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Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. If you are watching this video, because a believer whom you know has died and you wish to know how to do the Funeral Contact Prayer for him or her, first of all let me express my condolences to you, and to the persons’ family. However, because this is a prayer which happens rarely, it is supposed to be known and lead only by Congregation Directors, and if you don’t have an Authorized Local Congregation Director to lead you in the Funeral Contact Prayer, feel free to skip to the video in the end of this article where you will be lead in the Funeral Prayer.

But let me explain this prayer for the purposes of general understanding anyway. The Funeral Contact Prayer is a prayer which is mentioned in the Quran in verse 9:84, and it should be done as it was traditionally done by the Muslims, although a few parts of it change according to the circumstances.

So, now let’s imagine that a person named John Doe died. If he was not part of our congregation, which means that he did not mobilize or organize with us, then we do not observe the funeral contact prayer for him, according to verses 9:71 through 9:84. We should only organize Funeral Contact Prayers for submitters and dependent submitters of our congregation.  If he was a family member of one of us, but he was not a submitter or a dependent of one of us, you as the family member may talk to God about him to express your emotions, pray to God to potentially forgive him, or you can pray to God with a conditional prayer, something like “if he was a believer, please God forgive him”, or things like that, but we do not organize an official Funeral Contact Prayer for that person. He belonged to another congregation, whichever it was and let that congregation deal with it. You may express your condolences to the family members when a person from another religious community dies, but again we do not organize Funeral Contact Prayers for people who do not belong in our congregation.

Jesus said in the Bible, “Let the dead bury their own dead.”

Now, let’s imagine that the person named John Doe is part our congregation, either a submitter or a dependent of a submitter. The person in our congregation who hears about it first informs the Congregation Director. Then the Congregation Director informs everyone in the congregation by sending an official email to everyone, and if the congregation is one of the 12 online congregations, he sends them this video to lead them in that prayer, and each member in that congregation does the Funeral Prayer after they receive the email. Each of them does it separately, because it is not practical for an online congregation to get together in the same location. Each of them performs ablution and does the Funeral Contact Prayer. The whole community of submitters does not need to do it. Only the people who are in the same online congregation as the deceased person.

Now, if Jon Doe was part of non-online local congregation, then again the local Congregation Directors is informed. He informs everyone in the congregation, and then he also informs them at what time and place the burial will be held, and then tells them whether the Funeral Contact Prayer will be done at the burial place, or whether it will be done beforehand at another location, where the casket is waiting, like at the yard of the mosque, or maybe there is some kind of institution which deals with these issues, but not inside the mosque. Then the people gather at that time and place, and the Congregation Director leads the Funeral Contact Prayer.

Now, here is how the Funeral Contact Prayer is done:

Unlike the other Contact Prayers, during the whole Funeral Contact Prayer, there are no bowings and prostrations. The whole Funeral Contact Prayer is done standing up. So, let’s say that John Doe has died. There are 10 steps which we need to follow:

1. We performed ablution at our homes
2. Then, at the prayer location, we face the Qiblah, and we make the intention: “We intend to do the funeral contact prayer for John Doe.”
3. We say, “Allahu Akbar”
4. The first Surah of the Quran is recited by the prayer leader.
5. We say, “Allahu Akbar” again
6. We ask God to bless the close ones of John Doe.
7. We say, “Allahu Akbar” again
8. We ask God to forgive John Doe.
9. We say, “Allahu Akbar” again
10. We say “As-Salamu Alaykum” while turning our head to the right side, and then again “As-salamu Alaykum” while turning our heads to the left.

And that’s it, the official Funeral Contact Prayer for John Doe is done.

So, the whole prayer consists of saying “Allahu Akbar” four times, and after each time we say something. After the first time, the prayer leader recites the first Sura of the Quran. After the second one we seek God’s blessings for the loved ones of the deceased. After the third one, we ask God to forgive the deceased. And after the fourth one, we say the Salams.

Now, “Allahu Akbar”, Sura 1, and the Salams are said aloud in Arabic, while everything else is said silently in your own language, and in your own words, the way you feel at that moment, not preplanned.

Now, the question is, “How do we know that this is the correct way to do the Funeral Contact Prayer?” Well, given that the Quran in the Arabic calls this a Contact Prayer, and given that all Contact Prayers are guaranteed to be preserved by God in the Abrahamic Tradition, then this, as a contact prayer was preserved as an Abrahamic Tradition, and therefore it reached us without being lost. Someone might say, does this mean that every tradition, which exists among Muslims is true? Well, no, because the Quran gives us this guarantee only about the Contact Prayers, Zakat, Fasting, and Hajj, but not about the other traditions. And, because the Quran calls the Funeral Contact Prayer, a Contact Prayer, then it must be within that protected tradition. The people may choose to call other things Contact Prayers, but if the Quran does not call it a Contact Prayer, then it is not within the Abrahamic Tradition. So, because the Quran calls it a Contact Prayer in Arabic, it puts it within the preserved Abrahamic Tradition, and therefore we can know how to do it from the tradition of Abraham’s descendants. Now, of course, God allows things to be added to these traditions, but he guarantees that nothing will be lost. So, this is the tradition, and we know for sure that nothing was lost, but how can we know that nothing was added, because that guarantee does not exist in the Quran? Keeping something preserved means that nothing was lost, but it does not mean that nothing was added on top of it. Well, if something was added, it will contradict the Quran, because the Quran completely covers everything we need to know about religion. So, let’s just check them one by one, and see if any of these points contradicts the Quran.

So, point 1, does not contradict the Quran. It is actually found in the Quran, in verse 5:6, which tells us to perform ablution before the Contact Prayer, and the Funeral Contact Prayer, is called a Contact Prayer in the Arabic Quran, so it also applies to it.

Points 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, and 10, also exist in the regular Contact Prayer, which we already know that these points are not against the Quran.

The only different points from the regular Contact Prayer are point 6, and 8. So, are these points against the Quran? Let’s start with point 6, asking God to bless the close ones of the deceased. God willing, this is explained in a video clarification titled “The flow of blessings”, where among others it is explained how when a believer dies, and is blessed in Heaven, that blessing is proportional to the increase in blessings of the close ones of that person who are left in this world. And this is in most cases reflected in the inheritance. When a father dies for example, the children (among the closest ones), are blessed with more wealth because of the inheritance which they receive, but this flow of blessings is true even in cases when it is not reflected in the inheritance.  So, this is true, no matter what, and inheritance is just one example of it. Verse 3:171 tells us that when the believers die, they have good news about the other organized believers here on earth about God’s blessings and grace. And knowing this, it is a perfect opportunity to pray for it beforehand, because God says that the prayers of the believers are answered, and by praying for it beforehand, we make sure that we deserve those blessings. And the close people of the deceased can be anyone, especially those whom the deceased respected due to religious reasons. And when the submitters during Muhammad’s time, when Muhammad was alive in this world, implemented this principle, they would pray for God to bless Muhammad first, because the Quran says in verse 33:6 that the prophet was closer to the believers than they are to each other. So, Muhammad was the closest person to any believer who died during his time, and because we have to pray to God to bless the closest of the deceased, that would mean that they had to pray to God to bless Muhammad, and to this day, this is how the Muslims implement this part of the prayer. However, they are forgetting that the verse 33:6 says “the prophet”, and anywhere in the Quran whenever Muhammad is referred to as the prophet, it is always during his lifetime, and not after his death. This is already known. So, it was perfectly correct to ask God to bless Muhammad during the Funeral Contact Prayer of any believer during Muhammad’s time, because we are supposed to pray to God to bless the closest people of the deceased, and the closest person (or the most beloved) to any believer during the time of Muhammad was Muhammad himself, but they had live meaningful interactions with him, which is why they felt close to him. They weren’t respecting him as some kind of mystical figure whom they never met, like they do it today. They really felt close to him. While today, the true believers should feel as close to Muhammad as to any other prophet of the past, because we did not meet any of them, including Muhammad, and they are equally beloved to us, and if we distinguish Muhammad in the prayer, when clearly all the other prophets have the same merits as prophets, then we are making a distinction between God’s messengers, and this is prohibited in the Quran. So, if the believers feel emotionally closer to a messenger compared to the other messengers, that can only happen when that messenger is with them alive. So, today it would ironically be correct during a funeral contact prayer to ask God to bless Alban, and also the other close believers, but only if you met Alban. This part of the prayer should be done silently anyway, and everyone does it in his own words, and people should not discuss with each other how to do it, or how they did it. They just internally ask God to bless the closest people of the deceased, silently, and whether they mentioned Alban while he was alive, that should never be known, and which other close ones of the deceased person they mentioned, that is their own choice, and a momentary internal expression of emotions and thoughts. However, if they mention Alban in a person’s funeral prayer when he never met Alban, that would be indirect idol-worship. But anyway, the rule in points 6 here is to pray to God to bless the closest people of the deceased person, and how that is expressed in words in different times changes depending on the circumstances, depending on who the people think were the closest people to the deceased person.

Now, let’s talk about point 8 here, asking God to forgive the deceased person. According to verse 47:19, we should ask God to forgive the believers. So, point 8 also is not against the Quran, and actually it is implied from verse 9:80, that asking God to forgive the deceased believers is part of the Funeral Contact Prayer, because within the same discussion, the Funeral Contact Prayer is mentioned a few verses later.

So, this is how the Funeral Contact Prayer should be done, and if a submitter in your online congregation has died, you are obliged to do the Funeral Contact Prayer for him or her, and if you do not a have an officially appointed local Congregation Director, which was appointed through Alban, then you may use the portion of the video below to be led by Alban as your Online Congregation Director.

After performing ablution, face the Qiblah, turn the following portion of the video on, and just repeat after Alban. The parts which should be spoken loudly are spoken loudly in the video, and the parts which should be said silently are written in the video, and you can just fill in the blanks in your mind with people’s names.

Let’s begin:

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. In most cases in today’s world you will find two ways in how people approach groups in this world. Some of them, who generally have post-modern ways of thinking, see all groups as relative, and they simply are trying to navigate their way in this world seeing where it will suit them the best, without any real loyalty for any group. And then there are others, completely on the other side of the spectrum, whom I like to call fanatics, who see the world as only two groups, and they will try to be loyal to one group, and everyone else who does not belong in that group is wrong in all aspects. So, they think that one group is completely right, and all the other people are completely wrong. And the third approach, which is neither a post-modern approach, and neither a fanatic approach, is what I call the well-informed modern approach, which is the correct approach for today, because today there are multiple dimensions to any group. Some groups might be right for some things, other groups might be right for other things, some groups might be right for most things, and other groups might be wrong for most things, and there are other groups which are always equally right and wrong, which stems from their organizational structure, if it is a democratic structure, in which case, no matter where it started, it will always push the group towards being equally right and wrong, but that’s another issue for another time, but here let us just concentrate on the groups in general and how they can be measured in multiple dimensions, and not only in one dimension. And when it comes to how we deal with those groups, the Quran has a very simple answer: Verse 5:2 in the Quran says, “You shall cooperate in matters of righteousness and piety, but do not cooperate in matters that are sinful and evil…”

For example:

We share our religious methodology with the Quranists, but not necessarily their results, because they are almost always based on a partial study of the Quran. They reach full conclusions from partial studies.

We share our worship practices with the Submitters – us – but not necessarily all our opinions.

We share the way we do the Contact Prayers with half-submitters, but not necessarily their disorienting ideas on how to organize.

We share some places of worship with the Sunnis and the Shias, but not necessarily all their worship practices.

We share many aspects of our honesty with the Christians, but not necessarily their worship practices.

We share our fundamental laws with the Jews, and actually almost all the legal details, if we just understood how they apply in our new circumstances.

We share our basic understanding of organized religion with the Orthodox Christians, but not our understanding of religion itself.

We share our appreciation for the importance of unity with the Catholics.

We share our appreciation for God’s scriptures with the Protestants.

We share our appreciation for facts with the scientists.

We share our streets and public places with socialists and communists.

We don’t share anything with capitalists, because they don’t like to share. Just kidding. Just kidding. We share our trade with the capitalists, and other business aspects.

We share our money with the poor.

We share our work with the rich.

We share our food, our laughter, private discussions, maybe some gossip, and some other private matters with our families.

We share our ultimate fate in this world with our ancestors – death, but not necessarily their way of life, and not necessarily our fate in the next life, Heaven or Hell.

We share our belief in God with the believers.

And here is what we don’t share. We will not share Heaven with the disbelievers. Verse 7:50 says, “The dwellers of Hell will call on the dwellers of Paradise, and say: “Let some of your water, or some of GOD’s provisions to you flow towards us.” They will say, “GOD has forbidden them for the disbelievers.”

And hopefully, we will share heaven with each other, and with the angels.

And we will share our happiness with God. God will be pleased with us, and we will be pleased with Him.

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. If you watch movies about very ancient history before Christ, you can notice that generally the movies will portray one army or one nation as the good nation and the other one as the bad nation, and according to movie logic the whole world in the past consisted of definitely good nations and definitely bad nations, kind of split in half. However, the reality is different. Before Christ, there were three groups of people. The only good nation were the Children of Israel, and all the other nations were bad nations, except for the Greeks and the Romans who were neither bad, neither good – neutral, and usually other nations were neutral only in passing, while they transitioned from bad to good or from good to bad. But, the ancient Greeks and Romans were long term neutral nations. And by neutral, we mean between good and evil. And their neutrality between good and evil stemmed from the fact that the Greeks and the Romans discovered democracy, which in the Roman version was called “republic”. Democracy and the republic fundamentally mean the same thing, with minor differences. Democracy in Greek means “the rule of the people”, and republic in Latin means “from the people”. Basically, the idea is that the final decision is not made by one king, but by the people.

Now, because the other nations were kingdoms, the will of the king was the will of the nation, and if the king was a bad person, his will prevailed, and the whole nation was forced to be bad, or good individuals were forced to leave, and if the king was a good person, because the will of the king ruled, the nation was forced to be a good nation, and the bad individuals were pressured to leave. So, only true kingdoms can be good or bad, but true democracies are always neutral. So, in a democracy, the will of all the people is the will of the nation, and because statistically chances are that you will get the same proportion of good and bad people as there are in the whole world, then the good and the bad people are in balance. Actually, there are 10 times as many bad people as there are good people, but because a good deed produces 10 times as good results, as a bad deed produces bad results, in that case a nation which consists of ratio of 10 bad people to any good person is in a balance between good and evil. Equal good and evil, neutral.

Now, or course, because the states do not rule every aspect of our lives, it still allows for individual variations, to have good and bad people within that same state, but the common will of the whole nation, any democratic nation is always equally good and evil. And this neutrality of the will of nations has happened only twice in history. The first case is during the Ancient Greeks and Romans which happened from around the fifth century before Christ until just before Christ. And the second time that this happens is in our times starting with the U.S. constitution in U.S. and the French Revolution in Europe, which happened within a few years. Now, because, democracies are stochastic systems, and not specific events, they can be quite predictable, and we can use the democracies of the past to predict what will happen with democracies of today.

So, what happened to the democracies of the past? They ultimately turned into an oligarchy, and then after a few complots and schemes and murders, they turned into a tyranny or empire with an emperor, and at the end of that, the Messiah came. And, if you’ve been wondering why did God send Jesus at that time, it is to tell us when the Messianic age will come. So, the Messiah came first after democracies ended, as soon as they turned into a tyranny. And this is to tell us that the Messianic age will come after these democracies will turn into a tyranny. And you might say, “How do we know that democracies will turn into tyranny again?” Well, actually, the first time, they did not have to, but this time they have no other choice. Here is why. As we said , the bad nations cause problems, the good nations solve problems, but democracies have this weird feature, they simply postpone problems. They don’t solve them, and they don’t cause them. They just postpone them. That’s how the system is built in a democracy. If a person who is elected in a democracy tries to solve a problem, he will have to cause suffering initially among the people, and they will outvote him out of the government, and if he causes problems, again they will outvote him, so the best option, and very often the only option for any elected official is to find a way to change things in such a way to simply postpone that problem (while on the surface appearing to have solved it) and leave it to the next elected official to solve it, who will again not solve it, but simply postpone it. Now, eventually these problems from all sides will face one another, and postponing one of them will mean directly facing the other, and vice-versa, and all the problems eventually will gather to one ultimate point, and there is no way to postpone them anymore. At that point, people will see that democracy is not useful anymore, and they will rather choose technocracy which will lead to tyranny to avoid the problems just a little bit more, and so they will go from the frying pan into the fire, and the final “solution” is to blame the believers, and the world will end, and the Messianic age will come.

Now, why does the Messiah come after democracies? Well, it’s because the Messianic age is a system of governance, and people are let to try all methods of governance to show that while Satan is there, there is no way you can make it work, no matter how you try it. And, then democracies are simply a way to show that not only a certain king could not solve the problems of the people, but if all the people were involved into the decision making, the problems would still exist, and once and for all it will be proven that involving all the people, and all their efforts, which is the culmination of democracy, it will still not solve the human problems. Death and suffering will still exist, for as long as evil people and Satan are involved. And after all attempts fail, then God sends the Messiah to tell us which is the only clean attempt which works, and the only attempt which works is to fully listen to God’s word, and the Messiah is a representation of God’s word, and only then can we have peace on earth without problems. Of course, this will not happen before 2280.

And by the way, what we just explained is explained in a few words in the Quran. The Quran in the Arabic says in Sura 30, verses 2 through 4, “The Romans have been defeated, in the land of this lowest world, but after their defeat, they will rise again, within several years. The command belongs to God before it and after it – twice. And that day will rejoice the believers.”

Now, these verses have seven meanings, but what we explained in this sermon is the most important meaning, because it is the overarching meaning. It covers all the other meanings. This meaning does not explain one specific event about the Romans. It’s a description of all the history of the Roman Republic who were a democratic community. So, here it is actually talking about the democracy as well. So, these verses are telling us all the history of democracy in the past and the future. So, democracy existed before, and then it ended, and now it has come back again, and it will end again, just a few years before the end of the world. And this is all the history of democracy, if we had to say it in two sentences, and each time after democracies go bad and end, God sends the Messiah. The first time to suffer, so that he can deserve to be the most prominent human in the next world, and the second time to fulfill that already earned prominence so that God can show the world what is the perfect system of governance.

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. About one third of the world believe in astrology. And one of the reasons why it is popular is because people assume that since it has been in existence for such a long time, and many people believe in it, it must be true. And the reason why it has existed for such a long time is because it started actually as a very small observation of truth, but then everything after that is false. In the past, before people knew about the orbit of the earth and how the solar system works, all they knew is that for every time that the moon becomes new, the sun has moved further in the sky relative to the stars by one twelfth of the sky, and so they divided the sky into twelve parts. And to help identify those parts of those sky, they imagined shapes which those stars resemble, so they can remember them easier, and they called them constellations. Then, they saw that there is a connection between when the sun is in a certain constellation, and when the trees produce fruit, and when the leaves turn brown, and when it snows, and when the leaves emerge again, and things like that. Basically, they discovered seasons. Fine. Seasons and when the sun is in a certain constellation is actually the same things. So far so good. But then everything after that was falsehood attached to it. They did not know how seasons work, so they just thought that those constellations are causing the leaves to fall, and things like that, and therefore the stars have an effect on earth, because they cause leaves to change, and therefore they must have an effect on humans as well. And really, they just invented stuff and guesswork, and people believed it, and now astrology is very popular.

Now, of course astrology, any kind of astrology, Horoscopes, Indian astrology, Chinese astrology, any kind of astrology have been proven scientifically to be false, and no one was ever able to prove scientifically that it works. And this is not the main issue why we are writing about it, because people are wrong about so many other things. We have flaws. But, we are writing about it because astrology is prohibited in the Bible and the Quran.

Isaiah, chapter 47, verses 13-14 says, “All the counsel you have received has only worn you out! Let your astrologers come forward, those astrologers who make predictions month by month, let them save you from what is coming upon you. Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up.”

Leviticus 19:26 says, “Do not practice divination or seek omens.”

Quran 4:11 says, “When it comes to your parents and your children, you do not know which of them is really the best to you and the most beneficial.” This statement would have been false, if people were just able to know the fate of their children based on the year and the date and the time when they were born.

And Quran 72:27 says, “Only to a messenger that God chooses, does He reveal from the past and the future, specific news.” And there are about 1 million astrologers in the world. So, either God has sent 1 million astrologers as messengers, or all astrologers are liars. And based on the book of Isaiah, we already know that all astrologers are bad people, so they can not be messengers, and therefore they are liars.

So, people who believe in astrology, but they do not believe in the Quran, they are simply misguided and under the influence of the devil. And if someone believes both in the Quran and astrology, then they are probably suffering from depression, anxiety, or similar difficulty. Because, astrology and the Quran contradict each other, and if you believe in both of them at the same time, that can be only possible in such mental states like depression and anxiety, or similar psychological or social difficulties. And there is nothing wrong with depression or anxiety. About half the people today experience them at least once in their lifetime, and towards the future, towards the end of the world, almost all people will at least once in their lifetime be diagnosed with depression or anxiety. So, things like that happen. We are just helping here to identify the potential problems, because people with anxiety and depression are capable to believe two completely contradictory conspiracy theories at once. For example, they can believe that Tupac is still alive, and that Tupac was killed by the CIA, and they believe both of them at the same time. This is documented by studies. This happens when people are emotionally unstable, which happens. They are not crazy. They just need emotional support. And you should try to seek help with the right professionals, so you can get back on your feet emotionally. By the way, let’s say that your belief is 70% strong in the Quran, and 30% strong in Astrology. If you get the right treatment by a professional, you will notice that by the end of it, both of those beliefs will dwindle. The psychologist can not help you become a believer. He will simply find a way to reduce both of your beliefs, the good belief and the bad belief, and eventually you will believe 0% in Astrology, and now only 40% in the Quran, but this is still better because now you know exactly where you stand in relation to the Quran, without the astrology, and then gradually afterwards you start to improve your belief in the Quran back again, while keeping the astrology part at 0%, and then you realize that you become a much more functional longtime submitter, less egocentric, and you will just feel better. It’s possible. And by the way, if the situation is serious, we would even recommend you to take some medication, with prescription, just to jumpstart your healing process, especially, because people who encounter depression are absolutely convinced that it will never go away, which is not true, but that’s why those people need to seek help. Because depression and anxiety convince you that they will never go away, and once you are convinced of that, then you get depressed because of that, and you enter a vicious cycle. In that case, outside help is needed, just to break the cycle. So, medication is useful in that case, to at least make them believe that help exists, and then seek it, and then they can remove the medication or whatever the professional tells you. By the way, we don’t fully agree with the way they use these medications in the U.S.A., excessively, and being constantly numb to avoid any bad feelings. You are supposed to feel things sometimes, including the bad feelings. It’s called life. But also, we don’t agree with people who are categorically against those medications. The Quran says that there is good and bad in them, and they are useful towards more serious cases, to jumpstart the improvement, but the appropriate doctors most likely know better about this. And ultimately, of course, God is in control of everything, and he knows our fates.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

so let’s merge them together as seen below.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s start with Sura 111. It says,

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

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

He has incurred the blazing Fire.

Also his companion, the carrier of fuel.

With a natural-rope necklace.”

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

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

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

He has incurred the blazing Fire. (Of course)

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

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

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

Let’s read another example: Sura 94.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And now here is a map which shows world poverty:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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