not existed, that toy would still get there, but had Amazon not sent it, the toy would not get there. So, once the child sees part of how the toy got there, if he is not appreciative and trustworthy of you, he will conclude that you are a liar, but if he trusts that you might know even more, he will conclude that the neighbor is part of how Amazon works.

And the same thing with rain. After the scientists know how rain works, at least a few of them, instead of concluding that God has nothing to do with it, they should conclude that the raining system is just part of how God does things. After all, the Quran does not deny that God sends rain within a system. For example, verse 30:48 says, “GOD is the One who sends the winds, to stir up clouds, to be spread throughout the sky in accordance with His will. He then piles the clouds up, then you see the rain coming down therefrom…”

And actually there is a logical way to reach a conclusion the same as this verse. Let’s say if you found a very smart man in the past, even if he was not a weather scientist, he would be able to conclude how rain works just by observing and thinking. Here is how: Let’s simplify the logic so we can express it with a few words, but this is the basic logic to understand how rain works. First, we would have to observe the sky, and see when it rains. We will notice that whenever it rains there are dark clouds. So, we conclude that rain only comes after dark clouds. Now we watch the sky for many years and try to find dark clouds. What we will notice is that we can see a single white cloud alone in the sky, but we will never see only one small dark cloud in the sky. So, the conclusion is that dark clouds always come in bunches, many clouds on top of one another, but never alone. However, we can see that clouds are not attached to one another and they move quite sporadically. Since that is the case, chances are that if dark cloud existed, we would quite often see a single dark cloud alone in the sky, but we never do. This means that dark clouds are a function of the number of clouds or the density of clouds, and not a true color in itself. This is true. There are no dark clouds. All clouds are always white. If you travel with a long distance airplane, which travels above the clouds, and you look directly down from the plane window, during midday, you can travel the whole world and you will never see a dark cloud. All of them are white. They took pictures of the whole earth from space, and all the clouds are white. No dark clouds. But then, why sometimes some of the clouds look dark from below. Well, we already concluded that dark clouds only come in bunches but never alone, so maybe one cloud is making the other cloud look dark. And the explanation is simple. One cloud is shielding the other cloud from the sun, and the lower cloud looks dark. So, whenever we see dark clouds, all of them are white, but there are simply two piles of clouds, and the top clouds are shielding the bottom clouds from the sun, and the bottom ones now look dark, and in most cases we don’t see the upper clouds, because the bottom cloud is preventing us to see it. And the difference is exaggerated even more in our mind, because we have no other objects in the sky to compare the colors, and see that the dark clouds are actually not that dark. For example, if there was a completely white airplane flying in the sky during that time, you would notice that it looks darker than the dark clouds. But anyway, what we have concluded is that piled clouds create the illusion of dark clouds. Now, we already know that rain only comes after “dark clouds”, but now we know that there are no such things as dark clouds, then we must conclude that rain only comes after piled clouds, because what appears to be dark clouds, always is just piled clouds on top of one another. So, then why does one layer of clouds not result in rain, but two layers of clouds result in rain. So, let’s explore further: After it rains, the clouds disappear. They don’t travel away. They just vanish. This means that the clouds did not release the rain. Clouds were transformed into rain. The clouds were the rain, rain in much smaller water droplets. This means that clouds are actually water. We’ll explain later why they are white, but they are water, just like any other water, plain water, all clouds. So, if they are floating water in the air, then why that water only falls when two clouds happen to get on top of one another, but it does not fall when there is only one layer of clouds. Of course, we am simplifying because two layers can join and create one dense layer, and things are more complicated and continuous in reality, but for explanation purposes, we are separating it in a distinct idea to keep it simple. So, why two layers of clouds lead to rain, while one layer does not. Well it’s because the top layer creates a shadow for the bottom layer, and enables the microscopic water droplets to cool down, and they become denser when they cool down, and start gradually moving downwards, and the ones from the top of the lower cloud as they move down merge with other microscopic water molecules, like a snowball effect, the more they move down, the more water they collect, and they are connected until they merge with so many other molecules to create a water droplet. The water droplet because of the surface tension stays together, and now it is finally heavier than the air and falls down. So, there you have it. That’s how rain happens. But the question is, why do the droplets stay up in the air when they are microscopically small, but they fall when they make larger visible water droplet. Well, the truth is that water molecules are always lighter than the air. Water molecules are 2 hydrogens atoms and one oxygen atom, while air molecules are two oxygen atoms. Oxygen is 16 times heavier than hydrogen. And the air has two oxygen atoms, which is 32 times as heavy as hydrogen, while in comparison the atomic weight of the water molecule is only 18. So, water molecules are almost twice as light as the air molecules. So, their natural way is to float in the air, clouds, but they have this feature that when water molecules meet one another, they stay together, while air molecules, when they meet one another, they still stay separately. It similar to how a feather might float in the air, but a pillow with feathers does not float in the air, because now the feathers are held together by one outside layer of the pillow, which in the case of the water droplets, that outside layer is called surface tension. And this also explains difference in the color of the clouds vs. the water. It’s exactly the same material. Just water. But in the clouds, it’s separated water molecules, separated by molecules of the air in between, and in ground water, it is merged water molecules without any other molecules in between, and in the clouds, because it is separated water molecules, then when the light hits them, there are so many borders through which it has to pass, and it scatters much more, and scattered light in many directions is white light, but when they merge together, the light has to pass only through two borders through the water droplet and it does not change the direction much, except in the rainbow, but that’s another issue. So light changes direction at the borders of things, and if there are too many such borders, they will scatter light in so many directions, and we will perceive that thing as white. So, continuous water is transparent water, while detached water molecules seem white. The same thing happens with glass. When glass molecules are continuous, the glass seems transparent. If you shatter it into millions of pieces, then that glass will appear white. So, you can think of clouds like shattered water, shattered so much, that even the wind lifts them up in the sky, and keeps them there, until another cloud covers it. Of course, again, we are ignoring many other factors, like the need for some dust to start the process of rain, and things like that, but you can see now that it is possible to understand the rain logically. Now, just because, we can finally explain it, it does not mean that God is not doing it. God does what we see and what we don’t see, what we understand and what we don’t understand. In the Quran, God says, “I swear by what you see, and what you don’t see.” So, both what we see and what we don’t see are arguments for God.

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. As we know, the human being consists of a soul and a body. They both grow in size and in age. The size and the age of the body are correlated, but they are not 100% correlated. Bodies stop growing after a while, while the age of the body keeps increasing. However, with souls age and size are the same thing, because souls grow towards the future. Bodies grow in space, but souls grow in time beyond space, and when souls grow in other dimensions, what happens is that they grow towards the future, and God willing, we will explain more about this in another video, but here let me just focus on the stages of growth of the soul. As, the soul grows towards the future it passes through certain thresholds to enter another stage.

So, the first threshold is the age of the body itself, and then the second threshold is the age of body at moment of death, and then the third threshold is the time when the End of the World will come, and then the fourth threshold is the time when the Judgment happens. So, these are specific threshold, which if the soul passes through them, as it travels towards the future, it enters another stage. The soul can pass all these points in time, even if the body is not there yet. So, the soul can grow towards the future and pass these thresholds, before the body gets there. So, now here are the stages of the soul: The blue lines represent the souls, while the black lines represent the stage thresholds.

If the soul is smaller than the age of the body, that soul is an unhappy soul. As this universe together with that body travel towards the future, they are actually dragging the soul behind it. This soul is always in a wanting stage. This soul is a soul which remained behind compared to the body.

Now, if the soul is bigger than the age of the body, then that soul is a submitter, a happy soul. So, because this stage depends on the age of your body, this means that it is much harder for an older body to become a submitter than a younger body. So, an old person is less likely to convert into submission, if he did not become a submitter in his youth, because the soul has to be much bigger to reach the stage of submission when the body is old.

So, again, a submitting soul is bigger than the age of the body, and this means that the soul precedes the body into the future. When the body reaches that point in the future, the soul has already been there, and this is reflected in dreams. The soul is disconnected from the body when we sleep, and sees future events, and then at the moment of reconnection, when we wake up, some of that information leaks, but the mind does not have all the necessary intricacies to make sense of what it just saw from the soul, so it distorts that information, and that’s a dream, but this is a whole issue in itself, for another video.

Now, if your soul is bigger than, not just the current age of the body, but beyond the whole life of the body, beyond the point where the body will die, that soul is a believer. A lot of submitters reach this stage before they die, and all submitters reach it at the moment of death. It’s called the point of certainty in the Quran. This soul gives priority to the next life over this life, if it has reached this stage before the body died.

Now, if a soul grows so big, that it not only passes the point in the future where his body will die, but it also passes the point when the world will end, this soul becomes a messenger. That soul has contacted beyond this world.

And, if a soul becomes so big, that it, not only passes the End of the World, but also beyond the Messianic age, beyond the year 3320, to the Judgement Day, then that soul becomes a prophet. Of course, the year 3320 does not really exist, because we will stop counting the years beyond 2280, because the sun will be destroyed in 2280, but if we imagine that the years will exist even after that, if we imagine that, then the Judgment Day will come in the year 3320. Basically, the surface of the earth is destroyed in 2280, and then there are 40 years of rest in the graves, while it will be raining, after which people start to get resurrected, like plants out of the wet ground, and then there are 1000 more years of living on this Earth during the Messianic Age, which would bring us to the hypothetical year 3320. Anyway, any soul who reaches all the way there, that person is a prophet.

Now let’s go over some examples of soul sizes based on what we said. Abraham lived around 1900 B.C. Since he was a prophet, this means that he, as a soul, was at least 5220 years big. Muhammad, as a soul, must have been at least 2750 years big. The disciples of Jesus, messengers, but not prophets, they must have been at least 2250 years big. Rashad Khalifa, as a soul, must have been at least 345 years big. Alban, as a soul, must be at least 296 years big. The Last Messenger, the Mahdi will be about at least 40 years big, or just a little bit more. As you can see, the generations closer to the End of the World tend to have smaller souls. This means that a lot of submitters today, some of you actually have bigger souls than the Last Messenger – the Mahdi. Your soul is bigger than the age of your body, if you are submitter. And if you are believer, and let’s assume that you will live about 80 years, then your soul is about 80 years, at least, The people before the end of the world will all be smaller souls compared to us, and this why the last messenger with a soul just above 40 years big will be suitable for that generation. By the way, this means that for example, an 80-year-old submitter just before the End of the World will have a bigger soul than the Mahdi. Which means that there will be thousands of submitters who will have bigger souls than the Mahdi when the Mahdi comes, but it just happens that the soul of the Mahdi will be the one who reached the End of the World first, while the other bigger souls, because they were born earlier, did manage to reach the End of the World. So, no person who is younger than a messenger can be better than a messenger, but in theory a person who is older than a messenger can be better than a messenger. But this is only in theory, and it happens with the Mahdi, and will happen only with a couple of submitters who will be better souls than the Strengthening Messenger, but for generations who are too far from the End of the World, this is statistically impossible. So, Alban is the last messenger who is the best soul of his generation. Alban and all the other messengers before him were the biggest souls of our own generation. Rashad was the biggest soul of his generation, Muhammad was the biggest soul of his generation, Moses was the biggest soul of his generation, and so on. Regardless of the fact that Rashad said some people can be better than messengers, but in reality he was just being humble, and the example which he took with Moses and the other servant of God does not really apply, because that other servant of God was not a human being. He was an angel. He must have been an angle, because he, as a believer, took the life of an innocent boy, and only angels are given authority to take lives of innocent children, and still remain believers. So, Moses was actually the best soul of his generation. So all messengers are the biggest souls of their generation, except for the two messengers who come after me. The Strengthening Messenger and the Guide Messenger. And even that can only happen with people who are older than the messengers. So, there will probably be a few strong believers who have actively supported me, and when they get old, they will be bigger souls than the next messenger, and with the Last Messenger, a lot of old believers, thousands of them will fulfill this criterion. So, it will make sense for the Strengthening Messenger to heavily consider the opinions of the strong believers who supported me, and for the Mahdi, it will be so important, that it will be an almost democratic way of making decisions by considering the opinions of the older believers. And this will be suitable for that times, because at that time politics and religion will merge, which is one way to understand why those souls will be so small. Only small souls can succeed in politics.

Now, back to the difference between prophets and messengers. Because the souls of the prophets are 1040 years bigger than the souls of the messengers, this means that the prophets which are mentioned in the Quran were for a short while messengers until they, as souls, grew enough to become prophets. And for most cases this was a short period of time, and for most prophets this happened in isolation. So, they were chosen messengers, lived somewhere in the dessert outside of the society, for a short while contemplating what had happened with them, and meditating, and then they became prophets by the end of that experience. For example, there are historical reports that Muhammad started seeing dreams which came true the next day, and during that time he went to a cave near Mecca to contemplate, and this happened for about six months before he became a prophet, before the Quran was revealed to him. So, there were six months during which Muhammad was a messenger, but not a prophet, and for most other prophets, the situation was similar.

In the case of Moses, we can more clearly see the difference in time between his messengership and his prophethood. He was a messenger for quite some time before he became a prophet. When he was sent to Pharaoh, he was only a messenger. Moses is always mentioned as a messenger when he was sent to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and then once the Children of Israel got freed, and went into the dessert, that’s when God chose Moses to be a prophet and revealed the scripture to him, because the scripture was meant for the Children of Israel, not for the Pharaohs. God willing, the differences between prophets and messengers will be explained in another sermon.  Of course, we already know that a messenger is someone who is told specific news from the future, while a prophet is someone who is given a scripture, but there are other differences which emerge from that.

Anyway, these are the stages of soul growth, and the Quran in Sura 84, verses 16-19, says, “I solemnly swear by the rosy dusk. And the night as it spreads. And the moon and its phases. You will move from stage to stage.”, and it is talking to all believers here. So, we, the believers, will all also pass all these stages, but most of us will pass the later stages after we get resurrected, during the Messianic Age. We will be given light and we will become at least 1000 years big as souls, and because the Judgment will be less than 1000 years away, we will all be able to be as prophets were in this world. All of us purified and all of us will have direct access to God’s word. Prophets are people who have direct access to God’s word, and in the next world all believers will have direct access to God’s word.

So, in other words, a prophet is simply a submitter who passes all the stages of soul growth before he dies, while the other submitters will pass some of those stages here, and the rest of those stages in the next life.

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. According to Rashad Khalifa’s rough estimate, 90% of the Bible is divine truth. In this sermon let me show you how to increase that accuracy to 99% with minimal efforts. And this is possible because the errors in the Bible do not come in many small different places, but they come in just a few large chunks. Basically, many books in the Bible are almost completely true, while a few other books are completely human-made, so all we need to do is identify those books, and we increase the accuracy to 99%.

But first let’s familiarize ourselves with the concept of Biblical Canon. In the past, learned people would write books, and a lot of those books were religious books, and not all of them were necessarily divinely inspired books. Some books were books of prophets. Others books were books of scribes, and others were books for teaching purposes for students. And all those books were called “bibles”. Bible simply means book. Once in a while, religious authorities gathered and decided which books are God-inspired and which books are not God-inspired. And this process of selecting the books is called canonization. Here are 104 books of the Bible which have been canonized by at least one Christian or Jewish sect.

Some of them are human made, so the Greek Orthodox Christians more correctly canonized only 81 of them, and declared the others human-made, and then from that the Catholics even more correctly canonized only 73 of them, and declared the others human-made, and then from that the Protestants more correctly canonized only 66 of them, which are the green ones, and declared the others human made:

So here again is the list of only those Bible books as printed today:

So, when you go on the internet and try to read the Bible in English, most likely you will be reading this Bible with 66 canonized books, and it’s by far the dominant Bible version in the English Speaking world, because the Protestant Churches, and the Anglican Church are the dominant Christian sects in the English Speaking World, and they have this Bible with 66 book. And in this Bible with 66 books, almost all the books are books which were initially God-inspired, and only a few of them are human inspired. However, before we clean the Bible further, let’s just reorganize it a little bit. First of all, the book of Ezra and Nehemiah, are one book in the Hebrew Bible,

so let’s merge them together as seen below.

Second, the two books of Chronicles are also found as one books in the Hebrew Version of the Old Testament. So, let’s merge them into one book also, as seen below:

Also, bellow we colored in red the books from Romans to Philemon because they are just letters written by Paul to the early groups of Christians around the Mediterranean region.

All of these red books above together actually are about as long as just one of the other books. For example, only the book of Psalms is long as all these other letters put together. They should be merged together into one book, which we can “Paul’s letters”, as seen below in red.

Similarly, the books of Peter, and the books of John, the five of them should be merged into two separate books, as seen below (in green and brown):

Now, after we merged the books which should be merged, let’s present the books of the same Bible, but with a different number of books, although it contains the same material as the one which is in existence among Protestants today. So, here is a Bible with the same material, but split into only 48 separate books (instead of 66):

Now, when these books were compiled and included in the canon, the people who created the canonized Bible, either Jews of the past, or the Christians, they were primarily concerned with preserving their Jewishness or Christianity, and their ultimate motive was not to define which books are from God and which books are not from God, but their motive was to include the books which define Jewishness or Christianity. So, they included everything which fit within their Jewishness or their Christianity. They did not think that it is important to distinguish which books were written by prophets, which books were written by messengers, and which books were written by scribes. However, they knew that. They were aware of that classification, and it is still known today. So, the books which were written by scribes are the dark red books below, and the Jews know it. The light red ones below were written by Ezra, who was a famous scribe who wrote for Cyrus the Great, the King of the First Persian Empire.

Cyrus ordered Ezra, as a very learned scholar, to write all the history of the Jews, and to write also a useful biography for the times of the Cyrus, which Ezra did, and they are the two light red books above – The Chronicles and Ezra 1 and 2. They were written under the command of the King of Persia, not under the command of God. And even from the content you can notice that. The book of Chronicles is simply a summary of the books before it, a short retelling of the other books in the Bible. It’s just a summary of the Bible intended for the King of Persia to read. This book just repeats the main points from the earlier books of the Bible. So, the two light red books above are history books, but they do not belong in the Bible. The other books which also do not belong in the Bible are the five dark red books. They are called the Five Megillot according to the Jewish compilers of the canon, which means “The Five Scrolls”, which is a different term used to distinguish it from the Torah and the Prophetic books. These five scrolls are simply Jewish songs or poems which the Jews used to sing or recite during their holidays, and after centuries of singing, someone decided to write them, and included them in the Bible. Again, even from their content, you can notice that they should not be included in the Bible. For example, the book titled “Song of Solomon” is actually just full of love songs which one of the Kings after Solomon sang to his wives. This book belongs in the Bible as much as Justin Bieber songs. They are just love song towards women. The book of Ecclesiastes is also attributed to Solomon, which could be, but not as God’s prophet. This book is a pessimistic philosophy which simply teaches that life has no meaning. It’s the same thoughts which a drug addict would get when they have increased their doses so much, that the drugs do not get them high anymore, or a king who feels no satisfaction anymore, because he felt everything positive that he could possibly feel in life, and then finds no purpose in life anymore. The books of Esther, Ruth, and Lamentations are again just stories, of non-Jewish people, or the Jews lamenting their losses, which entered in their popular culture as songs, and then later were written.

So all the red-highlighted books above are written by scribes, but not by Prophets or messengers, and the Jewish scholars know this, but they include them anyway, but, of course, they do not belong in the Bible. The other books which do not belong in the Bible are the books above highlighted in orange. Actually, most of those orange books were written by messengers, but they were not intended as books to be included in the Bible. For example, Rashad Khalifa, wrote the book titled “Quran, Hadith, and Islam”, which is a nice book, but we don’t include it as part of the Quran. Similarly, the orange books above are nice books, but we should not include them as part of the Bible. Only the books of Prophets should be part of the Bible, and the Quran is the last of those books. So, now let’s respectfully remove the highlighted non-prophetic books. Of course, they should be kept as very important books of history, and not be lost, but they should not included in the Bible. And by adding the last book of the Bible, which is the Quran, we have the purified Bible, with only true prophetic books, as seen below:

This Bible is 99% correct. 99% of the information in this Bible is correct. God allowed about 1% of it to be changed, because those previous books became non-mandatory anyway, after the times and circumstances changed. So, God would not reveal another book, until a little bit of the previous book was changed or lost. So, because the Quran is the last book, it must be the only book which is 100% correct. So, the correct way to think of it, is not to see the Quran as one book, and the Bible as another book, but to see the Quran as one of the books of the Bible, the last book of the Bible, the only book of the Bible which is still 100% correct, and the content of which is the summary of all the previous books of the Bible. So, this Bible which is shown above is the same as the Bible which is predominantly available around the world, except that we removed about 10% of it, the part which was not of Prophets, and we added 10% of it which was missing, which is the Quran, which is from the last prophet. So, the Quran is the last 10% of this Bible, which is why verse 34:45 in the Quran, if you read it in the Arabic, one of the things it says is that this generation is given only one tenth as much scripture compared to the previous generations. The Quran has about 77,000 words, while the Bible has 10 times more words.

So, now let’s classify these true books of the Bible into three classes as seen below divided into the green, blue, and white books:

So, we have Mandatory Books which is the Quran, the green one. Then we have the very useful books which are not mandatory anymore – the blue ones. The first five blue books were revealed to Moses, the Psalms were revealed to David, and the Proverbs was revealed to Solomon, and then we have the last two blue books which are the Gospel, revealed to Jesus. Now, the Gospel in the Bible is recorded four different times by different scribes, Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John. And because Mathew, Mark, and Luke, are pretty much the same book repeated three different times by three different people, they have mostly the same material, and if you just read Luke, it is the same as reading the other too books as well, because Luke is slightly longer, and includes mostly what Mathew and Mark have, and a little bit more. While the book of John still tells the same story, but from a slightly different angle, concentrating more on Jesus as the word of God, and de-emphasizing his human side, which is an important different angle of the same truth. So, reading these two books from the Gospel is almost the same as reading all four of them. And the rest of the books in this Bible (the white ones) are books which are 99% true, but they deal mostly with information which belongs to the past, and not relevant for us anymore. For, example a lot of them just prophecy what will happen to the Jews within a few years, and almost all those prophecies are now to our past, and not relevant to us anymore, because almost none of us are Jews, and none of us live in the past. So, actually, if you just read these 10 colored books of the Bible, the blue ones and the green one, then you have read everything you need to know from the books which God revealed.

Of course, the books before the Quran, even when they are true, they are not necessarily applicable to us, which is why we should not use the other books as the ultimate source of reaching our conclusions. For example, both the books before the Quran and the Quran say that wine has both benefits and evil in it. However, during the ancient times the benefits of wine outweighed the evil, while in our current times, the evil of wine outweighs its benefits.  One of the benefits of wine is that it allows you to preserve grapes for a long time, and have those nutrients during the whole year, instead of just during one month. However, this benefit is not necessary anymore, because we have better preservation techniques, with freezers, and special types of packaging which keep the fruit juices drinkable for many years. So, the benefits of wine have decreased. Now, regarding the evil part, it has increased. The evil parts of wine are that it incites people to take risks and engage in vain reckless behavior. Now, had we been in the past, with no lighting during the night, where genders were separated, there were no cars, and no guns, the risks of wine mainly included simply falling asleep, and saying a few bad words to your brother, and that’s it, but today the risks of wine include having an accident with your car, or firing a gun, or many other things like that, and when you add all of them up, their evil outweighs the benefits. Some people think that they can avoid the evil parts even today. For example, they say, ‘I don’t drink and drive.” Well, you can decide not to drink and drive before you drink, but after you drink, the drinking changes your attitude, and then after you drink you start thinking, “It doesn’t matter if I drive. I am not that drunk anyway.” So, it is really not possible today to avoid the evil aspects of wine, unless you just don’t drink at all. Also, in the past, wine was only very diluted low alcohol wine, because they mixed it with water before they drank it, and today people have developed methods to keep much more alcohol in the wine, which makes it more evil than in the past. So, this is just one example, why the books of the Bible before the Quran can be risky to reach conclusions from them, even though they are true. It’s because some of those circumstances have changed. Actually, most of the circumstances are the same. However, it requires a deep analysis to understand which of those few circumstances have changed and how, and unless you are an expert of all of that history, then you are taking a risk, when you rely in those previous books. So, the books of the Bible are true, but it is slightly risky to reach conclusions from them. What we can do instead is to reach conclusions by using the Quran alone, and then we might find some interesting points in the other books of the Bible which supports that conclusion, and simply use it to emphasize the Quranic point even more, or maybe the wording in the Bible might be more interesting to stress a particular point.

Another misunderstanding, which people who read the Bible and the Quran have, is the perception of who Jesus was. This misperception mostly comes from the fact that the Bible and the Quran focus on two different aspects of Jesus. The Gospel speaks of Jesus as a soul, as the word of God, while the Quran speaks of Jesus as a body, as the son of Mary. The Quran almost always says “the son of Mary” whenever it mentions Jesus, to tell us that it is talking about the body of Jesus, because what comes out of a woman is the body, but what comes out God is the soul. So, the Gospel mostly speaks about Jesus, the soul, while the Quran mostly speaks about Jesus, the body. They are both correct. The Quran does not deny the Biblical Jesus, if you think of Jesus as a soul. It denies the blasphemies against him which were latter attributed to him, outside of the Bible, by latter Christian doctrines. But, the Jesus of the Bible and the Quran is just two aspects of the same person, the soul and the body. There are some additional misunderstandings because of mistranslations, but that is another issue.

So, these are the books of the Bible, about 99% of it intact, and the last book in it is the Quran, the only book which is still 100% intact:

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. A lot of people when they initially start to read the Quran, or during the early stages when they have read it a few times, they will sometimes be interested about a certain issue, and they will start to get this feeling that the Quran is unclear about those issues. And very often they assume that they are not able to understand it because of language barriers. So they think to themselves, if only I could understand Arabic, then I would be able to understand exactly what the Quran is saying here about this issue. What they don’t realize is that the perception of unclarity comes from language barriers only in about 5% of the cases. But, they are not aware of this, so they start to check different translations, and then they see that the translators have translated the same verse in so many different ways, and then this start to be a source of doubt for them. But again the reality is that, even when the translations are different, usually all of them are correct in that issue. They just capture a different aspect of that verse. For example, let’s say that the Arabic Quran said, “Take your vehicle when you travel to faraway places”. Now let’s say that the Arabic language has the word vehicle, but the English language does not have it. Now, one translator will say, “Take your car, if he is from U.S.”, The other translator might say “Take your bike, if he is from India”, or the other one might say, “Take the bus”, if he is from London. And all of them are right. Just because on translator said, “Take the bus.”, it does not exclude the other translators from being correct, when they say take the car. After all, the word, “vehicle” includes buses and cars, and motorbikes, and trains, and so on. So, all of the translators are almost always right. But, anyway, when the person doesn’t understand the Arabic directly, it is easy for him or her to conclude that the uncertainty comes from the language barrier, but usually the language barrier is only about 5% of the cases of apparent unclarity. 95% of the apparent unclarity comes from other reasons, and the biggest one of them, about 40% of it, is intentional.

And here is what we mean by that: In other books, which are not the Quran, you can find important information which are clear, or unimportant information which are not clear, or clear information which are not important, or unclear information which are important. All these combinations can not happen in the Quran. The Quran is the only book in the world, where everything which is clear is always important, and everything which is unclear is always unimportant. So, every unclear thing in the Quran is always unimportant, and every unimportant thing in the Quran is always unclear. You can not find anything in the Quran which should be important which is unclear, and you can not fund anything in the Quran which is clear, which is unimportant. So, in the Quran, clarity and importance are the same thing. Now, if you want to know something from the Quran which seems unclear, first of all you need to know that it’s not important. It’s your problem if you think that it is important, but it’s not. For example, let’s say that you want to know whether you should enter the mosque with your right foot first or with your left foot first. You will not be able find it in the Quran clearly, and that’s because it is not important. Had it been important, it would have been clear in the Quran. So, the less important an issue is, the less clear it seems, and the less clear it seems, the more people come with many different versions of it, and then the ignorant people insist on one version, and then they cause debates and arguing with one another, and that’s how ignorant people when they are allowed to elevate the unimportant topics cause divisions. See, the difference between an ignorant submitter and a smart submitter is not the amount of information which they have. Because even ignorant people can absorb as much information as smart people. However, the difference between ignorant submitters and wise submitters is that ignorant submitters don’t know which information is important and which is not, so, they consider all information as equally important, and they end up elevating the unimportant issues to the same level of importance as the important ones, and then they want to find the answer. Obviously there are intentionally no clear answers to those questions in the Quran to tell us that it’s not important, but they want to know. If you want to know, get a philosophy degree or whatever. We are not here to know. We are here to serve. Adam and Eve wanted to know, and they ate from the tree of knowledge, and look where it brought us. We are not here to know. We are here to serve God, and the knowledge comes as a byproduct. It’s not our main aim. Our aim is to serve God, and knowledge is just a byproduct. All those who think that religion is about knowing, they rarely understand anything. The ones who are willing to serve, they get to know what the others wanted to know, and much more. Nothing will be left unexplained anyway. Those who want to know ask the questions, but those who want to serve get the answers. Nothing we need to know will be left unanswered, anyway. Nothing which we needed to know so far has ever remained unanswered, but we should be willing to serve first. So, again, the apparent unclarity in the Quran is intentional to tell us which issues are unimportant.

So, again, only about 5% of the apparent unclarity comes from language barriers, while about 40% of it is intentional to emphasize to us that a certain issue is unimportant.

Now, another 30% of the apparent unclarity comes from our own sins. Here is how: For example, let’s say that a general of an army sends you in a secret mission and tells you to go and send a bag to a certain soldier by tomorrow the latest, and he also give you a letter, and tells you that you will have there all the instructions you need to know in any circumstance you might find yourself in. Now, you don’t quite do it like that, for example. You think that it’s ok if you rest a little bit midway, and then when you go there, you are one 12 hours late, and that soldier is gone, because you were late. Now, you check your letter with instructions, and you don’t find anything which tells you what to do now. Now, you are really confused, because you don’t know if you should wait to see if the soldier might come back. Should you go further? Should you go back? None of that is answered in that letter, even though the general told you that you will have all the answers there. Well, the letter tells you all the answers, if you followed the initial instructions of the general to reach there by tomorrow the latest. And in a similar way, when people commit sins, whether they did them yesterday, a month ago, a year ago, 10 years ago, or 20 years ago, those sins trap you in situations for which you can not find an answer in the Quran. And many people are stuck in state of questioning for the rest of their lives, with questions like, “Until which date after conception does it count as abortion or not?” You hear this question in the news, for example.  Well, the instructions were not to commit adultery in the first place. So, the fact that you don’t find a clear answer for what counts as abortion or not is because of your own sins. So, God made it unclear on purpose, so that you will not find the clear answer until you atone for that sin. It is possible to know, but it is not directly clear. The way it works is that while you are in deep trouble seeking an answer for such a situation, you are wasting your time, and missing other opportunities, and as a result you are indirectly paying for your sin, and when you pay for your sin, then you get the clear answer, in whatever way, maybe after too many difficulties searching for it, maybe you got the answer from this website, but you wouldn’t find this website, if you didn’t go through those difficulties.

So, so far we explained three causes of the apparent unclarity of the Quran, 40% is intentional to emphasize the unimportant issues, 30% comes from your own sins, 5% comes from language barriers, and that’s 75%. But what about the other 25%?

Well, 10% of the apparent unclarity in the Quran comes from the fact that people don’t know the Bible. In many cases, we can see that the assumptions in the Quran are that we already knew the stories and the details from the Bible before reading the Quran, and there are hundreds of examples about this, but let us just pinpoint one. For example, verse 38:41 in the Quran says, “REMEMBER our servant Job: he called upon his Lord, “The devil has afflicted me with hardship and pain.” Now, if the person read the Quran for the first time, there is nothing to remember. Here the assumption is that you already know the story of Job from the Bible, and the Bible has a whole book which is title “Job”. It tells you all the details you need about it. How Job lost all his family, and all his wealth, and then how he went through an extremely deep spiritual experience of loss, and the devil was tempting him to curse God for that, and he almost did it, but he didn’t, and then God restores him, and then doubles his health and also doubles his family. Now, this is really quite a deep philosophical story in the Bible, and tells you all the thoughts of Job throughout that difficult time, and what he was thinking, and all the details, how he got his wealth back, and all those things, and the assumption in the Quran is that you already know that story from the Bible. The Quran now, only says, just remember it, and just tells you the moral of that story in a couple of sentences. It only tells us the summary and the conclusion, just to remind us about what it supposes we already know. So, this is where 10% of the apparent unclarity in the Quran comes from. From the fact that people don’t know the Bible. Now, we are not saying that you should definitely read the Bible. It’s quite a long book, it’s 10 times as long as the Quran, and in your later years, you might not have time for it, which is fine. (In appearance, the Bible and the Quran don’t look very different in length, but that’s because the Bibles are printed with very small letters, while the Qurans are printed with larger letters, and usually in two languages, which creates the impression that they might be of similar length, but in fact the Bible has about 770,000 words, while the Quran only about 77,000, 10 times less.) So, if something doesn’t seem clear in the Quran, chances are that it’s in the Bible, because the Bible deals with the same issues, but it has 10 times more details. However, the Bible is really practically too long for today’s life, and it’s not mandatory, especially because it’s a book of the past, and we should not reach definite conclusions from it, because the circumstances have evolved from the past generation, and how that would be applicable in the new circumstances for our generation is in the Quran. But, as a youngster, your parents should have exposed you to the Bible and the stories from the Bible, at an age when you had time to learn stories, and then when you read the Quran as an adult, it would seem more clear.

Another 5% of the apparent unclarity in the Quran comes from the fact that people are not exposed, or intentionally ignore the Abrahamic tradition. As we just learned, the Bible helps with understanding some parts of the Quran more clearly, but the Bible sidesteps the importance of Ismail, because the Bible was meant for the Jews, and Ismail did not have any religious significance for the Jews, but his importance for us, the rest of the world, was to preserve the Abrahamic unwritten tradition, which goes through his descendants, who today are the Arabs, and knowing this tradition, puts the Quranic verses in context of what already existed before the Quran. However, this tradition consists of only the “Five Pillars of Islam”, but not beyond that. But, if people refuse to accept the role of Ismail as a prophet through whom we know the Five Pillars of Islam, then when they read the Quran, it’s a much bigger challenge to know the religious duties, because the Quran already assumes that you know them.

Now, the final 10% of the apparent unclarity in the Quran comes from the preconceived ideas which people have when they read the Quran. So, sometimes people would have already heard an answer to an issue from sources which are outside of the Quran, and then once they read the Quran, they don’t find what they expected, and they get confused. It is much harder for these people to understand the Quran, because first they have to forget the information which they already knew, and then they can learn the Quran, and very often it is much harder to forget, then to learn.

So, these are the reasons why the Quran sometimes appears unclear to people in certain issues: About,

• 10% from preconceived ideas
• 5% from ignoring the Abrahamic tradition
• 10% from not knowing the Bible
• 30% from your own sins
• 40% of those unclear cases are intentionally left unclear in the Quran to emphasize that something is not important
• and 5%, from not knowing Arabic.

So, if you know Arabic, you know the Bible, lived in ancient times when you dealt only with important issues, never committed a sin, were taught the Abrahamic tradition by your parents, and people never confused you with their own ideas, then you really don’t need Alban Fejza’s clarifications.

However, the truth is that most of these are true for you and most people, at least partially. Most people don’t speak Arabic, and most people don’t know the Bible, and we are very often exposed to modern circumstances where unimportant issues pop up, we have many sins from the past, and most of us were not taught the Abrahamic tradition as children, and there is so much fake information on internet, and all of these facts mean that you need Alban Fejza’s clarifications so that what appeared unclear previously, because of these reasons, in the Quran can become clear to us now.

Now, the submitters of the past, let’s say who lived just after Muhammad did not need Alban Fejza’s clarifications because none of these things were true for them. They spoke Arabic, they knew the stories of the Bible from the Jews, they were not exposed to our modern circumstances, they had fewer sins than us from their youth, they had the Abrahamic tradition already in the society, and they were not exposed to fake information from the internet, so they had no need for Clarifications from the Quran, but we do, and that’s why Alban Fejza’s does give explanations, and we are part of history because of that, and God is our witness. And heaven is our destiny, if we keep together on this same journey.

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. A lot of people at different times in their life decide to become submitters, or maybe to do additional striving in the cause of God, and that’s good, but unfortunately very often religious people have the wrong ideas about the relative value of that compared to doing the same thing at other times. When we offer ourselves to God, put ourselves at the service of God, it depends when, how, why, where, and actually the differences can be huge. For example, in verse 4:18, God says, not acceptable is the repentance of those who commit sins until death starts to approach them, and then they say, “Now I repent.” This means that repentance when you don’t have much power to commit sins anymore is not really repentance. It’s just an admittance that you don’t have the power anymore to continue with your sins. So, time does matter. But why does the time matter? It matters because when we offer ourselves to God, it is similar to offering something material to God. Our bodies are also material. So, similarly when we give to charity, according to verse 2:267, God tells us not to pick out the bad things and give them to charity. So, now imagine yourself when you were at your worst, and when you were at your best, imagine them like two separate people. You at your worst, let’s say your weak you, maybe your old you, and the other person is you at your best, let’s say your young you, or your strong you. Now, imagine offering this best version of you to the devil, and offering this worst version of you to God. Don’t you think that’s insulting to God? Why should God accept your old weak version, when you offered your young strong version to the devil? And in the past when people were expected to be religious by the society, but in their heart they did not really want to, they would find a way to offer their weakest version of themselves to God. For example, they would work and deal with worldly matters for as long as they were healthy and strong, and would say that they are not doing the Contact Prayers because their very busy schedule won’t let them, and then when they became about let’s say 60, they would start doing the Contact Prayers. Really? Is it because you are not healthy anymore? And they themselves would admit that if you offer an unhealthy animal sacrifice (Qurban), then it will not be accepted from you. So, then why did you not offer your healthy body to God, but now you are offering your unhealthy body to God?

This is what we can call out-of-time religiosity, which happens in both directions – too young, or too old. So, now let’s talk about cases who are too young. For example, a lot of excessively controlling parents will for example push their five-year-old children to learn and to do the Contact Prayer completely, but at such a young age they are not teaching their children how to be believers, they are only teaching them how to pretend to be believers, because until 12, those children do not have a fundamentally based understanding of religion. They believe whatever you or others tell them. So, until 12, you should just let them do what you do during the contact prayer, and they will join out of curiosity, and they will see it as play, but you don’t need to expect them to do it on their own. But, some people will push their children to do that, thinking that there is so much value in it, when in fact, the efforts to keep the child in line like that are bigger than the benefits which would happen with the same efforts in something else good. The difference between play and work is that play has bigger costs than results, while work has bigger results than costs, and everything before the age of 12 is actually just play, even if they pretend to work. Basically, the net production of anything which children under 12 do is always negative. They always need more help, then they can provide help. Occasionally, they do something helpful, but if you analyze carefully, you will see that you invested more time during their years to teach them how to do that, then what they actually did. So, basically, there is no return on investment until children become 12. These days, it’s more like until 25, because of the governments, but naturally, if we ignore the government influence, then it’s about 12. And this is why Abraham offered his son to God only after he became strong enough to work with him.

In Sura 37, verses 102-107 say: “When Ismail grew enough TO WORK WITH Abraham, Abraham said, “My son, I see in a dream that I am sacrificing you. (See. Only then did Abraham offer his son to God. After he grew enough to work. That’s when Ismail reached full value. Abraham was afraid to do it earlier, because he was afraid of insulting God by offering an incomplete sacrifice) Ismail said, “O my father, do what you are commanded to do. You will find me, God willing, patient.” They both submitted, and he put his forehead down (to sacrifice him). We called him: “O Abraham. You have believed the dream.” We thus reward the righteous. That was an exacting test indeed. We ransomed (Ismail) by substituting an ANIMAL SACRIFICE.

So, we can see the parallel here. If we are not going to offer an unhealthy animal to God, and according to the Bible, it’s not accepted to offer an animal with any kind of blemish, then we should strive to offer ourselves to God, not when we are at our worst position in our life, but when we are in our best shape, physically, age-wise, financially, and so on. When we have the most value.

And we can see the same idea when God ordered the Children of Israel to sacrifice a cow. In verses 2:68 through 72, God orders the Children of Israel to sacrifice a cow that is NEITHER TOO OLD, NOR TOO YOUNG, OF AN INTERMEDIATE AGE, A BRIGHT YELLOW COLORED COW WHICH IS PLEASING TO THOSE WHO WATCH IT, THAT WAS NEVER HUMILIATED IN PLOWING THE LAND OR WATERING THE CROPS, AND WITHOUT ANY BLEMISH. So, a cow in its best shape.

So, again we are reminded that if we offer ourselves to God when we are too old, chances are that it will not be accepted. For example, in verse 10:90, we see that just before Pharaoh died he repented and believed, but God tells him “Too late! For you have rebelled already…” So, it is important for us to stop sinning before it is too late to repent, and that line of repentance is crossed generally when you lose your health, or your wealth, or your influence and things like that. So, let’s offer ourselves to God while it is still acceptable and pleasing to him.

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. So many times when people use the Quran and try to argue about a certain point, they lean so much, especially the traditional Muslims, they lean so much towards a historically specific understanding of the Quran, which means that when they read a verse or try to tell you about a verse, they will insist that the verse refers to a specific historical event, and according to them, all the other understandings are wrong. Well, we do not deny that a lot of those verses refer to specific historical events, events which really happened. They are not only metaphors, they really happened. However, if the Quran did not specify that event specifically in the Quran, it was on purpose, because that verse does not refer only to that specific historical event, but it also refers to a universal description of a certain issue. Unfortunately, for many people, knowing the specific historical event, pushes them to deny the universal application of that verse. And “universal” means that the verse refers to any time, regardless of history, or to many different times in history (in our times, in the past, and in the future). This is what we can call “universalist” understanding of the Quran. Again, this does not deny the specific historical events, but it helps us to understand more than that, which also includes in itself that specific historical event. However, that specific historical event can not be the most important part of that verse. A specific event in history can not be more important than a universal principle which applies to all times. So, in this sermon let’s read some verses from the Quran, for which the specific event in history is already known, and the attempt here is not to deny it, but to show that it is far less important than the universal understanding to which that verse applies.

Let’s start with Sura 111. It says,

“Condemned are the works of Abu Lahab, and he is condemned.

His wealth and whatever he has accomplished will never help him.

He has incurred the blazing Fire.

Also his companion, the carrier of fuel.

With a natural-rope necklace.”

Now, the story of Abu Lahab, the uncle of Muhammad who opposed Muhammad, is well known. However, do you think that in the book which God intended to reveal for the whole world, God chose to simply trash-talk one of Muhammad’s uncles, because if we understand it as a specific historical event, this Sura does not teach us much else. It just trash-talks Abu Lahab. It does not tell us what Abu Lahab did to deserve the condemnation or what his wife did exactly. However, if we decide to understand it as a universal message, then we learn much more, in addition to the specific historical event. So, to understand this Sura universally, let me also translate the word “Abu Lahab”. The word “Abu Lahab” in Arabic literally means “the Father of Fire”, and the Father of Fire is Satan. So, let’s read the Sura again with the new understanding and see that it makes more universal sense now.

“Condemned are the works of the Father of Fire (Satan), and he is condemned.

His wealth and whatever he has accomplished will never help him. (Verse 17:64 informs us that Satan owns wealth).

He has incurred the blazing Fire. (Of course)

Also his companion, the carrier of fuel. (which is a mechanism in Hell to keep Hell going)

With a natural rope necklace. (which means that that mechanism is tied to something to keep it stable, and useful for Heaven).”

Now, as you can see, this universal understanding is relevant for all humans. It’s not just about a local tribal dispute anymore.

Let’s read another example: Sura 94.

“Did we not open your chest? And removed from you your burden. Took weight off your shoulders. We exalted you to an honorable position. With pain there is gain. Indeed, with pain there is gain. So, when you are done, then strive. Seeking only your Lord.”

Now again, most ignorant people will insist that this refers to a specific historical event only, and nothing else. They tell the story of how Muhammad’s chest was opened and washed with snow and things like that, and we are not trying to deny it. However, it is much more important to understand this as a universal story. For example, let’s understand it as the story of all believers who go through a surgery anywhere in the torso, because it really applies to all of them. So, let’s read the same Sura again, but without thinking about a specific historical event:

“Did we not open your chest (o you who went through surgery)? And removed from you your burden (the health problem). Took weight off your shoulders. We exalted you to an honorable position. With pain there is gain (so surgery has health benefits). Indeed, with pain there is gain. So, when you are done (with healing), then strive (go back to striving as usual). Seeking only your Lord.” 

Now, if we understand it like this, then we learn something deeper, and universal. First, it teaches us that it is ok to have surgery, if you have some serious health problem, something which burdens you. And this is important, because had this Sura not existed, then from other verses in the Quran we would have to conclude that surgery is prohibited, because there are verses in the Quarn which tell us not to shed blood, and also not to distort the creation of God, and that is true, but those are for voluntary cases, voluntary plastic surgery and things like that. Here in this Sura, it tells us that there is an exception to allow surgery which is done for health problems which burden you, because with pain there is gain, and the pain is the surgery, and the gain is the resolved health issue, hopefully.

Now, let’s read other verses, to show you that we can learn much more from a universal understanding of them, and not just rely on the historically specific event. In Sura 49, for example, verses 4, and 5, we read:

“As for those who call on you from outside the walls, most of them do not understand. Had they been patient until you came out to them, it would have been better for them. God is Forgiver, Most Merciful.”

Now, the historically specific event is well known for this verse. A group of people mocked Muhammad by yelling from outside his house, while Muhammad was inside, and these verses were revealed as a response to that. However, that was only a minor reason for that revelation, but it was not the whole reason for the revelation. And it is very clear here in this verse, that Muhammad is not mentioned, that specific historical event is not mentioned. The verses talk about a general universal case which applies to all messengers, and actually very often to most believers, and actually even more today, because in the past people would rarely call people from outside of the wall, but today, we can be called always from outside the walls with telephones and internet. That’s what telephones are – a call from outside of walls. So, this is actually sort of a prediction about the discovery of telephones and internet – a call from outside of the walls. So, let me read the verse again, and see what they say universally:

“As for those who call on you from outside the walls (through internet, with messages, phone calls and so on), most of them do not understand. Had they been patient until you came out to them, it would have been better for them. God is Forgiver, Most Merciful.”

And this is true. Most people who contact Alban Fejza don’t understand. Alban Fejza gets about twice as many messages from non-submitters or haters than from the believers or submitters whom he likes and respects. Usually, those ignorant messages come from people with anonymous names, but those messages do come. And by the way, whenever we receive messages which might show lack of understanding from someone within us, then we immediately should realize that we haven’t strived enough against those outside of us, because the rule is that most of the messages a believer receives should be from people who don’t understand. So, if you don’t receive messages at work, or from clients, or from religious opponents, from people who don’t understand, then you are pretty much left with messages from within us, and most of them then will be misunderstood messages. So, the moral of the story is that the only way for us to stop misunderstanding each other in our communication through internet is to strive against outsiders. So, an internally focused community causes disputes and misunderstandings. We should focus our energy against the outsiders, so we don’t end up having bad feelings against each other.

Now, let’s take another example of a verse which is unnecessarily narrowed down to a specific historical event, when the meaning of the verse is clearly more universal. For example, verse 2:108 says,

“Do you wish to demand of your messenger what was demanded of Moses in the past? Anyone who chooses disbelief, instead of belief, has truly strayed off the right path.”

Now, the Muhamedans will insist that here it is talking about Muhammad, based on a certain specific historical event which they might have heard, and the half-submitters will insist that it is talking about Rashad Khalifa, but the reality is that this verse universally talks about any messenger who is sent from the time this verse was revealed until the End of the World. Why do people see the need to narrow it down to a specific messenger? It’s not mentioning the names or the characteristics of any specific messenger. It applies universally to any of them. Now, we have to be careful, of course, because some of the historical stories of the Quran can not be read as universal stories, because they simply are not, or they might be only partially universal. So, let’s take an example where the story seems like it might be universal, but then once you read the whole Sura, you realize that it is only partially universal. For example, Sura 105 says,

“Have you noted how your Lord dealt with the cohabiters of the elephant? Did He not cause their plans to fail?”

Now, this part of the Sura is actually quite universal, despite the fact that the story of the people of the elephant is a well-known story which happened during the year when Muhammad was born. The king of Ethiopia wanted to occupy Mecca with an elephant, but his plan backfired. However, these two verses do not claim to refer specifically to that event. The verses only say that the cohabiters of the elephant ended up with failed plans. Now, if we understand this universally, this would mean that the people of the past who cohabited with elephants across any time, they ended up with failed plans, they did not have their plans realized. And when your plans are not realized, you generally remain poor. This means that regions where elephants live are generally poor across history. So, let’s check this. Here is a world map which shows where the elephants live:

And now here is a map which shows world poverty:

Can you see the very high correlation? And this high correlation is true across history. For example, in the past one type of elephant was the mammoth.

It does not exist today, but that type of elephant lived in the northern regions of the world where Canada, Russia and Europe are today:

and in the past those used to be the poorest regions of the world. As the mammoth went extinct in those regions, those regions got richer. Now, the question is, what does poverty have to do with elephants? Well, the elephants and people because of their large brain size are competitors in this world, and whenever people dominate the environment, they get wealthy, and indirectly the elephants are outcompeted. This means that there is no way to eradicate poverty in this world, unless we destroy the environment, which destroys the elephant, and there is no way to prevent climate change, unless we decide to keep poverty going. Climate change is real by the way, a little bit, but there is no solution to it, unless the choices people make are choices which keep poverty going around the world. So, the world has a choice. Would we like to prevent climate change, or would we like to help poor people get richer? It’s either one or the other, or both a little bit. But, it’s not possible to solve both problems completely at the same time. Either we make decisions which eradicate poverty, which also will effectively drive the elephants near extinction, or we try to save the elephants, and keep the poverty with it. However, as you can see the maps do not completely match. That is because this correlation is only partly universal, but not completely universal. So, it’s mostly true that elephants and poverty are correlated, but not completely true. And we can see that the match between poverty and the elephants is not completely universal once we read the following verses in the Sura of the Elephant. The following verses say: “

He sent upon them swarms of flying creatures (drones). That launched on them burned stones (bombs and bullets). He made them like chewed up hay.”

Obviously, this is a specific event, because we don’t see people of those regions being hit with burned stones. However, because this is partly universal, and partly referring to a specific event, these types of verses are verses where specific prophecies about this world can be extracted, because this Sura applies universally during some times, and not during other times. So, one way to understand this Sura is like this:

During the End Times, around the time of the Mahdi, some people from Sub-Saharan Africa, or maybe even South East Asia, in the remaining pockets of the religious fanatics, they will try to occupy Mecca, but they will be defeated with drones which will launch burned stones (bombs and bullets) to them, and will make them like chewed up hay. Someone might say that this Sura is referring to the past. That’s true, but this Sura will be read even just before the End of the World, and when those people read it, it will be referring to their past, and part of their past is our future. Now, had God wanted to tell us that this Sura only applies to that specific event which happened in the sixth century, God would have said so, and would have mentioned the name of the tribe, or the time, or the name of the king, or more details which would exclude the possibility that it would happen again. However, God intentionally left it like this open, saying “cohabiters of the elephant”, and that’s it, because it is talking about more than just the sixth century. It is talking also about the 23^rd century, and partially about all centuries, any cohabiters of the elephant, any people who live with the elephant and how that is connected with failed plans. By the way, the elephants were never meant to be domesticated anyway. They are wild animals because the Quran mentions other animals which are meant for riding and for other useful things, but that’s another issue.

So, this is one example of understanding the Quran as more than just a story about a specific historical event. Obviously this method of universalist understanding of the Quran is abused from time to time by many people, because in most of the Quran, the verses are actually only historically specific, which means that they refer to one and only one event in history. For example, when God mentions the stories of Moses and Jesus, and Abraham, and Joseph, and David, and Solomon and so on, no one can come today and claim that those verses also apply to them, because there was only one Moses, and only one Jesus, and so on. The details which are given about those stories, about Pharaoh, and miracles and all that, they make those events historically specific only. There are deeper metaphors in them, which are universal, but the event is a one-time event. So, there is also a tendency, especially today, by more liberal Muslims to abuse the universalist understanding of the Quran, by completely ignoring the historically specific event. However, for most of history, the religious elites have abused the Quran in the other direction by insisting to understand some universal stories as only historically specific stories. So, the Quran is abused both ways by people. Sometimes, they will narrow down the meaning of a verse, when there is no need to do it, or they will try to make a verse universal, when it is clearly talking only about a specific historical event. And this issue is actually too complicated to discuss in detail, which is why whenever we read the Quran, we seek refuge in God from Satan the rejected, and God protects the believers from the ideas of Satan, and lets the disbelievers get those Satanic ideas. Verse 56:79 in the Quran says that no one can understand the Quran except the sincere. And when people are sincere, God guides them to understand the historically specific events as historically specific events, and the universal stories as universal stories.

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. Have you noticed how when you look at the wheels of other cars in a highway, sometimes they spin so fast that they look like they are spinning backwards. Or for example, Steve Jobs, he was so rich, that he started to look poor, always wearing the same clothes in public presentations:

A similar thing happens sometimes when someone is extremely righteous. He is so righteous, it looks bad. The society becomes suspicious about his motives. “What does he really want? This is not what we would expect a good person to do!” According to the expectations of the general society, it looks like an extremely righteous person just did a bad thing.

For example, when Abraham destroyed the idols, broke them into pieces. It’s so good, it looks bad. Breaking things looks like a bad thing. Well, it wasn’t a bad thing, because it was not property damage. Those people who built those idols did not claim that those idols belong to them, that the idols are their property. They claimed that they belong to the idols. So, they did not consider them property. So, when Abraham broke them into pieces, he was not doing property damage. Property damage is prohibited in the Quran, definitely, but the idols were not property. You can not own the statues by whom you claim to be owned. So, any physical idols built by humans can not be considered property. They can not claim to own what they claim owns them. So, at the moment when they worshiped the statues, they did not consider them property anymore, and so Abraham had the legal right to destroy what belongs to no one. Had those statues been simple property, like some statues today which are not worshiped, Abraham would not have the right to destroy them, but the people of Abraham did not just build the statues, they worshiped them, and by that very act, they declared them not to be their property anymore, at which point the statues either had the power to protect themselves, or Abraham destroyed them, and because he did, that proved that they did not have the power to protect themselves. But, you can see how easy it is to misunderstand Abraham as a property destroyer. This deed was so off-the-charts good, it made no sense to them, so it looked bad to them.

Or in the case of Mary. When she gave birth to Jesus, the Quran says that when she came to her family, carrying him, they said, “O Mary, you have committed something that is totally unexpected.” And the key word here is “totally unexpected” – beyond the expectations of the society. Similar to when an athlete is so good, he or she breaks a record by so much, that they start to suspect that he was taking performance enhancing drugs. In a lot of cases they do, but once in a while, the athlete is simply exceptional. Or when a villager goes to a big city for the first time, and the villagers are used to long greetings and being nice to anyone whom they meet, because they don’t meet people often, so when they travel to the city, and they are nice to the first people they meet, the city people become suspicious. What does he want? Why is he so nice to me? What are his true intentions? Once in a while, maybe someone is just being nice; exceptional in a large city, but not impossible. Something similar happens with messengers. To most people, because they don’t recognize the message, they will have to rely on judging the messenger’s intentions or character. “Why is he doing this? What does he want out of this, and things like that?”

Or when Joseph told his dream to his brothers: They probably were used to their father being a prophet, which was acceptable to them, because he was old, and they got used to it over a long time, “but Joseph, this little guy? This is beyond expectations.”

So, once in a while when someone does a very righteous deed, people will question his intentions. Of course, these days, this situation happens much more rarely then in the past, because the differences between extremely righteous people and extremely evil people are much smaller today.

But, it is part of God’s system to make extremely righteous people misunderstood by their society, because that is part of how those righteous people earn credits. However, we have to be careful how we understand this, because it is not necessarily true in the opposite direction. See, when you are extremely extremely right, the society victimizes you, but just because someone feels victimized, it does not make them right. A lot of people feel misunderstood or like victims, but that doesn’t make them right. People in the fringes of the society, in the edges of the society are misunderstood, and very often not because they are extremely righteous, but because of their other extreme characteristics, many kinds of extremes. They might be among the smartest, or among the least smart, or among the tallest, or among the shortest, or among the richest or among the poorest, and there are hundreds of extremes like that, and all of them are misunderstood, but those types of misunderstandings do not necessarily earn them credits, but misunderstanding people because they are too righteous, in that case, they get paid for it in the next world.

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. Radicalism is the beliefs or actions of people who advocate thorough or complete political or social reform about a certain issue. One example of radicalism could be the “Just Stop Oil” movement. They want to completely stop the usage of oil, or petrol, or gas, because they think that it is destroying the climate, to the point where they sit and lie in traffic as a protest to stop traffic and grab the attention of the world. So, basically, they want to completely stop the usage of oil. Anyway, we are not against protecting the climate, but the “Just Stop Oil” movement is one example a radical approach.

• Other radicals might be for example:
• People against vaccines.
• People who think that vaccines should be mandatory.
• Black lives matter.
• White lives matter.
• People against circumcision.
• People for circumcision.
• In Iran for example, right now – women against hijab.
• The Iranian state for mandatory hijab.
• People who believe that the United States is the source of evil in the world.
• People who think that United States is the bringer of freedom in the world.

And there are so many other examples of radicals. Now, unfortunately, a lot of half-submitters have become radicals about some of these issues, and subconsciously, that’s partly because they are aware that Rashad Khalifa had all the signs of a radical. He would interrupt people. He was one against many, and he had many other signs which give you the impression that he was a radical. However, what many people fail to understand is that Rashad Khalifa was a radical about one and one thing only – worshiping God alone. No one can show evidence that he was a radical against vaccines, or pro vaccines, or against white people, or for white people, or against circumcision, or for circumcision. He did not even talk about them. Even about things which he talked about, he was not a radical, unless it was about worshiping God alone. He was not a radical about any other issue except for worshiping God alone, and maybe he was half a radical about following Quran alone, and even about this he was only half radical, because he actually did use the Bible in a few circumstances, and he used Hadith for some historical purposes, but not for religious purposes. So, he was not even a full radical about the “Quran alone” idea. He was only a full radical about worshiping God alone. See, it really matters what he was a radical about. You can not use his radicalism about worshiping God alone, as an excuse to be a radical about other things.

And understanding this is very important. Let’s explain this from another perspective. We should not be against radicalism just because it is radicalism. The governments of today are against any kind of radicalism just because it radicalism, because it threatens their power. Radicalism in itself is not bad. The problem is that any person can truly be a radical about only one thing, maybe two things at the most. Because if you are a true radical about anything, it will not leave you energy, and time, and efforts, to be a true radical about something else. It’s not possible to be a radical about many things at once, because radicalism automatically implies that you are devoting most of your energy towards that cause, and if you spend most of your energy for that cause, you are left with less than half of the energy for any other cause. So, radicalism is possible only for one thing, two things at the most. Now, if you are a true strong believer, then you will be a radical about worshiping God alone, in which case it is not possible for you to be a radical about something else. And if you are a radical about anything else, that automatically implies that you are not a radical about worshiping God alone. And the Quran has something to say about those who are not radical about worshiping God alone.

In verse 72:15, it says, “As for the compromisers, they will be fuel for Gehenna.” Now, the question is, what kind of compromisers is it talking about here? Is it talking about those who reach a compromise, a middle way, about vaccines for example, or is it talking about reaching a compromise about worshiping God alone. And the answer is very clear in the following verses. This Sura does not mention vaccines at all, but just a few verses below, it talks about worshiping God alone. In verse 72:19, it says, “When GOD’s servant advocated Him alone, almost all of them banded together to oppose him.” So, this verse tells us, that it is talking about being a radical about worshiping God alone, and we never compromise about that, but compromising about other modern issues is not necessarily a bad thing.

Now, let’s take radicals against circumcision, as an example, to show why their radicalism about this issue does not make sense. So, they might tell you that about 100 babies die each year from medical complications after circumcision, which is true. (For example, the baby might suffer cardiac arrest from the sudden pain, or maybe the baby has a disease which does not allow the blood to coagulate, or something similar). The baby might have died in another case anyway, but let’s stick with this. Ok, fine, good argument. Now, let’s see how many people during your life will die from poverty? Not 100 people, not 1000, not 10,000, not 100,000, not 1,000,000, not 10,000,000, but 100,000,000 people will die from poverty during your life. So, surely, if you choose to be a radical, so you can save people, you have 1,000,000 more reasons to be a radical against poverty, then to be a radical against circumcision for example. So, now, what does it mean to be a radical against poverty? It means being a communist. Communists think that poverty should be eliminated completely. So, radicals against poverty are communists. So, you have more reasons to be a communist, than to be a radical about any other issue in life, except for worshiping God alone. So, the most excusable radicalism, after worshiping God alone, is communism, which is radicalism against poverty. But, let’s see whether the Quran allows radicalism against poverty, whether it allows communism –  and, of course, being against poverty is a good thing, but let’s see whether the Quran allows us to be radical about it.

Verse 17:29 says, “You shall not keep your hand stingily tied to your neck, nor shall you foolishly open it up, lest you end up blamed and sorry.”. So, here God is teaching us not to go all the way with distributing your wealth, your money to the poor, because it’s not worth being radical about it. So, if it is not worth to be a radical against poverty, then being a radical against anything else is even less worth it. It actually just shows that you are not willing to be a full radical towards worshiping God alone.

So, yes we are radicals about worshiping God alone, and we don’t believe that it is worth being a radical about any other issue. You may be pro or against some other issues, but it’s not worth being radical about them. And of course, many of these issues have a right answer and a wrong answer, and God willing, and the Quran tells you those answers, and some of those issues actually do not have a “yes” and “no” answer. However, even if those issues have the right “yes” answer, or the right “no” answer, it’s still not worth being radical about them.

Let’s take another example – alcohol. About 10 million people will die from alcohol related causes during your lifetime. Should we go on holding protests against it? No. Should we go and hold rallies against it? No. Should we turn it into a lifelong cause? No. And even though we as submitters never drink alcohol. It’s prohibited, but are we radicals against it? No. Because, God is not a radical against it. In the Quran, we see that He says that alcohol has bad things in it and good things in it, but the bad outweighs the good. See, the Quran is not even radically against alcohol. It’s clearly prohibited, but it’s not worth being a radical against it. And alcohol is much worse than getting vaccines, much worse than not getting vaccines, much worse than using too much oil, much worse than any of those ridiculous causes for which people become radicals. And they become radicals about those issues, either because they are naive, and will pick up any cause which comes their way, or they are simply not radical about worshiping God alone, so they have to fill that void in their heart. We can choose to call them “fools” to avoid calling them “idol worshipers”, because we are not sure whether half-submitters are idol worshipers. They hate it when they are called “fools”, but it’s better that they are called fools, as God calls them in the Quran, because this at least implies that they have a chance to repent, but if we called them idol worshipers for choosing to be a radical about causes which have nothing to do with worshipping God alone, then that would mean that they are really in irreversible trouble.

So, to conclude, radicalism is bad, not because it is radicalism, but because it automatically does not leave enough space to be a true radical about worshiping God alone.

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. In Sura 12, which deals with the story of Joseph, in the beginning of the Sura, God tells us that the story in this Sura is the best story ever in this world. Now, this is not to say that this story is more important than some of the other stories. For example, the stories of Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus are definitely more important and more fundamental, which is why they are mentioned more across the Quran, but the story of Joseph is more beautiful, which is why it is the only long story in the Quran which is told to us in the same Sura from beginning to the end. The others stories are told to us in the Quran in bits and pieces in different parts in the Quran, but the story of Joseph is told to us all in Sura 12 from the beginning to the end, because it is such a beautiful story that God did not want to ruin the flow of this story, which He calls the best story. So, why is this the best story from the compositional point of view. It’s because, it includes almost all genres. It has drama in it, it has action, it has soap opera, especially with the case of the woman who was tempted by the presence of Joseph, it’s a true story, it’s an epic story, it’s an adventure, from the perspective of Joseph and also his brothers, they go through quite an adventures journey. It’s a tragedy from the perspective of the mother of Joseph. She spent most of her life believing that her most beautiful son is dead, and there is a twist of the story at the end, and all good movies have a twist towards the end. It has fantasy, I consider the dream parts, fantasy. It has flashbacks like all good movies, when Joseph remembers his past with his brothers. It has forward hints through the dreams like all good movies. it’s also thriller, for example from the perspective Jacob, you can tell it as a thriller. He did not know what happened with Joseph, so we could make a thriller movie out of it from the perspective of Jacob, and how he tried to figure out whether Joseph was dead or not, and it’s a western in some ways, it happens in the desert, and there is some sort of final duel between the brothers in the end, like they do in westerns.

Now, the only genre which the story of Joseph does not include is comedy, and this is because had this story included comedy in it, it would be against verse 53:60 which says, “Are you laughing, instead of crying?” A believer never finds the Quran funny. It’s not a comedy. It’s not funny. So, except for the comedy genre, the story of Joseph includes all movie genres. And you can take the best movie story writers in the world, and they will never be able to write for you a very good story which includes all genres, because once you jump from one genre to another, it breaks the flow, but the story of Joseph jumps from genre to another genre while keeping the flow perfectly. Recently, with the latest movies, they have been able to combine two or three genres together in some movies, to make them more complete, but they can never include all genres and still keep it a good story. If they did, they would end up with this story actually, the story of Joseph. This story has a beginning, a middle, and an end, as all good stories should, unlike some of the modern movies where they leave the story unresolved. Of course, we enjoy these modern weird movies, only because we have watched too many movies before them, similar to how people enjoy cigarettes, only after they have smoked them many times before. In reality, it does not really taste good. Only after many times, you start enjoying it, after it has deformed your taste earlier. So, the modern movies start to feel good, because our taste has been deformed by the previous movies we have watched. But if someone watches a movie for the first time, the story of Joseph is the best movie he could possible watch. It’s the type of story which humans naturally enjoy. It’s not an acquired taste. We are naturally born with the taste for that type of story.

So, the story of Joseph is the best story which can be told, which is why we enjoy this Sura during the early years when we started reading the Quran. However, later on, once we know the story, we might have a tendency to just skip this story when we read the Quran. We might be like, “I know this story. Why should I read it again?” So, even the best story in the world eventually gets boring.

However, the reality is that the Quran never gets boring because it consists of two parts. The parts which eventually kind off get boring, but we forget those parts mostly, and when we read them again, they seem like new, and we are not bored much. The other parts of the Quran truly never get boring, even if you remember them from before. Even if you already memorized what you are about to read, you would still enjoy it again. After some thinking, we can realize, that these parts of the Quran which never get boring have to do with praising God, glorying God, asking God for forgiveness, asking God for guidance. And we see in a few verses that the angles glorify and praise God, and this is forever. They did it before Adam was created, they do it now, and they will do it after God issues the final judgment. There are angles near God, whose only job is to glorify and sing His praises, forever. That’s their only job, and they never get bored. They always do it with pleasure. So, taking this into consideration, we can see that some parts of the Quran which glorify and praise God, should never feel boring, of course, if we are perfect believers. And if we think more carefully about this, we will realize that the parts of the Quran which never get boring are exactly the parts which we say in our Contact Prayers. We glorify God in our Contact Prayers, we sing his praises, we recite Sura 1, we ask him for guidance, and these things should never bore us, if we are perfect believers. So, we can think of the Contact Prayer as the part of the Quran which never gets boring, even if we lived in this world forever. Nevertheless, because we only live about 100 years in this world, the whole Quran never gets boring. All parts of the Quran are sufficiently interesting for 100 years of life, but if we lived forever, eventually some parts of the Quran, like the story of Joseph would get boring, while the parts which have to do directly with God would never get boring, never.

After all, who wants to hear for example the story of Joseph, when we will be surrounded with beautiful mates, and pure drinks, and all kinds of tasty fruits in Heaven. So, if someone comes to us in Heaven, and tells us. Would you like to hear the story of Joseph? We would probably be like, “Let us have a good time. No offense, Joseph.” However, even in heavenly circumstances, it feels right to praise God, especially because he gave us those things. So, if someone came to us in Heaven, and told us, “Would you like to praise God together”. We would be like. “Of course, it feels like exactly the right time, especially because He gave us all those things”

So, some parts of the Quran are interesting until we go to Heaven, and other parts are interesting even after we go to Heaven, and those parts have to do with thanking God, and praising God, and glorying God. Glory be to God, here and forever!

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. There is so much misunderstanding between Christians and Muslims regarding the methods of salvation. On one side, we have the Christians who disdain the Contact Prayers so much to the point where the Quran says that when they hear the call for the Contact Prayer, they mock and ridicule it. On the other hand, we have the Muslims who are generally totally unaware of the good news in the Gospel, to the point that they think that if someone is not among the Muslims they will definitely go to Hell. And to resolve this mismatch in the understanding, it would help if we just understood the methods of salvation which are all given in the Quran, but in the Bible, Jesus gives them as a summary, all in one list. And this list is known in Christianity as the Beatitudes. Basically, in this list, Jesus identifies the groups of people who will go to Heaven, and he gives them the good news, which is where the whole book got its name from – the Gospel. The word Gospel means “good news”, and it specifically gets its name from this part which Jesus preaches, where Jesus gives the good news to specific groups of people that they will go to Heaven. Until then, the Jews thought, that only the Jews will go to Heaven, but this sermon gave a comprehensive view of all the groups that will go to heaven. So, now let’s read this part of the Gospel, which is from Mathew, chapter 5, from the begging until verse 12:

“And seeing the multitudes, he (Jesus) went up into the mountain: and when he had sat down, his disciples came unto him:  and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying,

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (so, the first category to be saved is the poor).

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. (this includes the extremely lonely people, people who lost someone very close or something like that)

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. (when we fast, we voluntarily become part of this group)

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. (the word pure here in the original language was “Zakat”, not in Greek).

Blessed are the submitters: for they shall be called sons of God. (Now, in the original language this was “Muslims”, but the Greeks translated it as “peacemakers” because they did not know what “Muslim” means before Muhammad),

Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so they persecuted the prophets who existed before you.

Now, the categories of people who will be saved are the poor, the mourners, the meek, the hungry, the thirsty, the merciful, the pure in heart, the submitters, and the persecuted, or the ridiculed. There is no way for anyone to go to Heaven unless he or she is in one of these categories. And this supersedes religion. This supersedes everything other people might tell you about how to go to Heaven. If you are not in one of these categories, you will not go to Heaven. As you can see, all those categories involve struggle in life, which are mostly involuntary struggles, except for submission which is a voluntary struggle. So, would you rather be poor, a mourner, meek, hungry, thirsty, or a submitter? You have to be in one of these groups to go to Heaven, or a little bit of all of these, or a combination of these, but you can not go to Heaven if you are not in one of these. And this is what the Christians misunderstand. They say that they are believers, and they have accepted Jesus, but then most of them, you don’t find them in any of these groups. So, it’s not possible for them to go to Heaven, unless they belong in one of those groups. If you truly accept the word of God, God will definitely put you in one of these groups. If he chose you to go to Heaven, he will offer you submission first which includes the Contact Prayer, and if you refuse it, then he will send you to Heaven, either through poverty, or mourning, or hunger, or thirst, or struggles like that.

And the arrogant Christians like to say “I don’t do the Contact Prayers, and I’m still rich, and in good health, and not hungry, and not thirsty.” Well that’s because they will go to Hell. Had they truly accepted the word of God, God would put them in one of those groups, and the easiest group to be in is to be a submitter, then and only then, being rich and going to Heaven do not exclude on another. All the other groups are harder, and more miserable to make it to heaven.

So, yes, the Christians are right that God saves us through his word, and not through the Contact Prayers, but if we accept his word, if we believe in his word, if we believe in what he says, he 100% will put us in one of these groups. He will let us either be poor, or hungry, or thirsty, or a submitter. So, one would rather be a submitter, than hungry, which is why we should do the Contact Prayers. It is the result of accepting God’s word, and not the method of salvation itself, but it’s not possible to go to Heaven, and also do well in this world, unless you observe the Contact Prayer. It’s just not possible. This is why in the video titled “Demographics of Heaven and Hell” you can find the statement that rich Christians can never make it to Heaven. They don’t do the contact prayers, and therefore, if they are rich, they will go to Hell, and if they are terribly poor, that means that they have truly accepted God’s word, and are destined for Heaven. And this is why, it’s called “the Gospel”, because it gives good news to the poor, the struggling, and the submitters. Submitters are those who do the Contact Prayers as we do, and give the Obligatory Charity as we do. This is the definition of a submitter. Outside of that, there are other roads to salivation, but they all involve terrible suffering, which is why the Quran calls submission the best path, the best religion, because it is the path to Heaven with the least suffering.

Now, Jesus gave the good news to all people who will make it to Heaven, those who take the path of suffering, and those who take the path of submission, but who would choose the difficult path of suffering, when the easy path of submission is offered to them? So, this is why we invite people to submission, to help them go to Heaven through the easier path, with less suffering. This is the gospel, the good news. But, let’s give herein even better news to some of us – double good news: Voluntarily, if anyone of us wants, we can choose both paths. The path of suffering and the path submission, two in one. This is what Jesus chose, this is what Mohammad chose, this is what Moses chose, this is what Abraham chose, and this is what some of us will choose. Submitters and strivers, both at the same time. You don’t have to choose both. One is enough, but those who choose both paths are blessed twice, and they are among those whom the Quran calls “the elite of the elite”. For this group, there are extra rewards in Heaven.

Now, what does it mean to choose both paths? It means doing the Contact Prayer and the Obligatory Charity, of course, which is the easy path of submission, and then the difficult path of struggling involves additional striving in the cause of God, preaching, standing for justice, extra charity, helping one another, promoting the message – it’s a big part of it – being courageous at the critical points, and these critical points pass by us quite rarely and if you miss them because you lack courage at that moment, then you just miss it. You missed a great reward. The opportunity might come only once, and if you are not ready, it’s gone. And a lot of us might be eager to strive in the cause of God. You might even be disappointed that so few opportunities come across us to strive in the cause of God. But, if it is an opportunity which matters, it will always come at a moment when bravery is required, a moment which feels dangerous. That’s when it matters.

And, if you choose to go to Heaven through striving without submission, you are free to go and do it with other groups – go and do it with the Christians or the Jews, because we don’t want problems in our group. Striving without submission brings problems. The Quranists, for example, will forever have group problems. They want to strive without submission. If you choose, on the other hand, submission without striving, then you are welcome in our group, but you won’t receive any special invitations for great opportunities. If you choose to do both, submission and striving, then you are welcome in our group and you will also receive special invitations whenever opportunities to strive present themselves.