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.
Praise be to God! There is no other god except God.
Are there aliens out there? Is there life in other planets? According to the scientists, they still don’t know. Eventually, they will be able to correctly guess scientifically before the end of the world, but what’s the point then, when the world will end anyway. Now, we as believers, if we are careful, and not bias, we can actually attain this knowledge beforehand, and once they eventually find the answer just before the end of the world, this will show to them that Alban Fejza knew what he was talking about. We can know this before scientists because we have the Quran. But the condition is that we have to use the whole Quran open-mindedly, and not only a few verses of the Quran. There are two ways we can get to this answer.
1)We can assume that there are no aliens out there, and then gradually adjust that assumption wherever new information from the Quran goes against that assumption. Or
2) We can initially assume that there are aliens out there, and gradually adjust that assumption wherever it contradicts the Quran.
Let use this second approach and reach the answer together. So, let’s initially assume that there are aliens out there. Then in verse 24:45 God tells us that he created every moving creature from water. So, this excludes the possibility that there are moving creatures out there who are not made of water. So, so far we can conclude that if there are aliens out there, they must be water-based organisms, not made of iron for example like transformer, but creatures which are more similar to us. Now, let’s estimate, how many planets in the universe would potentially be suitable for water-based organisms. It is estimated, that in total this universe contains about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets. But, how many of them are potentially suitable for water-based organisms? Well, for a planet to be suitable for the creation of water-based organisms, first it has to be not too far from its star, so that water does not freeze, and not too close to its star so that water does not evaporate, just at the right distance from the star, and this is called the Goldilocks Zone. It is estimated that 1 in every 2000 planets in the universe are within the Goldilocks Zone.
The second criterion is that it should be at a usual temperature between 0 and 100 degrees celsius, and just being on the Goldilocks Zone does not guarantee this, because the planet can have excessive or insufficient internal heat from its core, or the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. And the chances that a Goldilocks Zone planet also has the appropriate surface temperature are about 1 in 100.
It also has to be at a size which is not too different from that of the earth, because a bigger size could destroy life with large weather events, and so on, and then a small planet would barely be able to hold the atmosphere. 1 in about every 100 planets is close to the size of Earth.
Of course, such planet would need to have an Ozone layer, to protect from radiation whatever life is created in there. Radiation destroys the DNA molecules, and every 1 in about 1000 planets has some kind of protective atmospheric layer.
Of course, it also needs a magnetosphere for such protection, and 1 in about every 10 planets has a relatively good magnetosphere. And the planet has to have the appropriate amount of carbon on the surface. Carbon is the building block of organisms. The difference between organic and inorganic chemistry is whether it has carbon or not. Because carbon can connect in so many ways with itself and most of the atoms in the universe, then it’s like the Lego brick of atoms, which is the only atom with sufficient different connections to enable replicable organisms. The Quran calls it, black mud, because it is the only chemical element which is black, which can be seen in the periodic table with element colors below:
Now, 1 in about 100 planets has sufficient carbon which is spread on the surface.
Another thing which would be needed in a planet to support water-based organisms is lightning, to catalyze the initial organic molecules. This is proven by the Miller-Urey experiment, which is taught in high-school. You need lightning to create the initial organic molecules from the non-organic molecules. A lot of religious people imagine God creating life in some kind of weird way like a magician. How about, he just says it in Heaven, and lightning strikes the carbonated water on earth? Understanding it scientifically does not exclude God’s involvement. Anyway, about 1 in every 100 planets has the appropriate lightning in it.
And finally, to support the creation of water-based organisms the planet must have, of course, water. About 1 in every 100 planets has water, but that’s mostly underground water, or just small pieces of ice in the poles of the planet or something, which did not evaporate and leave the planet, but the planet has to have proper bodies of water, on the surface of the planet, where light hits it for the needed photosynthesis, so, actually proper seas or lakes, or oceans are needed, and from all the planets with water, planets with proper seas are much rarer, maybe about 1 in every 1000 such planets.
So, now, we know the conditions which a planet has to fulfill to be suitable for the creation of water-based organisms, and we also know the approximate probabilities for each of those conditions. And the probability that you will find a planet which fulfills all those conditions at once, if you just multiply those numbers, you get the probability, which is 1 in 200 Quintillion, which is a number with 20 zeros. Luckily, the number of planets in the universe is 5,000 times larger than that. This means that in our whole universe, there are only 5,000 planets which fulfill all the conditions for the creation of water-based organisms, and the Quran tells us that only water based organisms exist in this world. So, from all the billion, billion, billion planets in our universe, there are only about 5,000 planets suitable for water-based organisms, but that does not automatically mean that those planets will lead to such organisms. Those conditions have to be arranged in a very specific order, with billion and billions of trials across many billions of years, to statistically get a chance to have the simplest form of an organism which has about 200,000 letters in it’s DNA. You could not have a DNA which is way more simple than that, because then it would not be able to replicate, and you can not have it more complicated, because it just wouldn’t happen in those planets. The probabilities are enormously low that such an organism would pop up by chance, because each of those letters has to be in that specific order. However, there are 5,000 planets with billions and billions of carbon and water molecules with billions and billions of seconds available in them. They have time. Planets have time, and this is the part which scientists don’t know yet. They don’t know exactly how much time is needed for such an event to occur, so let’s just guess. Let’s say that in 1 over 1000 of those habitable planets who existed for about a billion years, such a spark would happen and give rise to a water-based organism. This means that from about 1 Septillion planets in our universe, which is an enormously huge number, only 5000 of them have the conditions for organisms, and only about 5 to 10 of those planets statistically actually should have organisms in them. So, this is the statistical conclusion. Statistically, anywhere from 5 to 10 planets should have organisms in them.
Now, using the Quran we can know even more details. How many planets exactly, and what kind of organisms exist over there? And we can find all this from the Quran. Here is the evidence:
According to the Quran, only animals and humans are considered life on earth, but not plants. Plants don’t have souls, but animals and humans have souls. In the Bible, it says that blood is the seat of life, and plants don’t have blood. Animals and humans have blood, and a soul. So, Quranically, animals are alive, but trees are not life. So, according to the Quran, a tree has more in common with a stone, than with a dog. On the other hand, the modern scientific definition classifies the tree as a living thing, but not according to the Quran. According to the Quran, a dog is a living creature, while the tree and the stone are not living creatures. So, according to the Quran, a dog lives on earth, but a tree is part of the earth, which is why verse 22:63 says that God turns the earth green, which means that grass, as a plant, is considered part of the earth, not a living creature on earth, but it is considered as earth changing shape and color, becoming grass, and there are many other verses in the Quran which support the idea that plants are not living creatures.
Now, to merge the scientific and Quranic definition of life, we should use the word “sentient organisms”. Sentient means something which feels. Animals have feelings, but trees don’t have feelings, and this has to do with the soul, but now you know the distinction, only what scientists call sentient beings are what the Quran calls living beings. All living beings, or so called sentient beings according to scientists, have positive reinforcing senses or feelings, and negative repelling senses or feelings. God tells us in the Quran that he is not unjust to any soul. This means that no soul would ever experience a negative feeling, unless it deserves it, and no soul would deserve it, unless he became part of Satan’s trial, and in the Quran God tells us that only earth was given to Satan as a trial, in verse 2:30, not the other planets. This means that since negative feelings can be experienced by God’s creatures only on Earth, and all animals and humans have negative feelings, that means that there must be animals and human beings only on earth. But, this does not exclude the possibility that there are plants on other planets, and we already calculated it statistically that there most likely are organisms, therefore only plants, in about 5 to 10 planets in our universe. In fact, the Quran tells us exactly that there are 7 planets in the whole universe which have plants in them. Verse 65:12 says that God created seven universes and the same number of earths – the same number of earths like it. Now, had those 6 other planets not been with plants, they would not be like earth, but in the Arabic Quran it says like the earth, and because the Arabic Quran considers plants to be part of the earth, it means that those 6 other planets must contain plants to be considered like the earth. And they also have all the other things like the earth, rivers, and seas, and an atmosphere, and mountains, but not animals and humans. So, technically, if we use the Quranic definition of life, there is no life in other planets in the universe, but if we use the scientific definition of life, then yes there is life in 6 other planets, but only plants, without animals or humans or things which resemble them. The question is, “Why so?” Well, the purpose is to show that God started the creation at least three times from scratch. On earth he created animals from scratch, separately from the plants, and then they evolved, and then finally he created the human separately, from scratch, from earth. So, because, in other planets plants never evolved into animals, but only into other plants, this will prove on the day of judgment that God was involved to separately create the animals on earth. So, Darwinian evolution can be considered as partly true. The dog and the tiger are distant cousins from a common very distant ancestor, but the trees and the dogs are not cousins. They have separate ancestors. So, there are at least three evolutionary trees on earth, and not just one as Darwin thought. Also, humans and animals are not cousins. So, plants were created separately, and then they evolved into many different plants, and land animals were created separately and they evolved into many different animals, and in the end humans were created separately, but they did not evolve, because the humans were created in a perfect shape. They only devolved a tiny bit by getting mixed with Neanderthals and their cousins, but anyway, the issue of evolution and creation is a topic for another article.
So, the conclusion is that there are no aliens in other planets in this universe, except plants, and those plants exist in exactly 6 other planets.
Someone might say, but what about those media reports of people seeing UFOs? Well, most of those claims are made by people who were on drugs at that time. A few of those claims are made by narcissists who want attention, and this can be noticed because whenever a popular movie with UFOs comes out, the number of people who claim to have seen UFOs increases, because they get motivated by the movie to become famous and things like that. And there also rare cases of people who truly see something in the sky, but those are either some kind of weather phenomena, or more likely secret weapons tested by governments. For example, Russia might want to develop a new secret military airplane which is not detected by US radar, but they don’t know how good is the US military radar detection. So, they will send a spy to the US to test it. He will fly a drone with similar stealth capabilities to the potential airplane prototype, and he will mask it in some kind of unrecognizable shape so that people don’t know for sure what they saw. The purpose would be to fly it, and see if the US military will detect it. If they don’t, then Russia knows that they should go ahead to build the airplane with similar stealth capabilities and things like that. So, most of these cases are just militaries testing one another’s capabilities, and things like that. And then someone while hiking might see it, and tell the media, and the media will label it as a UFO, which simply means Unidentified Flying Object. It doesn’t mean that aliens visited us. It just means that the media were not able to identify what it was that the person claimed to see, but it wasn’t aliens, because aliens don’t exist, except for plants, and of course the angels and demons, jinn, they exist in other dimensions outside of this universe, but no one who has lived after Muhammad has ever seen an angel or a demon, while still being alive, but that’s another issue which can be proven with other verses of the Quran.
Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. Verses 23 and 24 of Chapter 18 of the Arabic Quran tell us that we should not say that we will do anything TOMORROW without saying “God willing.” Now, the question is, does this commandment apply only for tomorrow, or also for any other day after tomorrow? It turns out, that this word, which we translate as tomorrow, in the Arabic Quran, it is mentioned, and therefore defined in other verses, from which we can deduce that it refers to any day in the future. For example, verse 54:26 says that the disbelievers will find out tomorrow (same word) who the flagrant liar is. Obviously, in this verse, the word “tomorrow” refers to the distant future, when the Day of Judgment happens.
Again in verse 59:18, God says “O you who believe, you shall reverence GOD, and let every soul examine what it has sent ahead for TOMORROW…” Again, here we see that this same word in Arabic is used with a very wide definition, referring to the future, any day in the future.
So, this means that we should say “God willing”, whenever we say that we will do something in the future, whether it is tomorrow, or the day after it, or any other day after it.
Now, the question is, “What about today?” Does this commandment apply to things we will do today, let’s say, two hours from now? Well, logically, it definitely makes sense that we should say, “God willing”. However, it’s interesting that we find examples in the Quran about believers from the past who did not say “God willing” when they were about to do something in the future, if it was within the day, within today, with the same day when they said it.
For example, verse 27:20 says, “He, Solomon, inspected the birds, and noted: “Why do I not see the hoopoe? Why is he missing? I WILL punish him severely or sacrifice him, unless he gives me a good excuse?” See, Solomon said, “I will”, but did not even say, “God willing” and we can know that he was talking about the future in that same day because then the next verse says, “He did not wait for long, (and the hoopoe said…”. So, he was talking about the same day.
Here is another example: In verse 12:97, the sons of Jacob say, “Our father, pray for our forgiveness, we were wrong indeed, and Jacob says, “I WILL implore my Lord to forgive you.” He did not say, “God willing.” He intended to do it very soon on that same day.
Another example: In verse 18:60 Moses says to his servant, “I WILL not rest until I reach the point where the two waters meet, or until I am extremely tired.” No “God willing”. He was doing it on the same day.
Another example: In verse 18:78, God’s servant, whom God had sent to teach Moses says to Moses, “Now we have to part company. But I WILL explain to you everything you could not stand.” and he did not say, “God willing”.
The question is “Why?” Well, in the past, they did not have busy lives like today, despite what people think. Business has changed from the time of Adam when he did not need to work to survive gradually to the last generation where they will have to be almost constantly working to survive. Now, given that the people of the past did not have many interruptions in their daily routine, it was almost completely unlikely that what they said they would do during the day, it would not get done, provided that when they said it they knew that they have all the means and capabilities, and the will to do it, provided that they really meant it, and knew that they can do it. Now, why would God leave these examples where righteous people don’t say God willing, when actually these days given the level of interruptions in our daily life, we are not 100% sure about what we will be able to do anyway, and therefore theoretically, the commandment to say “God willing” within the same day should apply to us anyway. Well, all these interruptions from a busy life, also imply that the person is a professional at whatever he is doing. A busy believer is a professional. If a believer is not that professional, he shouldn’t be that busy, and if a believer is busy, he should be a professional. Now, that same business which increases the need to say “God willing”, because of uncertainty, automatically implies professionalism, and when you are a professional, you actually go back to not using the word “I will” at all. And when you don’t say “I will” there is no need to say, “God willing”. For example, a professional, instead of saying, “It will rain tomorrow”, he says “The weather forecast for tomorrow is”. So, now it’s an estimate, not a promise about the future. Or instead of saying, “I will send you that document by noon.” He says, “It usually takes me about two hours to finish this type of document.” Or instead of saying, I will be there in one hour. He says, “The estimated travel time in Google maps is 1 hour”, and then, if he is early, he just sends a message, “I am already here”, or if he is late, “He says, I might be late about 10 or 20 minutes”. “I might”, not “I will” and there are so many other sophisticated ways of doing this. See, none of these cases involve saying, “I will”, and therefore none of them demand you to say “God willing”. Instead, they inform the listener about much more than just telling them your intentions, they tell the listener more sophisticated information, which is neither a full promise, and neither a vague statement of intentions which does not help at all in a business setting. See, the way, a lot of people use the word “inshallah” in the middle east, it kills professionalism, because it can mean anything, in the way they use it, it can mean anything from being 1% sure that he will do it, to 99% sure that he will do it. So, that statement does not help me at all, except creating distrust in a long term relationship with that business partner. Instead, a professional person helps you have a clear understanding about what is most likely to happen, but it also leaves a reasonable small possibility that it might not happen.
So, yes we should always say, “God willing” whenever we say that we will do something in the future, whether it is the near future today, or the distant future, but when it comes to the near future within the same day, there is at least one better way nowadays of informing the listener with more sophisticated details than simply saying, “I will do it, God willing”. See, we don’t say “God willing” to appear religious. We say it to be accurate in our statements, and if we manage to make accurate statements, without the need for the phrase, “God willing”, then that is what we do. The Quran tells us not to use God’s name in vain. We just don’t drop his name where it’s not needed. When you say, “I will” then the saying “God willing” is needed, but for things within a day, you have sufficient information to professionally arrange the sentence in such a way to where it is accurate even without saying “I will”. And I am not trying to say that we should always be vague in our statements. We should let the other person know about the most likely option, without using the words “I will”. You can use the words like “in my estimate”, or “the general expectation is”, or “I am leaning towards this” and phrases like that which inform him or her enough to understand that it’s not a direct promise that something will happen in the future, but it also informs him or her enough so they can lean more towards one way rather than another. Or when we do the Contact Prayer, we don’t say, “I will do the Noon Contact Prayer”, we say, “I intend to do the Noon Contact Prayer”. See, it’s a more sophisticated statement, which circumvents the need to use the words “I will”, and when we don’t use the words “I will” there is also no need to say “God willing” to make it more accurate.
Also, there are cases where statements which use the word “will” about the future, do not need the phrase “God willing” at all, and these are statements which are guaranteed directly in the Quran. For example, we don’t say, “Believers will go to heaven, God willing.” The statement “Believers will go to heaven” is already accurate enough, without the need to add the phrase “God willing.” God has already willed that believers will go to heaven. It’s a sure thing about the future. Whether a particular person is truly a believer or not, that’s another issue, but all believer will go to heaven, no matter what, and there is no need to add “God willing” to it. This is why predictions by prophets about the future, and my predictions which I extract directly from the Quran, they don’t have the phrase “God willing” in them. God has already willed them, but I use the phrase “God willing” a lot in other daily life circumstances, usually outside of specific professional settings. The most important thing is that what we say should be true. If we have to use the phrase, “if God wills” to make a statement true, then that is what we do, and if the statement is already true, without saying “if God wills”, then that is what we say.
Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. As you know, we as submitters consider four religious rituals to be obligatory:
1) The Contact Prayer (which in itself includes the Shahada, of course)
2) Obligatory Charity,
3) Fasting, and
4) Hajj Pilgrimage.
Now, what about the children of submitters? What are the requirements for them? What should submitters expect from their children. What should the general reasonable expectations be for the children of submitters? And before we go further, let’s first explain what we mean by general reasonable expectations. For example, the general reasonable expectation is that you should not make a phone call during late night, because the person might be sleeping. However, this is not a Quranic rule, and there are cases where it’s ok to call someone during the night, but the general reasonable expectation is not to do it. Or if you go out at 1 am, the general reasonable expectation in most of the towns in the world is that almost all the shops will be closed. Now, there might not be even a rule which stops that, but it just happens due to other reasons that most of the shops, if not all of them, are closed during the night. So, in a similar way, when we talk about general reasonable expectations about the religious duties for children of submitters, we are not talking about direct Quranic rules, but a large combination of other Quranic rules, which generally lead to these expectations about the children of submitters. And God willing, we will go over those Quranic rules in other videos, so we can understand the root rules of these expectations, but that will take a lot of videos. So, in this video let’s sort of just give a packaged version of these general reasonable expectations, so you can use it as an approximate map. Now, here are the general reasonable expectations for children of submitters. Let’s go over the summary first, before we go into the details:
1) Until the age of 12, until the start of puberty, children are only exposed to religious duties without any requirements.
2) From the age of 12 until the age of 18, children are expected to always join you in religious duties, to keep the peace within the family, but they are not expected to do anything on their own when you are not there, and also they are not expected to engage in organized religion.
3) From the age of 18, they are expected to fulfill all their religious duties on their own, and also to become part of organized religion.
Now, let’s explain what we mean more specifically with this. So, until the age of 12 the children are exposed to the Contact Prayers, and they might initially join you as play, and then maybe they can understand it as some sort of family activity which the adults just do and during that time it is better just join them. However, ablution is not needed for them, for the children. They are not really that impure, even when they don’t have ablution. And also, if they join the contact prayer, they are not really doing the contact prayer. They are just imitating the parent. They are participating in a family ritual, not necessarily in a religious ritual. But it might make sense to encourage them to do it, for managerial reasons, so they are distracted from doing something dangerous, especially because they know that you are not watching them at that time. So, until 12, they are only exposed to religion, but no religious duties are required of them, and if they join you in the contact prayer, they can do so without ablution. But also, it is important not to stop them from religious duties, by belittling them, keeping them in their shell away from religion, by telling them, “you still don’t understand”, and things like that. There is a verse in the Bible where Jesus tells the people, “Let the little children come to me”, meaning let them hear the word of God. Don’t intentionally keep them away from the word of God. So, you just expose them to religion without expectations of what they should do, and what they should and should not understand.
Now, when they reach the age of 12, you as a parent teach them how to perform ablution. And then, you tell them that whenever they hear your call to prayer, they should get up, perform ablution, and join you in whatever movement you are doing. They don’t even need to learn the words. They just know that they should do what you do. You bow, they bow. You prostrate, they prostrate. You stand up, they stand up. But, you expect this only as a common prayer, not as an expectation of an individual prayer which they can or should do themselves. For example, let’s say you come from work, and you find your child at home, and the afternoon prayer time has already started an hour ago. You should not ask them, if they did the prayer. The Quran tells us not to spy on the people. So, you assume that since the prayer time started earlier, you must assume that they did the prayer already. You don’t ask them, if they did it. You must assume that they did. So, in this case when you start doing the afternoon prayer, you don’t make the call for prayer, and they don’t join you, because you have taught them that they should join you only when they hear the call for prayer from you. Otherwise, you don’t manage, or double check whether they are doing it alone at other times. So, now let’s say that the evening prayer starts, and they are still there, you definitely see that they did not do the evening prayer, because they were with you from the beginning of the evening time, so now you make the call for prayer, and as soon as they hear it, they should go and do ablution, and join you in prayer. So, your child who is above 12 should know that when you make the call for the prayer, he or she should definitely join you with ablution, but if you don’t make the call for the prayer, he should not join you.
You wait for them to do ablution and join you, after you make the call and before you start the prayer. If they don’t, you demand, talk, insist. Try the nice approaches without begging, and the harsh approaches without violence. If they resist, there should be non-violent repercussions, definitely. In the past, even violent repercussions were allowed, and we are not stopping them because they are wrong, but because they don’t work. See, parenting is not only an issue of issuing judgments to your child, deciding what is wrong and what is not wrong, but also it’s a management issue, deciding what works and what doesn’t work. And violent repercussions just don’t work today, because violence has been outsourced to the police. And violence really doesn’t work in the long run, anyway. Anyway, this means that you have to take more time and make more efforts to use other repercussions, if your child above 12 resists joining you in the Contact Prayer after you make the call for the Contact Prayer. Repercussions can be financial, maybe not give them the ipad, or things like that. And it’s really a management issue. And by the way, if both parents are submitters, and the child has no mental handicap, we should not accept the excuse that the child simply does not listen. If you can train a dog to catch a toy when you throw it, you can also train a child to bow down when you bow down, and prostrate when you prostrate. If you can train a dog to respond when you call their name, you can also train a child to respond when they hear your call to prayer. Also, if you can find a way to make a child do his or her homework, they you can also find a way to make your child bow down when you bow down and prostrate when you prostrate. This doesn’t have to be a religious issue. It’s an issue of training your child. You don’t discuss what your child believes. They should just be trained what the response should be when they hear your call to prayer.
Now, what if the other parent is not submitter? Well, in this case, when you are with your child during the whole Contact Prayer time, you should try to make your child bow down when you bow down and prostrate when you prostrate, but in this case there can be cases when that might not work, depending on how much the other parent is influencing the child against it. This is a very big reason why the Quran says that marrying a submitter is much better than marrying a non-submitter even if you like the non-submitter more. So, it’s especially because it prevents any possibility of sending all your efforts with your children to waste. So, if the other parent is not a submitter, it might happen that your efforts – and you should make full efforts anyway – but it might happen that they go to waste, and they don’t work, because the other parent might have more influence. Now, in this case there is financial atonement for this, which means that you should atone for your insufficient management. You will be rewarded for your efforts in the next world, but you should pay for your insufficient management here, and that is explained elsewhere. And it’s not necessarily an issue of right and wrong, because ultimately you are only responsible for your own soul, but it’s an issue of management vs. insufficient management.
So, these should be our general reasonable expectations for our children from the age of 12 until 18, in relation to the Contact Prayers. And the same with fasting. Children should generally be expected to start fasting at the age of 12. So, when Ramadan, or the fasting time comes, and your children are 12, you just don’t cook for them during the day, even if they are not fasting, and then when the time for breaking the fast comes, you make sure that they have a nice healthy meal to eat, and they will adjust their behavior to that. You should try to use any non-violent means to make them fast when the month of fasting comes, if they are over 12. And actually, children at this age see fasting as an interesting way to challenge themselves, to see how much they have grown up.
Now, regarding Hajj: We should not expect that you take children under 12 to Hajj. It’s just an unnecessary complication, and they will not value it, and it’s not that easy to guarantee their safety, and they will not know what they are doing. If they are between 12 and 18, and you have definitely decided to go to Hajj during that time, then you may take them or you may go alone. Either way has its benefits.
Now, regarding Obligatory Charity: The laws in today’s democratic countries limit ownership of anything of value only to people who are above 18, and this means that Obligatory Charity, as a result, is limited only to people above 18, because people below 18 can not be the legal owners of anything anyway, in today’s circumstances. This is why we allow only people over 18 to join us in Organized Religious Rituals. Public Obligatory Charity is an Organized Religious Ritual.
The other Organized Religious Ritual is the Friday Prayer, and this again only becomes obligatory after the age of 18. The Quran says to leave work, and join the Friday Prayer, so the requirement for the Friday Prayer is only for people of working age, and only people over 18 are allowed to work in today’s environment. Children below 18 may listen to the sermons, but only in the presence of their parent, and if their parent wishes to expose them to it, but if they don’t, it’s fine. It’s not obligatory for children anyway. If the parent decides to just paraphrases what he or she learned, and tells it to his or her child in a shortened version, that is also fine.
So, to summarize, no religious rituals should be expected from our children before 12, but they are simply exposed to that religious environment. From 12 until 18, we should expect them to do the Contact Prayer and Fasting, but we should expect that only when they are with us. Hajj Pilgrimage is optional during that age. And Obligatory Charity and Friday Sermon (the organized part of Submission) becomes obligatory at the age of 18. And until the age of 18, you carry the responsibility for what your child does. If he does what he should do. It’s your credit. If he doesn’t do what he is supposed to do, then it’s your fault. God will count it as a good deed or a bad deed for you, not for your child until he or she reaches the age of 18. And in case the other parent of the child is not a submitter, and their bigger influence makes it impossible for you to realize your expectations about your child, then you should atone for your life mismanagement, which is explained elsewhere.
And finally, here is something even more important. Never let your child bully or pressure you into changing your religion. Verse 30:28 says “God cites for you herein an example from among yourselves: Do you ever elevate your servants (your dependent children in this case) or subordinates to the level where they rival you, and to the point that you pay them as much allegiance as is being paid to you? We thus explain the revelations for people who understand.”
Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. As we know, Abraham had two main sons. Isaac – the father of Jacob (Israel) – from whom the Israelites descend. The other main son was Ismail from whom the Arabs descend. And here is what God tells Abraham about Ismail in Genesis 17:20. He says, “As for Ismail, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation.” Now, among other things, this prophecy to be about the end times as well. So, the Arabs will be ruled by 12 rulers at the end times. Now, given that we are almost in the end times, it’s quite safe to speculate that the 12 rulers will rule the 12 Arab states. So, the Arabs consist of the people in these 12 states: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan, Iraq, Yemen, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon.
All of them are in the Arabian Peninsula. Now, apparently Muhammad was told by the Jews about this Biblical prophecy, and he understood it in the same way, but then the later Hadith writers wrote it as a Hadith, and hid the fact that Muhammad was giving his interpretation of the Biblical prophecy, and not his own prophecy. So, now the traditional Muslims attribute this prophecy to Muhammad, even though this was known thousands of years before Muhammad. Even worse, Shia people misunderstood this prophecy, and they invented the idea that there will be 12 rulers after Muhammad, starting with Ali, and then his son, and then his grandson and so on, one after another (across time), and then the world will end. But, the 12th descendant after Ali came, and their prophecy was not fulfilled, they killed or hid the 12th descendant and invented another lie “their so called hidden imam” so they can cover up the first lie. Bizarre lie after bizarre lie. Completely baseless, non-Quranic ideas. But let’s explain how that Biblical prophecy about the 12 Arab rulers should be understood. It should not be understood as 12 Arab rulers across time, but as 12 Arab rulers across space, which means 12 rulers of 12 Arab states at the same time. 12 Arab groups, and it should be understood like this because Ismail had 12 sons, and from them descend 12 Arab nations. Let’s explain this prophecy even further. See, even though we have listed here 12 Arab states, so far only 11 of them have their own rulers. Only 11 of them are independent, but the Palestinians are still not an independent Arab state. They are occupied by Israel. This means that the prophecy is almost fulfilled but not yet. This means that eventually the Palestinians will get their full rights, and that will be one of the signs that the End of the World is has approached very near – when the Palestinians get their full rights, when the Arabs are divided into exactly 12 distinct groups under 12 distinct rulers.
Now, before we go further and analyze what the Quran says about the Arabs, let’s first make it clear that no Arab nation today is a pure Arab nation. For example, Saudi Arabians might be about 70% pure Arab, while Lebanon might be only about 30% pure Arab, and the others are somewhere in between. We tried to order them here from the most Arab to the least Arab, approximately, depending how much they got mixed with other nations. So, today they are only a certain percentage Arab, and therefore when the Quran says something about them, it is actually talking about the concept of a pure Arab, which applies to the Arabs of the today up to a certain percentage, not fully. To show you what we mean by this, let’s take an example. Jesus says in the Bible that if you believe, then if you say to the mountain, “May you be thrown in the sea”, it will happen. This is true. However, if any of us today say to the mountain, “May you be thrown in the sea”, it will not happen, and this is because we are not 100% believers. What Jesus said was true, but what he said applies 100% only to 100% believers, and if we are only 70% believers, then that statement applies to us only 70%. So, in our case, with 70% belief or less, when we say to the mountain, may you be thrown into the sea, it will take time until it happens. It will happen when the end of the world comes. So, what Jesus said applies to us 70% or less to us, not because his statement was only 70% correct, but because we fit the description in that statement only 70%. In the same way, because Arabs today are not 100% Arabs, what the Quran says about Arabs applies only up to a certain percentage to them today, depending on how much Arab they are. So, the Arabs in the Arabian Peninsula today are on average only about 50% Arabian today, and this percentage keeps going down until the end of the world when the Arabs will fit the qualification of being an Arab very close to 0%. But today, let’s say that they are still 50% Arab on average. Even more, when the Quran says something negative specifically about Arabs, bear in mind that from each nation 91% of the people are not believers anyway, which is explained in another video, but this means that 91% of that negativity is already shared between Arabs and non-Arabs. But the question is, “Is there more negativity among the Arabs on top of the negativity which applies to all the other nations?” The answer is, “If you take all times into consideration “No””. But, there might be fluctuations at specific times where God puts some additional negativity on them, to compensate for the fact that He plans to put some additional positivity on them at another later time, to keep it equal, on average. But, even then the difference is only lower than 50% Arabism x 10% Belief which is only 5% difference. So, this means that whatever is said specifically negative or positive about the Arabs in this video, keep constantly in mind that it either:
Applies to only less than 5% of them
Or it applies to all of them but in less than 5% of the time
Or it applies to all the other nations as well, but we just happen to be talking about Arabs in this sermon.
So, now let’s delve into the bad and good about the Arabs. Let’s start with the bad. Here is what Rashad Khalifa said about the Arabs in the 1980s “So, I wrote here back in 1980, 1400, that God had forsaken the Arabs. The Arabs meaning in the Arabian Peninsula”
Rashad made this statement based on his personal experience with Arab leaders, his intuition, and inspiration, but he did not know how to fully explain it. We know how to also explain it, thanks to God, so here is the explanation:
The nations of the past, depending on how isolated they were from other nations, they developed different tendencies and preferences for what type of evil they are willing to tolerate and what type of evil they are not willing to tolerate. For example, Sodom and Gomorrah tolerated homosexuality, but they probably did not tolerate violence. It was all about having fun for them. On the other hand, Pharaoh who was also evil, he tolerated violence against the Children of Israel, but very likely he did not tolerate homosexuality. To him, it was not about having fun. To him, it was about having power. However, as civilizations developed, and nations communicated and traded with one another, their evil preferences became more shared and less unique, but until recently a tiny evil uniqueness remained among each of them, cultural differences. For example, the evil Africans of the past had a tendency to tolerate some kinds of property oriented evils, the evil Asians of the past had a tendency to tolerate some kinds of family oriented evils, the evil Europeans of the past had a tendency to tolerate some kinds of nationality oriented evils, and the evil Jews of the past had a tendency to tolerate some kinds of globally or ideologically oriented evils. But what about the Arabs? The evil Arabs had a tendency to tolerate some kinds of religiously oriented evils. And this is where it gets complicated with the Arabs. Here is why: While the other nations, when they wanted to be evil, they decided to give up on religion, Arabs in general when they decided to be evil, they were still locked inside the religion. And this is because in verse 43:28, God promises to keep the religious rituals of Abraham preserved through the descendants of Abraham, the Arabs. So, the Arabs were God’s tool to protect the religious rituals, but they were not better in faith than the other people, on average. So, what happens is that when the Arabs lost their faith, God still made them keep their religious rituals through social pressure and other things. So, they still continued to observe the Contact Prayer and give the Zakat, as they have always done as a group traditionally. To them, those rituals are just an intrinsic part of being an Arab. In fact, until recently they did not even distinguish between religion and nation. The word “religion” is a western idea. Arabs called themselves “a Muslim ummah” which means “Muslim nation”. So, they did not perceive Islam as a religion, but as a nation. They did not see sufficient distinction between religion and nationality. So, to Arabs in the Arabian Peninsula, being an Arab and being “a Muslim” was pretty much the same thing. This why in verse 49:14, God tells the Arabs to say that they are Muslims. Now, if Arabs were sometimes Muslims and sometimes not, God would not say that, because then God’s word would not be true, but when God orders the Arabs to say that they are Muslims, then it is done. God’s word is true. So, this means that being an Arab automatically meant being a Muslim. However, religion, organized religion, and nation are the same thing for the Arabs.
So, the Arabs were always Muslims by virtue of their nationality and organized religion. Now, because they were locked by God inside the Muslim nationality and Muslim organized religion, whenever they were not believers, instead of leaving Islam as an organized religion, they added something on top of Islam, without leaving it. So, whenever God wanted to let them deserve Hell, instead of making them leave Organized Islam, God let them add something else on top of Organized Islam, to nullify their Islam. In this way, they could express their disbelief while still being locked inside Organized Islam, to preserve it. In other words, when God weakened the souls of non-Arabs, He just did not give them spiritual food, but when God weakened the souls of Arabs, He still gave them food, but He let them add poison on top of the food, so their souls got weakened anyway.
And Organized Islam consists of the Friday Prayer (Organized Prayer) and Zakat (Organized Charity), nothing else. The Friday Prayer includes in itself the Contact Prayer. So, the Arabs preserved their Contact Prayers, through common prayer during Friday, which indirectly let’s people double check each other’s prayer, and therefore it keeps it preserved for all generations So, one of the purposes of the Friday Prayer is to confirm each other’s Contact Prayer once a week, and this keeps it unchanged across generations. And in Arabia, since the time of Muhammad, there has never been a Friday, where the Friday Prayer was not performed, and therefore the Arabs did not lose it. They preserved all the necessary steps of the Contact Prayers. All those steps were in there. But they added things on top of it. For example, mentioning the name of Muhammad unnecessarily, and doing salavat for Muhammad, and this nullified their Contact Prayers, and therefore all that spiritual food which they ate damaged their soul as much as it nourished it. So, that was the first part of Organized Religion which they preserved, while being disbelievers for centuries. The second part of Organized Islam is Zakat (Organized Charity, Public Charity). This religious ritual was again all preserved among the Arabs. And unlike the Contact Prayer, which was not accepted by God for centuries, because it indirectly involved idol worship, there was no idol worship involved in their Zakat, so God actually accepted it until 1980. So, the only things which kept the Arabs from being cursed as a community is the fact that they observed Organized Zakat (Organized Charity), without idol worship, which God accepted. However, regardless of whether Zakat is being done correctly or not, there is a condition for God to accept it. And that condition is that they should not reject a messenger whom God sends. This condition is in verse 9:54. So, for as long as God did not send another messenger from the time of Muhammad, the Organized Zakat of the Arabs was accepted to God. However, in 1980, God sent His Messenger of the Covenant, Rashad Khalifa, and because they rejected him, then even their Zakat became unacceptable and nullified, according to verse 9:54. So, this is why Arabs were cursed since 1980, while still remaining inside of their Organized Islam, so they can preserve the rituals of Islam. The question is, “Will this curse go forever, or will it be removed?” Well, here is the good news: The curse was removed during last year, in 2021. So, God closed the door to the Arabs from 1980 until 2020, for 40 years, but He opened another door for them now. Since last year, since 2021, we have established public organized Zakat online, which can reach the Arabs, and they have started to join. By the way, they would not join while being believers otherwise, without organized Zakat, because organized Zakat is part of being a pure Arab, and it was not possible for God’s Messenger of the Covenant to organize the Public Zakat for them, given that they lived in different countries, and there was no internet then. But today, God made it possible, as part of his plan through internet to open the door again for the Arabs. And you know what? For 13 years, since 2008, Alban Fejza was preaching online, and not a single Arab believed, until Public Zakat was organized through internet, and then on the 14th year, soon enough they started believing and joining us, and today, about 10% of our congregation are Arabs, people born in the Arabian Peninsula. And apparently, now we realize that God had a system and a purpose for the temporary curse and redemption of the Arabs. The system was similar to the time of Moses. During the time of Moses, when the Jews disobeyed Moses, God cursed the Jews and left them in the desert for 40 years, as we are told in verse 5:26. And similarly, there are exactly 40 years from 1980 when God sent the Messenger of the Covenant until 2020. On the 41st year, in 2021, God lifted the ban of Arabs, and soon after that, they started to join us. So, this was the system.
Now here is the purpose: God’s purpose is to use the Arabs as the supporters of believers during the end times, during the time of the Mahdi. However, this would mean that they would be given priority over the other people in the end times. But, God is not racist. To God and to me, the Arabs are not better than the non-Arabs. There is no chance. God will send an equal proportion of people from all races and nations to Heaven. But, if God is going to use the Arabs for the end times and give them priority then during the time of the Mahdi, then to compensate for that, God left them behind from 1980 until 2020.
And now that we look back at it, it all makes sense. We had tried to understand organized Zakat for many years, because we was aware that there was something missing in the Zakat in the way the submitters after Rashad Khalifa were understanding it. We had tried to find the solution for many years, and God only allowed Alban Fejza to find the solution in 2021. This is exactly when God removed the ban on Arabs.
However, there is one slight change: In the past, had the Arabs accepted Rashad as God’s Messenger of the Covenant, God and Rashad would have given the Arabs priority to organize the Zakat, due to their geographical centrality. But they rejected him, so now they lost that chance. Now, internet has made geographical centrality obsolete when it comes to Zakat, and God has appointed Alban Fejza to organize it, and he will delegate that priority to the Congregation Directors which he chooses, regardless of the nationality, Arab or non-Arab – as prescribed by the Quran.
One more thing. A message to the Arabs: Since the ban on you has been removed by God, please pay attention to a hidden danger, if you are an Arab. Because you are destined to be Submitters anyway, it is harder for you to know whether you have been truly guided, or whether God is just using you to fulfill His plan to preserve the organized religious rituals. In other words, as an Arab among us, you are more likely to turn into a Hypocrite, which is mentioned in verse 9:97. The other people are more likely to leave submission, which is actually a blessing in disguise, because if they leave, they know they left, and they might repent and come back, but you are less likely to know that you have left, which makes it harder for you to find your way back, because you might not even know that you are lost. And to help you with that, if you are an Arab, we looked at the verses where God specifically addresses the Arabs, specifically talks to them, and in those verses, we found seven main signs which you can use as indicators to know whether you are being truly guided, or whether God is only using you to preserve the Abrahamic religious rituals:
First sign: Are you a Muhajer (migrant)? (verse 9:100). Or do you live in the same country where you were born? Or, even better, how willing would you be to migrate, if you have to do it in the cause of God?
Second sign: Are you an Ansar (supporter)? (verse 9:100) If another submitter needs to migrate in the cause of God, how willing are you to offer your house for support, in case there is space for them, provided that the gender rules allow it, of course, until they can support themselves, provided that they don’t take advantage of the good deed? Verse 9:100 says, as for the early vanguards who immigrated (Muhajerun), and the supporters who gave them refuge (Ansar) and those who followed them in righteousness, God is pleased with them, and they are pleased with Him.
Third sign: Are you trying to hide behind God’s messenger? (Verse 9:90-9:91). This sign does not apply to weak men, or to women, or to children, because they are not expected to necessarily engage in public struggles. So, when Alban Fejza organizes, if you are an Arab man blessed with wealth or education, are you intentionally trying to stay at the back of the struggle? Are you hiding yourself so that others don’t know who you are? Or are you trying to come at the front of the struggle. In verse 9:120, God says to you that you will not suffer even a little bit in the cause of God, without having it written down for you as a credit. God never fails to recompense those who work righteousness.
Fourth sign: When you spend in the cause of God, when you give the Zakat for example, does it feel like a loss which you have to undergo so you can be with submitters, or does it actually make you happy? (Verse 9:98). Do you believe that your spending will be a means towards God, and a means of supporting the messenger? (verse 9:99). If this second one is true, then indeed it will bring you nearer, and God will admit you into His mercy. God is forgiver, Most Merciful.
Fifth sign: When your financial independence increases, does it feel like a better opportunity to be closer to the messenger of God, or like a better opportunity to stay further away from the messenger of God? This is partly based on verse 48:11 and the verses around it.
Sixth sign: How much do you believe that the messenger of God and the believers will eventually win? (Verse 48:12).
Seventh sign: Do you think that you are doing Alban Fejza a favor by being a submitters, or do you think that God has done you a favor by being a submitter? (Verse 49:17).
And these are the sings which indicate now or in the future how guided an Arab who has joined us is.
So, to conclude, when it comes to the Arabs, they have to rely on other sings beyond submission to know if they are believers, because submission comes naturally to them anyway by virtue of their nationality, and so submission is only a partial sign of their belief. But when it comes to the non-Arabs, submission is one of the biggest signs of their belief.
Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. Verse 2:113 in the Quran says that the Jews said that the Christians have no basis, while the Christians said that the Jews have no basis, although both of them read the scripture. Such are the utterances of those who have no knowledge.
So, it is the people who are not knowledgeable who will label one group as a group with no scriptural basis, or the other group as a group with no scriptural basis. And this is because the ignorant people fail to admit that actually all the people of the scripture must have at least a little bit of scriptural basis, otherwise God would not call them “people of the scripture”. They must have some scriptural basis, at least some. They are not completely without basis. However, how much of the scripture do they follow? That is another question. So, instead of labeling people into two distinct groups, people with scriptural basis or people without scriptural basis, the correct way, the way of the more knowledgeable is to put them in a spectrum, which shows that all of them have at least a little bit of basis, but they vary on how much and in which direction. And to show you that, let’s show it in the diagram below:
So, this line represents the spectrum of how much scriptural basis a certain religious group has. In the middle, we have the people who follow the full Quran, not more and not less. To the left, we have the people who follow less than the Quran. So, they follow parts of the Quran, but not everything. And to the right we have the other groups who follow more than the Quran, meaning that they add other books as religious sources on top of it. So, the best place here is to be at the center of this line, which shows that you have the most basis, and the further away from this center you are, the worse it is, the less scriptural basis you have. So, now let’s present the different groups of people of the scripture in their approximate appropriate place. Here they are:
In the middle, we have the submitters, us. We follow the full Quran, and nothing more than the Quran, and nothing less than the Quran. Then, to the left, we have the half-submitters. They follow the Quran partially. They follow only the parts of the Arabic Quran which Rashad Khalifa managed to translate. (Of course, Rashad Khalifa spoke the truth, but he as an English translator could not potentially cover all the truth. So, there is additional truth in the Arabic Quran, and the half-submitters will not accept any part of it, if it is not also found in the English version, and the English version is a true but limited version. So, they are based on less than the Arabic Quran, less than the Quran. Then, we have the Quranists, who are based on even less than that from the Quran. They tend to chop the Quran piece by piece, and limit the Quran only in what they understand as an individual. Basically, they limit the Quran only to their intellectual capacities, which often are limited capacities, and they end up following less than the full Quran. They don’t realize that they are people of the scripture, but by calling themselves Quranists, that’s exactly what they are. The Quran is a scripture, and by calling yourself a Quranist, you put yourself in the group of the people of the scripture, and the Quran does not mention the people of the scripture as the authorized religious group. Then we have the Protestants, who are almost exactly the same as the Quranists, except that they do with the Bible what the Quranists do with the Quran. Their doctrine is “sola scriptum” which means “scripture alone” which according to them consists of only the Bible, which would not be the biggest problem, but then again just like the Quranists they will limit the Bible only to portions which they themselves understand. If someone understands more, they will deny it, just because they did not understand it first. Then we have the Anglicans, similar to protestants, but their motives for following the scripture alone are more political rather than doctrinal. Then we have the Orthodox, who follow less than the full Quran, but they at least follow some aspects of it, like the doctrine of striving in the cause of God, and they understand the importance of hierarchy in religion, and how to preserve information across generations and so on. Then we have the Catholics, who are very similar to the Orthodox, but they just tend to ignore more of the scripture to adjust their lifestyles more to the modern world. Then, we have the Jews who are the furthest away from having scriptural basis, because they do not only disregard the Quran, but they also disregard the Gospel, which from the scriptural aspects is the meat of salvation – the essence of the scripture. The Gospel is the essence, and the Torah is the details, while the Quran is a summary of both.
By the way, the Quran supports this ordering which we did here. For example, it tells us in verse 5:82 that the Christians are closer to the believers than the Jews are.
Anyway, let’s present now the religious groups who are to the right of this spectrum. They are people who follow more than the Quran. First, we have the Sunnis. Basically, in addition to the Quran, they follow additional books, which God never authorized, like the Hadiths of Bukhari, Tirmidhi and so on. Then, slightly further to the right, we have the Shia who in addition to traditional hadiths which are attributed to Muhammad without his permission, they also have the hadiths and books which are attributed to Ali. Then further to the right, we have the Sufis who follow even more unauthorized sources, like their spiritual ‘masters’ and so on. Then we have the Barelvis and Deobandi who actually follow even some books of political and doctrinal leaders of the recent times. And then we have the Ahmedia, who in addition follow additional books of their leader, who are very human books, but they consider them almost equal to the Quran, if not completely equal. And then we have the Bahais who follow books which they think supersede the Quran, which is why they are furthest to the right. Just like the Jews end up ignoring the Quran, by following very little of it, the Bahais end up ignoring the Quran by following completely something else. We put them here, because they say that they accept the Quran, but once you see their other books, they have almost no basis in the Quran.
So, this is the spectrum of the people of the scripture depending on how much basis they have in following the Quran, the full Quran, and nothing more than the Quran. We should be following the full Quran, no more, no less.
Now, as time passes, these rectangles which we presented in the graph will actually stretch, meaning that there will be more variation within any of those groups, and as variation of individuals within each group increases, the variation between the groups themselves will decrease. So, the groups will become more and more similar. Basically, you will be able to find Sunnis for example who are completely to the right of this diagram, and also Sunnis who are close to the center of this diagram, and so on, or you might be able to find Jews who are completely to the left of this diagram, and Jews who are almost to the center of the graph. For example, there is a recent group of Jews who are called Messianic Jews, who are basically Jews who believe in Jesus, which means that they are Jews who have stretched their Jewishness closer to the center, all the way to the Protestants, and in some cases they have reached the Quranists.
But, anyway, in the future, this diagram will become fuzzier, and each rectangle will be more stretched to the right and to the left, until each group here will be all over the place, and that’s when the end of the world will come.
But, the correct group to be with is the Submitters, because we follow the full Quran. We try not to ignore any parts of the Quran to the best of our ability, and we try not to follow any materials which present information from other than the Quran. Of course, we do not manage to do it 100% of the time, which is why the rectangle here is a rectangle and not a single point, but we as a group are at the center of this spectrum, and the other groups also have some scriptural basis, but they also have deviated either to the right or to the left of this scriptural spectrum. And we know that they have deviated at least a little bit from the center because none of their names are found in the Quran as an authorized religion. But, only the submitters here at the center are found in the Quran as the authorized group.
The Quran says in verse 3:64, “Say, “O followers of the scripture, let us come to a logical agreement between us and you: that we shall not worship except God; that we never set up any idols besides Him, nor set up any human beings as lords beside God.” If they turn away, say, “Bear witness that we are submitters.“”
