Category: Sermons

 

Introduction: Reconciling Science and Faith

Praise be to God. There is no other God except God.

So last Friday’s sermon we sort of from the scientific perspective we talked about when Adam existed, when Adam lived and we kind of gave lots of evidence. A lot of it is a little bit questionable like the small EV. What I’m saying is that the every bit of scientific evidence is always a little bit questionable. But when you compile all of them together, then it’s that’s when it kind of gets strong. So that’s kind of how it works with science always. You have some studies which are a little bit questionable, some are more accurate and then they kind of constantly improve. So like if let’s say many maybe I presented a list of caves, most of them are correct. A few of them might not be, but that still doesn’t disprove the what I said because most of them still prove that still show that when Adam should have lived.

But today I kind of want to take another approach and look at it from the Quran. And to look at it from the Quran we sort of can actually achieve the same goal of finding it out. But if we do it for Noah and then we kind of can figure it out. We can see that Noah and Adam didn’t live that far from each other. So when did Noah live? Let’s figure let’s answer this question. When did Noah live?

I wrote some stuff here. Usually I don’t like to prepare them because they kind of force me to speak about this instead of what I want necessarily what I want. But this forces me to read it.

The Timeline of Noah and Adam: Geographic Evidence

Noah must have lived not too long after Adam because one the first reason is if he lived many thousands of years after Adam the people would spread throughout the world by then and only a worldwide flood would be able to destroy them. However, there is no evidence of a worldwide flood which happened from 55,000 years ago until 40,000 years ago. And we’re looking at this range of years because already from the scientific evidence we sort of concluded that approximately Adam should have lived and Noah should have lived around that time.

But if Noah if we assume that Noah lived much later much let’s say 10,000 years later or 20,000 years later or 30,000 years later if we assume that what would happen is that the people would have spread by then because as we saw from the previous example humans spread throughout the earth very quickly within 5,000 years within 10,000 years they spread like the caves which I presented were they were in France in Indonesia in different countries all pretty much kind of like if you look at the oldest ones within 5 to 10,000 years so people spread very fast and if Noah lived much later than Adam what that would mean is that by that time pretty much most of the earth would have people and that means if this flood was to destroy all of them as the Quran suggests and as the Bible says If God if the flood had to destroy all of them that would mean that the whole earth must have been covered in a flood and we have no evidence of it and literally no evidence.

I like I’ve looked for it for years actually initially before I became a submitter years ago. That was kind of let’s say one of my interests was to figure out if there was a worldwide flood. Most of it is pseudoscience meaning fake science. There’s no evidence. There’s no actual evidence. They present some examples and then when you see that it kind of doesn’t match and it doesn’t kind of fit anywhere in the what people know about archaeology. So it’s just whatever you hear about the global flood it’s unless it’s way in the past like the time of dinosaurs and before that that’s different but here we’re talking about about 50,000 years ago there is no evidence that the whole earth was covered covered in a flood so that means that Noah must have lived very close to Adam and the flood killed only those people who didn’t have time to spread much from that initial location.

The Timeline of Noah and Adam: Societal Evidence

That is one reason why Noah must have lived very close to the time of Adam. The second reason why Noah couldn’t be born too long after Adam is that if Noah lived many thousands of years after Adam—given that people between Noah and Adam lived almost a thousand years—these are people who had lots of time to gain knowledge. That would give humans a vast advantage in accumulating knowledge, and within a few thousand years, the world would have a very advanced civilization comparable to ours. However, there is no archaeological evidence of very advanced civilizations during those ancient times.

Let me repeat: if Noah lived a long time, like thousands of years after Adam—like 10,000 years or 20,000 years after Adam—in 10,000 or 20,000 years, those people who lived a thousand years… The people before Noah lived almost a thousand years. Adam lived almost a thousand years, Noah lived almost a thousand years according to the Bible, and the people in between lived close to it. They had so much advantage in accumulating knowledge. They didn’t have the equipment, but they could have done it very quickly.

Yet, there’s no evidence that there was an advanced civilization. There’s no evidence that people invented electricity, for example, in those times; there’s no evidence that they had cars; there’s no evidence that they had the basic equipment which we have today. There’s no evidence for that. They had basic tools like maybe swords, bows, and arrows, stuff like that, and this is probably after Noah.

And by the way, if you hear about evidence about this, there are so many fake stories, fake science, and religious people trying to prove something which has nothing to do with science. People might… there’s actually a few famous people—by famous I mean people who pretend to be famous historians but they’re actually not famous according to the other historians—who say that there must have been advanced civilizations like Atlantis, the civilizations mentioned by Plato and things like that. If what they mean by advanced is like the pyramids in Egypt and stuff like that, yeah, that happened very likely, because history didn’t go very smoothly; it was ups and downs. However, those ups never reached the level we have today; they never had cars until our times.

They would have reached the level of having cars and things like that if Noah came a long time after Adam, because those people again had a vast advantage in living long. When you live a thousand years, you have time to learn, and you can pass that knowledge to others, and you have more people to whom you can transmit that knowledge.

Scriptural Alignment: The Bible and the Quran

Because of these facts—given that there are no advanced civilizations in the past (meaning comparable to ours) and given that there’s no evidence of a worldwide flood during that time—that means that Noah must have lived very close to Adam. This means that people were just local people; they didn’t have time to spread throughout the earth and explore everything we know today. So, Noah must have lived not too long after Adam. This is the conclusion.

This is confirmed by the Bible, which says that Noah was born only 156 years after the creation of Adam, which is only 126 years after the death of Adam.

Context Note: Now, I didn’t use the Bible in the last sermon. In one of the chapters of the Bible, I said that it’s a fake chapter because we saw that that chapter had contradictions with the Quran. Now, this chapter does not have contradictions with the Quran—the chapter where we can find how much time there was between Noah and Adam.

In this chapter [Genesis 5], we can see the seven days of creation and things like that, which fit with what I concluded from the Quran regarding the seven days of creation. And there’s a video clarification online about the seven days of creation where I explain what they mean, but they match what the Bible says and what I said; they fit together.

Plus, the Quran says that Noah lived 950 years, and the Bible in this chapter also says that Noah lived 950 years, which means that they fit. This is a very strong indication that this chapter is in agreement with the Quran, which means that the data in this chapter are quite reliable. Not perfect, but quite reliable.

So if you go to the Bible, Chapter 5 [Genesis], we see the dates of when Adam had sons and how long he lived. Adam lived 930 years according to this. When Seth, one of his sons, had sons… basically, we can calculate from these numbers here, which we can find from Adam until Noah, how many years have passed. And if we do that addition—AI can do it for you—we end up with 156 years after the creation of Adam as the time when Noah was born, which is only 126 years after the death of Adam. So after Adam died, about 26 years passed, and then Noah was born. It is very close—very close to one another.

Knowing that they are close to one another, if we figure out from the Quran at what time Noah lived, we can use that to know when Adam lived. Basically, all we have to do is find when Noah lived, and then we pretty much know when Adam lived, very close to it.

So, when did Noah live according to the Quran? Let’s repent first before we go into the details of this. Let’s repent.

Analyzing Surah 20 and the Meaning of ‘Remain’:

Praise be to God. There is no other god except God.

So let’s find out when Noah lived according to the Quran based on the verses of the Quran. So in surah 20 verse 102 it says the day when the horn will be blown and we will gather the wrongdoers with bruised eyes they are murmuring among themselves you did not remain but and the key word here is remain and I’ll tell in this verse what it means so you did not remain but 10 days except 10 days we know best what they will say when their behavior models behave models of how to behave behavior models I sort of translated it like that when they by the way this is from Arabic if you look at English translations which are ready it might not help you much I’m going straight to the Arabic word for word we know best what they will say when their behavior models will say you did not remain in the grave I added the in the grave except today or maybe we did not remain dead.

Now a lot of these verses and quite often when people read them I understand that they understand them that you did not remain in the first life. That’s also a good understanding. But it also the word remain also means that you did not remain dead. And how do we know this? We can go to this verse and see what it means. So let’s let’s click this verse and go there. Here’s what that word remain means. And it’s the same Arabic word, by the way. You can click on it and it’s going to send you to other verses and stuff like that.

So here’s an example of a person who died and then God tells him how long did you remain or God tells him how how long he remained. And the same word is used in Arabic, the same Arabic word and which means that it’s talking about how long he remained dead, not how long he remained alive. Let’s see from the context here. So or like the one and this is from Arabic again or like the one who passed by a township and it had overturned on its roof. He said how how will bring to life I’m reading of course because I want to read word by word it sometimes it doesn’t make like the flow doesn’t go very well but you guys can get it you can understand it. So how how long how long will bring to life this town and Allah god after its death then he then he he was made to die. So the person who asked how long before the god resurrects this town god caused that person to die then he was made to die by god by Allah for a hundred years. So the person was put to death for 100 years. And this is a story in the Quran. Then he raised him. So then God raised him. And then God said, “How long you remained?” Meaning how long you remain dead, not how long you remained alive because the person was resurrected after 100 years. He said, “I remained again for a day or a part of a day.” He said, “No, you have remained 100 years.” And it’s confirming here that God is talking about the how long he was dead. So how long you have remained dead.

And this is the same word by the way you guys can click here if you use this website and you can check that that word is the same word which is used in the other verse in the in verse in surah 20 verse 103. We can find here surah 20 verse 103. You see it’s the same words. If we click there now, we’ll find this surah which we used. So it’s the same word. It’s used in a similar context. And that tells us that here when God says how long you remained, it has two meanings. First of all, how long you remained in the first life. But the more important meaning for our study is that this word is actually used by God to say how long you remained dead. From the time you died until the time you get resurrected. So the people will be talking about how long they remained in the grave, how long they were dead.

Identifying the “Behavior Models” of Transgression

So basically God resurrects them and the best like the best model I don’t mean best in the the best souls meaning that the people who are an example for bad people. And by the way, let me actually explain this part as well because this is a key word as well. This is in the Quran in surah 20 verse 104. It literally means example but example can be a good example or a bad example. And we see this exact word being used for the wife of Noah which was a bad example. The verse says something like and God gave an example for you the wife of Noah which is a bad bad example. The wife as a bad person. So that the same word which is used as a behavior model for good people. The bad people also have their behavior models meaning that they kind of have their some people who behave so bad that everyone kind of it’s a pattern of how to behave badly. It’s a model of bad behavior.

So these people will say you did not rem when they get resurrected you did not remain and again we confirmed that the word remain is used about how long they stayed dead. You did not remain dead except a day. So basically when the people the worst people because they are a model for bad behavior they must be the worst people. When the worst people and who are the worst people? The Quran says in one of the verses that the past generations are better when it comes to believers are better than the later generations. But also we can infer it with some combination with some other verses. I explain it in another video that the past generations the bad people are worse than the generations of today. So basically they were more extreme. The people of the past were more extreme. They were models for people of the future. If they were bad, they were really bad. If they were good, they were really good.

Now, these people were really bad. And that means they must have been far in the past. And the first people to be bad, the first people to be truly bad, the first community to be truly bad is the time of Noah. Because Adam when Adam was created he taught his of course his two sons one of them was a bad person he kind of like he was kicked out but as a community they remained good until the time of Noah and that that’s the first time when God destroyed the first community of disbelievers. So that means that they are sort of at the edge of the bad people meaning that one of the worst people if not the worst. So this means that those people are included in this verse which means that they will say you did not remain dead except a day. So they will speak and they will say you did not remain dead except a day when they talk to one another. What does this mean? How how long is a day? And they will be saying that on the day of resurrection. How long is a day? Well, a day is there’s two or three ways we can sort of actually only two ways we can go about it. But I’m going with a meaning which serves our study. Of course, I can use the other meaning as well where we can conclude something else. We can conclude about the life of Noah. But here we’re talking about the death of these believers.

The Length of a Day and Chronology of Resurrection

According to the Quran surah 70:4 ascend the angels and the spirit to him to God in a day which has a length of 50,000 years. So here is a verse which says that a day at God is 50,000 years. Now there’s another verse in the Quran which says that a day is a thousand years. I know that but that refers to the a day at your lord meaning that when we get resurrected on earth a day will be a thousand years basically a day when we get resurrected in the messianic age when Jesus will be let’s say the leader of the believers so that day will be a thousand years but here we’re talking about the day in the sky like when up there with God it’s 50,000 years and these people will be people who will be resurrected in the next world. So when they refer to a day they mean 50 they don’t know but God knows that it’s 50,000 years.

So here we have them saying that they did not remain dead except a day and then the verse tells us that a day is a length of 50,000 years. So basically we just replace this like whoever knows math knows when you know x you can replace it with the new value. So basically a day is 50,000 years that means that the people of Noah remained dead according to them for 50,000 years. So the behavior models the first generation of criminals meaning the people of Noah and a few people after them remained in the grave 50,000 lun by the way these are lunar years another day we can explain about that another day 50,000 lunar years until they get resurrected.

So when will the biggest criminals be? To know when they died, we know we have first to know when they will be resurrected. And 50,000 years before that is going to be when they died in this world. So when will the biggest criminals be resurrected? And this is there’s some nuances here. So as we know the end of the world is the year 2280. We know this. We have videos about this. We know that already. However, what I haven’t mentioned very specifically, I think it’s inferred in the video, the end times, part of it is mentioned, but part of it is inferred is that there’s going to be a period of 40 years between when people die and between the when people start to get resurrected, between the first horn and the second horn. Meaning that imagine the world is going to be destroyed. Everyone will die in the year 2280. The Quran doesn’t mention these 40 years because it doesn’t make sense to mention them. The Quran counts the years according to the sun and the moon, but the sun and the moon will be destroyed. So, we’re just measuring what would have been years. I’m not saying that these are actual years. This is what would have been years. Like it’s going to be it’s going to if someone was alive it would feel like 40 years. And during that time all pretty much all people will be dead during these 40 years except for Jesus and someone else so that they can witness the resurrection of the people.

So here we have 40 after these 40 years then there’s going to be a thousand years until the worst people get resurrected. In the video of the end times I explain how the best people get resurrected first starting from Adam. Of course Jesus was even before that but starting from Adam and I mean not from Adam from Abraham starting from Abraham from the best people to the worst people and so as time passes those people go into the city of believers but the disbelievers will not be resurrected until the end of that period. That’s when the Quran says that’s when Gog and Magog will be returned. It is prohibited for the crosses. It is prohibited for the bad people, the criminals to criminal communities of the past to be returned until Gog and Magog return. And Gog and Magog are the least bad people because they are similar to animals and animals are not that bad. Animals are between good and bad. So Gog and Magog are between good and bad. So when Gog and Magog get resurrected, that’s when others after them get resurrected which are worse people worse than them, worse than the worse the Quran says they are worse than animals. The bad people are worse than animals.

What this means is that the criminals from the time of Noah they will be resurrected definitely after this thousand-year period because they are the worst. And that would be the year. So, plus we add 40 years. We add 1,000 years and that would this would bring us to the year 3,320. And this is a hypothetical year because the sun and the moon do not exist. So, really people will stop counting the years. We’re just talking about how long it will sort of be according to our if we had a clock it would show or a clock with a calendar or you know how our phones had calendars they will be destroyed. If they survived, it would count a thousand years plus 40 years from the time from the time when the world gets destroyed until the bad people the worst bad people get resurrected. So they they will be resurrected in the year 3320.

So all we have to do is ask AI of course so we don’t calculate it ourselves. It’s easier. Ask AI how long from that year? 50,000 years ago. 50,000 lunar years ago. So this is the question I asked AI. I said, “How many solar years before now is 50,000 lunar years before the solar year 3320?” It’s kind of a long question, but AI is smart enough. It knows what I’m asking. So and this is the answer. The answer which AI gave me. I did it myself as well. I calculated it myself and I got got the same answer. So this is what AI tells you. If you ask this question to AI, it’s going to give you this answer. So the year is 47,217 years ago from now. From now if we go in the past for about 40,000 years ago that’s when the worst people of the time of Noah died approximately so and they kind of it’s a very nuance thing that to say that there’s actually even before the flood came some of their fathers were bad and stuff like that anyway but it’s close time so approximately at this time not exactly necessarily approximately.

Linguistic Analysis of Noah’s Lifespan in the Quran

So this is one method to figure out when Noah lived. Another method to figure out when Noah lived is to look more directly in the verses which talk about Noah. Verses which talk about Noah. Verse 14 in surah 29 says indeed we sent Noah to his people. So he remained again the same word same word and we learned from the previous verses that remained can refer to life but it more importantly it can refer to death as well or to the time spent in the grave. So he remained with them a thousand lunar years but 50 flows or cycles and this is the literal translation from the Quran then seizes them the deluge and they were the wrongdoers.

First of all, before I go into this into explaining the rest of it, let me explain this part. Why did I translate it like this? 50 flows instead of 50 years. Now, the thousand years which are given here are given there’s a word in the Quran which means lunar year. I I think it’s sa or something whatever. Anyway, and then actually let’s go to this verse. Surah 29 verse 14. Surah 29. Let’s find surah 29 verse 14. So he says, “And verily we sent Noah to his people and he remained again the same word same word as in the other verses he remained the same Arabic word what I cannot pronounce it that’s why I’m not reading it but I can see it’s the same and he remained among them a thousand years here’s a word which is used for year here sanin whatever so he remained with them a thousand years save and they translated it like this save but ilia means but but except more literally it means but so he remained with them but 50 a man. So it’s a different word now this is Sanatin but now it’s a man and according to traditional scholars this word a man means an easy years because it flows it flows easy. This is the interpretation of that. What they don’t understand is that it wouldn’t make sense. Why would an easy God use a sanat for a hard year and a man for an easy year? And how do they know that these were years were not actually easy as well? So there’s no they they don’t have evidence that actually a man means easy year and sanat means hard year. It it makes no logical sense. Why why would years be named differently?

What it means is that is that one of them is a lunar year, the other one is a solar year. And the reason why the people the Arabs misunderstood it is because when they said a man which meant their ancestors meant solar year that what they meant is the flow of time like let’s say in let’s say in northern countries sometimes they will say oh let’s say a person lived 50 springs meaning 50 times there was a spring in some old people will say that I’ve heard like I think my grandma like how many springs have you lived basically how many solar years how many times the seasons have changed how many times the weather has the climate has changed in your area that’s how they kind of measured it and now in Saudi Arabia that meant that it would if the time changed from very hot into a little bit colder and more easy because there there it was generally hot if it became a little bit more easy a little bit rain and nice weather they would call it they would count it as one a man meaning one year one solar year because that was based on the on the sun so that but they gradually eventually that meant easy year but originally it didn’t mean easy year it originally it meant solar year because it was it counted the the flow of seasons let’s say from spring to spring or from winter to winter they don’t have spring there so it’s more from winter to winter.

So what this mean what this word here means solar year. However, there’s a deeper meaning to it. It literally anyone can search it online and just search it etymology of the word a man and you will see that it actually means flow or cycle. So flow the time flowing. So if we translate it literally the way actually the Quran used it just forget the context. Forget that what this Saudi scholars think about it. If we just forget about it and translate it literally what the Quran actually says and trust the Quran because God wouldn’t use that word if he didn’t actually mean that. If we trust the Quran then we and we translate it literally we would have to translate it means but 50 means means 50. A man means flow or cycle. Now let’s translate it exactly in literal way in the the exact way it was done in Arabic and see how we get a different meaning. It doesn’t mean that the previous meaning was wrong. It just means that we can get another meaning which is deeper than that.

So let’s see now what it’s telling us. And this is the literal translation. Indeed we sent Noah to his people. So he remained with them a thousand lunar years but 50 flows meaning 50 flows of a thousand lunar years and that’s why this is why this verse is is expressed weirdly like this because God could have said that Noah lived 950 years which is true however he didn’t say it like that. God said he lived with them a thousand lunar years but 50 flows 50 which we can understand today as cycles because we know that those flows are cycles then seizes them the deluge and they were the wrongdoers so 50 flows or cycles of 1,000 lunar years do you guys I hope you understand what the way I’m understanding it so so he remained with them a thousand years or lunar years but we’re talking about 50 flows of those thousand lunar years. So 50 flows of a thousand lunar years is 50,000 lunar years. So from the year when Noah was born until Noah gets resurrected, there are 50 thousand lunar years.

Now by the way, now here we’re I’m including also Noah’s life. Why? Because above here it says how long you have remained. But here it says how long Noah remained with them. The word here is with them. So he remained Noah remained with them. What does this mean? This includes his life as well because Noah first was with his people when he was alive. Then when he died according to the Quran the believers go straight to heaven. His sons also went to heaven. So he remained with his people even after he died and until the end of the until the end of the let’s say the thousand years there. So this means that we’re counting both Noah’s life and death. So this means that from the year when Noah was born until Noah gets resurrected including his life after let’s say his earthly life in the next world when the basically one thousand years more there are 50,000 lunar years.

So Noah will be resurrected around the year 2320. How I explained this already which is here in the plus 40 years. So the end of the world will come in the year 2280. We add 40 years to that. Here we don’t add a thousand another thousand years necessarily. However, we had to add them because it says how how long he remained with them with his people. It says his people and his people also includes his sons. Those are his people. So and his sons are in the next world will be in within those 10,000 years because they were believers. They believed with Noah. They got saved with Noah. So 50 50 so from the year when Noah was born until Noah gets resurrected there are 50,000 lunar years Noah will be resurrected around the year 2320 which is 40 years after after 2280 plus still stay among his believing people meaning his sons and whatever the people who believed with him for 1,000 years which makes it the year 3320. So again we came back to that same year in a different way from different verses.

And now all we have to do ask AI how many solar years before now is 50,000 lunar years before the solar year 3320. It looks like a long question but AI understands. So Noah and the answer is the year is 47,217 solar years because we asked about solar years solar years before now. So Noah was born around the year 40 about about 47,000 years before now. And this is the answer. And then the flood according to the Bible came when Noah was 600 lunar years old years years old. That’s in the Bible. That means that the flood came around 46,635 solar years before now. So about 46,000 years give or take approximately that.

By the way, why approximately? And this is going to be a I hope it’s not a a big explanation, a long explanation. I’m saying approximately even though we found the exact year because what the Quran does when the Quran mentions let’s say numbers of things, it always mentions whole numbers. So basically if there’s 12 months in a year in a solar year God is going to just say 12 but it could be 12.5 or 12.2 the Quran never mentions that point thing like a little bit more because God only counts the whole things the per the Quran says that God perfected everything. God made complete literally we can in Arabic it means God made complete everything which means that if it’s not complete God is not going to count it. God never says in the Quran four and a half months. If it’s four and a half months, God is just going to say four months. He doesn’t count those. If God wants to be more accurate, he’s going to tell us in days. He’s going to say, let’s say, I don’t know how much is 4 and a half months, 135 days, let’s say. So God will, if God wants to tell us that that exact period and he wants to be that exact, he’s going to tell us 135 days. But he’s not going to say four and a half months. Never in the Quran you find half a month or half a year or never. The reason is that only God counts only the complete things. Whatever is extra is not counted. Which means that when God says here 50 flows of a thousand years, it could have been 50.1 flows. It could have been 50.7 flows. It could have been 50.9 flows. And that’s a range of a thousand years. About a thousand years. So from 50 up up to 51, that’s about and all of those would have been counted 50 according to the way God counts things in the Quran. If you wanted to make it more exact, he could. But he said 50 flows of a thousand years, which means from 50,000 years up to 51,000 years. All of that is within that meaning. So that’s why I’m saying it approximately at this time because it could have been this time or up to a thousand years later or earlier whichever I don’t know earlier. I think it’s earlier which whichever makes sense. You guys can figure it out.

Scientific Correlation: Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) Cycles

Now is there evidence for this scientific evidence that flood came around the year around this year around 46,000 or 47,000 years ago? And we can find that evidence in science. There’s this thing called Dangard Oeschger or it’s easier to say O. Usually scientists will use the the acronym DO cycles. What are they? They are abrupt rapid climate fluctuations that occur 25 times during the last glacier period. First discovered in Greenland ice. That’s why they are also known as as G I think Greenland interstadials because that’s where they were discovered. So they are also known as the GI cycles. But here we’re just using this DO cycles. So they were discovered in Greenland ice cores by by these two guys. That’s why the name remained that’s how they got the name from their last names. And they feature a sudden spike in temperatures rising from about 5 degrees Celsius to 16 degrees Celsius in mere decade. So within let’s say a decade or two or three let’s say about 50,000 years whatever it doesn’t matter but it’s very short in in his in when it comes to climate changes followed by a gradual cooling over centuries. These cycles are among the most dramatic climate shifts in Earth’s history, highlighting how unstable the climate can be during ice ages.

Now, these cycles, as we can see, there’s 25 of those. And the one which is the DO12, the 12th in a row, DO12 started around 46 according to scientist scientists. And by the way, this is approximate because they say that it could be about 500 years later or 500 years earlier like approximately at that time. But it’s quite accurate. It’s quite accurate within a within 500 years. So DO12 started around 46,900 years. Again, as you can see, it matches this this time year time period here. This is this is accurate down to a thousand years. This is accurate down to about 500 years. So DO12 started around 46,900 years ago and that’s kind of the start and it ended around 44,400 years ago.

Now what do these DO cycles do? What is a DO cycle? A DO cycle is basically the sudden heating it kind of it looks like they still don’t have an exact explanation. It it was a sudden heating of the of the north here which is close to Greenland basically north of Norway. If you guys can see this the world map here it’s the sudden heating and that comes usually from the Atlantic like the there’s some change in the flow of the Atlantic Ocean and there’s there’s sudden heating up to 12 degrees within a within a decade or so or a few decades. So, and that’s that’s a big change. That’s bigger than what we see today. They make a big deal about the climate change. It what they’re talking about is only one degree. Here, 12 degrees changed within about 50 years.

Now, what does that do for the rest of the earth? What that does for the rest of the earth, we have the map, the other map here, is if you look here at the south of Iraq, which is here, south of Iraq, and you can ask AI, by the way, ask AI, what does DO12 do? How does DO12 change the rain in the south of Iraq? I mean how does the DO12 the climate cycle the DO12 how did it change the the things in the south of Iraq it will tell you that it increased the rain and these blue regions are where the rain increased so it increased in Africa and south of Iraq in other places it made it more dry but here in south of Iraq which is where Noah and and Adam lived God willing I’ll deal with it another day so in that region south of Iraq it increased the rain flow.

The Heinrich Event Mechanics

Now what’s interesting is that yeah the rain the rain there were there was more rain even in Africa and even part of let’s say Asia here. However, why was there no flood there? The key difference here is that in that period of time south of Iraq was a desert meaning like very dry and everyone knows when it’s very dry like when the land is very dry not not everyone but like most people know that when the land is very dry it kind of becomes like cement and that’s when if the rain is sudden during that time there’s a flood like it happens even today there’s floods if you have a very dry region and there is a and there’s sudden rain, it’s going to cause a flood because why? Because the earth becomes so dry, it becomes like a cement and the the water doesn’t go inside like it the earth doesn’t suck the water. It’s just kind of it stays on top of the earth.

So here we have a now was it how how do we know it was dry? Because this DO cycle came exactly or very soon after an what’s called a Heinrich Heinrich event. What is a Heinrich event? A High You guys can research this stuff. You don’t have to because I’m telling you, but you can. A Heinrich event is again one of those cycles which causes actually dry land in south of Iraq. It causes cooling in most of the earth but it also causes dry land in south of Iraq. So that means and what we have here we have here do this red graph is the DO cycle which measures the warming by the way this is kind of like the last 10,000 years you can see humans have kind of changed stuff but anyway so here we have a graph which is from zero up down to 60,000 years ago and here around 46,000 years ago we have DO cycle 12 you if you guys can see it’s number But also at this just at this time just before this the H5 Heinrich event happens so basically and this is the closest they get. So these gray areas are Heinrich events. The the gray areas are Heinrich events. The red graph is the DO cycles numbered. All of them are numbered.

And what we can see is that let’s say Heinrich event 6 and then DO cycle 17 are not as close. Heinrich event 5A and DO cycle 14 are not as close to one another. However, when it comes to Heinrich event 5 and DO cycle 12 are very close to one another. Basically, at the end of one, the other starts, which means that when it’s really dry in Iraq, that’s when a lot of rain happened at this time in human history. And that’s that’s perfect conditions for a flood. Basically, if you have those conditions, that’s going to cause a flood in that area.

Now it some sort of not as strong but similar floods might have happened later. We can see Heinrich events later but they are not as close to the DO cycles and people were more prepared and actually the I can show you another day why Iraq had changed by then it became like because the the southern part of Iraq was actually not a sea in the past like this what they call the Persian Gulf it at that time it was actually not a sea it was land. So, but that’s another day another discussion when I explain about where where did Adam and Noah live. But here all I’m trying to say is that these are perfect conditions for a flood because it was a really dry cycle. Immediately after it rain came and and this is let’s say scientifically we have strong evidence that very likely there was a flood in south of Iraq during 40 about 46,000 years ago which is about the time when Noah the Quran tells us that Noah lived. That’s it. And does anyone have any question quickly though because we I spent too much time.

Q&A: Clarification on the Timeline Base Year

Oh, so Guillaume is asking before now is before 2026 or six or before Jesus? No, before now is before 2026. That’s how I wanted the AI to tell me the years. Typically they in science they will say when they say before now they mean before the year 2000 in when they measure these cycles. So they measure them from the year 2000 which is 26 years ago. Some scientists will measure it from 1950. It doesn’t matter a lot but they usually don’t measure it from the time of Jesus. If they measure it from the time of Jesus, they will represent it as before Christ BC. But here we we’re not talking with any BC numbers. None of these are in BC.

So see age here it says in this graph it says age ka means thousand years before present not before Christ before present meaning before 2000 or before 1950. So yeah, that’s that introduces about 26 years of of difference between what I found and what they found. So we’re talking about only 26 years difference, but not before Jesus. Everything I spoke here is not before Jesus. We’re talking before now or before the year 2000. I used it myself before the year 2026 because I wanted you guys to think really from your perspective. But usually scientists will say before 2000. One more question. So yeah, it’s important actually to distinguish that because when you do research, if you do research with AI and stuff like that, it might tell you a year and then that’s going to that’s going to confuse you if you don’t know if you’re talking BC or BP. BP is before present.

Faisal is saying very insightful. Thank you.

So we know Noah when Noah lived, which is around 47,000 solar years before now. That means let’s add about a thousand years because we already knew from the Bible that Adam lived about a thousand years before that he was born.

Final Timeline Conclusion: Dating the Creation of Adam

So let’s make let’s say the final conclusion. So let’s add another conclusion here. So Adam Adam was born was created maybe I should say was created around let’s add 1,000 years here around 48,217 years about 1,000 years more so about 48,000 years ago from now solar years Adam was created.

Now if anyone finds paintings before that it’s because they haven’t done the study accurately. And scientists sometimes will compete to find the oldest painting or it’s not going to probably it might not be a painting. It might be just a hand sign or a or a line or something. But if we are going to use reliable scientists which unfortunately typically are western scientists you cannot find any any painting which is older than that humanmade painting realistic painting or a statue.

For those who have to do the contact prayer, do the contact prayer and the rest of you peace be upon you.

 

Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director

 

Introduction: An Interconnected Historical Puzzle

Praise be to God. There is no other God.

What I want to talk about today is: when did Adam live? It’s kind of a heavy topic. To answer this question, it really connects with many other topics. To answer it, we also have to answer:

• When did Noah live?
• Where did Adam live?
• And where did Noah live?

They are all connected. I’m going to give an almost complete answer—almost complete, but not fully there—because to do all of those would probably take four Friday sermons. God willing, I’ll answer the others at other times, very likely in the following Friday sermons. But I think it’s still good enough to learn a lot just by tackling this issue alone.

The Clash Between Science and Direct Biblical Chronology

First of all there is a dispute between scientists and usually Christians. Muslims don’t go too much into this, but even Muslims will sort of lean towards the Christian perspective about when did Adam lived. Of course, scientists don’t believe in Adam at all. They say that humans—what they call the “Out of Africa” theory—evolved in Africa and then eventually, about 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, moved out of Africa to other continents as well. This is what they call “Out of Africa” theory.

Then we have on the other side the Christians who, if they are honest with their Bible, believe that Adam was created about 6,000 years ago—about 4004 BC or something like that. That is also hard to believe, even though according to the Bible they can conclude that. Cities existed before that. Before that time, there were cities in today’s Iraq, in Sumeria.

There is a place called Göbekli Tepe; that’s a location where people gathered. Let me show it, I hope it shows. It is in Turkey. This is an ancient site where people gathered for whatever dances or worship they did. It’s a weird place, but it existed 10,000 years ago.

And by the way, these are accurate. Here’s the thing: the scientific story is one thing, but scientific data we cannot dispute. It’s a fact. This place exists. It’s in the southeast of Turkey. They did their scientific methods, which is usually called radiocarbon dating, and they found that it’s about 10,000 years ago—or 11,000, or whatever it says here. Yeah, 9,500 BC. So that’s at least 11,000 years ago, if not 12, depending on where you start to count it.

It exists. It’s there. Now, what story scientists will tell or the story religious people will tell around this, that’s a different thing. But it’s a fact. Therefore, we cannot deny this fact. It’s a fact that there were human settlements, there were people before 4000 BC.

Therefore, there should be something wrong with the Bible, or the part of the Bible which talks about this.

How the Biblical Timeline Was Calculated

To tell you what’s wrong about this—because Christians generally don’t know where it went wrong, and Jews don’t know where it went wrong, and as a result, Muslims also don’t know where it went wrong—for the first time, I want to pinpoint where it went wrong.

The way the Christians calculated when Adam lived is they pretty much relied on two chapters of the Bible:

1. Chapter 11, which gives a genealogy of who gave birth to whom.

2. Chapter 5, which goes from Adam to Noah.

They combine those two chapters together and try to figure out when Adam lived. Here’s how they do it:

They start from something which they know for sure. What do they know for sure? They know for sure when Jesus lived. But Jews don’t really like to start from Jesus because they hate him. So they might start from Daniel. Daniel lived during the time of Cyrus the Great. Historians know when Cyrus the Great lived. They see that Daniel and Cyrus the Great lived at the same time according to the Bible.

So they are like, “Okay, if Cyrus the Great lived at this time, Daniel must have been alive at that time.” Then they just check who was the father of Daniel, and how old he was when he gave birth to Daniel—was he 20 years, was he 50 years?—and so on.

They go backwards until they reach what they think is Adam, which turns out to be about 4,000 years ago BC. It’s ridiculous, but that’s what they conclude. It started with the Jews, the Christians copied it, and then some Muslims—not all, but some—also took that idea. It’s totally ridiculous. I just showed you stones which existed before that, made by humans.

Identifying the Flaw: Genesis Chapter 11

Where did it go wrong?

First of all, I want to introduce what’s called the Documentary Theory about Genesis. Most scholars who study this seriously—not religious people—have concluded that Genesis is just a bunch of documents put together. Different people wrote different documents at different times, and they were put together as chapters. Someone wrote one document, someone else wrote another, they existed in different part in historical and geographical contexts, and eventually someone put them together and created what we call Genesis today.

You can see this because:

• The name of God is mentioned differently.
• The styles are different.
• It’s not like the Quran, which is one unique, complete, consistent source.
• The stories restart many times.

Different people wrote this, and Chapter 11 is one of the most problematic ones because it’s easy to tell that it’s fake. I wouldn’t say fully fake, but a scribe tried to get it right and faked a lot of stuff. Some stuff might be true, but it’s pretty much a fake chapter. It’s not inspired; it’s not by a messenger; it’s just a fake chapter.

Comparing Chapter 5 and Chapter 11

How do we know? Chapter 11 is the chapter which connects the time of Abraham with the time of Noah.

In Chapter 5, we have all the years. Let’s go to Genesis 5. Here we have all the years: Adam lived 130 years, he fathered a son just like him, and then how long Adam lived.

How do we know this chapter is correct? Because it matches with the Quran. It says Noah lived 950 years, which is what the Quran says. There’s no big reason to believe this is not correct, because it matches with the Quran.

Now, Chapter 11 doesn’t match with the Quran at all. It contradicts it by a lot.

So from Adam up to Noah, we have the correct description of how people came to be. Then in Chapter 11, whoever wrote this chapter tried to fake it.

In Chapter 10, another author describes the people who lived after Noah, but he describes them as people. Even this guy—at least he got it right. I don’t think this is an inspired chapter from God either, but at least he got it right because his logic was: “Given that all people come from Noah, let’s look at the nations.”

He looked at who exists:

• The people of Sheba in today’s Yemen.
• People up north called Magog.
• A guy called Ashkenaz, where the Ashkenazi Jews get their name.

He logically went backwards and imagined these were names of people—which very likely they were, because even Israel gets its name from their father. Israel was a person, and all the people who came after him were his descendants—called Israel. So it’s kind of logical, but he doesn’t give any years.

See, Cush and Egypt are included. He’s actually giving nations. Eventually, that group of people became a nation. It’s totally logical. I can see how that’s right. He might have gotten something wrong. So we have names of countries here. I can see how this is very likely true, even though it’s not inspired by God.

The Chronological Absurdity of Chapter 11

Now, in the next chapter, Chapter 11, the author tries to do the same thing. He actually uses those names (from Chapter 10) of people from Noah to Abraham from the previous chapter, but he actually tries to add years to them.

Here’s what he says:

Shem lived 100 years and fathered Arpachshad two years after the flood; Shem lived 500 years and had other sons; when Arpachshad lived 35 years, he fathered Cainan.

He’s taking names that were nations in Chapter 10—which means a lot of time must have passed before we get these nations. There is a big distance from Noah all the way to Abraham. We have nations by then. But here this guy imagines that those are just people and forgets that they were nations. Then he tries to imagine how many years they lived with fake numbers, telling us how long they lived and how old they were when they had children. This is totally fake.

How do we know this is fake? First of all, it contradicts itself and the rest of the Bible. And by the way, Jewish and Christian scholars know this, they just don’t make a big deal out of it. If you add all the years from Noah all the way to Abraham (when Terah lived and fathered Abram), you know what happens? Abraham was born when Noah was still alive according to this.

If Abraham was born while Noah was still alive when he left his homeland to go to the chosen land, why didn’t he take Noah with him? Did Noah not agree with him? Was Noah not already a chosen prophet and messenger towards the end of his life? Why would Noah not go with him, or why would Abraham go against the community where Noah was the leader?

The Quran tells us that Abraham told his people not to worship idols, that they were wrong, and he left them. They tried to put him in the fire to kill him. But according to the Bible, Noah was the leader of that community because he was still alive. In those times, people respected their parents. So according to this, Noah would have been the leader of that idol-worshipping community, which would make Noah a bad person. That makes no sense. Both the Bible and the Quran tell us that Noah was a good person.

Historical Textual Manipulation

Scholars know that these don’t match. So what the Jews did secretly—that’s why there are two versions of the Bible—is they changed it. To remove that contradiction (they didn’t fix it at all, they were just trying to remove the contradiction), they added 100 years to all of these. That’s why today we have two versions:

• The Septuagint version
• The (Jewish version) Masoretic text

In that one, they added 100 years to all of them because they noticed the contradiction, just so that Abraham could live after Noah, not during Noah.

This shows that they manipulated it, which shows that even this could have been manipulated in the beginning. So this is totally fake, first of all. It’s taking some ideas from the previous chapter where it talks about nations, tries to imagine them as people, and then adds years thinking that it has to do what Genesis 5 does, which gives years all the way to Noah, but not later.

From Adam to Noah, Genesis does give us the years. But there are no correct years in the Bible from Noah to Abraham. These years we can see are fake because according to these years, Abraham and Noah lived at the same time, and it’s totally not possible. Because the Quran tells us Abraham lived in an idol-worshipping community. He preached to them, they rejected him, and they wanted to burn him. Lot left with him. In the meantime, what was Noah doing if he was alive? By the way, all of this Abraham did when he was young, which means Noah was still alive according to this, which is not correct.

Quranic Clarification on Abraham’s Father

Just to drive the point home, I think God mentioned in the Quran intentionally the name of the father of Abraham. Other than that, I don’t see a reason why we would have the name of the father of Abraham, just so that we know that this chapter is fake.

If we go to the Quran in Surah 6, Verse 74, it says:

“Recall that Abraham said to his father, Azar, ‘How could you worship statues as gods? I see that you and your people have gone far astray.'”

According to the Quran, the father of Abraham is a bad person and his name is Azar. Why would God tell us the name? God doesn’t tell us the name of the fathers of other messengers. God tells us the name because God knows that Jews have changed stuff.

Let me give you an example: God knew that Christians will call Jesus the Son of God. What does God say in the Quran? It almost always makes sure to say, “Jesus, the son of Mary.” Why does God say that? He doesn’t need to say that; He could have said just “Jesus.” But He repeats it and emphasizes the correct version so that we don’t fall prey or make the mistake of following the Bible in that issue. It’s sort of a correction of the Bible. If the Bible is correct, the Quran doesn’t necessarily have to correct it. But if it’s something wrong, the Quran makes sure to correct it.

That’s why we see the name of the father of Abraham, Azar, here. When you go to the fake chapter of Genesis here, you see that the father of Abraham is Terah. It’s a totally different name. It doesn’t have any connection linguistically; it doesn’t have the same meaning in the Jewish version versus the Arabic version. If you translate them, it still doesn’t make sense; they have different meanings. So it’s totally a fake name. This shows that this chapter is fake.

Once you exclude this chapter from the attempt to find out when Adam lived, then you are free to be objective and really find out when Adam lived. This is what’s wrong with why the Jews got it wrong about when Adam lived, along with a lot of Christians and some Muslims.

By the way, according to this, Terah is a good guy—Terah took Abraham to migrate and all of that. According to the Quran, we know that Abraham’s father is a bad guy. Even some Muslims were so duped by this that they thought, “Oh, maybe Azar is the uncle of Abraham,” because they couldn’t understand why the name is different. They said maybe Azar is the uncle, because sometimes people use the word “father” for uncle in today’s Arabic. But not in Quranic Arabic! The Quran is very clear: every time it uses the word “father” in the Quran, it’s always the father, never the uncle. Why would it be the uncle when it says father? God doesn’t switch words.

What I’m saying is, first of all, we should forget about this chapter—and this doesn’t mean that other chapters are wrong—we should forget about this chapter. What we are left with is to see what the scientists say: can we use scientific facts to find out when Adam lived? But before we go there, let’s repent. Toubou ila Allah.

The Scientific Narrative and Genetic Mixing

Praise be to God. There is no other god except God.

Okay. So, what about the scientific version?

Scientists do have the data and the facts correct. However, their story is not fully correct. I just want to say what the position of the scientists of today generally is—and when I say scientists, I mean people of this field, whoever studies evolution. According to them, people came out of Africa and then they went into other continents and evolved—like even in Africa, they evolved anyway.

The problem with this is that even before they knew there were problems with this—some of the guys already know, probably like 10 or 15 years ago I said that people are mixed with what I call sort of animal-like hominids or human-shaped animals, what today they call Neanderthals and Denisovans and some other ones. Before they had discovered this, I told the submitters back in Kosovo when I was preaching there that people have animal genes in them (before scientists discovered that). Then, within five or 10 years, they discovered it.

What they discovered is that the story which they believed is not fully correct, because humans had mixed:

• in Europe, they had mixed mostly with Neanderthals;
• in Asia, humans had mixed mostly with Denisovans.

Basically, they found genes of Neanderthals in Europeans, and they found genes of Denisovans in some very East Asian people. But the scientists still stuck to their story.

The “Ghost DNA” Contradiction

I thought, “Wait a minute, why do they stick to their story?” Because they still hadn’t found that even in Africa they are mixed with whatever animal was there—well, human-shaped animal—and recently they have actually found it. However, they still don’t admit it.

Here is their version of the story: according to them, people moved out of Africa and went to Europe and Asia (of course, some of them stayed in Africa), and there they got mixed with Neanderthals and Denisovans, with about 1 to 4% of animal genes. I’m calling them animals—whatever they are, like the Quran calls them later Gog and Magog once they are mixed.

So they got mixed, and their prediction came wrong. They predicted that if this story is correct, then we should not find animal genes in Africans, because Neanderthals only lived in Europe and Asia. So when people moved there and mixed with them, that means Africans didn’t get the chance to mix with them. They predicted that Africans shouldn’t have animal genes.

But recently, very recently, they found that even Africans have animal genes—not Neanderthal genes, not Denisovan genes, but some other sort of human-shaped animal. They haven’t informed the public yet, but they call it “ghost DNA.”

Scientists can be tricky: whenever they don’t understand something, they call it ghost, dark, hidden, stuff like that. They do the same thing in physics. Let me say, if they don’t understand why the universe is expanding faster than they expected, they call it dark energy. It’s just a made-up thing; it doesn’t exist. They just decided to call it like that, because they don’t understand. Basically, their model doesn’t fit with the data they found out. So they will invent a third thing to sort of make sense, but that third thing doesn’t even exist; it’s just a hidden variable. So they call it now ghost DNA, meaning: “Oh, wait a minute, there are genes—animal genes, human-shaped hominin genes—in Africans as well, but we’re just going to call it ghost DNA because we still don’t know what it is.”

Even before what they thought were monkeys—which they think we are descendants of—when people moved out of the Middle East, when Adam’s sons moved out of the Middle East and went to Africa, they mixed with that human-shaped animal a little bit. It’s not a lot; in all cases, it’s not a lot. We’re mostly human. We’re actually fully human, but we have some animal genes.

In my case, for example, this (arm) hair is unnecessary—it’s just for animals, but anyway, I have it. I got it from Neanderthals, I guess.

People get different diseases from that. Some people have diabetes, some people are not as smart, some people are not as pretty. We got all of these mostly from those animal genes. If it’s visible, actually, you’re more lucky, because if it’s not visible, you probably have it somewhere else—in some kind of immune deficiency or whatever it could be. It’s even more dangerous inside your body.

Reinterpreting the Data: Middle Eastern Origin

Back to the topic: the only story which makes sense with the data which the scientists are providing is that humans started in the Middle East. During that time, there were human-shaped animals in Africa, in Europe, and in Asia. As humans spread, they mixed with those, and that’s it.

However, the data also fits their story as long as they sort of call part of it ghost genes and don’t explain it. According to the data which the scientists have provided, for scientists and us, we can fit both stories into the data. Their story, though, doesn’t fully fit; there’s a part which they call the ghost part. Our story fits more. However, they don’t want to change their mind. I’m quite sure they will change it because there’s no other explanation.

Anyway, what I want to say is that the way I knew about this partly is through the Bible. The scientists cannot even say, “By the way, we found out that Neanderthals have mixed a little bit with humans, and that’s not in the Bible.” Actually, that’s in the Bible!

Biblical Narrative & Lifespan Shortening

If we go to Genesis 6 it says:

“And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the ground and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God…”

And this is what they called the Neanderthals, and then later on they called Nephilim. Look at the name here: Nephilim are kind of called the sons of God because people didn’t understand what they were.

Imagine: we are sons of Adam, we are people, we’re living it, we’re kind of spreading through the earth, and we meet these new guys—we don’t even know where they come from. They cannot speak to us; they have basic language like dogs, or more like monkeys. They look almost exactly like humans, like stronger bones and stronger muscles, and you can see why the daughters of men would be attracted to them.

So the mixing happened both ways. One way is the daughters of men slept with them—not all of them—but that was enough to put the genes in the whole human society, because then the children would get married with someone else and stuff like that.

So what I’m saying is, here it’s explaining that the women, the daughters of Adam, got mixed. But the other side also happened, which is us. This kind of led to Gog and Magog— what the Quran calls later Gog and Magog.

I’m going to continue to read here:

“…that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all that they chose. And Jehovah (God) said: ‘My spirit shall not strive with man forever, for that he also is flesh; yet shall his days be 120 years.'”

Look, now God is even explaining why the life was shortened. Noah lived 950 years; now God is saying from now on your lifespan will be 120 years—much shorter. Why? Because they got animal genes, and those animals lived 20 or 30 years—like Neanderthals live 30 years. So you get those genes.

By the way, they got benefits from it. They got so much protection from certain things. I think white people use vitamin D a little bit better when they go to the sun; they probably got it from Neanderthals. So they got benefits from it. However, all those benefits came at the cost of shortening the life. Meaning that okay, now you have different genes, a better immune system, like you can get protected from mosquitoes and from that, which children of Adam didn’t have before because Adam was created in a perfect place where he didn’t need that. God says that He created Adam in the perfect form; he didn’t need protection from all of these very earthly things. But they got that protection by mixing a little bit with these animals. So it was a good thing in some ways, but it came at a cost: life became much shorter because when you have an immune system, it’s going to spend energy to protect you. So it’s going to shorten your life, protecting you now at the expense of shortening it later.

Then it says:

“The Nephilim were in the earth in those days…”

Nephilim in Hebrew means giants or strong people.

“…Nephilim were in the earth in those days and also after that, when the sons of God…”

meaning whatever creatures they couldn’t understand which looked like humans,

“…came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.”

And:

“…Jehovah saw the wickedness of men.”

Basically what happened: some females got attracted to the animalistic male behavior of those creatures and they had children. And those later became Gog and Magog. Even these can be called Gog and Magog. They become Gog and Magog in Europe and Asia, but like in in Africa, they don’t have a name. It’s something else.

The opposite also happened. The sons of man, meaning men, children of Adam, got mixed with some of them. Very small portion, probably like one in a thousand, one in a 100, whoever did it (the bad boys). It happened a little for slightly different reasons because the men were not really as strong. So I don’t think the females were as attracted to them, or they (sons of men) were not as attracted to the females of Neanderthals. Because they were not as good-looking. What happened there is they usually would take them for slaves and something would happen. So basically they would be like “Oh, here’s a woman I can kind of force her to wash my clothes, if they had clothes”. But eventually they might have had children so the reason was slightly different and we are the descendants of those people. So the mixing happened both ways.

Evaluating Science and Biblical History

Now, why am I bringing this up? Because as you can see, the Bible also tells us what scientists found much later.

Now, back to finding when Adam lived: what I’m saying is scientists cannot complain that the Bible got it wrong. Chapter 11 got it wrong by the way, that’s fair. But to say that the Bible got it wrong because we now discovered that they are mixed. Well, the Bible already knew this. We can already find it in the Bible. But also, religious people don’t have a very good argument to say that those facts are not true, because it’s a fact that people existed before that anyway.

Why weren’t they able to find when Adam lived until recently, until I found out? I’ve told a lot of you many times before, but today I’m making it the main topic.

Why can’t the scientists find out?

Because they are looking at the wrong data, the wrong evidence. When scientists try to figure out when was the first human, what they look for is bones. As we can see, bones can be misleading because people got mixed with animals.

In the early times, you can find a bone which is 30% hominin or 30% Neanderthal and 70% human. That’s going to look like, “Oh, there’s evolution!” No, there’s a mixing.

So the bones can be misleading, even though there is a clear distinction between Humans and Neanderthals and Denisovans. There are lots of similarities as well, so they will use that to still stick to their story. Eventually, I believe scientists will come to agree with this gradually—they are stubborn.

They are looking in the wrong evidence. They are looking for bones, and they are looking for tools usually: “Oh, did they use stone tools? Did they use knives?” They look for those things to distinguish when the first modern human evolve. Because they are looking at the wrong data, they will not be able to find it like that.

Now let me tell you what they should look for. First, they have to analyze what is the difference between Adam, or humans, and those human-shaped animals. I want to be more nice to Neanderthals because they are not really fully animals. They are kind of like human-shaped; they have a lot of human emotions. I think the name is hominin, meaning human-shaped. I like to use the word humanoid, but then they use it for robots in Japan and China. Is someone suggesting any name?

Bigfoot. No its not Bigfoot, Faisal. Bigfoot is another thing. And we don’t know if they have big feet. It doesn’t exist, by the way. You need a certain amount of population to have a Bigfoot; Bigfoot is a mythical creature which is supposed to exist in California or West America.

Homo Sapiens. Homo Sapiens includes humans as well as previous creatures, so it’s a very general term. I think they call them hominin, meaning human-like, creatures which look like humans, because Homo sapiens means smart humans, I think, and we’re not automatically agreeing that they are smart anyway. So I’m just going to stick to human-shaped animals. Sorry for being not nice to Neanderthals—part of that is us. I’m just going to call them human-shaped animals until we find a better name. They do deserve a better name, though, because I don’t think they are actually fully animals anyway.

It’s really hard to tell from the bones. Yeah, you can tell the differences, but there was mixing as well. So the scientists will say, “Oh, there was evolution,” because we can see some cases in between. While according to the Bible, we can tell them, “No, there was just mixing.”

Both stories fit the data. You can believe this and the data will fit, and you can believe the other story and the data will still fit. So you cannot tell the difference of what really happened if you look at the bones.

The Fundamental Difference: Language and Realistic Art

To understand that, we have first to understand what is the fundamental difference between Adam and those human-shaped animals, which are Neanderthals and Denisovans.

The basic difference, according to the Quran, is naming things. The Quran says God created Adam and He taught him how to name things. So Adam came up with names of things: “This is a tree, that’s a river, that’s a mountain, that’s the sky.” Adam came up with these. Neanderthals couldn’t name things; even angels couldn’t name things. Almost all of us know the story where God tells the angels to tell the names, and they don’t know the names. God says, “Okay, so Adam knows the names,” and animals don’t know the names (Quran 2:31-33).

The basic difference is language, but I’m talking about names. Can a dog name the eye? Could a Neanderthal say “I”? No. That’s the basic difference: Adam and the children of Adam, including us, can name things. We can give names to things; we can create an expression, a symbol, a sign which represents something else, a category of things. That’s naming.

The ability to name things is fundamentally the same thing as art. I’m talking about realistic art, not abstract art. Even a monkey can do abstract art—express anger, express emotions, express brighter colors, darker colors—that’s different. I’m talking about realistic art where you draw a human being, you draw a tree, you draw a car. You can never do that unless you name it.

Even with AI today, AI never knew how to draw new things until first they taught it how to speak, meaning the language model. After that, automatically we got those software which can create pictures and photos. That’s just an imitation, but that’s for another day.

The Theory of Forms

What I’m saying is it’s connected, because you cannot imagine the concept of “pens” unless you have the word “pen.” Once you think of all the pens of the world and you know what distinguishes a pen from a non-pen, and once you realize what it is that makes a pen a pen, that’s when you actually have the ability to name it. But also, because you know enough about it, you also have the ability to draw it and paint it.

The basic difference between Adam and the human-shaped animals is that the children of Adam can communicate names of things. And art is an expression of that. Because, if humans had tools, that tool could have been used because it just felt good. Neanderthals probably used stones to skin animals—they removed the skin from the animal, they used the stone. Neanderthals could do that. But could he draw a cat? He never could, because he was a human-shaped animal; he was not a child of Adam.

Only the children of Adam can name things, and as a result, only the children of Adam can make art—realistic art: like drawing a human being, drawing a cow, drawing a sheep. Only humans can do that. Angels wouldn’t want to do that—God created them for real—and animals don’t know how to. The only creatures which does it, are the children of Adam.

The conclusion is that to know when Adam was created and when Adam lived, all we have to do is look at until when did we have art. So that’s what I did. I asked AI to do it for me because it’s easier. To answer that question, we have to look at art. This will definitely answer the question: not looking at bones, not looking at tools—we have to look at art. When did we have art? When did Adam live?

Cave Painting Evidence Across Eras

I asked this question to AI:

“Going back to the past, during every 5,000 years, give me the two most reliable dated examples of cave paintings. Once you cannot find examples further into the past, stop. Give me a full list chronologically from the most recent ones to the most ancient ones. Do not include the ones which only have hand stencils.”

By the way, hand stencils are these. The reason why I excluded these as examples of art is because even Neanderthals potentially could have done this. All the way these were done is they had something in their mouth—probably it started with blood, but this is with paint—and they put their hand on the wall and blew into it. That’s how that was done. That’s kind of easy, and probably a monkey can do it.

Example of hand stencil “painting”

They might have learned it with blood, because in the past those creatures used to drink blood. Let’s say they had a mouthful of blood while eating, they put their hand on the wall, they sneezed, and they saw the wall: “Oh, that’s interesting, there’s a shape of a hand there.” So they kept doing it.

These are very likely human hands; however, what I’m saying is even Neanderthals can potentially do them very likely. So let’s exclude them; we don’t want to rely on things which are not reliable. So I told AI:

“Do not include the ones which only have hand stencils or abstract line figures…”

Because even a Neanderthal might have done some lines by accident, or he could have done an X by accident if he was angry and just scratched the wall.

“…so do not include hand stencils or abstract lines—only realistic pictures. Do not include the same examples twice if their date ranges overlap through many 5,000-year periods, unless there’s no other example.”

This is what I asked AI, and this is what AI gave me as an answer: a list of cave paintings—the list was produced by AI, but the cave paintings were produced by humans—which we definitely know must be by humans. They cannot be done by human-shaped animals; only humans can do these.

• 0 to 5,000 years ago: We have an example here in Somaliland of what looks like cows. Definitely human-made. A monkey cannot do this; only a human can do this. Why cave paintings? Because those were protected. People did these outside of caves too, but the rain would wash them away. In the caves, they were more protected.

• 5,000 to 10,000 years ago: We have this in Argentina: a human, a tree, what looks like the sun, some other humans, and these look like llamas or ostriches. Then in Peru, we have some other animals from 5,000 to 10,000 years ago.

What does this show? This means that until 10,000 years ago, there were children of Adam. It cannot be that Adam lived 4,000 years ago; he must be beyond 10,000 years ago.

Let’s continue and see where it stops. Basically, where it stops, probably a few years before that is when Adam existed.

• 10,000 to 15,000 years ago: We have this in France—a beautiful drawing. By the way, these are people who never trained in art; this was probably his first or second painting. He never went to school. Imagine sending a child today to school and asking him to draw a cow or a bull—could he do this good of a job? Probably not. This shows that these were actually fully developed humans; they were not evolving. They don’t look very good only because they are on a stone and drawn with fire, not with electricity. They started a fire, someone helped with the fire, and he drew a picture—and it was probably his first picture. Look how good it is.

• 15,000 to 20,000 years ago: Again, very advanced art in France. This looks like horses with some dots, or donkeys or whatever existed then in Europe. Picasso probably likes to do some of this stuff—look at Picasso photos and you’ll see similar things, or maybe he stole the ideas from here.

• 20,000 to 25,000 years ago: Again, a cave in France with shapes of heads of horses and lions.

• 25,000 to 35,000 years ago: Here we have animals again from 25,000 years ago. Some of the caves go over many years: someone drew something, and then 5,000 years later someone saw that and added something to it. But scientists can know exactly by carbon dating when each of them was done. Here we have a cave in Romania—look, the shape of the cow is amazing here. It’s really hard to do these shapes. You can see it’s sophisticated shapes; they didn’t forget the tail details.

• 35,000 to 40,000 years ago: We have these in Indonesia. This looks like a pig; this looks like a cow. Now, these are a little bit questionable because some say that these are even older, but some say that these are around this age.

We can see that until about 40,000 years ago, there were definitely humans. No one else could have done this except for humans—except for children of Adam—because they are the only ones who have the ability for art, and they are also the only ones who have the ability to name things.

The conclusion from this is that the children of Adam, or Adam, must have been created or existed before 40,000 years ago.

Archaeological Statue Data and Neanderthal Timeline

I wanted to do the same thing with ancient sculptures or statues. Here I had a bigger advantage because with paintings, some include different things done by different people, so it’s hard to classify them as one painting or two or three. But with sculptures, you can classify them: this is one sculpture, so basically you can count them.

I asked AI something slightly different to give me a better picture. Question to AI about the number of statues:

“Please tell me, to the best of your ability, how many human-made statues or sculptures have archaeologists found for each 5,000-year period from 5,000 years ago until 60,000 years ago…”

I excluded the first 5,000 years because there are millions of sculptures now; I just wanted to know about the past ones.

“…Include only the cases for which there is a scientific consensus?”

Because some of them are debatable: they found something which looks like a flute in Slovenia, and some say it’s just a bone which was bitten by a wolf, while some say it was used as a flute. So those are questionable. I wanted only the ones where scientists fully agree.

Here is the answer:

Age (years ago)	Estimated number of accepted human-made statues
5,000–10,000	500–1,500+
10,000–15,000	8–15
15,000–20,000	15–25
20,000–25,000	90–110
25,000–30,000	50–70
30,000–35,000	20–30
35,000–40,000	15–20
40,000–45,000	2–5
45,000–50,000	0
50,000–55,000	0
55,000–60,000	0

These are sculptures which people have found to exist from that time. How do they know that they were made in that time? Because they have carbon dating and also the layers of the ground and all of that; there are different methods.

And look where it ends: after 45,000 years ago, zero. Zero after that.

Now, I wouldn’t rush to conclude 45,000 exactly, because maybe those statues which were found were done at 39,000 years ago instead of 41,000, as there’s a slight range there. So, we cannot know the last one for sure. But based on the sculptures, we can conclude Adam must have lived before 40,000 years ago. Because definitely at 35,000 to 40,000 years ago there were sculptures, and we know these can only be done by humans. Which means that Adam must have existed by then.

So again, we’re reaching a similar conclusion: about 40,000 years ago, sculptures stop; about 40,000 years ago, cave paintings stop. Which means that Adam was probably soon before that—45,000 years ago, 50,000 years ago, something like that. It took some time for people to spread and start painting. Because a lot of those are in France; it took people time to get there.

This gives us the lower limit; now I want to know the upper limit.

The Recurring Pattern of Human Conquest

As scientists generally know, when humans came—what they used to call Cro-Magnon, but they don’t use that term anymore, though it was a more modern term—basically, the ancestors of humans, when Cro-Magnon came, they killed the Neanderthals. This is basically human behavior always.

What happened when Europeans went to America? What did they do? They killed pretty much all of them, even though they were not even Neanderthals—they were humans. But if a group of people finds another group which is a little bit weaker, they will kill them. How fast did they go extinct? About 200 or 300 years.

Same thing in Australia: they went there, there were people there—Aboriginals or whatever they call them, natives of that country—and what happened? They almost went extinct. If it wasn’t for the state, they would go extinct, they would vanish. It’s just that the state protects them, otherwise they would vanish. Why? Because that’s what humans do.

So the same thing happened to Neanderthals: humans came into existence, and they killed them all, pretty much. They also had reasons, like if your sister or daughter sleeps with a Neanderthal, of course you’re going to kill them. Whatever, I’m joking now. But what I’m saying is, they killed them anyway. They killed them anyway because they didn’t actually see them as humans—they saw them as animals. So one way to know when humans started to exist is just to check when Neanderthals stopped existing.

Question to AI about Neanderthals:

“Please tell me, to the best of your ability, how many Neanderthals lived for each 5,000-year period from 5,000 years ago until 100,000 years ago.”

Here we have a table produced by AI:

Years ago	Estimated living Neanderthals
5,000–10,000	0
10,000–15,000	0
15,000–20,000	0
20,000–25,000	0
25,000–30,000	0
30,000–35,000	0
35,000–40,000	500–3,000
40,000–45,000	3,000–10,000
45,000–50,000	8,000–20,000
50,000–55,000	10,000–30,000
55,000–60,000	15,000–40,000
60,000–65,000	20,000–50,000
65,000–70,000	20,000–60,000
70,000–75,000	15,000–50,000
75,000–80,000	15,000–45,000
80,000–85,000	15,000–40,000
85,000–90,000	10,000–35,000
90,000–95,000	10,000–30,000
95,000–100,000	10,000–25,000

The population didn’t change much over tens of thousands of years; depending on the climate and ice ages, sometimes they produced more, sometimes less. It didn’t change much. Then, when humans came into existence—which we already know from the paintings should be around this time—look, the Neanderthal population almost immediately starts to vanish. It goes to 8,000, then 3,000, 500, then zero. Within about 10,000 or 20,000 years, they go extinct. They vanish!

Why? Because humans killed them, or gave them diseases, or starved them by taking all the animals they hunted.

According to this, we can see that humans (Adam) must have existed before 55,000 years ago. In the other case, we found the lower limit; here, we are finding the upper limit, the more ancient time. Between those two limits, that’s where Adam was created. According to this table, Adam was probably created around 50,000 to 55,000 years ago. I know exactly when he was created, but I’m just kind of following the logic anyway.

Synthesis & Conclusion

What is the conclusion from all these tables?

• Based on ancient cave paintings, Adam must have lived before about 40,000 years ago.
• Based on ancient statues, Adam must have lived before about 40,000 years ago.
• Based on Neanderthal population estimates, Adam must have lived after about 55,000 years ago.

If we combine all these three facts, we reach the conclusion that Adam lived between about 40,000 years ago and 55,000 years ago. Between this time, Adam must have lived according to scientific facts.

God willing, in other Friday sermons I’ll tell you from the Quran exactly when Adam and Noah lived. The Quran tells us specifically—not a range, but the exact year. God willing, you’ll enjoy that even more. From science, we concluded approximately when Adam must have lived.

For those who have to do the contact prayer, do the contact prayer. The rest of you, peace be upon you.

Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director

 

Sermon Introduction

Praise be to God. There is no other god except God.

In the last Friday sermon, we concluded that Dhul-Qarnayn is also the DNA. Before that, we concluded that it was Cyrus the Great. In the last sermon, we concluded that Dhul-Qarnayn, the one with two horns, is DNA. And then I said that there’s more than one meaning into what the one with two horns means. So the Quran mentions the one with two horns, and it has quite a few meanings.

The last meaning I want to talk about—because let me just say that there’s one more meaning which I’m just going to skip, is the DNA of the humans or human-shaped beings, and then there’s another meaning, the DNA of humans—for all of them you can actually learn something, but I’m going to skip because we can include them in the DNA in general.

The Magnetosphere: The One with Two Horns

But the one I want to talk about is more different. The one I want to talk about today is that the one with two horns—basically with horns, we concluded, are those like twisted shapes. In this case, another meaning is the magnetosphere. The magnetosphere is one with two horns. It has two poles.

Let me show the photo. So it’s this one.

So basically here we have a representation. It’s not a photo. You cannot take a photo of it. But it’s an illustration of the magnetosphere. What is the magnetosphere? It’s just basically a magnetic field which comes out of the earth, and it has a north pole, one horn, and then it has a south pole, another horn. And the further from the magnetic poles they are, they kind of bend more. So basically there are, there might be actually horns which are straight. As you can see, there’s two horns here. One in the south pole, one in the north pole. So we can understand that the one with two horns is the magnetosphere.

And let’s now read the verses of the Quran and see how it actually makes sense when we read all the verses and we can learn things from it. For those who like science, these sermons are fun in the sense that they learn both religion and science at the same time. Anyway, yeah, let’s read the verses which talk about the one with two horns while trying to understand them as the magnetosphere, the one with two horns.

Surah 18, Verse 83: Establishing the Path Downward

So it says—we’re going to read the same verses as last time, but now slightly differently translated. Again, all meanings are correct. Let’s not focus too much on why it was different last time. In the Arabic, it includes them; in English, we have to choose one specific meaning anyway. So let’s read now the verses in Surah 18, verse 83. It says:

[18:83] They ask you about the one with two poles (magnetosphere).—So it has two poles, magnetosphere—Say, I will tell you about it a lesson to remember. [18:84] We established it on earth—of course, the magnetosphere is established on earth. A lot of other planets don’t have it. Some of them do. We established it on Earth and gave it a path through everything. Why? Because it goes through everything. The magnetic field goes through everything on earth, including us. It goes through us. We established it on earth and gave it a path through everything. [18:85] So it followed a path, [18:86] until it reached the place where the sun disappears. It found the sun disappearing in a spring of black mud (Lava)…

Okay, let’s check how lava looks. Look, lava looks like black mud. So now in this case, we are going—actually, last time we went in the past and the future, one path, another path, but here now we’re going downward and upward. So as it followed one path, let’s say downward where the sun disappears. That’s where the sun disappears. It disappears downward. It found the sun disappearing in a spring of black mud. That’s basically the lowest layer that the sun reaches. I think lava comes from the mantle. I’m not sure, but I think it comes from the mantle of the earth. And the sun doesn’t go beyond the mantle, the sun rays beyond the lava.

…And it found a community of atoms. —In this case, we’re talking about non-organic communities— It found a community of atoms. We said, “O you with two poles (magnetosphere), you either punish (meaning repel them), or treat them good (attract them).” Because what do the magnets do? They either repel, they push away, or they attract, they bring towards you. So either you punish, meaning push it away, or attract it, bring it towards you. [18:87] It said: as for those in darkness, soon we will repel them—there’s magnets which are repelled, they are dark—then they will be returned to their lord and we will punish them with a terrible punishment. [18:88] As for those who believe (basically get attracted, and usually they are not dark like magnets) and did good, for them is a good reward. We will speak to them from our command gently.

And basically this pretty much includes pretty much all the other materials anyway.

Following the Path Upward Beyond the Atmosphere

[18:89] Then it pursued another way, [18:90] until it reached the place where the sun appears.

So now where does the sun appear? High, high, high above the sky. It found the sun appearing on a community of atoms. So basically in this case, let’s not forget we are following the path of the magnetosphere as it goes down through all the way to the earth’s core and then up all the way through the atmosphere and beyond. And then it’s going to follow another way all the way to the earth’s core. Where was I? Let’s continue reading. Okay, let me continue here:

[18:89] Then it pursued another way, [18:90] until it reached the place where the sun appears. It found the sun appearing on a community of atoms—Another way is now up—of atoms for whom we did not create any covering, (magnetic field), from it, (the sun).

So basically once you pass all the way through the atmosphere and beyond there, the magnetic field becomes less and less and there’s no protection from it. Because what does the magnetic field do of the earth? It protects us from the sun rays, from the sun radiation, the bad rays of the sun.

[18:91] Naturally we were aware of it.

Returning to the Middle Altitudes: Atmospheric Barriers

[18:92] It then followed another path, —now all the way down to the earth— [18:93] until it arrived between the two barriers.

Let me see if I actually got this right. Oh yeah, actually it is in the atmosphere still. So now it’s between the highest and the lava. Let me repeat it again, sorry. So first the path which it took was all the way down to the lava. Not all the way down to the core of the earth because it’s going to be mentioned later, you’ll see. And then it went all the way up, and now somewhere in between. Somewhere in between is the atmosphere, like neither too high, neither too low.

[18:93] Until it arrived between the two barriers, (the tropopause and the stratopause)…

Tropopause is basically the place where the troposphere ends, and the stratopause is the place where the stratosphere ends. These are actually important for us not to get UV rays. In the stratosphere, that’s where the ozone layer is and all of that.

… He found beside them a community (of atoms of oxygen) whose language it could barely understand (Paramagnetic).

Basically, oxygen is paramagnetic. What does paramagnetic mean? So as we concluded, there are materials which are non-magnetic, meaning that the magnets do not affect them, including the earth’s magnetic field. I don’t know, plastic—I’m not sure if plastic is non-magnetic, things like that. Because it gets attracted by the magnetosphere, oxygen is in between. It’s barely magnetic, so it’s neither magnetic nor completely non-magnetic, so it’s paramagnetic. But that’s why it’s “whose language could barely understand.” It’s mostly, almost completely non-magnetic, the oxygen, but there’s a tiny bit of pull. The magnets pull the oxygen a tiny bit, just a tiny bit. Anyone can check it with AI: “is oxygen paramagnetic?” and it will tell you, and it will tell you what paramagnetic means. It’s a tiny bit magnetic.

Gog and Magog: Radiation and Particle Threats

[18:94] They said—basically the oxygen atoms which are in the atmosphere—”O you with two poles, (magnetosphere), fast fires (radiation), And where the fast fires are placed (particle radiation)…

By the way, the radiation from the sun comes in two forms: one is in waves, which is let’s say UV rays—I don’t know what type of rays come from the sun, lots of different types of rays, different lengths—and particle radiation, like protons, electrons come from the sun shooting. And if there was no magnetosphere, they would actually reach all the way down to the earth and destroy the atmosphere, first of all. They would just kind of wash away all the atmosphere from the earth gradually, and then they would also destroy us. Those are dangerous radiations, especially the particle radiation, but all types of radiation. Basically, the only safe form of radiation is the one which we see and radio waves partly, but the one which we see is the safest form of radiation, which is the sunray the way we see it with our eyes. Everything we don’t see, including the phone radiation, all of that is a little bit dangerous, but not too much. I’m talking about the radio waves. But when it comes to waves with high energy like UV rays, X-rays, those are really dangerous, very dangerous. And particle radiation is even more dangerous, I’m guessing, it depends on how much there is. So yeah, the magnetosphere is supposed to protect us from that. So let’s go back to the verse.

[18:94] They said, “O you with two poles, (magnetosphere)—The magnetosphere protects the oxygen, meaning the atmosphere, from being washed away, being blown away by the sun radiation. “Fast fires, (in Arabic Gog and Magog), and the place where the fast fires are placed”, because where does the radiation come from? The radiation comes from the atoms. That’s where the radiation is placed. So it can come as radiation or as a particle. So the “fast fires, (meaning radiation), and where the fast fires are placed, (particle radiation), are causing damage on earth.” —And today scientists know that they do damage the earth, if they reach earth. “Can we give you something so that you can create between us and them a barrier?”

Cosmic Iron and Core Discontinuities

[18:95] It said, (The magnetosphere said) “What my lord established me on is better, but help me with strength. I will make between you and between them a barrier. Bring me layers of iron.” As we know, iron came from the cosmos, from up, and it went through the oxygen. And by the way, even in the stars, first it was from hydrogen, it was created into different types of metals, I think carbon and oxygen, and then through silicon, different types of other metals, it became iron. So basically iron was created in the stars, but through oxygen. So oxygen sort of brought the iron, or another way to look at it is that the iron came from space through the oxygen. So basically iron went down, oxygen went up.

[18:96] “Bring me layers of iron.” Once it filled the gap between the two barriers (that are called in science the Gutenberg discontinuity and Lehmann discontinuity)…

They should have called them barrier, but they call it discontinuity. What does it mean? Okay, let me explain. So, I hope you guys can see.

So, here between the inner core of the earth and the outer core of the earth, we have the Lehmann discontinuity. And here between the outer core and the mantle, we have the Gutenberg discontinuity. That’s basically how scientists know that there is an inner core and an outer core, because when the earthquake waves—or some other types of waves, but mainly earthquake waves—happen, when earthquakes happen, there are waves which spread through the earth from them. Scientists will go in different portions of the earth, different parts of the earth. They never reach down there, so they’ll probably go all the way to the other side of the earth. They have instruments which measure those waves, the waves from earthquakes. And what they noticed—and those waves will pretty much tell them what’s inside the earth with advanced models, of course, not just looking by detecting them—so what they detected is that there’s some discontinuity at this level and at this level, meaning that the waves bounce or they deflect or they go faster or whatever that means. So there’s a discontinuity there, which means there’s a barrier. You can think of it as a barrier where the waves bounce back or deflect or change direction.

So here, these discontinuities, we can call them barriers. Let’s continue reading them, which are down in the earth’s core. So basically now we are learning where the magnetosphere comes from. Where does the earth’s magnetic field come from? It comes from the earth’s core. And let’s see how it happens. So, I’m going to repeat some of the readings so I don’t skip anything.

[18:94] They said, “O you with two poles, (magnetosphere), fast fires (radiation) and where the fast fires are placed, (particle radiation), are causing damage on earth. Can we give you something so that you can create between us and them a barrier?” [18:95] It said, “What my lord established me on is better, but help me with strength. I will make between you and between them a barrier.

The Planetary Dynamo: Solid and Liquid Cores

[18:96] Bring me layers of iron.” Once it filled the gap between—by the way, layers again. In the earth’s core, the iron exists in what they call crystallized form, meaning that all the atoms are layered in exact specific rows. So they are layered—usually the iron which we find doesn’t have the exact layer in a crystallized core, they are kind of more disordered, but in the core, because of all that pressure, they have to be ordered in order to take minimum space. So they get sort of a perfect order which you can see as layers, either vertical layers or horizontal layers. [18:96] …“Bring me layers of iron.” Once it filled the gap between the two barriers, (which we saw what the barriers are), it said, “Blow until it made it fire.”…

So basically, what is it? Iron which is fire at the same time. We know that the earth’s core is iron, almost all iron and some other heavy metals, but mostly iron, and it’s in fire form because of all that pressure. The pressure heats it. “Bring me so that I can put on it molten metal.” And now we have—see,

…“bring me so that I can put on it, (meaning on top of it), molten metal”, —and that’s the outer core. The outer core is liquid metal. The inner core, ironically, someone would think because it’s hotter, it would be actually gas or liquid, but it’s actually solid. It’s even hotter, but it’s solid. That’s why they are distinguished. The inner core is solid metal. The outer core is liquid metal. And the difference between these two, as the outer core which is liquid rotates around the solid one, sort of moves—imagine them like rivers moving around it—that’s where the magnetic field comes from. That’s where the protection from radiation in the end comes from. Isn’t it interesting, at the depths of the earth we get our protection from the radiation from the sky?

[18:96] Then it said, “Bring me layers of fire. Once it filled the gap between the two barriers, it said, ‘Blow until it made it fire. Bring me so that I can put on it molten metal.’” (This is the outer core). [18:97] Thus they, (the radiation), could not go over it or penetrate it. We can understand this two ways: either it cannot go through the earth’s core, or it cannot go through the magnetosphere, because now the earth’s core is helping maintain the magnetosphere, and the magnetosphere is protecting us from radiation.

The End of the Protective Barrier

[18:98] It said, “This is mercy from my lord, but when the promise of my lord comes, he will cause it to crumble. The promise of my lord is inevitable.” [18:99] At that time, we will let them, (the two types of radiation), invade with one another. Then the horn will be blown. —Maybe invade here I think in Arabic it also says goes on top of each other because they are waves. We’ll let them go on top or through each other. The literal meaning in Arabic is wave, kind of like the wave goes on top. [18:99] …Go on top or through each other. Then the horn will be blown and we will summon them all together to create life again. [18:100] We will present hell on that day to the disbelievers. [18:101] They are the ones whose eyes were too blind to see my message, nor could they hear.

So basically, again, in this case we can understand it as the magnetosphere which has two poles, two horns. Let’s repent. Toubou ila Allah.

Understanding Multiple-Meaning Verses

Praise be to God. There is no other God except God.

I think what’s more important than what we’ve spoken so far in the last three days is to understand that all those meanings are correct. Honestly, it’s not that important that we’re talking about the magnetosphere or the DNA because all of them fit with those verses of the Quran, or Cyrus the Great. What’s more important is that the Quran says—let me say the verse first and then understand why it’s important. In the Quran, there’s a verse which says that the Quran has single-meaning verses, straightforward verses, and multiple-meaning verses. Those who believe, they say all the meanings come from God. As for those who disbelieve, they will try to choose one specific meaning.

Basically, what’s important, the most important part is that we don’t say, “Oh, it’s DNA and nothing else.” Well, if Dhul Qarnayn meant DNA and nothing else, God would say DNA. God would be straightforward. Or let say it’s legs and nothing else. Well, if God wanted to say legs, he would say legs. Legs are mentioned in the Quran. He didn’t use that word here. If God wanted to tell us legs, he would tell us legs. But here it’s a multiple-meaning verse. The one with two horns, which means many things, which means that we should be open-minded. And that’s what a believer is with multiple-meaning verses. So basically, believers are more open-minded with multiple-meaning verses. They say, “Okay, this meaning seems true, that also seems true. This seems a bit more true.” So all of them are correct. Now, not every—of course, the one with two horns doesn’t talk about legs because legs are mentioned in the Quran and they are specified what they are, but it does mean it does have more than one meaning. We sort of spoke about three meanings so far.

The Danger of Intellectual Dogma

And probably even more important than that is that we never fight over these, and especially especially when someone finds something themselves, if you’ve thought of this yourself. So, last time, kind of I helped a lot, but whatever. Last time when I asked you guys to guess, I think Adam guessed that it sort of had to do with chromosomes or whatever, the DNA. By the way, it was not a coincidence that he guessed it. I think Adam, just so you guys know, he studied in Harvard—is it Harvard or Oxford? Adam, can you tell us where you studied? Oxford or Harvard? Which one was it? Oh, Cambridge. Okay, sorry, Cambridge. One of those. One of those. Okay. So yeah, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he found it. We have nerds in our community who know this stuff. Anyway, I’m joking, Adam. I’m joking. So yeah, I think it’s good that he found it.

What I’m saying is, especially when someone finds it themselves—let’s say if you read something in the Quran and you’re like, “Oh, wait a minute. This could be DNA, or this could be that, or this could be that”—what happens is your opinion looks so much more in a better fit, a better opinion than the others. And then it can close your mind to other things. So it’s dangerous. It can close your mind to the idea that maybe it’s something else as well. And unfortunately, a lot of communities, including let’s say the Sunnis and the Shias, because Muhammad might have told them one meaning. So let say someone said, “Oh, what does this verse mean here? What does the middle prayer mean, for example?” and Muhammad probably said ‘Asr, like the afternoon prayer. So now they are stuck into it because that’s the first thing they knew. That’s the only way they want to understand it. The middle prayer in the Quran means more than one thing. It means the afternoon prayer if you measure it from let’s say from the first prayer when you wake up: dawn, noon, afternoon, that’s the middle prayer. Or it can also be—I think it’s more accurate, but both of them are correct—is the noon prayer, because the Quran mentions the night and the day, the night comes before the day, so the first should be the night prayer, then the dawn prayer, then the noon prayer. So now the middle prayer is the noon prayer. And both of them, by the way, are correct, and you can reach the conclusion about the five prayers, or four, or three, whatever is the situation in your location, with both understandings. You can reach the correct conclusion. That’s why God kind of mentioned it as the middle prayer.

And unfortunately, even let’s say the Quranists or whatever different communities, they only stick to one understanding. They just don’t want to change. It’s ideology rather than belief. When you just stick to one understanding, it’s ideology, it’s dogma. It’s not really belief. And this applies to verses with multiple meanings. When it comes to verses with one single meaning, which are the straightforward verses, of course we don’t keep our mind open to, “Oh, maybe this, maybe that.” There’s, for example, we know that there is only one god. There’s no other god except god. We’re not open to, “Oh, maybe there’s some half gods, maybe maybe Jesus is god, maybe he’s not.” We are not open to those ideas because it’s straightforward. The Quran is straightforward about that. But there other things, like Dhul Qarnayn. If you didn’t ask them probably they would, or if we didn’t inform them about this, they would probably never know. So it’s soft information. It’s information which has multiple meanings, and especially because it’s multiple meanings, that means that God put many meanings into one. So when you tell them one of the meanings, it’s never fully convincing. It’s quite convincing, but it’s never fully convincing because it’s only part of the meaning.

Partially Accepting the Text

Do you see the point? Like especially because it is multiple meanings, when I say Dhul-Qarnayn is Cyrus the Great, of course it’s not going to be 100% convincing. I know that. But it’s true. However, it’s not 100% convincing because it’s not 100% of the truth. It’s just whatever—if you whatever I don’t know divide it by 7, 12% whatever it is, 15% I have no idea, 15% maybe, something percent of the truth. So you’re just telling them part of the truth. Of course, it’s not going to be absolutely convincing. And by the way, for those who insist on only understanding one specific meaning, one specific way of understanding those verses or any other multiple-meaning verses, what they are actually doing is they are rejecting most of the Quran when it comes to those verses. Because let say you understood 1/7th of the Quran for those verses and you reject all the other meanings, what are you doing? You’re rejecting most of the Quran. And then there’s a verse in the Quran which says that the disbelievers are those who accept the Quran partially. So they accept part of it, but they reject the other parts. And that’s what people do. By sort of sticking to only one meaning, they accept one part but they reject the other one. And that’s a feature of disbelievers, not a feature of believers. Believers have it clear: straightforward verses, we are not open-minded to other meanings, there’s only one meaning; multiple-meaning verses, we are open to more than one meaning so that we can accept all the Quran, not only a part of the Quran. Someone might say, “Oh, which verses are multiple meaning verses, which are single meaning?” whatever, God willing I’ll make a video about it, but also it’s kind of very natural. You can understand. If the Quran says Dhul Qarnayn, the one with two horns, it’s not easy to understand, it probably has more than one meaning. God didn’t make it vague on purpose so that you don’t understand, it was because it has multiple meanings.

Q&A Section: Atoms as Communities

Anyway does anyone have any questions? And let’s keep it short today.

So, Faisal is saying, “Is 18:88 a prophecy of some sort? How does it attract believers only?” I’ll have to think about it. But where is 18:88? “As for those who believe, basically get attracted, and did good, for them is a good reward.” We are talking here about atoms, not really believers in this way of understanding it. It says, “how does it attract believers only?” So here we’re talking about—think of them as atoms, not humans, because all of these are the communities, are communities of atoms, not communities of humans. Does that answer your question? Okay, so yeah, it does answer your question. Anyway, because the whole time you were talking about atoms as communities or molecules, however you want to understand them.

One more question. I think Jad is about to ask something or say something, and then we’ll finish, God willing. So the Quran does mention the word community, but the word community doesn’t say community of people, any type of group of things. There’s a community of birds mentioned in the Quran, different communities.

Q&A Section: Translating for Multiple Meanings

So Jad is saying, “When understanding a specific meaning of a verse, should the rest of the Quran be translated to be related to that meaning, or it doesn’t need to be?” Okay, I would say yes. Generally yes. The answer is generally yes. That’s why we have to have many, many versions of the Quran translated, God willing. We don’t have to because we don’t have to understand the multiple meaning verses absolutely completely, but the more the better. That’s why, God willing, we’ll have many translations of the Quran. God willing, I’ll make more than one translation of the Quran. We’ve already done some Surahs. Because then now if we understand it in this meaning, as you can see, if we think of the communities as atoms rather than people, then we have to translate the next verse in a way where it makes sense, where we would have to say it or instead of he and things like that. So yeah, generally yes. In some cases, it might be the same—let say verses can fit, the same way of translating it can fit for both cases. So it depends, but for most cases, yes.

Closing Remarks

Okay, we have to go now. Sorry guys, because I don’t want to delay—whatever question you have, maybe we can talk another day. Because I’ve been holding very long Friday sermons recently, I want to sort of try to stick to approximately half an hour.

Okay. So, for those who have to do the contact prayer, do the contact prayer. The rest of you, peace be upon you.

 

Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director

 

Introduction and Recap of the Last Sermon

Praise God. Praise be to God; there is no other god except God.

In the last Friday sermon, I spoke about Dhul Qarnayn, and we concluded that Dhul Qarnayn was Cyrus the Great—I think he is also called Cyrus II. We concluded that from the Bible and pretty much from the Quran as well, a little bit. We used the Quran as a framework, and then we found the details in the Bible.

Let me go back to the topic. The topic is: who was Dhul Qarnayn? Dhul Qarnayn is mentioned in the Quran. It means “the one with the two horns,” and we concluded that it was Cyrus the Great, one of the people who helped the Jews. He traveled on one side of the earth, on the other side of the earth, then another side. We know that.

Linguistic Insights into the Quranic Text

According to Arabic, but many other languages as well, when God says “he”—even in Albanian—it does not automatically mean a gender like a male. Sometimes in a lot of languages, actually in most languages except for English and a few others, “he” is used for objects as well. For example, in Albanian, the TV is a “he” and the microwave is a “she.” I don’t know how they came up with this, but it is just grammar. That is why in the Quran, when God says “he,” it does not automatically mean that He has male organs; it just means “it.” Those two languages have only two genders, and those genders are sometimes used for objects as well, for things.

In Albanian, for example, a mountain, mali, is a “he,” while a hill is a “she.” We can go deep into the psychology of why people decided to call some objects “he” and some objects “she.” Psychologically, I think it has to do with the fact that things which do things to others are usually called “he”—kind of like the more dominant things which act on others. Things to whom things are done are usually perceived as female, psychologically, and that is why they use those different genders. Let’s say a river in Albanian is a “he,” lumi, because it can do things to you. But a tool, you do things to it, so it is a “she.” A stick in Albanian is a “she.” This is also in Arabic, sort of; it uses those gendered nouns for things, as do most languages.

What that means is that when God says “he” about it, it does not necessarily mean it is a human male. First of all, it never says it is a human. Second of all, when it says “he,” we can literally translate it as “it” in English as well. God willing, when I read the translation, I can use the word “it” as well, because, again, we haven’t concluded necessarily that it is always talking about a human.

The Prophetic Nature of Quranic Terminology

How do we know it is not necessarily talking about a human? First of all, why would God tell us about Dhul Qarnayn, the one with two horns who is Cyrus the Great, and not just say Cyrus the Great? God could have just said Cyrus the Great. People knew the name of Cyrus during that time, in whatever the Iranian or Arabic version was; they knew the name. God could have just used his name, but God didn’t. The reason for that is because the Quran is revealed for all times, and therefore, for our times, we can learn more from those verses, not just about Cyrus the Great.

We learned the history of Cyrus the Great, but at the same time, using the same language which the Quran uses, we can conclude other things. At the end of the day, Cyrus the Great doesn’t really concern us; he was important for the Jews, for the believers of that time, for the Children of Israel of that time. He was important for that, but he is not really important for us. Do we even care if Cyrus the Great existed or not? Yeah, we know who he is, but it doesn’t matter to us much. That is why God uses double meanings, many meanings, in those verses. Those verses which mention the one with two horns have many meanings. The one with two horns has many meanings: some meanings refer to the past, and other meanings refer to our time so we can understand other things.

Defining the Symbolism of “Horns”

Let’s try to find out together what the one with two horns is. Before we find out what it is, first of all, let’s define what a horn is. What is a horn?

Here I searched for “horns of ram twisted.” This is a horn; these are two horns. Let’s search for maybe “horns of bulls”—again, two horns. Or let’s just say “horns of different animals.” Where can we find a collection? How about here? I don’t know if I can make this larger; it’s on Facebook. But you guys get the idea. I am going to make this larger. These are horns. What do they have in common?

Let’s define what a horn is. A horn, first of all—what can we conclude? They always come in two. A horn comes in two, so horns are two—I don’t want to use the word “pairs” because it is a repetition, but maybe I have to use it in English, I guess: two pairs, or a pair, let’s just say two. But what are they made of, by the way? They are made of organic material. All horns are made of some specific stuff. Also, they usually have bones inside, so that is organic material. So, two organic materials which mirror each other, meaning that, as we can see, the left horn is always almost the same—not exactly the same, but almost the same—as the right one. We can say they mirror each other. So far, we have defined it this much: horns are two organic materials which mirror each other, useful for living creatures.

The Biological Purpose: Protecting the Offspring

What are they useful for? What is the function of the horns? Biologists—the people who study these things—I don’t think they have fully reached a conclusion. They have reached a conclusion for the most part, but let me explain. I don’t think they fully understood the depth of why animals have horns, why some animals have horns and others don’t. If you ask a lot of them, they will either say sexual selection, meaning that they are used to show the females which male is stronger or has more protective strength, or they say to protect against predators. For example, the horns of the bull might be used to protect against predators.

Believers listen; only one believer speaks at a time, we don’t speak over each other.

Again, we are trying to define what horns are. Horns are two organic materials—I’m defining it right now as we go. Horns are two organic materials which mirror each other, useful for living creatures to do what? This is what I want to explain. If horns were only for protection—let’s say if the bull used the horns only for protection—it would be easier for the bull to invest all that energy which goes into growing new horns, because it takes energy to grow them, and it also takes energy to have them because they are heavy, so it is going to take lots of energy. It would be better for the bull to actually just use that energy for strength to run away. It would be much better for the bull to run away from the wolf than to actually fight it.

Then why does the bull, why do some creatures have horns and others don’t? A rabbit, for example, a rabbit doesn’t have horns. When a wolf chases a rabbit, what does the rabbit do? It runs. It invested all its energy into having fast muscles, and it is going to run away. But the bull doesn’t do that, or it might try to run away, but it also has horns. Why do some creatures have horns?

The reason is to protect their offspring. Basically, what they use the horns for—because the bull can run away, but if the bull has a pregnant mate, let’s say a cow, and if a cow is pregnant, the cow cannot run away. If the bull runs away when the wolf comes, the wolf is going to eat the cow. When she is pregnant, she cannot run. If she has just given birth, the calf—the young cow or the young bull—cannot run either. It cannot run as fast. It can run a little bit, but not as fast. So, there is a period of time when the offspring of the bull, which could be inside the pregnant mother or just very young, is vulnerable. During that time, the best thing for the bull to do is to fight the wolf. In this way, it protects the offspring, the child, rather than running. If the bull runs, the child is going to be eaten.

What we have concluded is that the horns are useful for the protection of the offspring. The bull doesn’t need the horns for itself, because rabbits, which don’t have horns, have small offspring that can hide in holes and dens, so they don’t need horns. Other creatures can run, or they don’t have vulnerable times. I am talking about mammals which have vulnerable times, like cows or sheep. I think sheep produce only once a year, and it might be during that time when the wolves will try to eat the lambs. The ram technically has the horns mostly to protect the lamb, not for himself. Himself, he could have run; it would be better for the ram, the male sheep, to run from the wolf than to try to fight it. The only reason why he chooses to fight it is because he is trying to protect the lamb and the female partner. The horns are two organic materials which mirror each other, useful for living creatures to ensure the continuation of their offspring, basically their children—I don’t know if the word “children” can be used for animals—to ensure the continuation of their offspring.

Connecting Dhul Qarnayn to Modern Science (DNA)

This is the definition of horns. Can we fill in the blank here with something else? What are two organic materials which mirror each other, useful for living creatures to ensure the continuation of their offspring? What passes from the parent to the offspring? Chromosomes, genomes, yes. What I want to say is DNA.

Maybe I should have divided it more. Horns are two organic materials of helical shape, shaped like helixes, shaped like a helix. We saw the shapes of the horns; they are shaped like a helix, and they mirror each other. So, it’s the DNA we’re talking about. The two horns—it’s talking about the DNA, because the DNA… let’s go to the DNA shape. Look at the shape of DNA. It’s like two horns: one horn and then another horn, and they mirror each other. Technically, these are all microscopic two horns, two horns which are very small. That’s what the DNA is: two horns.

The Discovery of the Double Helix

How I came to discover this is because, years ago, I remembered that in my biology class in the US, in my fourth year in high school—biology was never actually my favorite subject—but I do remember the teacher showing us something about how they discovered the DNA. I think it was a photo of DNA, this photo. I was amazed at how they found it out, because it’s not actually about biology; it’s more about math and physics.

This is the photo which a woman scientist took; it’s called Photo 51. Basically, it’s just X-rays passing through what is supposed to be DNA. This is Photo 51. There are many other photos which don’t necessarily have this shape, but this one was interesting because it was from a specific angle which showed this shape. Including all the other photos and all the other shapes, the people who discovered that DNA is a double helix used really advanced math and a real-life model to try to figure out which shape would give this shade, because this is technically just a shade through crystals. I don’t know exactly what the method is, but basically, this is an X-ray. They had to imagine, using math as well, what shape would be the cause, because with X-rays we only see the shadow, a 2D shadow. Imagine that this is the shadow of the DNA. They discovered it without ever having seen it; they had never seen it, they had never taken a photo of the DNA, but through this shadow and other shadows from other angles, they managed to discover that only a double helix—a helix is this twisting thing—only a double helix will create that shadow. That’s amazing. That’s why I remembered it, because it had to do with math. I was like, “Wow, they must have been geniuses.” They discovered from the shade what the shape of the DNA is.

Re-evaluating the Quranic Narrative

What I mostly remembered is not just DNA, but that it is called a double helix. Technically, DNA is a double helix; that’s the informal name, double helix. It means two twisted shapes, which is pretty much two horns, because horns are helixes; horns are twisted shapes. We saw how horns look; they look like twisted shapes. Basically, we can replace the words “two horns” in the Quran with the words “double helix,” because it’s the same thing: two horns, double helix. Let’s see what we have. Once we do that, we realize that the Quran is actually telling us the story of the DNA, the story of the double helix.

Before we do that, God willing, we’ll read the story of Dhul Qarnayn again, but instead of thinking of him as Cyrus the Great, we’ll think of it as the double helix. God willing, in one of the future translations, instead of saying “two horns,” it will say “double helix,” meaning two twisted shapes which are horns—a horn is a twisted shape—and which mirror each other, of course. Before we do that, let’s first of all repent.

The Linguistic and Genetic Roots of “Qarnayn”

Praise be to God; there is no other god except God. Let’s read the Quran now. Let’s go to the Quran, and instead of saying “two horns,” which is the literal meaning… oh, by the way, it makes sense. That’s why in the Quran, when we go to the Quran glossary, Surah 18, verse 83, I think that’s where it’s mentioned. It says, “They ask you about Dhul Qarnayn.” If I click here on Qarnayn, it means horn, but it also means generations. By the way, the word “generation” has the same root word as “genes.” “Generations” is just like “gene”; it’s the same word in English. Generations means the next offspring, and the next offspring, and the next offspring. It’s the same word in English: genes and generations come from the same word. The root word is also telling us that it’s talking about genes, not only about horns, but also about genes which pass on from generation to generation. That’s what genes do: they pass from generation to generation. It’s pretty much the only thing which passes from one generation to another generation. All the other materials in the human body, or the body of living things, are different, but the genes pass from one generation to another.

Now let’s read this surah knowing that we are talking about the double helix, which also means genes. Let’s read the whole section and try to understand, actually for the first time, what it can teach us. Most of it is already discovered, but it can teach us the journey of the DNA. Let’s read that part of the surah with this other understanding. I’m going to go to Surah 18, verse 83. This is how I translated it, and this might be one of the translations for this part of the surah.

The Final Testament • Surah 18:83–86

“They ask you about the one with the double helix, basically DNA, the one with two horns, the one with two generations, two genes. They ask you about the one with a double helix, DNA. Say, ‘I will tell you something about its history.’”

“We established and created safety for it on earth and gave it instructions for everything.”

“So it followed the path.”

“Until it reached the place where the sun disappears.”

It is actually telling us the history of the DNA, how the DNA travels from the beginning until the end, because DNA has been here pretty much almost from the beginning of the earth, and it’s going to be here until the end of the earth. It’s telling us the journey of the DNA. Then it says: “We established and created safety for it on earth and gave it instructions for everything.” What does the DNA do? It has the instructions for life. “So it followed the path.” Of course, DNA traveled from generation to generation throughout history. “Until it reached the place where the sun disappears.” Here we’re not talking about the sunset; here we’re talking about when the sun ends at the end of times, when the sun basically gets destroyed.

The Scientific Symbolism of the Black Hole

The Final Testament • Surah 18:86 (Continued)

“It found the sun disappearing in a pupil of black material.”

In Arabic, it means spring, but it also means pupil; it means the part of the eye, the retina, the circular part of the eye. It says, “in a pupil of black material,” which is like the black part of the eye, but this is the same thing which happens in a black hole. A black hole is just a spring where materials go in and they never come back. Why are they the same, the pupil of the eye and a black hole? They have pretty much the same concept because the reason why the pupil, the most central part of our eye, is black is because the light goes in and it never comes back; it gets absorbed by our eye. Then, as a chemical or electrical reaction, it goes into our brain. I don’t know exactly what kind of reaction, but basically, the light disappears there; it gets absorbed in the eye.

Just like in a black hole, when the light goes in, it disappears and never comes back out. When light hits our skin, for example, part of it comes back, it goes back. When it hits any part of our body, part of it goes back. But when light hits the black part of our eye, the part which sees, it never comes back. That’s why it’s black. It’s the same thing with black holes, and that’s why the word “spring” is used in the Quran. It says it is setting in a spring of dark mud. When you look at the word “spring” in Arabic, ayn, it also means eye. The root word means eye, spring, eye. The word spring and eye come from the same root in Arabic. The reason is because springs in the desert typically have a circular shape like an eye, and usually, they have some kind of color and a darkness in the middle where it’s deep. That’s why they use the same word. What’s more amazing is that whatever happens in the eye is exactly what happens in black holes: light enters and it never comes back. That’s the most important part.

Now, this is telling us how the sun will end. It says, “until it reaches the place where the sun disappears,” meaning at the end of times, “it found the sun disappearing in a pupil of black material, a black hole.” I explained in the video about the end times that the way the world will end is that all the stars will be put together, and physicists know that when you put a lot of material together—let alone all the stars, but if you just put a million stars together, not even all of them, just a million is enough—they are going to create a black hole. There is so much material in one space that it creates a black hole; it bends space, and then when light enters, it never comes back, which is why it’s dark. That’s why they call them black holes; they should have called them dark holes rather than black holes, anyway, it doesn’t matter.

Basically, it’s telling us that when the DNA reaches the end of time—by the way, this also tells us that there is going to be DNA at the end of time, which means that there will be people, animals, and creatures until the end of time. When they reach that end of time, the Quran says that the stars will be all put together and thrown into hell. As the stars are put together, they will create a black hole. So basically, the sun—and the sun is one of the stars—will end up in a black hole as they are being put together.

The Final Testament • Surah 18:86–88

And it found a community there, people. We said: “O you with a double helix, you may either punish or treat them good.”

It said: “As for the one who wronged, soon we will punish him. Then he will be returned to his Lord, and He will punish him with a terrible punishment. As for him who believed and did good, for him is a good reward. We will speak to him from our command gently.”

DNA might be used because the Quran says that that is the day when God will make the skins talk and the fingers talk. DNA might be used, meaning… I don’t know, are the bad people going to be created a bit more ugly? I don’t know how the DNA will be used, but probably they might turn out more ugly. DNA will be like, “Oh, I’m not going to be nice to you this time; how about you’re ugly this time?” You know what I mean. Anyway, it’s going to be used just like the skin will be used, our tongues will be used, our eyes will be used against us if we are disbelievers. If people are disbelievers, their organs will be used against them, and also their DNA.

Journeying to the Beginning of Creation

The Final Testament • Surah 18:89–93

“Then it pursued another way.”

“Then it pursued another way until it reached the place where the sun became apparent.”

“The DNA found the sun appearing on a community of cells for whom we did not create any covering from it.”

“Naturally, we encompassed the genetic information with him.”

“Then it followed another path.”

“Then it followed another path until it arrived between the two barriers.”

The DNA, we are imagining, traveled all the way to the future, and now it’s pursuing another way, all the way to the past. “Then it pursued another way until it reached the place where the sun became apparent.” This means the start, the beginning of times.

By the way, this is important to explain: what the Quran calls the sun, moon, and stars is the way we perceive them, meaning the 2D shape, not what the astronomers call the sun. When the Quran says “sun,” it means as we see it, meaning the 2D shape. Astronomers call it the sun disc or the moon disc—basically what we see in the sky as a disc, as a ball. That’s why the Quran says the moon becomes like an old, curved sheath; it changes shape. It actually doesn’t happen to the 3D moon; it happens to the 2D moon. It’s like the way we use the word “profile” today. When we say to someone, “Send me a profile,” what we mean is the 2D picture; we don’t mean the full 3D face or 3D body. The actual, real face is us, but when we say profile, we mean the 2D representation of that. In the same way, the Quran speaks to us from our perspective. So when it says sun, moon, and stars, it’s talking about the way we see them. That’s why the sun disappears; the 3D sun doesn’t actually set, it’s still there, but the Quran says that the sun does set, meaning that it’s talking about the 2D appearance, what we see in the sky.

What this means is that when it says “when the sun became apparent,” it’s talking about when the sun became apparent on earth, not when the sun was created. It’s the first time when the sun became apparent on earth. You can sort of see this in the video clarification which has to do with the seven days of creation. There you can see that the sun appeared and disappeared, and things like that, because of the atmosphere. There were gases and things which covered the sun, so it was not fully seen on earth. But here it’s talking about the beginning—not the beginning of the sun, but the first time the sun appeared on top of the DNA.

“The DNA found the sun appearing on a community of cells.” Of course, because then there were no creatures, just a community of cells. “For whom we did not create any covering from it.” In the beginning, when the simple cells were created, there were no complex organisms; it was just separate cells. At that time, before plants existed, there was no oxygen and no protective atmosphere. It’s basically through plants that most of the atmosphere was created, most of the oxygen, which forms the ozone layer that protects from the sun. So they had no protection. Basically, in the beginning, the cells which had the DNA didn’t have much protection from the sun, and this actually tells us a lot because this helped with mutations, meaning that it helped DNA change faster so that things could be created. Once you hit the DNA with sun rays, ultraviolet light, and all types of light when there’s no atmosphere, it creates more mutations. It makes evolution faster and harsher—meaning that some creatures will be created faster, but it’s also going to be harsher on other creatures, and they will die faster.

We know how the situation was from the video clarification where I talk about the seven days of creation. The Arabic text only says “information”; I added “genetic.” We encompassed the information with it, so basically, God and the angels knew what information was inside the DNA.

The Cellular Barrier and Mitochondria

The two barriers are the membranes of the nucleus. The nucleus of the cell has two membranes, one on top of the other, and this is interesting because this membrane did not exist in the beginning. Cells did not have nucleuses in the beginning; there was no nucleus. Later on, it created this protective barrier where the DNA is protected, which was not there in the beginning. It’s telling us that at some point, the DNA reached a place where there were nucleus membranes inside the cell.

The Final Testament • Surah 18:93–98

He found besides them a community whose language, meaning genetic code, it could barely understand.

They said: “O double helix, the fast fires are causing corruption on earth.”

It said, ‘What my Lord established me on is better, but help me with energy, O mitochondria.’

‘I will make between you and between them a barrier. Bring me layers of iron.’

Once he filled the gap between the two cliffs, it said, ‘Blow,’ meaning the oxygen. ‘Once it was fire,’ meaning oxidized. Once it was fire, oxidized, it said, ‘Bring me copper to pour on it to help with iron metabolism.’

Thus, the enzymes, they could not go over it or penetrate it.

It said, ‘This is mercy from my Lord, but when the promise of my Lord, programmed cell death, comes, He will cause it to crumble.’

Why a community? Later we’ll see why mitochondria are that community. Mitochondria are just organelles inside the cell. There are about 100 to 2,000 mitochondria in each cell. Since there’s about a thousand mitochondria in each cell, we can call them a community.

This is what’s amazing, how this shows that it’s really talking about the DNA, because mitochondria are the only part of the cell which has its own DNA. The whole living cell uses the DNA which is found in the nucleus, in the center, but mitochondria have their own DNA. Mitochondria are just small parts in a cell—a community, the Quran calls them—but they have their own DNA. Because it’s different, it’s not exactly the same DNA as the one in the nucleus, it says, “whose language, meaning genetic code, it could barely understand,” meaning that they have their own language. It’s amazing, right? We’ll see why it’s talking about mitochondria, because it fits completely. First of all, they have their own genetic code, meaning their own language, which is not really understood well by the DNA in the nucleus.

The mitochondria said this to the double helix when they were created at some point in time. Scientists probably know approximately at what time cells started to have mitochondria; they didn’t have mitochondria before, but at some point, they started to have them. In the Quran, it says Yajuj and Majuj. In English, they assume that it’s Gog and Magog, but in Arabic, the words Yajuj and Majuj literally mean “fast fire.” It’s really not talking about Gog and Magog necessarily; it’s talking about fast fire. Yajuj means fast fire, and in Arabic, when you add the letter ‘m’ to the beginning of a word, it means the place where that thing exists. For example, sajda is prostration; you add the ‘m’ in the beginning and it becomes masjid, the place of prostration. This happens with a lot of these things; adding the ‘m’ in the beginning creates a place. Probably even Mecca means some kind of place. Basically, Yajuj and Majuj are the fast fires and the place where that fast fire is placed, the place where that fast fire exists.

What is a fast fire inside a cell? It represents enzymes, which speed up chemical reactions. Basically, the enzymes in the cell take chemical reactions which would happen slowly and speed them up. Chemical reactions are the fires, so they speed up the fires. The fast fires mean enzymes, and the place where the fires are placed represents different types of proteins where those enzymes are attached and things like that.

These enzymes can also damage the genetic code in the mitochondria. Basically, mitochondria are not protected from that, and the mitochondria are telling the DNA in the nucleus, “Can you protect us from these fast fires, from these enzymes? Can we give you something so that you can create a barrier between us and them?” This tells us that initially, the mitochondria didn’t have any protection, and then we’ll see how DNA created the protection for them.

Anyone who really knows this stuff—if we have a biologist here—can tell you that the mitochondrion is where energy is stored. “But help me with energy”—basically, the DNA is telling the mitochondria, “Just help me with the energy.” That’s what mitochondria do: they produce the energy.

Where is the iron stored in the cell? In the mitochondria. Mitochondria use iron to produce energy. These cliffs are the membranes of the mitochondria. In chemistry, “fire” just means oxidized. When chemists say fire, they mean oxidized. Basically, copper in the cell—even doctors know this—helps metabolize iron faster or better, and iron is used by the cells to produce energy. These are in our bodies. Basically, the DNA helped structure where the iron is going to be, and it helped the mitochondria with that. Because of these irons and coppers, which help the mitochondria produce energy, and the membranes which surround them, the enzymes which would be damaging to them could not go over it or penetrate it; they couldn’t go and damage the mitochondria.

Programmed Cell Death and Resurrected Life

The Final Testament • Surah 18:98–101

“The prophecy of my Lord is inevitable, pre-programmed.”

“At that time, we will let them, the dangerous chemicals, invade one another.”

“Then the horn will be blown, and we will summon them all together to create life again.”

“We will present hell on that day to the disbelievers. They are the ones whose eyes were too veiled to see my message, nor could they hear.”

Cells die in two ways. In quite a few verses in the Quran, when it says “the promise of God,” it refers to death. When the promise of God comes, quite often in the Quran—not only about cells but about humans as well—it means death; we can see that in other verses. But here it’s talking about the death of the cell. Cells can die in two ways: one is by accident, like if you damage it—if I pinch my skin here, some cells will die, which is accidental. The other way is programmed, and almost all cells have a programmed death. What it means is that the DNA tells the cell when to die so that the cell can free up space for a new cell. It dies, it gets degraded, it’s chopped up by different molecules in our body, and then it is flushed out. All our cells die pretty much; I don’t know about neurons, you can check it out, it doesn’t matter, they also die in the end when we die. Here it is telling us that the death of the cell has been pre-programmed. It says: “This is mercy from my Lord, but when the promise of my Lord, programmed cell death, comes, He will cause it to crumble.” The barrier between the mitochondria and the enzymes is going to crumble, and the enzymes will rush in and destroy everything, meaning that it’s just going to become a mess. That’s pretty much how cells die. “Inevitable” is the word used in the Quran. The cell is just going to become a bunch of dangerous chemicals invading one another. Basically, those chemicals are going to be reassembled, and then life will be created again.

The Quran is telling us the story of the double helix, which is the story of the DNA, and all the verses fit. We can learn a lot about the cell: how it was in the beginning, how it will be in the end, and how it was in the middle of what we call evolution. It also sort of confirms partially what scientists know about evolution. Of course, this is a better way to teach evolution because it’s saying that God did it; it’s saying that God did it through DNA, but it’s also not denying that the DNA traveled through all those creatures.

This is another way to understand it. I don’t know if next Friday I might come up with more, because there are two more things the two horns can refer to. Let me just say it quickly. One other thing it can refer to is the DNA of humanoids, meaning Neanderthals and creatures which looked like humans; you can learn a lot from that as well. It also refers to the earth’s magnetic field, the two poles—North Pole and South Pole—the magnetic field of the earth which protects us from the fast fires. Honestly, I think we spent too much time on this; I might talk about it someday, or I might not. Just know that the two horns refer to Cyrus the Great, it refers to the double helix which is the DNA, and it also refers to the magnetic field, the two poles of the earth which protect from the fast fires. Basically, we can translate the whole thing again and use the magnetic poles of the earth and see that it all fits again, and it’s going to tell us a whole new thing. Maybe I can just use that in a translation and you guys can realize what it means. I might not do another Friday sermon with it, or I might, I don’t know, I’ll see, God willing.

Q&A Session

Question: Did DNA evolve on Earth or was it created as is?

It pretty much… I wouldn’t call it evolved, but yeah, it did change; let’s call it it did change, yeah. There were mutations. Good that you asked this question because here I translated it as enzymes, but another thing those barriers protect from is radiation from outer space, and that radiation actually has changed the DNA. So yeah, if you use scientific terminology, you can say DNA evolved, but there are really exceptions, though, like humans were created from scratch. Our DNA started pure. The Quran says that the human was created in the best form, then we turned them sort of into monkeys, meaning that there was mixing of humans with Neanderthals and other creatures around the world which were human-shaped. So yeah, it’s confirming most of evolution, but there are so many things which it does not extend to, like the creation of humans. I think that there was intervention in the creation of animals versus plants, so there was a specific intervention there, but most of it was just kind of like evolution, which Rashad calls creation. It’s actually God’s way of creating things, creating the living bodies in this world.

The word for misery here can also be translated as dust, i.e., being dark, so maybe yeah, they will be resurrected ugly, yeah, okay, very likely.

Question: So when transcription and translation happens, does it count as the barrier being broken?

I don’t know about that. You can think of it like that, but basically, the DNA is passing to another cell. You can say that the barrier is broken, but it’s just passing to another cell. Is the barrier broken necessarily? I don’t know. A biologist will know. I don’t know enough about how the splitting of cells happens, but do they actually die or do they… I think they just split, they don’t die anyway.

Question: “Bring the iron”—is it set by the mitochondria or DNA?

Okay, so I think it’s set by the DNA, sorry. The DNA says… so basically, the DNA is telling the instructions to the mitochondria, but the mitochondria are doing it. Here in the Quran, it says, “Bring me layers of iron,” so the DNA is telling the mitochondria what to bring. By the way, this is also one interesting thing: it doesn’t say iron, it says layers of iron. This is very interesting because iron on earth always exists as it gets oxidized, what they call iron ores, meaning that iron cannot really exist on earth in a pure form; oxygen always attaches to it. That’s why you see the red rust on the iron unless you split it into layers, and those layers happen naturally on what they call iron crystals, I think. I don’t know exactly, but they do happen in places with lots of pressure. Also, when iron is absorbed in the body, it is not exactly iron; it’s actually created into layered shapes so the oxygen is not allowed to attach to it. I think they have a name; I probably can find it. Let me search it. What is the organelle or whatever which transports iron called? Ferritin or something, I don’t know. I think they have some kind of name like that. Whoever knows biology might know it. It’s kind of like a protective shell around the iron, and it has layers of iron in it, so it protects the iron from being oxidized.

Question: Do you plan on making a video about how Adam was put on Earth?

I guess so, yeah, very likely.

Question: From what I remember, the RNA strand goes in and out of the nucleus, and enzymes help transcribe the genome from the DNA strand. So I was curious how this fits with the verses about the barrier.

Yeah, I thought of that because I said, what if the RNA is actually the one with two horns? But actually, the RNA is just one strand, and it exists so that the DNA doesn’t have to go out of the nucleus. Basically, based on what you’re saying, I think it probably doesn’t mean that the barrier is broken; it’s just that the RNA goes in and out. It’s some sort of messenger which transfers the information from inside the nucleus to outside the nucleus. It doesn’t mean that the barrier of the mitochondria was broken. So I would say this answers your previous question: it’s probably not referring to that. Definitely, it’s not talking about RNA; RNA might be the friend of Dhul Qarnayn, I have no idea. Let’s imagine Dhul Qarnayn was a king, so let’s imagine he has a servant who does part of his job, like helps him do stuff, yeah. RNA does function as a messenger, true.

Okay, so I have to end it here because it’s almost an hour; it’s actually an hour that we spoke. For those who have to do the contact prayer, do the contact prayer. The rest of you, peace be upon you.

 

Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director

 

Introduction to Dhul Qarnayn

Praise be to God. There is no other god except God.

Today I want to talk about Dhul Qarnayn. As you guys know, Dhul Qarnayn is a person or a thing, but we know him as a person. A person mentioned in the Quran, so I want to just kind of elaborate on it a little bit more. But before I elaborate on it, let me sort of read the verses in the Quran so we can be reminded what I’m talking about. Let me share the screen.

Okay, so here I have put the verses in the Quran. In Surah 18, starting with verse 83, the Quran says:

[18:83] They ask you about Dhul Qarnayn; say, ‘I will narrate to you some of his history.’

[18:84] We gave him authority on earth and provided him with all kinds of means.

[18:85] Then he pursued one way.

[18:86] When he reached the west, he found the sun setting in a vast ocean.”…

By the way, this is how Rashad translated it, and technically in Arabic, it’s more literally “in a spring of dark mud.” It’s okay, both of them are correct.

[18:86] …And found people there. We said, ‘O Dhul Qarnayn, you can rule as you wish; either punish or be kind to them.’

[18:87] He said, ‘As for those who transgress, we will punish them, then they will return to their Lord; he will commit them to more retribution.

[18:88] As for those who believe and lead a righteous life, they receive a good reward; we will treat them kindly.’

[18:89] Then he pursued another way.

[18:90] When he reached the far east, he found the sun rising on people who had nothing to shelter them from it.

[18:91] Naturally, we were fully aware of everything he found out.

[18:92] He then pursued another way.

[18:93] When he reached the valley between the two palisades,…

Here, technically in the Quran, it can be translated as “the two barriers,” or “the two high lands,” or “the two mountains,” or even “the two continents’ highlands.” It’s like northern lands, two continents, so all of them are correct.

[18:93] …He found people whose language was barely understandable.

[18:94] They said, ‘Oh Dhul Qarnayn, Gog and Magog are corruptors of the earth; can we pay you to create a barrier between us and them?’

[18:95] He said, ‘My Lord has given me great bounties; if you cooperate with me, I will build a dam between you and them.

[18:96] Bring to me masses of iron.'” Once he filled the gap between the two palisades, he said, “Blow.” Once it was red hot, he said, “Help me pour tar on top of it.”

Here, “tar” in Arabic is actually also brass or copper. Brass, basically brass is, I think, copper and some other metal. Is it nickel or something? I don’t remember. You guys can search it online. AI these days is really good for these things; just search it on AI—what is brass? Brass is copper and something else, a tiny bit. So basically, copper is too soft. In the past, they would make brass by mixing a tiny bit of another metal to make it stronger.

[18:96] …He said, “Help me pour tar or brass or copper on top of it.

[18:97] Thus they could not climb it, nor could they bore holes in it.

[18:98] He said, ‘This is mercy from my Lord. When the prophecy of my Lord comes to pass, he will cause the dam to crumble. The prophecy of my Lord is truth.’

[18:99] At that time, we will let them invade with one another, then the horn will be blown, and we will summon them all together.

[18:100] We will present hell on that day to the disbelievers.

[18:101] They are the ones whose eyes were too veiled to see my message, nor could they hear.”

So these are the verses which pretty much talk about Dhul Qarnayn in the Quran. And I kind of brought this up because there’s so much speculation about who this person is, who is Dhul Qarnayn.

Outlandish Theories and Scholarly Debates

Especially recently, probably like a few months ago, I sometimes receive crazy ideas or outlandish—let me call them outlandish ideas. A guy from India contacted me—he’s not even a submitter. Instead of asking, “How do I join? How do I become a submitter?” instead of asking about the basics, he’s like, “My father knows who Dhul Qarnayn is, and it’s Jesus.” What? Okay, out of nowhere. Okay, we don’t see that in the Bible; we don’t see that in any scripture—it’s not like other sources matter, but it’s kind of too new. If it’s too new, then you really better prove it well, and he didn’t really have much, and I didn’t even pay attention to it, to be honest.

Let’s kind of go over some theories of what scholars, so-called scholars, say Dhul Qarnayn is. Recently there are so many crazy online people just saying stuff in chats and things like that; they think they found something, but typically scholars throughout centuries have sort of narrowed it to pretty much two people.

Some scholars said Dhul Qarnayn was Alexander the Great. But here in this verse it says, “We gave him authority on earth,” meaning someone, some important, strong person who was helped by the people and who had influence. So we’re not talking about any sort of non-important person.

The older scholars thought that it’s talking about Alexander. The newer scholars thought that it’s talking about Cyrus II, Cyrus the Great. One of them was king of Macedonia, the other one was king of Persia. Both of them lived before Jesus, about similar times. Cyrus the Great—I don’t know exactly when he lived. Let’s check Cyrus the Great, when did he live? I think around 480 or something. No, actually 480 was pretty much the peak of the Persian Empire, so it should have been earlier.

By the way, why do they come up with these ideas, Alexander or Cyrus? Because there are statues or coins where these two people are depicted with horns. Let’s search Cyrus the Great with horns. Okay, so this is a depiction of Cyrus the Great with horns. I hope you guys can see it. Let me get a bigger photo. It’s hard to make it larger. As you can see, there’s this—maybe you can see it better here—this is a drawing of this, if we can call it a 2D statue.

Don’t pay attention to this one, this is just like fake AI and stuff. So this is Cyrus the Great with two horns.

And then we have Alexander the Great with two horns—this is in a coin, I think. So we have here Alexander the Great being depicted with two horns.

Based on these two artifacts, this archaeological evidence, scholars disputed, “Oh, he must be Alexander the Great,” or “He must be Cyrus the Great.” But which one is it, if any of them?

As I said before, archaeology is really very unreliable to reach religious conclusions. The reason for that is because if we rely on archaeology, we might as well go and search for other people who have two horns, like Amun, the Egyptian “god” with two horns. We have Amun with two horns; there are so many other Egyptian idols with two horns.

And then even recently—it’s a copycat, by the way—Alexander the Great was a copycat of Cyrus. And we have the national hero of Albanians, Skanderbeg, which is his Turkish name—his real name is George Kastrioti Skanderbeg. You can see he has two horns, like here for example. Why did he have these? Because the Turkish people—they didn’t really distinguish between Macedonians and Albanians very well—thought this guy was from Macedonia. “Skander” in Turkish means Alexander; it’s the Turkish version of Alexander. So basically, they kind of branded him as the new Alexander. As you can see, when we rely on history and archaeology, it’s really hard to reach the right conclusion, and we go through very wild theories.

The Biblical Context of the Quran

This is mostly because people forget, when they go through these wild theories, they forget that the Quran was revealed within a certain context. And part of that context is that the Quran was revealed while the Bible existed. Actually, I think there’s a verse—I don’t know if I’m saying it exactly word for word—but there’s a verse in the Quran which says to Muhammad, “We did not reveal anything to you which was not revealed before you,” meaning pretty much there’s not much new in the Quran which you cannot find in the Bible unless it has nothing to do with the Jews. If it has anything to do with the Jews and the ancient Israelis, it has to be in the Bible. You cannot just make it up: “Oh, Alexander the Great, because here’s a coin with two horns.” If we go with those theories, we can pretty much make up anything. To know exactly who it is, if we don’t find it in the Quran, we have to look in the Bible.

By the way, we don’t follow the Bible; it’s more like we are informed that the Quran is revealed within a society where the Bible already existed. The Bible already existed when the Quran was revealed, so the Quran is talking within that context, assuming that people already know the Bible. A lot of people didn’t know the Bible when the Quran was revealed in Saudi Arabia, but some people did: the Jews, the Christians, and within that context, the Quran was revealed.

Before we find out from the Bible who Dhul Qarnayn is—the translation of Dhul Qarnayn means literally “the one with two horns”—before we find it out from the Bible, let’s repent. Toubou ila Allah.

Praise be to God, there is no other God except God.

Now I’m going to read the verses in the Bible which talk about Dhul Qarnayn. By the way, these two horns which are depicted on those people were sort of inspired by the Bible. Let me share the screen.

The Vision of Daniel

Let’s read the Bible verses which will help us figure out who it is—is it Alexander the Great or is it Cyrus the Great? Daniel lived before Cyrus the Great, and let me actually show the map a little bit.

This is the map of the Middle East, and here we have Turkey. At that time, the Turkish people were not here; they were somewhere in Asia. Before this—here we’re talking around the 5th century BC, before Christ—there was a group of people here which were called Lydians.

Here, where Iran is today, was a group of people called the Medes and the Persians, two groups of people. And here, where Iraq is, that’s where Babylon was—the Babylonians. The Jews, which included all the way to Israel, had been taken away from their home; basically, they were in exile. The king at that time, the king of Babylon, had decided to take them as slaves from Israel to send them to where Iraq is today, in Babylon. So basically, they were taken away from their home, their temple was destroyed, and this is the context.

Babylon was this bad kingdom which had oppressed the Jews, similar to how Pharaoh had oppressed the Jews as mentioned in the Quran. The Jews got oppressed again by the Babylonians, and in that environment, there were three other groups of people: the Medes north of Iran, the Persians south of Iran, and the Lydians which were pretty much living where Turkey is today. In that context, God inspired, in the Bible, a guy named Daniel, who was a messenger and a prophet, to sort of make predictions about what will happen in the future while he was living in Babylon. Basically, he’s one of the Jews who is living in Babylon under Babylonian people. God reveals things which will happen in the future, and here’s what the Bible says. This was told to Daniel through a dream or through a vision—it doesn’t matter, we’ll see, or even through a prophecy. In the past, they didn’t really distinguish sometimes between these words; they didn’t have the words for this—they said “vision,” which sometimes meant dreams, sometimes meant prophecy.

Daniel 8 in the Bible—I’m reading from the Bible now, and this is a subtitle of the Bible, it’s not in the original one, it’s just the translators doing it:

The Vision of the Ram and Goat

8 ¹ “During the third year of King Belshazzar’s reign, —I think this must be a Babylonian king— I, Daniel, saw a vision after the earlier vision that had appeared to me.

by the way, this is before Cyrus the Great and before Alexander the Great, this is before anything happened.

² As I observed the vision, I looked around the citadel of Susa in Elam Province (this is in Iran). While I watched, I found myself beside the Ulai Canal.

By the way, all these locations are in Iran, south of Iran, these locations which are mentioned there. 

³ “Then I turned my head to look, and to my surprise, a two-horned ram…

I did this in bold on purpose because now we can see where the two-horned one came from

…was standing beside the canal. The two horns grew long, the first one growing longer than the second, with the longer one springing up last. ⁴ I watched the ram charging westward,

Can you see the sort of connection with what the Quran says?

northward, and southward…

Let’s go back to the map. So here’s this guy who lives in Babylon, which includes Israel, Iraq, and all of these. He’s saying the ram charged westward, northward, and southward. But from Saudi Arabia, it would have been different; it would have been eastward because Saudi Arabia is in the south, so there’s no southward—if he went to Iraq or to Saudi Arabia, like to Mecca, to people in Mecca it would have been north, but to people in Israel it would be west. So anyway, what I’m saying is there are slight differences because Daniel and Muhammad lived in different locations.

Let’s continue to read:

⁴ I watched the ram charging westward, northward, and southward; no animal could stand before him.”

What does the Quran say? It says, [18:84] We provided him with all kinds of means and we gave him authority.” In the Bible, it says:

No animal could stand before him, nor was there anyone who could deliver from his control.

And this is in a vision what Daniel saw.

He did as he pleased and exalted himself. ⁵ “As I watched and wondered, a male goat was coming from the west over the surface of the entire earth without touching the ground. The goat had a distinctive horn between its eyes.

so now it’s only one horn, the second goat has only one horn.

“It approached the ram with two horns that I had observed while standing beside the canal and charged at him out of control with rage.”

So basically, a goat with one horn is attacking a ram—a ram, by the way, is a male sheep—is attacking the ram with two horns.

⁷ I saw it approach the ram, overflowing with fury at him, and run into him with the full force of its strength. The goat shattered the ram’s two horns, and the ram could not oppose it. So the goat threw him to the ground and trampled him. No one could rescue the ram from its control. ⁸ Then the goat grew extremely great, but when it was strong, its great horn was shattered. In its place, four distinctive horns grew out in all directions.”

Gabriel’s Interpretation

And then here, Gabriel in the Bible helps Daniel interpret what the meaning of the vision is, or the dream whatever it is, or the prophecy. Gabriel then tells him the meaning, and this is important because in this context, the Quran says, “They ask you about Dhul Qarnayn.” Because The Jews had asked Muhammad who Dhul Qarnayn is, and that’s when these verses were revealed. Then why would the Jews ask Muhammad who Dhul Qarnayn is, who the one with two horns is? Because they thought that unless Muhammad is a prophet, he cannot tell them. Because here even Daniel, who was a prophet as well, was not able to know unless Gabriel told him.

So basically, this was a test by the Jews to see if Muhammad is a real prophet, by asking him about something which only Gabriel could reveal. Of course, only God through Gabriel could reveal, which no one would be able to know unless God told them. This was their way of seeing if Prophet Muhammad is a liar or a true prophet. Of course, they didn’t believe him anyway, but this was their way of distinguishing.

Let’s continue to read. It says:

Gabriel Interprets the Vision

¹⁵ “After I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I tried to understand it. All of a sudden, there was standing in front of me one who appeared to be valiant. ¹⁶ I heard the voice of a man calling out from the Ulai Canal, ‘Gabriel, interpret what that fellow has been seeing.’

So Gabriel appears to Daniel in the form of a man, telling him what he saw, what was the meaning of the ram with two horns and the goat with one horn.

¹⁷ “As he approached where I was standing, I became terrified and fell on my face. But he told me, ‘Son of man, understand that the vision pertains to the time of the end.’ (meaning in the future). ¹⁸ “While he had been speaking with me, I had fainted^[q] on my face, but he touched me and enabled me to stand upright on my feet. ¹⁹ Then he said, ‘Pay attention! I’m going to brief you about what will happen at the end of the period of wrath, because its end is appointed. ²⁰ The ram that you saw with a pair of horns are the kings of Media and Persia.

So it’s the kings of Media and Persia. By the way, here it says the kings of Media and Persia. Cyrus the Great is the one who united these two kingdoms, so he became the king of Media and Persia both at the same time, and that’s partly the meaning of the two horns: because he was a king of two nations at the same time.

The Legacy of Cyrus the Great

How did this happen? If you search on AI, you’ll see that Cyrus the Great, when he was young—he was a descendant of the king of Persia, but his mom was the daughter of the king of Media. And the king of Media saw a dream, according to legends, while he was a child, that Cyrus was going to become the new king. So he became jealous, and he tried to kill him. He ordered someone to kill him, but the person couldn’t do it; they gave Cyrus to a shepherd. Later on, he grew up with that shepherd family. Later on, through some kind of game, they figured out that he is really the descendant of the king of Persia. His grandfather from his mom’s side—basically his mom’s dad, the Median king—tried to attack Persia, but his soldiers defected; they didn’t go along with his plan. In this way, Cyrus was actually able to capture his grandfather. He forgave him, but in this way, he became the king of both Media and Persia. So basically, Cyrus became a king of two kingdoms at the same time.

And here the Bible is telling us: ²¹ The rough goat is the king of Greece…

Meaning the goat with one horn, not the goat with two horns.

…and the great horn between its eyes is its first king.

which was Alexander the Great.

²² The shattered horn and the four that took its place are four kingdoms that will come from his nation, but they will not have his strength.

So basically here, before Cyrus the Great and Alexander the Great lived, the Bible told them what will happen through Daniel.

Now let’s just see how that happened. Cyrus the Great was born in the south of Iran—there’s a tomb of Cyrus the Great which is here.

He was born about here, and then the Quran says he traveled east. If you look at history, what happened is he attacked Media—I mean, Media attacked him, then he sort of overpowered them, so he became a king of two kingdoms. Then he went all the way to today’s Turkey, which at that time was Lydia, all the way to the west, which is what the Quran says—all the way to the west.

By the way, there’s a couple of things we might talk about another day because today I spent too much time; we can even identify the places where the spring with black water could have been. There’s to this day a part of an island there. So he went all the way to the west—meaning ruling all those places. Then he went all the way to the east, and then he went here to the north, and this is actually the border between Europe and Asia, let’s call it between the two continents.

So basically, that’s what Cyrus did. Alexander, on the other hand, only traveled east to capture the new kingdom. Alexander’s kingdom later on destroyed the Persian kingdom, but he didn’t destroy Cyrus the Great; Cyrus the Great established the kingdom. He was the first king of Persia, and after many bad kings after him, eventually Alexander defeated them. But here the Bible is telling us that the one with two horns is the king of Persia, not the king of Greece.

Let’s look at some more prophecies to see if it fits. Here we have it mentioned in Isaiah, chapter 45, verses 1-7. Isaiah was one of the messengers during the times of the ancient Israelis.

Isaiah 45:1-6

Cyrus: God’s Deliverer

45 This is what the Lord says to his anointed, Cyrus,—Now Cyrus is mentioned by name in the Bible— whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him”—what the Quran says: “provided him with all kinds of means”—

look, he will make the mountains level; what does the Quran say? That he leveled the place between the two mountains

“I’ll shatter bronze doors and cut through iron bars.“—these are materials which were used to build the dam—

³ I’ll give you concealed treasures
    and riches hidden in secret places,
so that you’ll know that it is I, the Lord,
    the God of Israel, who calls you by name.

So here, through Isaiah, God is talking to Cyrus.

so that you’ll know that it is I, the Lord,
    the God of Israel, who calls you by name.
⁴ For the sake of Jacob my servant,
    Israel my chosen,
I’ve called you,
    and he has established you with a name,
        although you have not acknowledged me.

And this is important. What God is saying, I have supported you, meaning God supported Cyrus even though Cyrus has not acknowledged God properly. Because if you look at the ancient sources of what Cyrus believed, he actually allowed idols in his kingdom, but he did believe in God; he had another name for God. I don’t know what the Persian name was. So basically, he believed in God, he was a good man, but he didn’t have the knowledge of the Bible; he was just a person who believed in God naturally.

⁵ I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me:
    and there are no gods.
I’m strengthening you,
    although you have not acknowledged me,

So he didn’t acknowledge that it was the God of the Jews necessarily, he just believed in God in general, the way we say today God, not necessarily “Allah”.

Let me read another verse, and these are predictions about Cyrus the Great:

Isaiah 45:13

God will Bless Cyrus

Rebuilding the Second Temple

By the way, why is Cyrus mentioned in the Bible? Why is it important? It’s because Cyrus, after he did everything which the Quran says about him, actually attacked Babylon after that and did manage to free the Jews from Babylon, send them back to Israel, and build their temple.

The Jews at this time were held as slaves in Babylon after having been purified. Basically, first of all, they became bad, the Babylonians occupied them, they were purified for many decades, and then Cyrus the Great, with God’s permission, freed them again—similar to how Moses freed them from Egypt—and actually built their temple, gave them money to build the temple. This is what is known as the Second Temple in Jerusalem, which was destroyed later on by the Romans after they rejected Jesus.

The Second Temple was technically not really built by the Jews; it was built by a guy who was not even a Jew. And that’s kind of why it makes sense for Jesus to say, “Destroy this temple and I will build it in three days.” It wouldn’t make sense for Jesus to say “destroy this temple” if it was built properly by God’s people. This Second Temple was built unofficially, basically not necessarily with the same status as the First Temple, which was built by Solomon with God’s full guidance. This was built just by a righteous man who was not even a prophet. By the way, Dhul Qarnayn was not a prophet or a messenger; he was just a righteous king, an average good king. I mean, he was extraordinary in the sense that he was a very important king, the one who founded the Persian Empire, but spiritually he probably was not better than us.

Let me try to finish now. This part of the Bible is actually just history; it’s not revealed scripture, but it exists in today’s Bibles. I didn’t include it in our version of the Bible, so it’s not revealed, it’s just history which was included in the Bible. This is after Cyrus was a king; this is not a prophecy, it’s just a description of what happened after the fact.

Ezra, who was a scribe, not a prophet, he added this part in the Bible:

Ezra 1:1-4

An Edict to Rebuild the Temple

1 During the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, in fulfillment of the message from the Lord spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord prompted Cyrus, king of Persia, to make this proclamation throughout his entire kingdom, which was also released in written form:

² An Official Statement

from Cyrus, King of Persia

So basically, the Second Temple was built even though the Jews didn’t fully deserve it.

Interactive Q&A

So, Dhul Qarnayn is Cyrus the Great. This is sort of the answer to who was the one with two horns, Dhul Qarnayn. God willing, in the next Friday sermon or the Friday after that, I will explain what is Dhul Qarnayn, the one with two horns. Because here, if you pay attention carefully, we will see that he was not necessarily just a human. Yeah, he was a human based on this interpretation of the Bible, but there’s a way to understand these verses in a deeper version and realize what is Cyrus the Great. God willing, I’ll answer that question in the next sermon—not just who is Dhul Qarnayn, the one with two horns, but what is the one with two horns.

Let me stop sharing, and should I check if there’s any chats? Let me just see. Does anyone have any questions?

Oh, Adam Fraser said zinc. Yeah, so brass is copper and zinc.

Faisal, you’re ruining my next sermon—I’m joking. Faisal is saying, “Can Dhul Qarnayn mean two generations instead of just two horns?” Yeah, it can also mean two generations; both of them are correct, and that’s going to help us a little bit more with understanding what is Dhul Qarnayn. Spoilers! It’s okay. Yeah, but God willing, we’ll use both meanings—the one with two horns and the one with two generations—to understand what is Dhul Qarnayn, what is the one with two horns.

“Where is the barrier he made?” So the barrier he made is between the two continents, which is today’s—and God willing, I’ll explain this more one day when we talk about Gog and Magog—around here: Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Dagestan, these countries between the two mountains. There’s a mountain here and a mountain there. By the way, it will never be discovered because the Quran says it will be destroyed in the end times. So basically, people will not be able to discover it until the end times.

And by today, it was probably not some sort of great thing; it was just some local, very small part which they filled with iron, and today it might have been mixed and covered with soil, and it’s probably not very pure iron anyway. If I was an archaeologist—which I don’t think they’ll discover it, so I don’t think they should even try—they should just look for areas with extra iron in one of these mountains. Yeah, it’s not really that important where exactly, but it’s one of these countries, because it’s never going to be discovered until the end of times, like when it gets destroyed when the whole earth gets destroyed, including those mountains and including the barrier.

Officially, this is the border between Europe and Asia.

Let me close this. For those who have to do the contact prayer, you can—oh, sorry, I didn’t share the screen. Let me share the screen again. I don’t need to share it because people actually know where Georgia and Azerbaijan and these countries are.

Okay, so for those who have to do the contact prayer, do the contact prayer. The rest of you, peace be upon you.

 

Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director

 

Introduction:

Praise be to God. There is no other God except God. Today I want to actually make a commentary on the surah, the Romans. I’m just going to read some verses and kind of comment on it a little bit.

I seek refuge in God from Satan the rejected. Surah 30 in the Quran is titled: “The Romans”.

[30:0] In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

[30:1] A. L. M. —which we know the geometrical value of ALM is 71, so we can also just say 71.

[30:2] Certainly, the Romans will be defeated.

[30:3] In the nearest land. After their defeat, they will rise again and win.

[30:4] Within several years. Such is God’s decision, both in the first prophecy, and the second. On that day, the believers shall rejoice.

[30:5] In God’s victory. He grants victory to whomever He wills. He is the Almighty, Most Merciful.

[30:6] Such is God’s promise – and God never breaks His promise – but most people do not know.

Okay, so I just want to comment on these verses. These verses are sort of understood in a very narrow, specific way based on historical sources, and I want to expand today more on that. To do that, before I do that, I want to first show the history of the Romans—who they were and things like that—so we can understand it better and then know how it applies to us today.

One of the things which I quite often like to do online—when I’m bored—is I like to watch states expand. Let’s say how the US was colonized or how ancient empires expanded. It’s just kind of like watching maps—I like maps. So I’m going to show a YouTube video. I hope you guys can see it okay.

The Expansion and Splitting of Rome

The YouTube video is “History of the Romans Every Year.” So basically here at the right corner, let me see if you guys can see it—yeah, I think you can see it—here at the right corner, we have the year, and here we have whoever was the king and the capital. Rome pretty much started around the year 750. It’s not for sure, but approximately then. I’m just going to play the video so we can see how Rome; the Roman Empire, expanded and then how it kind of vanished, and comment. Maybe I’ll comment on the way, so let me play the video. I’m going to play it at 1.5 speed so it doesn’t get boring.

Basically, this red dot here is Rome. Supposedly, I don’t know if it’s true, started by two brothers—one of the two brothers—and it just expanded from there.

So this is around the year 600 BC (Before Christ).

And about 500 BC.

And this is around the year 300 BC.

Pretty much as Greeks are getting weaker, the Roman Empire is much stronger, but they are including the Greeks there.

By the year 50, it includes Israel as well, Jerusalem. So at year zero, which is when Jesus was born, it included Israel, so technically Jesus was born in Israel but within the Roman Empire. [By year 150] It expanded I think all the way to Britain and all the way to Romania, I guess, and Spain.

Now we have two sides, I don’t know exactly the dates. First it was split for practical reasons, and then it remained like that: split into the Eastern Roman Empire and the Western Roman Empire—two separate empires, sort of separate empires.

We are around the year 400 here. The Western Roman Empire pretty much fell very early around the 400s, depending on how you define it.

The Eastern Roman Empire, they called themselves, by the way, Romans. Here in the video, it says Byzantine, which is a later name used by historians and the Greeks because what they wanted to say is that they weren’t Christian enough—that’s what they meant by that, and it’s a later name. But the people in the year 400 in that region—let’s say the people in Turkey, the people in Egypt, the people in the Balkans, the people in Syria, the people in Israel—if you ask them, “What are you?” they would say Roman. That’s all they knew. They didn’t identify themselves as Egyptian or Albanian like today; they would say Roman in that region if you asked them in that year. Later on, they renamed those regions. They had cities of course, so they would say “I’m from Jerusalem if someone is from Jerusalem or from Petra. They themselves would think that they are Romans.

The Revelation of the Prophecy

Around this time, Muhammad was born. Now we are at year 595, 602, 606, 608, 610, 611, 612.

This is the key part. Most historians will focus only on this part because the Quran does mention it. Let’s go back to the Quran, what the Quran says. The Quran says, [30:2] Certainly, the Romans will be defeated. That’s how Rashad translated it, but in the Arabic, it says certainly the Romans pretty much just got defeated.

This Surah was revealed in the year, I think, 613 or 614—I think 614 is the more accurate date—and it says certainly the Romans pretty much got defeated in the nearest land. After their defeat, they will rise again and win. So in the year about 614, Muhammad was being persecuted in Mecca, and news comes from the Romans that they had been defeated. News comes to Saudi Arabia, and God reveals this Surah telling Muhammad pretty much don’t worry, they will rise again and win.

The reason why this is revealed is because the idol worshippers of Mecca during the time of Muhammad favored the Persians more because they didn’t have scripture; they were not people of the scripture. Meanwhile, Muhammad and the believers wanted the Romans to win because the Romans had the scripture—they had the Bible and all that. So they were rooting for two different teams, if you can say that.

The Romans got defeated in 614, which is pretty much the time when Muhammad is really being persecuted a lot in Mecca. Later on, we’ll see that when the believers win at the Battle of Badr—which is the first time that the believers win—is also when the Romans come back and defeat the Persians back.

Here we’re at year 612, and what happened, by the way, in 614—pay attention to this region around Jerusalem. This is year 612 now, 614—look, they kind of lost Jerusalem.

No, this is 615, the map is going fast. Around 614 they lost Jerusalem, and this is the region which would be in contact with the Arabs, meaning that the Arabs, when they thought of Romans, they pretty much thought of the closest part which they encountered from the Romans. That’s why the Quran says “in the nearest land,” meaning whatever part of the Roman Empire is nearest to Mecca and to Muhammad, that was defeated—not necessarily all Romans. We can understand it like that, even though you’ll see we can also understand it globally.

Around 614 this region was lost around Jerusalem; the Persians defeated the Romans, and then about 8 to 10 years later they get it back. That’s what the historians will mention as the reason for this Surah. We’re going to 619—look, the Persians even got Egypt at some point, and look now at around 624 or around 630 they get it back again.

The map is moving fast, so it’s really hard to catch it. Around 630 they have it back again, and this is what the believers of the past meant when they read this surah; this is what they understood.

Expanding to a Global Prophecy: The Fall of 1453

However, as we can see, Rome is a big empire spanning through many centuries. Do you think God would just mention a specific case? Let’s continue because actually they lose it again. Does it mean that actually they didn’t win? What happened? Let’s actually continue through the whole history and understand it fully.

Rome is losing again here, meaning it’s getting smaller around the 600s. By the way, at this time, even though in the year 700 Rome was part of the Roman Empire, it was actually Constantinople which was the capital—the center moved to Constantinople, what today is called Istanbul. We’re around the 800s. As you can see, the Roman Empire is just getting weaker and weaker. Even at this point, if you ask these people, “What are you?” they would say Romans.

The year 1000 comes. As you can see, the Roman Empire is getting weaker and weaker, and they were just trying to survive as they were. At this time they were being attacked by the Ottomans, or surrounded by the Ottomans who are, at least in name, Muslims. Pay attention now to these regions, which are pretty much colonies of Constantinople. The main region is the center in Constantinople at this time.

Here is the year 1447, and in the year 1453 Constantinople falls; it becomes Istanbul after that. That’s when the historians agree that the Roman Empire fell—it pretty much was defeated in the year 1453. Let’s go to 1452—look, Constantinople is gone. By the way these are some regions which end up losing as well. Pretty much the Roman Empire ends in 1453. It’s defeated by many nations gradually. But finally, the Ottomans give an end to it in 1453 when Constantinople falls, or according to some, when it is freed. This is pretty much the history.

The question which I want to ask is: when we now go and read the Quran again, it says:

[30:2] Certainly, the Romans will be defeated.

[30:3] In the nearest land. After their defeat, they will rise again and win.

[30:4] Within several years. Such is God’s decision, both in the first prophecy, and the second. On that day, the believers shall rejoice.

[30:5] In God’s victory. He grants victory to whomever He wills. He is the Almighty, Most Merciful.

When we read these verses, does it make more sense to just think of a specific case in history, or do you think it’s talking about all of the Roman Empire? It definitely makes more sense to talk about all of the Roman Empire. So what I’m saying is that the way they understood it in the past about a specific battle in the year 614 is such a limited understanding. The Quran does apply to it, but it’s limited because it’s not the whole Roman Empire which loses. Here the Quran is talking about the Romans being defeated; I don’t think we should limit it only to the fall of Jerusalem. Technically, when the Quran says the Romans will be defeated, it is a big historical prediction for centuries, for thousands of years, and eventually they did get defeated in 1453.

Understanding “The Nearest Land” in Time

But then what does the Quran say? It says “in the nearest land.” How can we understand “in the nearest land” In this case? We can understand it actually with a better understanding. So when the Quran says “the Romans will be defeated”, we can understand it many ways. However, the best understanding, at least for us, for our generation, is that it is talking about all of the Roman Empire, not just Jerusalem. All of the Roman Empire will be defeated, and it says “in the nearest land.” What does it mean? It means the land which is nearest to us for the Roman Empire.

So basically, if we go backwards in time, who are the people who would be the nearest to us in time—not in space, in time—who would be Romans? That would be Istanbul.

Basically, what it’s saying here is that the Romans will finally be defeated in the nearest land—which is Istanbul, because that’s the latest time that the Roman Empire existed, which is nearest to us. When we read the Quran today, the nearest Roman Empire to us in the past was in 1453. Before that, it was even further, deeper in history, further in the past. But the nearest part was in 1453. So the Quran says that “the Romans will be defeated in the nearest land”, meaning in Istanbul, after their defeat they will rise again and win. It’s a prophecy.

What does it mean that the Romans will rise again and win? If we understand it like this, it actually helps us sort of understand the future, not just the past. The way they understood it in the past, it was all about the past. But if we understand it like this about all of the Roman Empire, we don’t just focus on the past, but in this way we can also understand the future.

Again, what the verse is saying: “Certainly the Romans will be defeated in the nearest land”—meaning the nearest land to us in time is Istanbul. And then it says after their defeat they will rise again and win. What does it mean they will rise again and win?

In 1957, there was a thing called the Treaty of Rome, where the European Union was created, and the European Union is pretty much similar to the Roman Empire. How is it similar? First, it starts with Rome. By the way, 1957 is a multiple of 19, but it doesn’t matter. It starts with Rome, and it expands and contracts—there are countries which join, countries which leave, similar to Rome. And it’s a predominantly Christian community, which was exactly how Rome was. And it’s pretty much in a similar region—it doesn’t have to be exactly the same region because even the ancient Roman Empire had different regions at different times in history. But they all included Rome. It wouldn’t make sense for the Quran to call the Romans Romans unless it included Rome, because that’s where the name comes from.

Let’s look at the European Union, which was created in 1957. Let’s repent. Toubou ila Allah

Praise be to God. There’s no other God except God.

The Romans were defeated in 1453 totally, and then they didn’t come back until the Treaty of Rome, which established sort of a new community of different regions, now they are countries to join and leave. Let’s look at the history of the European Union—this is shorter. The European Union started in 1957. Technically, they say that it started earlier, but then it was called the European Steel and Coal Community. I don’t think that counts as EU. The reason is that after World War II, some of these countries agreed that they are going to produce steel together, not separately, so that they could not produce weapons and fight against each other. They didn’t want to fight again, so it was called the European Steel and Coal Community. But that doesn’t make a state; that doesn’t make an empire or a community, because it’s just about steel, it’s just business.

In 1957, when the Treaty of Rome happens, that’s when they eliminated tariffs and created a common market. Basically, that’s what makes a state. They wanted to have shared travel, a shared market, and trade without tariffs—basically the beginning of a new entity which is called the European Union. Let’s see the history of this European Union.

This is 1957, so these are the first countries which join. The UK joins around the 1970s. Greece joins around 1981. Basically, a community which started again with Rome is expanding through 1995, 2004, 2005, 2007, and 2008,

and it’s pretty much similar even today. So this community is expanding.

Future Predictions and the Rejoicing of Believers

Looking back at the Quran, we can actually make predictions because what does the Quran say? Certainly the Romans will be defeated. They were totally defeated in 1453 when the Ottomans defeated them in the nearest land, meaning in Istanbul. After their defeat, they will rise again and win, because here it’s talking still about the nearest lands, meaning that EU will rise again and win, basically capture Istanbul—probably willingly, it doesn’t have to be a war. Turkey has wanted to be part of the EU for a long time; they just don’t want them because they are mostly Muslim. So the EU doesn’t want Turkey to be part of the EU, even though Turkey for a long time has wanted to become part of it. I don’t know about today, it has shifted a little bit, I think they don’t want it as much.

But we can see here that eventually, the prediction we can make is that eventually Istanbul will become European again, whatever it means. I don’t know what it means exactly. Does it mean they join on their own, or does it mean there’s going to be a war and they lose? It doesn’t matter. The important part is—and a lot of Turkish people probably want to be part of it, it’s fine—we can predict into the future what will happen based on verses in the Quran, if we understand the Quran globally, not just as one specific event.

The more important part is what the Quran says after that, in the next verses: it says “within several years.” The Romans will win again, meaning Istanbul will become again part of the Roman Empire, in this case EU, it says within several years. By the way, the “several years” in Arabic doesn’t give us specific years, and we can know that exactly from here. Maybe we can talk another time about this.

ALM, the value of this is 71, so 71 years from—I explained something in the video of the end times, you can see that in the video of the end times. Within several years, such is God’s decision, both in the first prophecy and the second. This has many meanings. The first prophecy can be understood the old-fashioned way or the new-fashioned way, but also the first prophecy meaning when they lost and when they win. There are so many ways to understand it, and all of them are correct. What I’m saying is this is the most correct because it includes all of history. All of them are correct, but this is the most correct way to understand it, because it includes all of history, not just one specific time.

On that day—and this is the important part—on that day the believers shall rejoice in God’s victory. He grants victory to whomever he wills. He is the almighty, most merciful. What does it mean? This means that when Istanbul becomes part of Europe—whatever it means, I don’t know if it’s going to be called the European Union, or if it is going to change its name, it doesn’t matter how it’s called. The important part is that it’s going to become part of a predominant community which is mostly Christian, where Rome is also in the same community. We can define it like that, because I don’t want to make predictions about the EU specifically; the EU can change, it can fall, it doesn’t matter. The important part is that Istanbul will be part of that future community which is very likely the EU, which is why in the video at times I called it Europe instead of the EU, because you never know, they change the names.

The important part is that at that time, it says the believers shall rejoice. Some people say today it’s part of Europe. It’s not. I mean, part of it is in the European continent, but does it really share the same trade? Can people from Istanbul travel to Rome without a visa? No. So, basically, think of it like when people of Istanbul can travel to Rome without a visa and without any restrictions, like basically being considered the same citizens as the people of Rome. So, basically, when the citizens of Rome and the citizens of Istanbul are pretty much citizens of the same community, that’s the better definition. So, it says on that day the believer shall rejoice, and this is the good news. The good news is that around that time—which I believe is told to us by this ALM, by the number of years—so, around that time, the believers, and this is by the way after the smoke comes, the believers will become a dominant community, basically with mosques with thousands—I don’t know how many—probably a million, lots of submitters. And they are going to be able to meet with each other and they will rejoice, meaning that they will feel like, “Oh kind of we won, we made it. We made it”. Even today, the community is going well, but we really are such a small community, and during the time they feel like, oh, we kind of made it. So, let’s just keep going.

Does anyone have any questions? If you want to know exactly when that year is, I don’t want to specifically focus on the years here; it is in the video “The End Times” and the video explaining Quranic initials predicting the future.

Questions from the Congregation

Faisal is asking, “Will the rejoice of the believers be just because of travel restrictions or will other things happen?”

No, the believers will rejoice because—I didn’t want to go into specifics, but let me say it like that—at that time, the next messenger will come. And by rejoice, that means that actually they will sing songs. The method of preaching for the next messenger will be to sing, and they will sing. Singing is connected with victory in pretty much all the times of believers. David sang when he won; whenever the believers won, they did sing, or whenever they sang they did win—whichever causes the other one. What it’s talking about here is that the future messenger and the believers will be in a state of joy and celebration. It doesn’t have to do with the travel restrictions; that’s for the Turkish people, meaning that the Turkish people can rejoice for having the travel restrictions removed, but submitters are not necessarily Turkish people. Submitters will rejoice for another reason, which is that yes, Alban was correct about this, yes, the next messenger came, and yes, we are having fun, if we can say it like that, with the next messenger. Basically, they will be dominant; they will have reason to be happy in this world. Of course, we are happy for the next world and we’re happy in our souls, but I’m talking about ethnically happy, more rich.

Let’s see if someone has any other question. The reason why I’m saying this, partly, is because when the Romans won again during Muhammad’s time, Muhammad didn’t win with the Romans; he won in the Battle of Badr, which was a separate winning. One more question, and God willing, I will end it.

Faisal is saying, “If we are alive then,” with a smiley face. “If we are alive then we will be so old.”

Well, let me say something. For those who get lucky to have children, they want their children to be happy more than them, and only parents understand this. It doesn’t matter if someone is not enjoying that part. Probably a lot of us will be dead, maybe most of us, I don’t know. A lot of us, some of us will survive. People live long these days. And by the way, Faisal, why so pessimistic? I think you’ll be alive, you’re so young, God willing. I don’t know for sure, but I think you’ll probably be alive—old, but yeah, alive. Okay, so anyway.

Faisal is saying, “Ah, I’m not pessimistic, just a wake-up call.”

Yeah, okay, thanks for the reminder. I understand you’re being a little bit—but yeah, it’s important to understand that then it’s not going to feel like—because here is the issue. When believers become old, they focus on the hereafter more and more. Moses never managed to go to the promised land on this earth, even though God had promised the people of Israel that they would go to the promised land; Moses never managed that. However, he got better: he went to heaven, and that’s the bigger promised land. If you ask Moses at the time, “Would you rather go to heaven or wait for this victory?” Moses would say, “Yeah, I want to go to heaven,” because by the time people get old, they really look forward to the next life rather than this life. They want the other submitters, the younger submitters, to be happy, but for themselves, they just want to prepare for the next world. That’s how a typical believer behaves. They get old, and they just want things for the next life more than for this life.

God willing, whoever gets old among us—most of, I think almost all of us are believers, if not all—wait for this victory. This is just such a flimsy victory, flimsy in the sense that it’s just about this world. It’s not really that important—I mean its important because the Quran mentions it. But its not the most important thing; only a few verses about it are in the Quran. The real victory is in heaven.

Let’s do the contact prayer for whomever has to do the contact prayer, and the rest of you, peace be upon you.

Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director

 

Divine Timelessness and the Universal Appeal of Quranic Stories

Praise be to God, there is no other god except God. Let me just address a small thing before I continue with the main topic. I see that typically some people have a habit of kind of waiting for the Friday sermon to start for them to join the chat. The idea is so that you join the chat whenever you’re available, even earlier. Because sometimes I delay the Friday sermon a little bit thinking that no one is online or, I mean, I see some people online and then I’m like, “Oh, let me wait a little bit until others join.”

But you guys are waiting for me to start so you can join, so it’s kind of like it’s delaying everything. And by the way, these musics which I’ve done—part of the reason why the AI did, part of the reason why I’m showing them, they are really not important, is because I just wanted some delay until we get used to starting on time, and those get shorter and shorter. But eventually, God willing, I’m just going to start on time whenever the 12:00 is or in whatever universal time, I’m just going to start on time. If you’re late, you’re late. So just please try to start having a habit of actually joining a little bit earlier so you can be on time rather than joining in time. Because with technology, then you’ll be a little bit late. That’s just a small thing.

So now I can see a lot of people have joined. Yeah, so what do I want to talk about today?

The Rainbow Analogy: Perception vs. Totality

A couple of days ago I was thinking like, I don’t know, I read some kind of article from a scientist that rainbows are not real, which I already knew, but like the way they were putting it. And it got me thinking about some aspects of the stories in the Quran. So the idea is that when people look at the rainbow, if you look at the rainbow, it kind of looks real. It looks like you’re seeing some colors, and you think it has a specific location at a specific time.

According to one of the scientists, and a lot of scientists agree with that—I also mostly agree with that—the rainbow is not real. Because if you look at the rainbow, from a certain location, let’s say from one hill when it’s raining all above all the hills in that region, when someone looks at the rainbow from that one hill, they think it’s in that direction. But when another person looks at that hill, he is not going to see the rainbow in the same location. He’s going to see his own rainbow. So was the rainbow even real if it changed location based on where you are? You can think of it as an illusion. That’s according to the article, that the rainbow is an illusion, it’s not real.

I would say that’s also not too fully correct to say because you cannot call something which everyone sees not real. To me, the totality of all rainbows is real. Let’s say when it rains from every hill, from every location, and I’m looking at the rainbow, now I’m moving here, I’m looking at the rainbow again, I’m moving here, I’m looking at the rainbow again, and when I add all of those up, that’s real.

Basically, the one specific rainbow which I’m looking at, is a tiny bit real—0.00 whatever, how many options we have there, 0.001% real. And then we have another rainbow which is 0.0001% real, and when you look at all of them, you add them up, then the total is 100% real. The totality of all the rainbows is real. But each specific rainbow you look at is not really fully real, it’s mostly fake.

And by the way, what do I mean by real? I mean materially real in this world for things. According to physics, for things to be real in this world, they have to be in, to have a time and a place. They have to be at a specific time in a specific place. And the rainbow doesn’t really have a specific place. Wherever you move, it’s there. It does have a specific time, though, like when it rains, it’s there.

Biblical Context and the Universal Scope of the Quran

And I want to connect this with some of the stories from the Quran, because the reason why the rainbow actually looks a little bit more real than other things is because it has this universal appeal. Exactly that what enables it, the reason why it sort of doesn’t look fully real, it appeals to all the people. So it has universal appeal, kind of like everyone sees their own rainbow. And I’m not talking here about subjectivity versus objectivity, I’m just talking like everyone sees their own rainbow, which gives it the universal appeal. Everyone would love to see a rainbow. Everyone thinks, “Oh, I saw a rainbow, it was special.” It’s as if though it has to do with you, something with you, with the way you’re seeing it.

In the same way, God intentionally, even though the stories in the Quran are definitely real—they have a specific time and a place where they happened, they definitely happened in a specific time in a specific place—God sort of doesn’t focus on the time much, because those stories have a universal appeal. God doesn’t specifically tell us, “Abraham lived in the year 950 BC“, like you never hear that in the Quran, or “Moses lived in like 450 BC.” That’s not really important because those stories have universal appeal. Everyone can see something which relates to them in relation to that story.

And these stories, even though they have a universal appeal, a lot of them because they are mentioned in the Bible, we kind of know when they happened. We can connect them to something, oh, these are the ancestors of children of Israel, and the ancestors of children of Israel are Israel, whatever, Isaac, Abraham, Joseph, messengers like that, and Noah. Noah by the way was an ancestor of all the people as well. But these are mentioned in the Bible because the Bible mentions them specifically because they are ancestors of children of Israel.

Because the children of Israel were the only nation to be chosen at that time in the ancient times, God only mentioned to them what had to do with them. God didn’t tell them a story about China or a story about Arabs, God didn’t tell them about that, or Europeans or Africa. God didn’t tell them those stories, only what had to do with the children of Israel. So you have those stories in the Bible—stories which had to do with the children of Israel. They kind of knew those stories anyway, based on folklore, like one father telling their son the story, and then he telling his son, and him telling his son. So even though God revealed them, a lot of those stories, the main parts of those stories, they already knew through tradition—they already knew through hearing it from other people.

The Three Arabian Messengers: Hud, Saleh, and Shu’aib

But there are some messengers which are not mentioned. And why are they not mentioned, by the way? Because sometimes people will say, like especially the Christians will be like, oh, why does the Bible not mention Hud? It must be a fake book or whatever. It doesn’t because it has nothing to do with the children of Israel. It’s outside of that scope. The Bible only deals with the worldview which has to do with the children of Israel. Even the Quran says, even Jesus when the Quran says that Jesus was sent to the children of Israel saying, “I come to you as a messenger to the children of Israel.” And anything outside of that is not mentioned in the Bible, even if it’s true.

And three messengers which truly came, which are mentioned in the Quran, which are not mentioned in the Bible—we know why, not because they are not true, but because they have nothing to do with children of Israel—are Hood, Saaleh, and Shu’aib. So these three messengers are mentioned in the Quran, but they are not mentioned in the Bible. And because of this, I think they actually have even bigger universal appeal, kind of like the rainbow. They are true by the way, not fake like the rainbow, but they have a bigger appeal. Everyone can relate to that story. The reason is that most people today are not children of Israel, and most people today don’t live in biblical times. Therefore, these kind of stories about Hood, Shu’aib, Saaleh have to do with us, with any time, more than the other stories.

And why do they have to do more with us at all times? All three of them were messengers who were sent in what today is Arabia, the Arabian Peninsula. Again, God only mentioned the ones which people already knew during Muhammad’s time. So those stories already existed during Muhammad’s time. It’s not like God revealed something which they had no idea what it was. People knew stories about Hud because, again, why did they know about that? It was stories about the ancestors of—if we can call them, Arabs. Then they were not fully Arabs, sort of the ancestors of pre-Arabs. So that’s why the Quran mentions them, because the Quran was revealed to Muhammad who lived among the Arabs. Those stories were already known among the Arabs. God wanted to relate to what they were talking about, wanted to talk about things which they were already talking about.

So yeah, those three messengers, all three of them were sent to what today is the Arabian Peninsula. And the reason is because Muhammad was an Arab, so God told them stories which they already talked about so that they could relate to it. However, God really doesn’t focus in the Quran telling us that, because they relate to all human beings.

Modern Civilization and the Patterns of Destruction

And how do they relate to all human beings? It’s because these are stories about destruction, messengers being sent to a whole community, the community not believing, the community being destroyed. And this is kind of the story of all of us, of the whole modern civilization. Messengers are being sent, the whole world pretty much doesn’t believe except for a few people, and in the end times, the world will be destroyed.

Now the whole world is kind of one community, more and more, like with online and stuff, with AI, with all of this, we’re just pretty much one community. You can trade and buy. I mean, not fully yet, because let’s say you can go in some country, they still don’t use Amazon. Amazon is like where you buy things online, so it’s not really fully integrated yet. But most of the world is really integrated, meaning it acts like one city. And when it becomes fully one city, and fully city—by fully city I mean fully built—then it’s time for the world to be destroyed. That’s when the end of the world will come.

Now what I want to do in the second sermon is just read these three stories: the story of Hood, the story of Saaleh, the story of Shu’aib. All three stories are sort of told about three times each, so they are going to repeat it a little bit. It’s going to be repetitive. However, that might actually help us remember them.

By the way, the Quran doesn’t say the same thing with the same words. Sometimes it will tell something, and sometimes Christians will think this is a contradiction. For example, if I say, “when I was coming back from work, I met John and I had coffee with him.” If I say that, then another time if I say, “When I was coming back from work, I met John and I gave him a ride,” both of them are true. Both of them can be true. I had coffee and then gave him a ride, or maybe I gave him a ride and we had coffee in the car. So both of them can be true. So just because you have differences in the story, it doesn’t mean it’s not true. What it means is that God wants to tell us more. In one specific case, He wants to tell us about the coffee; in the other case, He wants to tell us about the ride. In this way, we learn more. In other words, God doesn’t want to repeat Himself too much in the same way because then we wouldn’t learn new things.

So yeah, the stories will repeat partly, but they will kind of be told in a different way. Don’t fall into the trap of some Christians who say that this is why it’s fake because it’s not told the same way. It doesn’t have to be told the same way. Even in their books, their gospels are not told the same way. They don’t tell the same story about Jesus; some of them tell something else, others tell something else. But all of them can be true unless they are in contradiction, which sometimes in the Bible they are actually, but not in the Quran. By contradiction, I mean someone says, “After work I went home,” but then in another story I say, “After work I did not go home.” That’s a contradiction. That’s a clear contradiction.

So yeah, let’s repent, and then God willing we’ll read the stories. Let’s repent. Toubou ila Allah.

Non-Biblical Prophets: The Accounts of Hood, Saleh, and Shuayb

Praise be to God, there is no other god except God. So let me just read these three stories from the Quran which are non-Jewish stories. You cannot find these stories in the Bible; they are only in the Quran or in ancient Arab tradition. Let’s start with Hood, then we have the story of Saaleh, and then we have the story of Shu’aib.

I seek refuge in God from Satan.

The Story of Hood (The People of ‘Ad)

Account I

[7:65] To `Aad we sent their brother Hood. He said, “O my people, worship God; you have no other god beside Him. Would you then observe righteousness?”

[7:66] The leaders who disbelieved among his people said, “We see that you are behaving foolishly, and we think that you are a liar.”

[7:67] He said, “O my people, there is no foolishness in me; I am a messenger from the Lord of the universe.

[7:68] “I deliver to you my Lord’s messages, and I am honestly advising you.

[7:69] “Is it too much of a wonder that a message should come to you from your Lord, through a man like you, to warn you? Recall that He made you inheritors after the people of Noah, and multiplied your number. Remember God’s blessings, that you may succeed.”

[7:70] They said, “Did you come to make us worship God alone, and abandon what our parents used to worship? We challenge you to bring the doom you threaten us with, if you are truthful.”

[7:71] He said, “You have incurred condemnation and wrath from your Lord. Do you argue with me in defense of innovations you have fabricated – you and your parents – which were never authorized by God? Therefore, wait and I will wait along with you.”

[7:72] We then saved him and those with him, by mercy from us, and we annihilated those who rejected our revelations and refused to be believers.

Account II

[11:50] To `Aad we sent their brother Hood. He said, “O my people, worship God; you have no other god besides Him. You are inventing.

[11:51] O my people, I do not ask you for any wage. My wage comes only from the One who initiated me. Do you not understand?

[11:52] “O my people, seek forgiveness from your Lord, then repent to Him. He will then shower you with provisions from the sky, and augment your strength. Do not turn back into transgressors.”

[11:53] They said, “O Hood, you did not show us any proof, and we are not abandoning our gods on account of what you say. We will never be believers with you.

[11:54] “We believe that some of our gods have afflicted you with a curse.” He said, “I bear witness before God, and you bear witness as well, that I disown the idols you have set up –

[11:55] “beside Him. So, give me your collective decision, without delay.

[11:56] “I have put my trust in God, my Lord and your Lord. There is not a creature that He does not control. My Lord is on the right path.

[11:57] “If you turn away, I have delivered to you what I was sent with. My Lord will substitute other people in your place; you cannot harm Him in the least. My Lord is in control of all things.”

[11:58] When our judgment came, we saved Hood and those who believed with him, by mercy from us. We saved them from a terrible retribution.

[11:59] Such was `Aad – they disregarded the revelations of their Lord, disobeyed His messengers, and followed the ways of every stubborn tyrant.

[11:60] Consequently, they incurred condemnation in this world, and on the Day of Resurrection. Indeed, `Aad rejected their Lord. Indeed, `Aad, the people of Hood, have perished.

Account III

[26:123] `Aad disbelieved the messengers.

[26:124] Their brother Hood said to them, “Would you not be righteous?

[26:125] “I am an honest messenger to you.

[26:126] “You shall reverence God, and obey me.

[26:127] “I do not ask you for any wage; my wage comes from the Lord of the universe.

[26:128] “You build on every hill a mansion for vanity’s sake.

[26:129] “You set up buildings as if you last forever.

[26:130] “And when you strike, you strike mercilessly.

[26:131] “You shall reverence God and obey me.

[26:132] “Reverence the One who provided you with all the things you know.

[26:133] “He provided you with livestock and children.

[26:134] “And gardens and springs.

[26:135] “I fear for you the retribution of an awesome day.”

[26:136] They said, “It is the same whether you preach, or do not preach.

[26:137] “That affliction was limited to our ancestors.

[26:138] “No retribution will ever befall us.”

[26:139] They thus disbelieved and, consequently, we annihilated them. This should be a lesson, but most people are not believers.

[26:140] Most assuredly, your Lord is the Almighty, Most Merciful.

Account IV

[46:21] Recall that the brother of `Aad warned his people at the dunes – numerous warnings were also delivered before him and after him: “You shall not worship except God. I fear for you the retribution of a great day.”

[46:22] They said, “Did you come to divert us from our gods? We challenge you to bring (the retribution) you threaten, if you are truthful.”

[46:23] He said, “The knowledge about this is with God; I only deliver to you what I was sent to deliver. However, I see that you people are ignorant.”

[46:24] When they saw the storm heading their way, they said, “This storm will bring to us much needed rain.” Instead, this is what you challenged (Hood) to bring; violent wind wherein there is painful retribution.

[46:25] It destroyed everything, as commanded by its Lord. By morning, nothing was standing except their homes. We thus requite the guilty people.

The Story of Saaleh (The People of Thamud)

Account I

[7:73] To Thamoud we sent their brother Saaleh. He said, “O my people, worship God; you have no other god beside Him. Proof has been provided for you from your Lord: here is God’s camel, to serve as a sign for you. Let her eat from God’s land, and do not touch her with any harm, lest you incur a painful retribution.

[7:74] “Recall that He made you inheritors after `Aad, and established you on earth, building mansions in its valleys, and carving homes from its mountains. You shall remember God’s blessings, and do not roam the earth corruptingly.”

[7:75] The arrogant leaders among his people said to the common people who believed, “How do you know that Saaleh is sent by his Lord?” They said, “The message he brought has made us believers.”

[7:76] The arrogant ones said, “We disbelieve in what you believe in.”

[7:77] Subsequently, they slaughtered the camel, rebelled against their Lord’s command, and said, “O Saaleh, bring the doom you threaten us with, if you are really a messenger.”

[7:78] Consequently, the quake annihilated them, leaving them dead in their homes.

[7:79] He turned away from them, saying, “O my people, I have delivered my Lord’s message to you, and advised you, but you do not like any advisers.”

Account II

[11:61] To Thamoud we sent their brother Saaleh. He said, “O my people, worship God; you have no other god beside Him. He initiated you from the earth, then settled you in it. You shall seek His forgiveness, then repent to Him. My Lord is always near, responsive.”

[11:62] They said, “O Saaleh, you used to be popular among us before this. Are you enjoining us from worshiping what our parents are worshiping? We are full of doubt concerning everything you have told us.”

[11:63] He said, “O my people, what if I have solid proof from my Lord, and mercy from Him? Who would support me against God, if I disobeyed Him? You can only augment my loss.

[11:64] “O my people, this is God’s camel to serve as a proof for you. You shall let her eat from God’s earth, and do not touch her with any harm, lest you incur an immediate retribution.”

[11:65] They slaughtered her. He then said, “You have only three days to live. This is a prophecy that is inevitable.”

[11:66] When our judgment came, we saved Saaleh and those who believed with him by mercy from us, from the humiliation of that day. Your Lord is the Most Powerful, the Almighty.

[11:67] Those who transgressed were annihilated by the disaster, leaving them in their homes, dead.

[11:68] It was as if they never lived there. Indeed, Thamoud have rejected their Lord. Absolutely, Thamoud have incurred their annihilation.

Account III

[26:141] Thamoud disbelieved the messengers.

[26:142] Their brother Saaleh said to them, “Would you not be righteous?

[26:143] “I am an honest messenger to you.

[26:144] “You shall reverence God, and obey me.

[26:145] “I do not ask you for any wage; my wage comes only from the Lord of the universe.

[26:146] “Do you suppose you will be left forever, secure in this state?

[26:147] “You enjoy gardens and springs.

[26:148] “And crops and date palms with delicious fruits.

[26:149] “You carve out of the mountains luxurious mansions.

[26:150] “You shall reverence God, and obey me.

[26:151] “Do not obey the transgressors.

[26:152] “Who commit evil, not good works.”

[26:153] They said, “You are bewitched.

[26:154] “You are no more than a human like us. Produce a miracle, if you are truthful.”

[26:155] He said, “Here is a camel that will drink only on a day that is assigned to her; a day that is different from your specified days of drinking.

[26:156] “Do not touch her with any harm, lest you incur retribution on an awesome day.”

[26:157] They slaughtered her, and thus incurred sorrow.

[26:158] The retribution overwhelmed them. This should be a lesson, but most people are not believers.

[26:159] Most assuredly, your Lord is the Almighty, Most Merciful.

Account IV

[27:45] We have sent to Thamoud their brother Saaleh, saying, “You shall worship God.” But they turned into two feuding factions.

[27:46] He said, “O my people, why do you hasten to commit evil instead of good works? If only you implore God for forgiveness, you may attain mercy.”

[27:47] They said, “We consider you a bad omen for us, you and those who joined you.” He said, “Your omen is fully controlled by God. Indeed, you are deviant people.”

[27:48] There were nine gangsters in the city who were wicked, and never did anything good.

[27:49] They said, “Let us swear by God that we kill him and his people, then tell his tribe, `We know nothing about their death. We are truthful.’ “

[27:50] They plotted and schemed, but we also plotted and schemed, while they did not perceive.

[27:51] Note the consequences of their plotting; we annihilated them and all their people.

[27:52] Here are their homes utterly ruined, because of their transgression. This should be a lesson for people who know.

[27:53] We save those who believe and lead a righteous life.

The Story of Shu’aib (The People of Midian)

Account I

[7:85] To Midyan we sent their brother Shu`aib. He said, “O my people, worship God; you have no other god beside Him. Proof has come to you from your Lord. You shall give full weight and full measure when you trade. Do not cheat the people out of their rights. Do not corrupt the earth after it has been set straight. This is better for you, if you are believers.

[7:86] “Refrain from blocking every path, seeking to repel those who believe from the path of God, and do not make it crooked. Remember that you used to be few and He multiplied your number. Recall the consequences for the wicked.

[7:87] “Now that some of you have believed in what I was sent with, and some have disbelieved, wait until God issues His judgment between us; He is the best judge.”

[7:88] The arrogant leaders among his people said, “We will evict you, O Shu`aib, together with those who believed with you, from our town, unless you revert to our religion.” He said, “Are you going to force us?

[7:89] “We would be blaspheming against God if we reverted to your religion after God has saved us from it. How could we revert back to it against the will of God our Lord? Our Lord’s knowledge encompasses all things. We have put our trust in God. Our Lord, grant us a decisive victory over our people. You are the best supporter.”

[7:90] The disbelieving leaders among his people said, “If you follow Shu`aib, you will be losers.”

[7:91] The quake annihilated them, leaving them dead in their homes.

[7:92] Those who rejected Shu`aib vanished, as if they never existed. Those who rejected Shu`aib were the losers.

[7:93] He turned away from them, saying, “O my people, I have delivered to you the messages of my Lord, and I have advised you. How can I grieve over disbelieving people.”

Account II

[11:84] To Midyan we sent their brother Shu`aib. He said, “O my people, worship God; you have no other god beside Him. Do not cheat when you measure or weigh. I see that you are prosperous, and I fear for you the retribution of an overwhelming day.

[11:85] “O my people, you shall give full measure and full weight, equitably. Do not cheat the people out of their rights, and do not roam the earth corruptingly.

[11:86] “Whatever God provides for you, no matter how small, is far better for you, if you are really believers. I am not a guardian over you.”

[11:87] They said, “O Shu`aib, does your religion dictate upon you that we must abandon our parents’ religion, or running our businesses in any manner we choose? Surely, you are known for being clement, wise.”

[11:88] He said, “O my people, what if I have solid proof from my Lord; what if He has provided me with a great blessing? It is not my wish to commit what I enjoin you from. I only wish to correct as many wrongs as I can. My guidance depends totally on God; I have put my trust in Him. To Him I have totally submitted.

[11:89] “And, O my people, do not be provoked by your opposition to me into incurring the same disasters as the people of Noah, or the people of Hood, or the people of Saaleh; and the people of Lot are not too far from you.

[11:90] “You shall implore your Lord for forgiveness, then repent to Him. My Lord is Most Merciful, Kind.”

[11:91] They said, “O Shu`aib, we do not comprehend many of the things you are telling us, and we see that you are powerless among us. If it were not for your tribe, we would have stoned you. You have no value for us.”

[11:92] He said, “O my people, does my tribe command a greater respect than God? Is this why you have been heedless of Him? My Lord is fully aware of everything you do.

[11:93] “O my people, go on doing what you wish, and so will I. You will certainly find out which of us will incur shameful retribution; you will find out who the liar is. Just wait in anticipation, and I will wait in anticipation along with you.”

[11:94] When our judgment came, we saved Shu`aib and those who believed with him, by mercy from us. As for the evil ones, they were struck by a disaster that left them dead in their homes.

[11:95] It was as though they never existed. Thus, Midyan perished, just like Thamoud had perished before that.

Account III (The People of the Woods)

[26:176] The People of the Woods disbelieved the messengers.

[26:177] Shu`aib said to them, “Would you not be righteous?

[26:178] “I am an honest messenger to you.

[26:179] “You shall reverence God, and obey me.

[26:180] “I do not ask you for any wage; my wage comes only from the Lord of the universe.

[26:181] “You shall give full measure when you trade; do not cheat.

[26:182] “You shall weigh with an equitable scale.

[26:183] “Do not cheat the people out of their rights, and do not roam the earth corruptingly.

[26:184] “Reverence the One who created you and the previous generations.”

[26:185] They said, “You are bewitched.

[26:186] “You are no more than a human being like us. In fact, we think you are a liar.

[26:187] “Let masses from the sky fall on us, if you are truthful.”

[26:188] He said, “My Lord is the One who knows everything you do.”

[26:189] They disbelieved him and, consequently, they incurred the retribution of the Day of the Canopy. It was the retribution of an awesome day.

[26:190] This should be a lesson, but most people are not believers.

[26:191] Most assuredly, your Lord is the Almighty, Most Merciful.

Account IV

[29:36] To Midyan we sent their brother Shu`aib. He said, “O my people, you shall worship God and seek the Last Day, and do not roam the earth corruptingly.”

[29:37] They disbelieved him and, consequently, the earthquake annihilated them; they were left dead in their homes by morning.

[29:38] Similarly, ‘Aad and Thamoud (were annihilated). This is made manifest to you through their ruins. The devil had adorned their works in their eyes, and had diverted them from the path, even though they had eyes.

Conclusion: Ancestral Focus and the Local Message

That’s kind of the end. As you can see, Shu’aib talks about even the previous messengers and tribes like ‘Aad and Thamoud. Which are his ancestors—people of the past from his tribe. The same genealogy, if we can say. He doesn’t talk about the Jewish Messengers. They all focused on what they know from their ancestors.

These are pretty much the three stories: the story of Hood, the story of Saaleh, and the story of Shu’aib.

For those who have to do the contact prayer, do the contact prayer. The rest of you, you can do it later whenever your time for the contact prayer comes. Peace be upon you.

 

Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director

 

The Easiest Way to Heaven: The Power of Belief

Praise be to God, there is no other God except God. God willing, today I want to talk about the fact that God made the way to heaven the easiest way possible, and I literally mean the easiest way possible.

What got me thinking about this recently is that I saw a trailer for a movie like The Odyssey. Some of you might have seen it. It’s supposed to be a big-budget movie, and the background story of The Odyssey, in the ancient Greek myths, is that one of the gods is not happy with the main character and imposes some challenges for him. He has to go through those challenges to achieve the success, and he ends up having a really long trip which could have been a very short trip. And in many religion you see this—kind of like fake religions. Like the gods will demand a lot. They ask a lot, requiring you to do a certain type of yoga and this amount of hours. Or they ask lots of sacrifices—let’s say the Aztec religions. They even demand human sacrifices, in some ancient religions. And you can see that they were actually not that creative because —those are fake gods of course. They don’t exist— but the way humans imagined them is as not really that merciful.

But our God, The True God, is The Most Merciful. And we know that because God willing, today I will tell you why he made it so that we can go to heaven in the easiest way possible. I am not talking about an “easy way” as some sort of relative term “Oh, it’s kind of easy” —you know how when someone learns advanced math, like calculus, and someone asks them how they did it, they say it’s easy. Not in that way. I literally mean easy for everyone: no efforts at all, the easiest way possible, no efforts at all. God says this in the Quran a lot because it’s true, not because he is trying to convince us as an advertisement strategy. It is a fact. So, let’s analyze what I mean by this.

What True “Ease” Means in God’s System

For us to get to heaven, God didn’t say that to get to heaven, you have to lift 200 kilograms of weights, or to get to heaven you have to climb the highest peak in the world. God didn’t make it like they make it in school. To get to heaven you have to go twelve years in school, eight years, or four years, whatever it is. Or to get to heaven you have to complete this course and after you complete this course you get a certificate and then you get to heaven. All of those require effort. Some of them more efforts, some of them less efforts. But they do require effort. Its a level of difficulty. It’s not any of those, it is actually easier. It’s easier than let’s say, to get to heaven you have to lift up your hand. Just say I want to get to heaven. It easier even than that. Imagine if heaven was like: “Who wants to go to heaven, lift up your hand”. That would require efforts, see there’s some effort. I have to lift up my hand. That’s a little bit hard. I mean not that hard, but it does require some effort. It is easier than that. Or let’s say God could have made it so that oh to get to heaven you have to wink maybe. Just go like this and you’ll go to heaven. That’s easy. Just wink or blink your eyes or blink twice. If you blink twice you can get to heaven. God could have made it like that. God could have made it any way he wanted. Of course, he made it the correct way and the most merciful way, but he could have made it any way he wanted. He could have made any of those as requirements. Because he’s God. He could have done that. But he made it easier than any of those. It’s easier than just blinking your eyes. It’s easier than lifting your hand. It’s easier than anything possible. It’s the easiest way possible.

So what does it require to make it to heaven according to the way God designed the system? To get to heaven all God asks from us is believe. So if you want to go to heaven, believe. Simple as that. No action required, no efforts required, no thinking required. Belief is just belief. You either believe it or you don’t. See, disbelief actually requires more effort because when you disbelieve, you’re like, “Oh, is he trying to fool me? Is there some manipulation going on? What are the chances? What’s going on behind closed doors?” So that’s disbelief. You’re evaluating. You’re sort of trying to think from the perspective of the other side. You’re trying to kind of like see if you’re being tricked. That requires some efforts, because now you have to think and analyze. It becomes more like a chess game. But, all that is required, it’s the easiest thing possible. All that God requires us to make it to heaven is just believe. That’s it. Just believe.

Religious “Laws” as Divine Predictions

Someone might say, “But wait a minute, doesn’t God ask us to do the contact prayer, honor our parents, do not commit adultery, give the zakat, what else there’s so many requirements, don’t drink alcohol, don’t eat pork, read the Quran, stuff like that” Doesn’t God require that? Well, if we truly understand the Quran at the deeper level, we see that those are just results. Those are the results of belief. That’s why the Quran never says, do the contact prayer. It says if you believe, you will do the contact prayer. In a verse in the Quran and quite a few verses, God says something like you have to do the contact prayer, you have to do this, you have to do that, there’s quite a a few sort of requirements given there, and then it says this is difficult indeed but not so for the believers. So, for the believers it’s easy, for the disbelievers it’s hard. So, if you believe those come automatically it’s a prediction it’s not a law which you have to fulfill. It’s not like oh you have to do this, you have to do that’s how we understand it usually. And actually in English quite often it’s translated like that, which is fine. Because in the western culture they think of things like that as laws, like even the laws of Newton as they are described as laws. What they really mean is predictions about what will happen if you drop let’s say a ball, they say “oh, the law of gravity”. What they mean is, it’s a prediction of what will happen. God’s will. A better a better way to to express it is God’s will. And actually in the Arabic when you look at it how the Quran describes the words for laws it’s it actually decree. It means decree. Decree means this is what will happen. A prophecy. This is God’s will and God has willed or God has decreed that this will happen. Meaning if you believe, and that’s the requirement, if you believe and that requirement is as we can see is absolutely easy. If you believe you will do the contact prayer. It’s not that God is forcing you, but you will just end up being a person who does the contact prayer. It’s like saying you if you’re an apple you’ll have some sugar in it. It’s automatic. If you believe you will not drink alcohol. Of course, if you believe fully, if you believe 100%. If you believe 50%, you might end up drinking alcohol once in a while. Not that I recommend it, but what I’m saying is like all those are actually just results, prophecies about what a believer will do.

But the way you make it to heaven is through belief. And of course, if you believe, the signs of believe are those. It’s like check marks. Oh, I I know I believe because I’ve done this, this this. It’s not like, oh, I have to do this so I can believe. No contact prayer ever can lead you to believe. But belief, absolute belief will always lead to a contact prayer. Can you see the difference? Like which leads to to which you can force yourself. There’s a verse in the Quran which says who wo to the those who do the contact prayers who are healed during the contact prayers. You can force yourself to do the contact prayer. It’s not going to lead to belief if you force yourself. But if you believe it will lead to the contact prayer, not because it’s hard, but because it’s easy. And it just it just works. It just And someone actually asked me like years ago, oh, how do you do you then how do you then how do you believe? Well, you either do or you don’t. That’s kind of like God made it like that. That’s how easy it is. You do. If you believe, you believe. If you don’t believe, you don’t believe. And that’s because God has chosen who’s going to go to heaven. And who’s going to go to hell? If you believe, you’ll go to heaven. If you don’t believe, you will go to hell. That’s it. It’s the easiest thing possible. Why is why is believe the easiest thing possible? It doesn’t require any physical effort. You don’t have to lift up your hand or anything. It doesn’t require any mental effort. It’s not even a mental effort. You don’t even have to breathe harder. It’s the easiest thing possible. Believe, just you just believe. Like you hear something and you believe it. Like children can do it. You know when a child first kind of let’s say becomes two or three years old, you tell them something, they just believe. Oh yeah, that’s true. That what it is. They ask you why does it rain? Oh, because there’s evaporation in the air and that it cools down. Sort of. It’s sort of true. And they believe. Children will believe. They don’t think. In the beginning, they don’t think you’re lying. It’s the easiest thing. A child can do it. As soon as they learn how to speak, they can do it. Okay, just think. Seriously, just think how much effort does it require to believe? Zero. Zero efforts. Like you hear it, you believe it or you don’t. No action, no thinking, no preparation, none of that is required. It’s the easiest thing. It doesn’t take a few months like a course or a few years like school. So you can be ready to go to heaven. No, you just at that same moment you get a certificate to heaven, if you just believe. Just believe. As simple as that. You cannot force yourself to believe. But if you believe, you believe. It’s as simple as that. You just believe and that’s it. I’m not telling you to believe. If you believe, you believe. If you don’t believe, you don’t believe. I cannot make you a believer. If you are a believer; if God made you a believer; if God chose the destiny for you to be to heaven, he made you a believer. And all the others then come afterwards. Like doing the contact prayer. It’s not that then they have to be done. God has told Muhammad, let’s say—that’s why people who tell us about these so-called laws are called prophets; they’re telling us what will happen in the future—a believer will do the contact prayer. An absolute believer will always do the contact prayer. It’s a prophecy. It’s a future prediction about what will happen to a certain person. Just like saying, “Oh, an old person eventually will die.” It’s a prophecy. That’s also in the Quran. The Quran says everyone dies. We think of it as a law. That’s also a “law”. But can anyone sort of cause the law or not cause the law? It just happens. When you get old, you die eventually. And you either go to heaven or not. But there’s nothing you can do about it. The same thing with belief. You either believe or you don’t. If God chooses you to be a to be a believer, you will be a believer. If God chooses you not to you won’t be a believer.

Momentary Belief vs. Continuous Submission

By the way, belief is momentary. Like for every moment you can be a believer or disbeliever. So, I don’t want to classify people that easy like that. We can classify people into submitters versus non-submitters. But belief is at every moment, you are a believer or a disbeliever. You can be a believer most of the moments most of the time and a disbeliever part of the time. So it’s about the moment; every moment you are a believer or a disbeliever. God chooses you to be a believer or disbeliever compared to submission which is kind of like an official one-time thing, which you can do. The difference is like marriage and love. You can choose to be married and you’re kind of constantly married even if you don’t do anything. But love is at every moment. At every moment you love someone or you don’t. But later on you might not and then later on you might love them again. So it measures every moment. But marriage kind of, it’s more like a one time thing. That’s how submission and belief are. Of course in good circumstances, love should lead to marriage and marriage should continue with love. Just like belief should lead to submission and submission should continue with additional belief. But, at the end of the day belief is what matters. And is the easiest thing, the thing which matters the most God made it the easiest thing possible.

Some people think that when God is saying God made religion easy in the Quran, when God says that in the Quran, they think that God is trying to advertise the religion, they think, “Oh, it’s actually a little bit hard. You have to do the contact prayer. That’s how most people think.” And then, when they read that, they’re like, “Oh, God is just trying to advertise it. He’s trying to encourage us.” Kind of like when you go, let’s say if you go to a gym or let’s say if you go to school and you’re having difficulties and let’s say your parents tell you, “Oh, it’s easy.” Like “just try this, try that. It’s easy.” They’re trying to encourage you to finish that task. When God says it’s easy, he doesn’t, he’s not trying to do that. He’s just like it’s easy. It’s literally easy. It’s a fact. There’s no hidden motive behind that. Just easy. It’s just easy. How easy? You just believe. What action does believe require? None. What efforts does believe require? None. You believe or you don’t. It’s just (Snaps finger) like that. It’s even easier than that. Actually, this requires some effort. But you just believe. Like, has anyone thought about how much effort does it require to believe? It’s less effort than disbelieving. Disbelieving actually requires some effort. You have to think and to calculate and to strategize, when you disbelieve. But when you believe, no effort whatsoever. And I mean absolutely no effort. Not relatively no effort. Absolutely no effort. You hear it and you believe. That’s it.

And I don’t get it how some people just cannot do that. It’s really interesting how some people just cannot do that. When someone tells you something, you just believe. How hard is it? How some people cannot do that. I don’t get it. Like you tell them something, especially criminals, you tell them, let’s say the police will tell them, “Oh, you have to come to the police station.” “Oh, I know you’re trying to arrest me.” Like immediately they think something else. It’s like their communication is broken. You tell them something, they think something else. Typically criminals will do that. Like, “Oh, can you come here?” Maybe you want to give them a free pizza. They’ll be like, “Oh, what does he want?/ What does she want?” Like they think beyond that. They think they are smart. Let me just think beyond it. How about you just don’t. Just take their word for it? That’s what belief requires. I’m just going to—whatever the person says—I’m just going to take their words for it. Of course, the Quran prevents us from believing anyone, like not being stupid. Because that would be naive. But naive, if you got no other information except for God’s information, being naive, would be a good thing. Because we have the Quran, it prevents us from being naive. But belief like as a principle, it has zero efforts. Let’s repent, Touboo ila Allah.

Praise be to God. There’s no other god except God.

The Nature of our Choice and the Final Challenge

Someone might say, it could have been even easier and let’s see if it could have been easier. Like God could have been even more merciful and make it even easier. Some people might say, you know what? What if it was no belief at all? Like it doesn’t matter if you believe. Let’s say what if God made it so for you to be in heaven or to go to heaven, it doesn’t even matter if you believe, like you have to do nothing. Why didn’t God just do that? He did actually. Belief is the next easiest thing possible. The easiest thing is to do nothing, like just exist. The easiest thing: exist, the next easiest thing is belief. So why didn’t God make it so that we just exist? He did. He created us in heaven. We wanted the challenge and he gave us the easiest possible challenge. Imagine God creating the creatures. “I’m going to create these creatures; the easiest thing possible. They are in heaven already. No efforts whatsoever. No challenge to fulfill, no course to take, no nothing.” You’re just in heaven. That’s how we were in heaven. And then when Satan challenged God’s absolute authority, we wanted a challenge. I guess that’s how humans are. And He could have been mad. He could have been like, “Oh, you guys are maybe with Satan’s side. So, I’m going to give you a challenge to go back to heaven.” You want a challenge? Fine. I’ll give you a challenge. 10 years in school, 50 years working in a mine, whatever. God could have made it like that. But he didn’t. Even after asking for a challenge, for a test, what did God do? He made it the easiest possible. Just believe. The Quran says that God gave Adam words by which he redeemed him. All Adam had to do, is believe. Believe those words. Whatever God told him, believe it and that’s it.

Of course, if you believe that will lead to certain features which you will have. You’ll do the contact prayer, you’ll do that. But that’s just the result. It’s automatic. It’s kind of like a ball rolling down the hill. Whether the ball will roll down this hill or that hill. That’s the initial moment. But then afterwards it just rolls down, down the hill. No efforts. Sometimes we try to make efforts, understandable. Because we see other people doing it and we think “Oh, let’s try”. That’s kind of training for probably future belief but it really doesn’t lead to belief. You either believe or you don’t believe. That shows that you want to believe. But wanting to believe it doesn’t mean you believe. Believing actually requires no efforts. That this is really hard for some people to get it. It just requires no efforts. You believe, it requires no efforts to believe. And then actually when you do it like that, even the so-called laws which are actually prophecies about what will happen to you, just feel easier. “Okay, I believe. So, it’s my destiny that I’m going to do the contact prayer at this time of the day, that time of the day. It’s my destiny. It’s not that I’m kind of like forcing myself into that destiny. It’s just my destiny. God willed it.”

By the way, this is why in the Quran, God, whenever He gives a law, so-called law, which is a decree, a prophecy, he always says, “Oh, you who believe.” He doesn’t say, “Oh, do the contact prayer.” And some people do it and other people don’t do it. That would be with efforts because some people are doing, other people are not doing it. But he says, “Oh, you who believe, do the contact prayer.” That means that no one is breaking the law. No one is breaking God’s law. If he said do the contact prayer, everyone would do the contact prayer, because God’s word is True. In the Quran, it says that when God says be, it is. Like there’s no way to escape it. If God said, “Oh, you people do the contact prayer.” Everyone would do the contact prayer because what God says is true and it becomes true. God’s word automatically becomes true. If God said, “Oh, you people do the contact prayer.” Everyone in the world would do the contact prayer. It would be automatic. There’s no choice. But some people don’t do it, because God didn’t say for them to do it. God said, “Oh you who believe, do the contact prayer.” So it’s a prophecy. If you believe, you can think of it like this. If you believe, it is God’s will that you will do the contact prayer. If you do not believe, it is again God’s will, because of your own mistakes, but it is again God’s will, that you will not do the context prayer.

By the way, God doesn’t want your contact prayer. Doesn’t want a person’s contact prayer if he doesn’t believe. What’s the value of it, if you don’t believe. As I’m saying what matters is that we believe, and that’s how we get to heaven. However, it’s a feature. It’s how a person is when he believes that he does the contact prayer. He doesn’t lie and all of those. So yeah, God created religion in the easiest way possible. It requires absolutely no effort. Just believe. When God says that, believe it. When God says something else, believe it. And by the way, this shows how merciful God is. It’s like people want God to be hard like some more difficult God for us. That’s why, I guess, some of them don’t believe. They’re like, “Oh, that’s what it takes. I thought it should be something else.” No, you just believe and then it’s the result of belief that you do other things. But those other things don’t send you to heaven. It’s the belief which sends you to heaven, or hell if you don’t believe.

But believing comes automatically with features. What do I mean with features? It’s just it happens. It’s God’s will that those who believe will do that. Will do the good things. It just feels natural. Try it. It doesn’t even make sense to say try it. because you either believe or you don’t. But what I’m saying is when you believe, if you just empty your mind and you believe, you’re like “Okay let me just focus on belief. do I believe?” And then you will see that everything gets easier instead of focusing, “Oh, do I do this? Do I do that? Do I do that? What about this law? What about that law? What about” How about you just believe. If you believe, by the way, it doesn’t matter what I say, you’ll make the right choice. Doesn’t matter what I say, you’ll make the right choice. It doesn’t matter if you have the Quran, you’ll make the right choice. Belief existed before the Quran. Before the Quran was revealed. And then it’s a feature of believers that when the Quran is revealed, they believe. But if it wasn’t the Quran, if it was some other book, the Bible which God revealed or whatever, they would believe that. So it’s about the belief. It’s not about this rule, that rule.

Of course, eventually every person gets a better and better believer. Every submitter, because if he’s a true submitter, and true believer they become better and better believers, so they fulfill more and more of those “laws”, which are actually, in Arabic, decrees, God’s will. It’s not things we have to do. In the law, like in the western country sense, like it’s the law not to drive the car in the red traffic light. That’s the way they think of laws. You can actually break the law if you want to. I’m not talking laws like that. I’m talking laws like what they call, the law of gravity. It just happens. It’s not a human choice to make it or break it. It just happens. If you are a believer, you end up doing that. If you’re a disbeliever, you end up doing that. It’s a prophecy. What will happen to you? How will your life look like if you believe? If you believe your life will look like someone who doesn’t lie, someone who doesn’t steal, someone who doesn’t drink alcohol, someone who does the contact prayer, someone who doesn’t eat pork, someone who doesn’t gamble.

Clarification on Complicated Situations and Mindsets

By the way, let me just answer quickly. I think someone asked about gambling. Gambling; yeah it’s prohibited in the Quran and it’s sort of sometimes we don’t have a choice. There’s products which include gambling in it, let’s say a chocolate or something because they are mixed with a good thing, then yeah, it’s probably fine. But if you can separate it, then gambling is absolutely prohibited. For example, if you own a company and you want to use gambling as an advertisement strategy, you have a choice. You can separate the gambling from the company. So basically, unless you’re an employee there and you have no choice, but if it’s your company and you have a choice to use gambling as an advertisement strategy, then you shouldn’t do it. A believer wouldn’t do it. It’s obvious a believer wouldn’t do it. But again, if you believe, you would make the right choice, even if I didn’t tell you. If you don’t believe, you’d make the wrong choice, even if I told you. So, it’s not about sort of trying to force ourselves to go after the laws. It’s about believing. You just believe or you don’t. You’re either a believer, or you’re not. And then if you’re a believer, you will be automatically—God has willed it, that you will end up doing those good things which the Quran mentions and not doing the bad things which the Quran mentions. It’s as simple as that.

And the belief is the easiest thing you can do. You just believe. I don’t like can anyone tell me is there any effort in belief? Absolutely no effort. You just believe. Even a less effort than that, would be not to do anything at all. But God did it for us. We didn’t want it. We’re like, “Oh, we want some challenge.” “Fine. Here is the easiest challenge possible. Just believe.” And still, most of the people fail. I guess it’s too easy for them. I don’t know. People like difficult things. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong with them. There’s something wrong with them. The Quran says there is a disease in their heart or in their mind. There’s definitely something wrong with them. Because imagine a creature has been created—which is the human being. God has created a creature and one of the easy features of that creature is to just believe. You know how you put some input, some words in the computer and it’s just going to take it as that. A computer can do that. Like it cannot believe, but the computer can sort of just take words for its value. Like you tell the computer, write hello and the computer will do it. It’s not that difficult. So here’s this creature; the easiest thing it can do—it can do more difficult things, but the easiest thing it can do, is believe. And it doesn’t, sometimes. there’s something wrong. If a person doesn’t believe there’s something wrong. There’s some disease in their heart or in their mind, they are literally crazy. But I don’t want to go there because they can call us crazy too they’ve been calling us crazy. So I don’t want to play that game, but literally they are crazy. Sorry for like going back to it. But yeah, there’s something wrong with them, there’s just something wrong with them. So the easiest thing—just believe. Just take the word for what it is. God is great. Just believe. No. That’s what they do. No. What do you mean? How hard can it be? No. Maybe he’s not. Maybe? That’s how they think. Imagine telling them there’s no other god except God. Just believe. That’s all you have to “Oh, they go into intricacies and stuff.”

Anyway, for those who have to do the contact prayer, let’s do the contact prayer. If you believe you will do the contact prayer. If you don’t believe you will not do the contact prayer when the time of the contact prayer comes.

Salam Alaikum. Peace be upon you.

 

Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director

 

The Spiritual Importance of Hope in God’s Mercy

Praise be to God. There is no other God except God.

In the past, but partly in today’s world as well, people went through difficulties. Either difficulty through health, difficulty through poverty, difficulty through not having the right people around you, travel difficulties, things like that, inconvenience difficulties, discomfort difficulties, not having a place to sit, for example, and things like that.

And in the past, they were more, if we can call them, they were never random, but more random in the sense that people would have different difficulties at different times. Someone would be more rich, someone would be more poor. In today’s world, this has kind of been a little bit more standardized because of the modern world, what I call the global forced behavior, and so some of that is actually just common for everyone. And yeah, you still have variation, but a lot of it is common.

The Modern System of Delayed Gratification

One of the, let’s say, common difficulties is the delay of any sort of, let’s call, gratification. Delay of the first home. People today get the first home a little bit later than they would have gotten it in the past. It’s not their fault; it’s just the system has created that situation. And it is what it is. If instead of getting, let’s say, your home at 30 or 40, you might get it at 50. Or instead of getting married at 20, you might get married at 30 or 40. It’s just everything has been delayed.

Of course, the people in power have done that, thinking that they are going to solve our problems. Democracies thinking that, “Oh, what do we do about,” let’s say for example, in their mind, “how do we solve poverty? We do this, we do that, we do that, we educate people.” But that actually just delays stuff; it just delays poverty for later or delays things for later.

Given that so much of this is delayed—your first marriage if you’re not married, your first kids if you don’t have kids, your first home if you don’t have a home, your first car if you don’t have a car, your first bike if you don’t have a bike. Some people don’t even have a bike. It’s okay. It’s normal.

What could it be, the first job. Your first job can be delayed. In the past, people when they got 16, 18, yeah, it was not the best job, but they had something to do. Today, a lot of people go to college, even masters, sometimes doctors. They don’t get a job until 25, 30. And it’s normal. It’s okay. It’s delayed. So all of these are delayed.

Why Believers Must Never Lose Hope

When all of these are delayed, it’s really important for submitters, for us, for the believers, not to lose hope. It’s really important not to lose hope. Why is it important not to lose hope? It’s because if you hope that things will get better, which is what a believer should believe, then it shows that you know that God is merciful.

Because when you lose hope, what do you think inside? “Oh, God is not merciful.” Because if God is merciful, He wouldn’t let you forever, or for a very very long time, more than you can handle, He wouldn’t let you in a difficult situation. Eventually, it will end. All difficult situations for believers, eventually they end. Be it a few years, a decade more, a few more years, they all end. All the bad situations end if you’re a believer. If you’re a disbeliever, the difficult situation can last forever. But if you’re a believer, it will end. Eventually, it will end.

That’s because God is merciful. And because He is merciful, He wouldn’t let you suffer forever or be in a bad situation forever. So it’s really important that you have hope.

The topic of today that I’m emphasizing is that we shouldn’t lose hope if we are believers. We shouldn’t, let me specify more correctly, we shouldn’t lose hope of God’s mercy. That’s how the Quran says it. Because if you lose hope of God’s mercy, you don’t believe that God is merciful.

Being merciful is one of God’s important qualities or names. God is many things. God is just, God is Great, God is powerful. All of those are important. But one of those important qualities of God, is that God is merciful. And if you lose hope, that shows that you don’t believe inside of you that God is merciful. So when you want to be more hopeful, just remember God is merciful. He’s not going to let you in that situation forever.

Lessons from the Stories of the Prophets

This is especially important because when you look back at what happened with the previous prophets, you’ll see that actually if they didn’t have hope, it would be unreasonable, or none of the situations which happened would happen.

Adam

Let’s go back to Adam. Adam did get kicked out of heaven. Let’s take him as an example. Adam made a mistake with his wife. He got fooled by Satan. What did God say? “Get out of here. Get out of heaven,” or the Garden of Eden. “Get out. Get out of the Garden of Eden.”

If Adam didn’t have hope that he might get potentially back to heaven, he would never ask God to forgive him or he would never pray to Him. The Quran says God gave Adam specific words by which He redeemed him. But if Adam didn’t have hope, thinking, “Oh, now I’m out of heaven and it’s over for me. Done,” if Adam thought like that, he would never get back in heaven. He would never pray. He would never ask God to forgive him because he lost hope. So it’s important to have hope, and he had hope because he knew that God is merciful. Kind of like you get kicked out, you know, “Oh, yeah. He might actually let me back. He’s merciful. He’s not going to let me down.” A lot of the prayer comes from hope.

Moses

Or let’s take the example of Moses and the children of Israel. When Moses went to preach to Pharaoh and to release the children of Israel, what did Pharaoh do? Pharaoh made it harder for them. Like in the Bible, it says Pharaoh made it twice as, like let’s say if they had to carry one brick, the next day they would have to carry two bricks, only because Moses asked from Pharaoh to free the children of Israel. So it became twice as difficult for them for a while. If they didn’t have hope, what would they do? They’d give up. They’d be like, “Oh, let’s we are siding with Pharaoh now.”

Abraham

Or let’s take the example of Abraham. Abraham was promised that he was going to have a child, and his wife, and it lasted for years, years and years and years. A promise. If he didn’t have hope, God knows what he would have done. Kind of like his wife a little bit lost hope because then they kind of had another child through one of her slaves, but still they mostly kept hope. Abraham kept the hope.

Jacob

Or the case of Jacob. When they took Joseph away from him, they thought that they totally fooled him. But they didn’t. Jacob knew that Joseph was, he had certain information that Joseph was still alive. If Jacob lost hope, imagine he would think that Joseph is dead. So he would live all his life thinking that Joseph is dead. And if Jacob lost hope, the situation would have turned differently.

Jonah

Or the situation of Jonah. He got swallowed by the fish, whale, whatever it is. And according to the Quran and the Bible, he stayed there for three days. He stayed in the belly of the fish. If Jonah lost hope and didn’t pray to God, the only reason why someone would pray to God in the middle of the belly of the fish in total darkness, the only reason why they would pray to God is if they hoped that, “Maybe God will forgive me, and maybe God will take me out of the situation. Maybe God will make it better.”

That’s, by the way, having hope is not a guarantee that what you want will be granted, because a lot of those are wishes, but it’s definitely in general going to get better. Sometimes we limit ourselves to like, “Oh, I cannot build a house because I want that bigger house.” Yeah, we’re just delaying it ourselves. It’s our own fault. However, we should hope that in general things get better. Why? Because God is merciful, and they get better for believers.

Muhammad

And by the way, there are roller coasters, meaning that sometimes they get worse for a while, but it’s always temporary. Let’s say the example of Muhammad. Muhammad preached to Meccans for a while. Things got worse, actually. Similar to the case of the children of Israel, for a while things got worse. Muhammad thought that Meccans eventually will believe. He had hope that God will be merciful and eventually the situation will become easier and the Meccans will believe. But for a while, they actually got worse. They kicked him out. They fought him. If he didn’t have hope, he would give up. He’d be like, “Oh, I thought Mecca is going to eventually get better.” But it didn’t. It got worse for a while. And he would have given up, and giving up means that you don’t believe that God is merciful.

The Distortion of Time During Hardship

And by the way, hope, let me sort of remind you that it’s really important to know that after a difficult situation, things get better if you’re a believer. Because when you go through a difficult situation—it could be not having enough money, or maybe having depression, whatever it is—whatever that difficult situation is, it seems that it’s going to last longer than it is, or you might even be convinced that it’s going to last forever.

Why? Because when we are in a difficult situation, as a lot of us know this, when you’re going through tough times, it seems like time is moving slower.

Let me take an example. Let’s say that you have some kind of big health problem in your body, and the doctor tells you, “Oh, you have to do surgery. Then after the surgery, you will have to lay down in your bed for two weeks. You cannot move, you cannot do anything else for two weeks, and then you’ll get better.”

If you hear this information when you are sick, really sick, you will think that two weeks is very long, especially if you’re in pain. Time moves really slowly. Every second it seems like every second is too long, every second is too long, and that convinces you that two weeks is really long. “How am I going to last for two weeks like that?” That’s unbearable. You think it’s unbearable. And that convinces you that maybe you shouldn’t have hope.

However, if anyone else is told before they are sick or after they are sick, “You’re going to have to go through surgery and it’s going to last for two weeks,” if you’re not suffering at the moment when you hear that, it doesn’t seem as long. Because when you are doing well, it feels like time is moving fast. So two weeks, you’re like, “Yeah, of course, after two weeks I’ll get better and that’s it.”

So it’s especially important to have hope, and I’m reminding you to understand that things get better eventually, that no bad situation lasts forever. It’s especially important because if you are actually in that situation right now, or whenever, you will think that it’s going to last longer than it does. It feels like it’s going to last longer, so it’s easier to lose hope. Let’s repent.

Praise be to God. There is no other God except God.

Quranic Verses on Hope and Mercy

And now let me actually just read some verses from the Quran, which remind us not to lose hope.

Surah 39, verse 53 says:

“Proclaim, ‘Oh my servants who exceeded the limits, never despair of God’s mercy, for God forgives all sins. He is The Forgiver, Most Merciful.’”

See again, God is reminding us that He is most merciful. Because understanding that quality of God, knowing that God is merciful, is what gives you hope. Because He could be the most powerful God; if He’s not a good God, a merciful God, that doesn’t mean that things will get better. But if He’s merciful, things definitely will get better for believers.

Then in Surah 3, verse 139, it says:

“You shall not waver, nor shall you grieve, for you are the ultimate victors if you are believers. If you suffer hardship, the enemy also suffers the same hardship. We alternate the days of victory and defeat among the people. God thus distinguishes the true believers and blesses some of you with martyrdom. God dislikes injustice.”

In Surah 12, verse 87, the example of Jacob is given, where Jacob says:

“Oh my sons, go fetch Joseph and his brother, and never despair of God’s grace.”

So don’t give up, basically.

“And never despair of God’s grace. None despairs of God’s grace except the disbelieving people.”

And this is a strong statement. If you think that things will never get better for you, never, then you have forgotten that God is graceful, that God is Most Gracious, and that God is The Most Merciful. Let’s not despair of God’s grace, especially in difficult times.

How Difficulties Get Solved and Equalized

It’s important to remember this because, as I said, in difficult times it seems like time is slowing down. Time is moving less fast, which makes you think that it’s going to last forever, but it just goes away. You could be in the worst depression; it can go away. By the way, I’m not saying you shouldn’t seek help with doctors, therapists, things like that. You should do that. But it’s going to go away. If you’re a believer, it’s going to go away, whatever difficulty you are on, or it can be solved with a change of situation.

You can even have some kind of permanent health problem, maybe born without an arm or something. Eventually, even if you don’t change, things will get easier for you because, let’s say, phones are created where you can speak to the phone, so you don’t need the arm as much anymore. Most people today actually don’t cook. A lot of people don’t cook. They don’t need their arm as much. I mean, it’s important to have arms, but the differences are not that big.

Or let’s say someone is married, someone is not married. The differences have become less and less pronounced as we move into the future. But as people age, at a certain point, let’s say 60 or 70, someone who’s married and someone who is not married, their life is about the same, about equal. Because that person who got married, he’s blessed, but he might have some difficulty with kids who are teenagers, you have to send them to college, so there are difficulties. And the guy or the woman who never got married, now she’s totally free. Basically, she doesn’t have to spend money for college. So at some point they get equalized.

Even someone who doesn’t have an arm, it gets better. Even for that person, it gets better. At some point, they all get a little bit older. What are they going to do? Stay on the phone. The person who doesn’t have an arm is going to speak on their phone, similar to the person who does have an arm.

So what I’m saying is it gets better. There are so many ways it can get better because God is merciful. And the most important part, it definitely gets better in heaven. So let’s not forget that, even after death it gets better. Even when we die, or the process of death, it might be difficult for a week, for two weeks, for a month. Some people suffer with diseases for years, 10 years, 20 years, and it eventually gets better. If you’re a believer, it gets better.

The Promise of Ease

Let me read the last two verses from the Quran. Surah 94, verse 5 says:

“With difficulty comes ease. Indeed, with difficulty comes ease.”

This is what the Quran says. “With difficulty comes ease.” And this should give you hope if you truly believe this. “With difficulty comes ease. Indeed, with difficulty comes ease.”

And this is especially important because here’s the good news. If you went already through difficulty, or if you’re going through difficulty, that’s guaranteeing you that you will have an easy time in the future, or in the near future, or the far future, either way. So with difficulty comes ease.

The good news is that other people who have not gone through that difficulty, they eventually might have to; otherwise, they will not get to the same place in heaven. They might get to a lower heaven, or if they are bad people, they might go to hell. But if they want to get to the same place in heaven as you, if they haven’t gone through that difficulty, they will go through it in the near future when they get older, whatever it is. But if you went through it already, good news, it’s going to be easier if you trained more. Let’s say if you had a hard physical life, when the disease hits you or something, it’s going to feel easier.

So yeah, let’s not forget this. Let’s not forget that with difficulty comes ease, and that God is The Most Merciful. If we understand these and keep these two facts in our mind, then we will not lose hope of God’s mercy.

For those who have to do the contact prayer, do the contact prayer or whenever the time. So, whenever the time for contact prayer is, just do the contact prayer. Peace be upon you.

 

Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director

 

 

Sermon Introduction

Praise be to God. There is no other god except God. Today I want to talk about the end of witchcraft practice. I think one of the people wanted to know more about it. It’s usually a topic I’m not really interested to talk about, but it’s probably important that we cover it so we can put it behind our backs and we don’t really have to discuss it too much.

So in this sermon, God willing, what I’m going to prove is that witchcraft practice doesn’t exist anymore. And please pay attention to my words, I’m not saying that witchcraft doesn’t exist; what I’m saying is that witchcraft practice does not exist. What does this mean? What it means is that no one in the world today knows how to do witchcraft. No one, or no one does witchcraft. It does exist, people might try it, it existed in the past, but no one actually knows how to do it. It’s like saying, “Oh, heart surgery exists, but there’s no surgeon in the world.” Well, yeah, if heart surgery exists but there’s no surgeon in the world who can do heart surgery, what’s the point? In the same way, witchcraft does exist. It did exist in the past where there were people who knew how to do it. It’s not that they actually did it, but I’ll explain how it works.

But today, there’s no one who knows how to do it. Actually, by explaining it, I’ll tell everyone how it works. The issue is that I’ll also explain why it never has the effect, or the intended effect.

The Semantic Meaning of Witchcraft (Sihr) in the Final Testament

First of all, we cannot deny that witchcraft exists because it is mentioned in the Quran. The word in the Quran which included witchcraft is «Sihr», which means something covered, hidden, or sort of done “underneath the table”—misleading stuff.

And that word in the Quran includes more than witchcraft. So, God willing, I’ll explain the other meanings of that word some other day;

Because we have Technological or Scientific Witchcraft: Like magicians doing tricks with magnets, like pretending to levitate stuff with a magnet for example, and stuff like that; For example like David Copperfield stuff. And these are different, these are what they call : «Tricks», «Illusions» or «Magic». That is also included in the Arabic word which the Quran mentions, and that is not necessarily all evil because it ends and people know that it is actually a trick.

So, if I use these same verses to explain other concepts in the future – which God willing I will do because those are more important and more relevant for our times – If I use the same verses do not get confused by saying : «But this word is about witchcraft»;

The word has several meanings. But in this sermon, I want to focus on the meaning of that word in Arabic which can be translated as witchcraft in English. Basically the stuff which they also call magic, or sorcery, stuff which is done through Jinns, through demons.

Defining the Spiritual Entities: Jinn vs. Demon

Now, before I explain this, let me sort of first define some words because here in the explanation, I use the word demon instead of jinn. Because in the Western world, sometimes they kind of misunderstand; they think that jinns are just some kind of creatures which exist in the Islamic interpretation, but they don’t exist really. The Christians sometimes—well, Christians do have demons in the Bible; you can read about demons in the Bible. And while the Muslims talk about jinns, the difference is that demons are simply bad jinns, and witchcraft only happens through the bad jinns. All jinns are bad, by the way—all jinns are bad—but once you dominate them, they are not as bad anymore. It’s kind of like saying « All wolves are dangerous, but if you dominate them, if you make them dogs, then they are not as dangerous». So yeah, it’s kind of like that. It’s like having a word for a wolf, but you don’t have a word for dog.

In the Christian tradition, they have separate words. In the Islamic tradition, they use the same word jinn. In the Christian tradition, they use the word demon for the bad jinn, and I don’t think they have a word for the, let’s say, the “good jinn”. There’s no such thing as a good jinn, but there’s such a thing as a dominated jinn. If you dominate the jinn by good deeds, let’s say if the jinn is stronger than you, it’s a bad jinn; if you are stronger than the jinn, we can say it’s a good jinn. It’s going to go to heaven, but it went to heaven because it was dominated, not because it wanted to. And then eventually, of course, that jinn is going to enjoy heaven; later on, it’s going to realize that being dominated was a good thing. But for now, he doesn’t understand it. No jinn ever wants to do good, so they are technically all potential demons. If they are allowed to dominate, they are demons; if they are not allowed to dominate, we can just call them jinns. So, because the dominating ones—the dominating jinns—are the ones which are used for witchcraft, then I’m just going to use the word the demon. Let’s try to clarify that; I’m just going to use the word demon so that even the Christians can understand stuff about witchcraft.

Analyzing the Four Physical Forces of the Universe

So that’s one thing. The other thing is, first of all, I want to lay down how witchcraft works, even though it today doesn’t really practically work, but how it would work in theory. And first, let’s explore the possibilities first. For those who are, let’s say, more versed in science, a lot of people like scientists—definitely like the physicists—but a lot of people have enough knowledge in science. We know that we can reduce all the forces in this universe into four forces, which are:

1. Force of Gravity

2. The Electromagnetic Force

3. The Strong Force

4. The Weak Force

So these are the four forces in physics. And by the way, in another video clarification, God willing, someday I’ll explain why these are not forces at all. These are just descriptions of how things work; they are not forces because everything is controlled by God. But for the purposes of this Friday sermon, I’m going to call them forces, sort of going along with how the physicists call them, or laws, let’s say physical laws. Let’s call them physical laws or forces; that’s how they call them. I don’t believe they should be called like that, but for the purposes of this, let’s call them like that just so we can understand this better.

So, physicists reduce all the forces of the universe into four forces, and they have never been able to find another one. So basically, anything, any effect on anything which you want to describe, should be able to be reduced into these four forces: either gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, or the weak force. If it’s not one of these four, basically it’s fake. Any force you can reduce into these—like how the plants grow, if you simplify it, it comes down to these four forces. How the earth moves around the sun, or the sun around the earth, depending on how you want to see it, you can reduce it to these four forces. How the TV works, you can reduce it to these four forces. How the computer works, you can reduce it. Anything on this earth, it boils down to these four forces.

The Scientific Impossibility of Direct Witchcraft Causation

And with these four forces, if we accept that these are the four forces which work in this world, witchcraft has no place in it. Meaning that there’s no way you can describe witchcraft. You can describe how the sun moves, you can describe how the computer works, you can describe how the phone works, you can describe anything in this world if it’s true, if it’s real. If it’s fake, you cannot describe it. You cannot tell, for example, how Santa Claus flies with a sled; you cannot describe it with these four forces because it’s fake, it’s not real.

So witchcraft cannot be reduced—the effects—like if someone tries to explain, “Okay, so I’m going to move…” Let me just give an example of witchcraft: “Oh, I’m going to take the hair of this person, and I’m going to blow into it, and I’m going to do this, I’m going to say abracadabra,” or whatever they say, “and this will have an effect; basically, it will cause that person to have an accident.” There’s no way you can describe this effect through these four forces, which means it’s fake, it’s not happening. So there’s no cause and effect, basically. I’m not causing it by doing that witchcraft thing; I’m not causing it.

Then what’s happening? What is actually happening? And by the way, let me just give some examples of what I mean when I talk about witchcraft. I mean, like for example, taking a thread and tying a knot and blowing into it and saying, “Oh, I wish this person divorces.” Or kind of like—I don’t know what they typically do—or the voodoo, like taking a doll, putting a needle into it and saying, “Oh, I wish this person—let’s say in his head or in his stomach—I wish that person gets stomach pain or stomach cancer or something.” Basically the idea of causing something out there through some sort of witchcraft practice. And as I just showed, there’s no such thing as that causation. It cannot happen, because if it did, it should have been explainable by those four forces or physical forces. We can explain everything else; why not this? It should have been explainable.

Explaining Witchcraft as a Pre-Arranged Agreement (The Hill Analogy)

Then what’s happening in witchcraft? What’s happening when people do witchcraft? Let me explain it with another example so that we can understand why it looks like a force, it looks like a causation when it’s not causation.

Let’s say I use a magnet—and now I’m describing a real thing—let’s say I use a magnet, and whenever I move that magnet underneath the table, the metal coin will move. So we’re sort of causing it; according to physicists, we’re causing the coin to move if we move the magnet underneath the table and the coin is on top of the table. We cause it. No one is seeing what we’re doing; we’re sort of tricking them, but there is a cause. At the end of the day, I don’t believe in that cause, as I’m going to explain in that video, but at least according to physicists, we can say that there’s a cause; it’s described by the electromagnetic force, and there’s an explanation for it.

However, there’s another way to make it look like a cause, but it’s not. Let’s say, for example, I’m on one side of the hill, and I tell another friend on the other side of the hill—let’s say we want to play a prank, we want to trick a third friend. And I tell this friend, let’s say we have a walkie-talkie or some kind of phone, or we’re messaging—maybe I’m messaging with my phone—and I tell him, “Whenever I write, raise your hand.” Basically, there’s no force; it’s just that we have agreed, we have pre-arranged an agreement of what we are going to do. And that friend can actually sort of show if he wants to not go along with that—he might not go along with that—but let’s say we pre-agree to that, and we have an arranged agreement to trick the third friend. So with my phone, I tell him, “Every time I tell you ‘raise your arm’ with my phone, you raise your arm.” So I tell this third friend, “Look, whenever I raise my eyebrows, that friend over there is going to raise his arm.” As I raise my eyebrows, I write “raise your arm,” and the friend is going to raise his arm on another hill somewhere where he cannot hear us. And the third friend will be like, “Wait a minute, is there some kind of force which is causing it?” No, it’s just the pre-arranged agreement.

Coordinated Demonic Ideas: A Theoretical Case Study

As we can see, if there’s no way to explain witchcraft through forces because it doesn’t exist as a cause, it must be, by necessity, a pre-arranged agreement. So how can it happen? How can a pre-arranged agreement happen? I’ll show an example of how that pre-arranged agreement happens, or let’s call it coordinated ideas. We are coordinating some idea, and we’re kind of going to make it look like a force, like something is being caused. Let me take sort of an example of how witchcraft would have happened in practice in the past, or how in theory it can happen today—but then I’m going to show why it doesn’t happen actually.

Before I actually go to this example, let me explain, because I don’t want you guys to look at the graph before I sort of give the example. Let’s take an example: let’s say that a wife and a husband marry, and they both have an ex-boyfriend and an ex-girlfriend from the past. Now, let’s say the husband has married, and his ex-girlfriend—and by the way, I’m not sort of justifying any of these; all I’m saying is it can happen, it’s a thing which happens in practice—the ex-girlfriend of the husband cannot accept the fact that he got married. She hates him, or maybe she doesn’t hate him, maybe she’s still in love with him and she thinks she’s going to be in love with him, and she actually doesn’t want him to get married to someone else. So she goes to a sorcerer, to a person who practices witchcraft. In today’s world, I’m saying “practices” because it really is not real practice, but let’s say in the past—let’s say if we took an example of the past and put it today where witchcraft would really exist—and sort of see how it would work.

Let’s say in the past it would probably be an ex-wife instead of an ex-girlfriend. So let’s say the previous wife, she’s not happy that he got married again with someone better maybe, maybe her best friend or whatever—there’s something she doesn’t like about it. She goes to a sorcerer and she says, “I want you to cause my ex-husband to divorce. He has gotten married now; I don’t want that, I don’t like that marriage, I want them to divorce.” So the sorcerer, the person who practices witchcraft, says, “Oh, for this service, you’re going to have to pay, let’s say, $500.” Okay, she goes, gets the money, pays the dollars.

The Mechanism of Demon Worship and the Limits of Satan’s Power

Then how does it happen? How is it, quote-unquote, “caused”? It’s not really caused; it’s just a pre-arranged agreement. What happens there is that person, because he is a bad person—let me go to the graph now—that person talks to his demon.

And he might have unnecessary symbolism, like looking in the mirror, burning some coal, whatever they do—I don’t know what witchcraft practices typically are or how they are attempted to be done. But yeah, let’s say he has some kind of ritual. That ritual actually does nothing; it never did anything. The ritual is there so that he can serve the demon, so that the demon can agree to serve him. So the practice doesn’t do anything; it’s sort of demon worship. It’s not that it’s causing the witchcraft; it’s demon worship. So the person is agreeing to sell his soul to worship the demon with that practice so that the demon can sort of do something, can pay him back.

And by the way, none of this is automatically executed, because the Quran says that the demons have no power over human beings, so they cannot sort of cause things. No demon can ever cause anything. They cannot move this table, they cannot move something. Some of those things happened during Solomon’s times, but those are miracles; we’re talking outside of miracles. And by the way, we know that the last miracle was the mathematical miracle, so therefore we’re not talking about miracles here. Here we’re talking about real life without miracles, which is today.

Demons cannot do any of that; they cannot move the table, they cannot move the home, they cannot do anything. The Quran says they have no power, absolutely no power over you. The only power they have is to suggest ideas, give you ideas. Like for example, when I’m just walking down the street and I’m like, “Oh, maybe I should push this person so he will fall.” That’s an idea from a demon. Or maybe, “Oh, maybe I should skip the prayer today.” I think it is my idea, but the idea comes from the demon. So the only thing, the only power—it’s not even a power that the demons have—is to suggest, to give you an idea. But they are going to make it look like a force—I’ll explain how. And you are absolutely free to choose whether you want to listen to the demon or not. So the demons are not causing anything. The demon is just giving you an idea, and then you choose whether you want to listen to the demon or not.

Probability of Evil Actions in a Depraved Society

Now, in this example here, as you can see, I put 0.9 in all the arrows. What does this 0.9 represent? I’m assuming here that all these people and these demons and the probability of these actions is 0.9. Basically, I’m assuming that this example is in a society where people are 90% bad. Every time a demon gives you an idea, nine times out of ten you listen, you like the idea, so you do it. The demon doesn’t force you to do anything bad; the demon gives you the idea only. But if you’re a bad person in a bad society in the past where people on average are 90% bad—let’s say Sodom and Gomorrah, or Babylon, or whatever—if the people are on average 90% bad, there’s a 90% chance that they will listen to the demon. So technically, whatever—let’s say the demon gives ten ideas, nine of those ideas on average you will listen to, and in one of them you will not listen to because you just don’t like it. Maybe the idea is too extreme, too evil, or maybe the idea is not extreme enough, it’s not evil enough. So whatever it is, if the person is 90% bad, he’s going to listen to the demon 90% of the time; he’s going to like the demon’s idea 90% of the time. So this is that example of everyone listening to one another 90% of the time for a bad idea, if there’s a bad idea.

The Coordinated Chain of Suggestions

Let’s now explain how witchcraft would work. The ex-wife for example would go to the sorcerer. The sorcerer would tell the demon (he is technically worshiping him) : « I’m sort of doing this, I’m now your best friend, Can you please separate the husband and the wife? Can you please do that for me? » .He does not have to listen because he is also independent, but even the demon is 90% bad. So there’s a 90% chance that the demon will listen.

Now, this demon has to think : “How do I do this? How do I cause a wife and a husband to separate?” And he has an idea, which I call coordinated ideas. He says, “What if I go to the demon of the wife, basically the jinn of the wife? What if I go to the demon of the wife and tell him…”

Basically, this demon knows from these other demons what the weakness of the wife is, or what the weakness of the son of the wife is. Here, let’s imagine we have a family, we have :

• The wife.
• The son of the wife and the husband. 
• The manager. (let’s say the wife works somewhere)
• The ex of the wife. (though not the ex of the husband who ordered the sorcerer. She us not in this graph, she ordered the witchcraft, she is paying for the witchcraft)
• The husband. 

Technically, this demon -Demon 1- will have to think of a pre-arranged giving of ideas to all these demons so that they can all coordinate in a way where they will cause the separation of the husband and the wife.

 So the demon will be saying : “Wait a minute, how can I separate this wife and this husband? Okay, I know that a month ago the husband told her not to talk to her ex, and that was the last time she spoke to her ex. Fine. So if her ex calls her on the phone, she is not going to answer because she agreed to that.”

Demon 6 (Demon of the husband) told Demon 1 that the husband also told his friend that : « If she ever answers the phone call of the ex-husband again, I’m going to divorce her». Or maybe it’s just in his mind; the husband has decided in his mind, in his heart, that if she ever talks again to her ex, he is going to divorce her. It has come down to that.

Now, Demon 1, all he has to do is convince the wife to answer and talk to her ex when he calls her on the phone. So the demon is saying : “Wait a minute, under what condition would she answer her ex? Not in a normal condition. Maybe she should get fired; she will be desperate, and maybe because her ex has another business, she will think that maybe he will find another job for her, or maybe something like that.”

The Division of Roles Among the Jinn

Demon 1 thinks, “I’m quite sure if her son is around, the son of the husband and the wife, if her son is around, she’s not going to answer because she doesn’t want the son to hear the conversation. So I have to create a situation where the son is not home, the manager fires her, the ex calls her, and the husband hears that.” Kind of like the demon has to create that situation. He cannot do it physically; all he can do is give ideas.

So Demon 1 will tell Demon 3, which is the demon of the son, “Today, go and watch…” I don’t know, anime, whatever the teenagers do today. By the way, none of the demons can execute this through suggesting good ideas. Let’s say if Demon 3 wants to separate the son from his mom, he’s not going to say to “Oh, go do the prayer.” Because demon 3 is not going to agree to that, he is bad as well. The demon of the son (Demon 3) will say : «Wait a minute, why should the part which I suggest be the good part ? My mission in this life is to actually make the son bad. I do not care what you other duties are. You guys are trying to execute this coordinated scheme but why would I be part of it by suggesting something good ?»

Scriptural Context: The Kingdom of Satan

And There is a verse in the Bible about this where Jesus says Satan would never work against his kingdom, meaning that all the demons have to suggest something bad; they cannot suggest anything good. (Matthew 12:26 / Mark 3:26 / Luke 11:18)

So if Demon 3 wants to separate the son from his mom temporarily to go into another room or in a friend’s home or whatever, he cannot say : “Oh, why don’t you go do the prayer in this way your mom can be alone .” No, it doesn’t work like that. Demons never suggest anything good.

And this is very important, because some people think that we can use jinns for good things. Never. It’s always for bad things. So Demon 1 will tell Demon 3 : “Go tell the son some idea which separates him from his mom.”

So Demon 3 says : “Oh, wait a minute, I’ll tell him to go to his room, lock his room, and go on his phone to watch something bad.” If he’s a teenager, you can think of what it could be. So then the son says, “Oh, I have an idea, I’m going to go watch (whatever)” . Maybe he starts watching something violent, and then from that it turns into something else. And so the son has an idea: “I’m going to go into my room and I’m going to lock the door, I don’t want my mom to see.” So he goes there. Now the wife is alone.

Now Demon 1 tells Demon 4 (Demon of the manager of the women) : “Write an email to her telling her that she’s gotten fired.” So she had just received an email that she’s gotten fired. The manager probably hated her all along, but today he decided (Demon 4 told him the idea) : ”What if I fire her? Let me fire her.” So the manager fires her. Now the wife has no job and the son is not around.

Then Demon 1 tells Demon 5 (Demon of her ex-husband who has a business now) : “Go and drink in a bar” , because he knows every time he drinks,  he calls his ex-wife, who is now the wife of another husband. And what are the chances that he will listen? 90%, because he’s 90% evil. So this guy goes into a bar and drinks.

So :

• The son is not with his mom.
• The manager informed her that she lost her job.
• The ex who drank all night long in a bar calls her.

And then Demon 1 tells Demon 6 (Demon of the husband) who tells the husband : “When you go back home from your work to the husband, don’t inform her. Don’t knock on the door, try to surprise her. Go there without being noticed and see what she’s doing.” That’s also a bad idea; spying is a bad idea. A good husband will not try to catch his wife; he will try to kind of find solutions for his wife. But anyway, so Demon 1 tells Demon 6 : “When you go home, go in sneakily.”

The Illusion of Sorcery vs. The Reality of Social Pressure

And all of these criteria are now met. The husband catches his wife talking to her ex, and then he says : “No, I want a divorce.” And this now looks like this sorcerer had some kind of power. All it was was pre-arranged ideas. So it was done through social means rather than some kind of physical force. It is just pre-arranged ideas.

And by the way, there’s only a 90% chance in a society where people are on average 90% evil that they will actually be able to execute it. Because let’s say the manager might actually want to write the email, but the human resources do not allow him or something like that. So even sometimes when they agree to do it, when they think it’s a good idea, they might not be able to execute it. Or let’s say you want to go and steal; most of the time you will be afraid because there might be a police presence, you might get caught. So there’s also a chance that they might want to do whatever the demon suggest. Or they might not be able to because of social pressure or they are too afraid. Maybe someone is seeing him at that time. Maybe the son wants to go into his room and separate from his mom, but they don’t have a key, so he cannot lock the door. Maybe they don’t have a big home where they have separate rooms.

These are all on average. So assuming that on average these entities : (the demons, the wife, the son, the manager, the ex, the husband) are 90% evil in a society where 90% of the time evil is allowed, we can calculate what are the chances that witchcraft will work. Before we calculate it, let’s repent. Toubou ila Allah.

Statistical Probability of Witchcraft Success

Praise be to God, there is no other god except God. Now let’s calculate what are the chances that this sorcerer—the witchcraft worked, in practice it worked. Let’s calculate it.

So we have a 0.9 chance that the demon will listen to the sorcerer; we have a 0.9 chance that Demon 2 will listen to Demon 1; 0.9 chance that Demon 3 will listen to Demon 1, and so on; 0.9 chance that the wife will listen to Demon 2; 0.9 chance that the wife will be able to execute it. And so all of these, we’re average—this is average in a society where people are on average 90% bad. So how do we calculate what are the chances that all of these will be successful, all of these suggestions will be executed? And then we calculate—whoever knows statistics, this is how we calculate it. So basically, we multiply this:

We’ll multiply all of these and you get the probability of how successful this whole thing can be as a total. And let’s see how many of these we have—how many arrows basically: one, two, three, four, five, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. So basically, 0.9 times 0.9, 16 times, which is:

0.9¹⁶ ≈ 0.18

So there’s an 18% chance that the witchcraft works in this scenario. So in a society where people are on average 90% evil, there’s an 18% chance that witchcraft works. Basically, when someone goes and pays for the witchcraft, it works one in five times—about one in five times.

The Impact of Civilized Systems and Global Force Behavior

Now, I’ve shown in the video, The Global Forced Behaviour, that people today (the good and the bad people) are less extreme, meaning that the bad people are not 90%-100% bad, but at most 75% bad, it’s going to reach 70% bad. So 30% is forced, meaning that it’s controlled totally by governments and it’s within a civilized system that allows people to be only 70% bad in maximum. Here in this example, the maximum is 100%, but they are on average being 90% bad. But in today’s world (in reality like the actual world today) the maximum that a person can potentially be bad is 70%, not 100%. Because 30% is forced. (meaning that 30% is shared between good people and bad people)

So basically, bad people (criminals) cannot go and just steal and kill because the police will catch them, and good people cannot go and do extremely good deeds because again the police will catch them (the police catch both the good guys and the bad guys sometimes), or whatever the reason is. So what I’m saying is that today people are forced, and there’s no escape from it. The world has reached a level where people can be at a maximum 70% bad, not 100%, and no one reaches the maximum.

Let’s assume that we reach close to the maximum; instead of 70%, 60%. Let’s say that we live in a society where people are on average 60% bad. Let’s take this same example and see what would be the chance of witchcraft working today in the actual world, not in theory, because whatever I told so far is in theory. In theory, this witchcraft (because people are 90% bad) had an 18% chance that it would work.

However, let’s see in practice today :

So on average in this same example, we are assuming that people and the demons and everything in today’s world are 60% bad. So the society, which sort of determines the actions, will allow people to be 60% evil. These people are on average 60% evil, and these jinns (demons) are also about 60% evil because they have been forced by these people to be 60% evil because otherwise they cannot sort of have a coordination. And because all the averages are all about 60%, we have the chance that Demon 1 will listen to the sorcerer is 60%.

So now we have the same example, the only difference is that all these entities in this graph are 60% evil instead of 90%.

So let’s calculate that again. How did we calculate it? We multiplied all of these, which means that it is the same as saying 0.6 to the power of 16. Let’s calculate it again.

0.6¹⁶ ≈ 0.0002

Let’s go to the calculator, and remember last time it was an 18% chance. Let’s see now: 0.6 to the power of 16 is 0.0002. A 0.0002 chance, meaning less—that means one in 5,000.

The Statistical Insignificance of Modern Sorcery

So basically, the probability that witchcraft will work in a society where people are on average 60% evil is one in 5,000. That scientifically cannot even be proven, because the chances that the wife and the husband would divorce without witchcraft are even higher. Basically, the wife and the husband probably have a 10% divorce rate anyway within that year, and you went to the sorcerer, you paid for it, now it’s 10.0002%. How did that change anything? So basically, it just did not work.

Do you see what I mean? It’s like saying : “Oh, I’m going to eat in my whole life one spoon of sugar less, and I hope I lose weight.” How are you going to lose weight if you just remove one spoon of sugar in your whole life and never again? How is that going to cause you to lose weight? So even though in theory witchcraft exists. And I’m being generous here, I’m assuming that the people are 60% evil, which is almost the maximum, on average it is much less than that because there is good in that society. There’s good people; maybe this son is a believer, so that would be not a 60% chance, that will be a 10% chance or maybe a 30% chance that he will listen to the demon. And most of today’s societies are mixed : good people and bad people; there is good people in some families, bad people, stuff like that. So it’s mixed at work, in family, etc.

So this is the best-case scenario for the demons if they get lucky with this scenario, they will still not be able to execute this coordinated scheme; they will only be able to execute it one in 5,000 times. And who tries 5,000 times just for this? For that, they are not going to even try it because it’s easier to just let them be, and there’s a 10% chance of divorce anyway. And you cannot prove scientifically that witchcraft exists today because of something which we call the statistical significance levels, and basically we ignore that last 5%, and there is no way to prove it because it’s less than that; it is 0.0002 today in the best-case scenario.

But in a real scenario, it’s probably like one in a million. So if anyone pays for witchcraft, they have to try one million times for it to work, and no demon would agree to waste his time one million times for one thing when he can go on and do other things. Basically, even the demons will give up; they’ll just kind of try to do other, different things. Basically, witchcraft does not work today. It just does not work.

Projections for the Next Century

Let’s take something in the future.

Because the global force behavior will force people not to be as evil, but also the good people will not be as good. So let’s say take the best-case scenario for demons—by best-case scenario I mean like the worst-case scenario for humanity, the best-case scenario for the demons—let’s say 100 years from now when, let’s say, people will be 30% good or 30% bad, sorry. In this scenario, let’s calculate, let’s go to the calculator again:

0.3¹⁶ ≈ 0.000000004

0.3 to the power of 16, that’s 0.0000… I don’t know how many zeros, but it’s probably almost like four in a billion, if not more.

So basically, a demon would not even agree to this because it’s a waste of time. Why would the demon waste his time with this sort of pre-arranged idea when he has better things to do? Demons cannot cause anything, but they can just shoot bad ideas in the dark. Instead of coordinating it, the demon (Demon 3) can say : “Oh, I’m just going to tell the son to do something bad. I don’t have to arrange it with Demon 1. Why should I even arrange it? It’s not even going to work, it’s one in a billion. Why should I even try?”  If I told you that there’s a one in a billion chance that you’ll catch a fish if you fish, will you even try, or will you just say : “Actually, I’m just going to go to the market and buy fish” ? That’s much easier, much better for you.

So because people today are not bad enough to have a relationship with the demons, witchcraft does not exist. Anyone who says that they know how to do witchcraft or whatever, it just doesn’t work; It is fake witchcraft; it does not exist in practice. In theory it does, but in practice it does not.

The Quranic Proof: The End of Saints and Anti-Saints

And by the way, this is just a statistical way of proving why it does not exist in practice, why no one practices witchcraft for real. The Quranic way would be to say that just like there are very good people which we call saints and they are supported with miracles, there are bad people who worship jinns and they could have coordinated ideas to hurt people. And there are no saints anymore today. Why? There are no saints because the last miracle is the mathematical miracle. No more miracles means no more saints.

Dispensational Context: The Mathematical Miracle

Since the time of Rashad Khalifa, there were no more saints which means no more miracles, and on the other side of the spectrum that means no more anti-saints (if we can call them that). We can think of the sorcerers as anti-saints, people who are the opposite of saints. And because miracles do not exist, witchcraft also does not exist.

Basically, to simplify it, because miracles don’t exist, witchcraft does not exist. I mean, the mathematical miracle does exist, but it’s spread all over. Just like witchcraft does exist, but it’s spread in every person a little bit, so everyone is doing it a tiny bit, but no one is really doing it. So there’s no witchcraft practice; there’s no person who can say, “Oh, this person knows how to do witchcraft,” or “I know how to do witchcraft.” They’re all lying; they don’t know how to do it. But everyone is doing it a little bit unintentionally because, by chance, some demons sometimes will listen to you and you might listen to the demons; it’s just pure chance. There’s no way it’s any more significant—statistically significant—than random chance. Husbands will separate from their wives, people will get cancer, all of that, but it’s just shooting in the dark.

Practical Analogies: The Changing Impact of Sorcery

And the best way, probably, to explain for people who don’t know statistics is to give examples. But before I give examples, let me summarize it. So, the chances of witchcraft working before the Industrial Revolution—and why the Industrial Revolution? Because that’s when the Industrial Revolution led to bigger governments, and bigger governments forced people to do things like they can force people to have a certain lifestyle that brings the bad people and good people, makes them more similar. So before the Industrial Revolution, which was in the 1800s, the chances of witchcraft working were 18% (0.18). In our times, it’s about 0.0002%, which is much less than anything else, than things happening by chance. Basically, if a husband and a wife—I’m repeating myself—if a husband and a wife have a 10% chance of divorcing in the first year, increasing that by 0.0002%, so now it’s 10.0002%, it’s not going to change anything. That’s for today. And in about 100 years from now, it’s going to be a 0.000004% chance, whatever—it doesn’t even matter, it’s just zero, almost zero percent chance that witchcraft will work in the future.

Now, some people don’t know what these numbers mean much, so let me give you an example to show you why witchcraft doesn’t work—just examples.

The Historical Analogy (Before the 1800s)

Let’s say the example of the likelihood that the witchcraft will work through the sorcerer before the Industrial Revolution: Let’s say you have a neighbor and there is a wall separating you, you don’t see them. Like in many traditional cultures, they have walls which separate one neighbor from another neighbor’s yard. So they don’t see each other but they can hear him and say: “Oh, the neighbor went out of his home because I can hear him coughing” or “I can hear whatever.”

So let’s say you’re waiting for the neighbor to be on the other side of the wall, and throwing a few arrows towards his yard and hoping that they will fall on your neighbor, that they will kill him. The chances of witchcraft in the past were like that, just throwing arrows and hoping that your neighbor will die from those arrows. It was small, but at least it can work by chance.

We concluded that it was about 18% in very bad societies, which is not low actually. If you try it five times, it might work. By “work” ,it’s a bad thing. God will punish you in the end for doing it. But at least we could say that there was witchcraft practice.

The Modern Analogy (Today)

Now in today’s world, the example is like this: it’s like smoking a cigarette in your home and hoping that your neighbor who lives in another home across the street will get lung cancer from it. What are the chances? (So this is people who engage in witchcraft, or even witchcraft defense-there’s no such thing-). Just being a good person, not being in that diagram in a bad society is good enough. And worshiping God of course is good enough to protect us from witchcraft.

It’s so hopeless today that witchcraft will work. The people who think that they are doing witchcraft are like someone who smokes a cigarette and hopes that his neighbor will get lung cancer. How is he going to get lung cancer? The smoke has to go through the windows of the neighbor. What are the chances then that it’s going to go exactly into that cell which will cause the cancer? People smoke all their life and sometimes they don’t get cancer (20-30 cigarettes a day or 100. I don’t know how many they smoke). They do all of that, and still maybe or maybe not that they will get cancer. It’s still a bad thing, but it’s not going to work if you just smoke yourself and hope that your neighbor will get cancer.

The Future Analogy (100 Years from Now)

And a hundred years from now, the third example is like this: witchcraft is as effective as smoking a cigarette in your home and hoping that your neighbor who is not even in his home, will get lung cancer from it. So let’s say the neighbor moved out of town and you’re like : “Oh, I’m going to smoke a cigarette because I want to hurt my neighbor, so I have a strategy: I’m going to smoke a cigarette and hopefully the secondhand smoke will go through the window. It doesn’t matter, I’m going to open the window. Hopefully a tiny bit of that smoke will go to his home, and hopefully he’s going to inhale it, and then it’s going to cause him cancer.”

He’s not even home! So maybe some of that smoke will go up in the clouds and come down to him in another town and cause cancer to him. It’s very unlikely. It exists in theory; we can say : “Oh, that smoke can go in the clouds, through the rain it will come down, some of those chemicals can go to him, he might drink it.” In theory it does exist, but what are the chances that you caused it? Almost zero. What are the chances that the sorcerer caused it? Zero. So the conclusion is witchcraft today in practice does not exist.

Smart Sociopaths vs. Dumb Sociopaths

Let me now analyze what type of people do witchcraft today, because we can see it doesn’t work : It’s dumb disbelievers. In the past, it was at least high-IQ disbelievers (people who are evil, but they knew that they were evil). Today, people who try witchcraft, they are just dumb.

Misattributed Adage: The Definition of Insanity

There’s a saying, I think, which is attributed to Einstein, but I don’t think Einstein said it. It goes something like: “Crazy people or idiots are those who do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.”

So these people who engage in witchcraft (usually religious people in different countries) all they are is dumb. They don’t even do it; they think they are doing it. They are just repeating the same thing, it doesn’t even work. And there’s a verse in the Quran for such people, it says : they lose both this life and the next life, meaning that it didn’t even work in this life and it’s bad in the next life.

And why is it bad? Because as that person thinks that he is going to get the jinn (the demon) to work for him, it’s actually that the demon would have done that bad deed anyway (maybe not at that exact time or in the exact way, but he would love to do it anyway). All that this person is doing is serving the demon, to think that he’s going to get some favors. So in reality, it is the sorcerer who is working for the demon. So basically, they are selling their soul for a promise from a demon, and the demon cannot even do it because we just proved that the chances are so low. So they get nothing in this world out of it, plus in the next world God will tell them : “Oh, you worshiped the demon.” So they get nothing in this world, nothing in the next world, because they are dumb and evil.

At least the people in the past (I’m not saying they were better, they were actually worse) they were smart and evil. The witchcraft actually worked, so it was the smart people who did it. So basically, the difference between people who do witchcraft today and people who did witchcraft in the past is that the people in the past who did witchcraft were smart sociopaths, and generally, people who do witchcraft today are dumb sociopaths. It doesn’t even work; they just think it works. Both smart sociopaths and dumb sociopaths are evil, but one of them at least knows what he’s doing, the other doesn’t even know what he’s doing. So it doesn’t work and it’s totally dumb to do witchcraft.

The Modern Alternative: Technology and Espionage

The question is: what would smart sociopaths do today? Because they are not doing witchcraft; they’ve left the witchcraft behind. It doesn’t work. They’ve tried it, it doesn’t work. They’ve tried, “Oh, let me ask the jinn…” It doesn’t work. The husband and the wife would divorce anyway; “I didn’t increase the chances, it was 10% then, now it’s 10% again, so what’s the point?” The smart sociopaths go into some other field because they realize witchcraft doesn’t work. The dumbo sociopaths basically have inherited a tradition which doesn’t work anymore.

The smart sociopaths have moved into other fields. So basically, someone who would have done witchcraft in the past, if you take that same type of person and put him today, he would probably be in the CIA, KGB, whatever MI—whatever the UK version is, or the Korean version of the CIA is. So what they do today is they influence people and situations through coordinated ideas, but actually at least they work, sort of, partly.

So basically, smart sociopaths have given up on witchcraft because it doesn’t work. They do other stuff today; they are in the CIA, spies behind the wall, kind of like influencers in the social media things like that. By the way, the reason why witchcraft is totally dumb today is because you can do—not only doesn’t it work, but you can have better effects, if there’s any such—if it worked, better effects with just a fake account. Basically, everything I showed here, you can do with a fake account without using demons.

So instead of using Demon 1, you create a fake account, and then you tell the manager to—but oh, by the way, it might not work because they will not listen, but it’s the same as with the jinn, they don’t have to listen. So let’s say if there’s a 60% chance that the manager will listen to the demon, you can create a fake account and tell the manager, “I saw this employee kiss an employer.” And then you can create—with another fake account, you can contact the son pretending to be his friend and tell him that his mom is cheating or whatever, or you can create a fake account.

So basically, the type of person who would have done witchcraft in the past, that sort of impulse today is done through fake accounts, and that’s why when people contact me with fake accounts, I call them the jinn names, like with fake names. Let’s say they create another account with a different name and they want to know something from me, sometimes people will contact me like that with fake accounts. I tell them, “Is this your jinn name?” It’s partly true, partly a joke, partly a way to sort of put them down because they deserve it. But yeah, fake accounts are a modern way of executing these ideas—not through jinns, but through technology—because basically, you can do a lot of this through technology.

And by the way, it’s not as bad, actually; a fake account is not as bad because the likelihood that a fake account will convince the wife or the son or the manager to do that thing is very low, while the likelihood that the demon will convince them is much higher because they don’t know where it comes from. Plus, the likelihood that you’ll get caught by the police if it’s a bad, really bad thing, a bad crime—the likelihood that you get caught is really high. So it’s not worth it. If it’s a small crime, should you even do it? It doesn’t have any effect.

So what I’m saying is basically the way witchcraft worked in the past is as if though you had a fake account, fake names, and tried to influence, to give ideas to different groups, or try to convince people of some things—like create a fake photo. So that does happen today a lot, by the way, and those people, I can say that they are like—it’s their jinn version which is doing that.

Closing Remarks

So yeah, that’s pretty much it. Let me summarize: witchcraft in practice doesn’t exist today. If anything, the people who would have done witchcraft in the past now have moved to the CIA, KGB, and stuff like that, and it’s only the dumb people who are doing it, which doesn’t even work because dumb people do things which don’t work. And that’s it, yeah.

And unfortunately, this time I cannot engage with chats because my phone is not connected to the chats to the website. It’s a long story because I’m in my sister’s home, actually. Okay, so that’s it. God willing, we’ll talk again during the next Friday. Those who have to do the contact prayer, do the contact prayer, and the rest of you, peace be upon you.

 

Friday Sermon by: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director