You were raised in Egypt. You were raised by a devout Muslim father. You know the Quran. You can read it in Arabic. Are you Muslim or are you a Westerner? Everyone exactly like me who lived in both had an identity crisis. How does the modern Muslim take that piece of history about Muhammad? That's a great question. I thought God was almost like a monster. I believed he was Allah and I believed in Islam. I just came to the conclusion that God is evil and I have to worship him. But I realized God was trying to reach me through that dream. It really was. And he answered me directly. And I whispered to myself, "Jesus, if you're real, tell me right now." And as soon as I said that, "Is Islam truly a religion of peace? What did Muhammad actually teach? And what does it look like to live out his teachings in the West? And what was it like for a devout Muslim to go to a Christian church for the first time?"

Welcome back to the Lero Show. Today I'm sitting down with Ishmael Yousef, who was raised as a Muslim in Egypt, but whose trips to Canada opened his eyes to a new reality. In this episode, we explore the history of Islam. We explore the differences between Islam and Christianity, and we explore the different expressions of Islamic faith. Ishmael also shares his perspective on the tension between Islamic and Western values, and he shares his warning for the West.

Thank you so much to everyone who has been subscribing to and listening to the show. The show continues to grow. Thanks to all of you. We just blew past 400,000 subs on YouTube. We're rising in the ranks over on Podcast app. The quickest and easiest way that you can support this show is to hit the subscribe button and make sure that you never miss a future episode of the Lilay Lao Show. Also, if you're over on Podcast app, make sure that you leave us a review and five stars.

This show is about wrestling with the most important issues of our day and addressing how can we grow as human beings to live out our full potential so that we can flourish and so that our society can flourish. Thank you so much for being part of the journey. Ishmael Yousef, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much. So happy this happened and you're here. Really, thank thank you so much for coming in.

Yeah, it's beautiful and it's uh feels more like a vacation than I'm not just like coming to our podcast. Y'all live in like the most beautiful place in North America.

So yes, I think so too. That's what we tell people. Hey, do you want to come to Southern California? It's like I'm not going to say no anymore. That's that's that's the trick, right? Northern California. I'm originally from Northern California and there are parts I think of Northern California that are even more beautiful.

Mhm. But is it as sunny though? That's the question. You know, it it can be really sunny up there. Okay. It can. Yeah, it depends on where. But if you go to like Marin Valley or or Mil Valley and Marin area, it's really beautiful like north of San Francisco.

Okay. Nice. So that's You need to go there next. I don't know what podcasting whoever's up there. Y'all can uh I was going to say I don't know who that's doing up there. If if we were still if I was still up there, we would be podcasting from the redwoods or something. That would be very cool. That'd be beautiful.

Yeah. So, you're from Nova Scotia? Yes. How how's how's Canada these days? I I love Canada. Honestly, it's gorgeous. It is a beautiful country and it is so big. So, I was talking to people down here when I was visiting and they're like, "Yeah." So, one of like the big cities in Canada is like we basically have three big cities and then everything else just small towns and in trees. So, it's like it's just like empty and all.

It is empty. That's right. All the time. And it's like I think it's the same population as California, actually. All of Canada. All of Canada is around the same population as California. What's that? 60 or 70 million. Uh, no. 40. 40. Oh, what? 40 million. I should know that. And then California is like 39. So it's like 1 million more. But we have like But it's bigger than the whole United States. So that's what I'm talking about. Like it's like super empty. So when you drive from like Toronto to like Winnipeg, it takes like 36 hours to drive and there's nothing. Like if you if you your car stops like you better be praying to the Lord because no one's coming to save you except a grizzly bear.

Yeah, exactly. Or something. It's it's all very cold too, right? I mean that's it doesn't get as warm as you know where we're where we're at. I mean I've been to Vancouver in the summer and it's nice, but you you also just have this very different climate too.

Yeah, it's quite different. But it's actually interesting. So right now in Nova Scotia it's only like 5° C less than here. So it's not too bad, but it's more of the extremes. So like in the summer it'd be very similar to here, but in the winter it's like the opposite. So you'll be like in shorts and a t-shirt in the summer, but then you have to wear like a parka outside in the winter.

So So when did you move to Canada? So actually I was born in Halifax. Okay. So I was I was there um since I was zero and then uh from 0 to 5 I I lived there and then we went back to Egypt.

And then how long were you in Egypt for? uh from 5 to 15.

So tell me about how you were ra what family you were born into when you were born in Canada and then why the move back to or why the move to Egypt.

So it's funny. So my dad and his brother they were in the uh Egyptian military and they were doing training with the Canadians I believe. I think that's how the story goes. Well, I should be completely wrong, but basically they were in Canada doing stuff in Nova Scotia. And my dad's brother, he fell in love with someone in Nova Scotia. And then my dad met my mom at that wedding. So, it's actually funny the whole story. Yeah. A Canadian girl and like small town Canadian girl like doesn't know anything about the Middle East. Nothing at all. And basically, I think it was like 3 weeks or like 4 weeks in, they're like, "Ah, we should get married." And they're like, "Yeah, how about on Friday?" They're like, "Okay." Yeah. So, they went to the court, they got married, and then uh yeah, that's all that happened. But then Egypt had like a what's it called? Like a military draft thing. So, he had to go back to Egypt for 2 years. So, my mom, they just got married, and then boom, bada bing, they had to go back to Egypt. And then my mom was in Nova Scotia and he was in Egypt doing military stuff and eventually came back and uh yeah, so then years later, they had my brother and they had me and uh they put us in a Muslim school there. Uh there's one Muslim school there. So, anyone who's anywhere near Nova Scotia knows exactly what I'm talking about. And it is uh not the best Muslim school in town. I'll say that. Basically, they'll just teach you like the Quran exist. Allah is God. Go to bed. Like that's kind of like the level of Islam that you're taught. And my dad was just like, "Okay, I want my kids to actually know about Islam." So that's why when I was five and my brother was around like seven or eight, we went to Egypt because of faith. They wanted better like strengthening of the Islamic faith. Yeah. So I was speaking Arabic as well as English, but we also he wanted me not to lose Arabic because like the population of Arabic speakers there was so low and the Islamic teaching was so low there. Like the quality was just not good. So my dad was like, "We have to go back to Egypt to teach my his children about Islam and Arabic." And I actually went to an American school there. Um, and I had a a tutor who would come and teach me like Quranic Arabic and about the religion and how to fast, how to pray. So that was from like the age of 5 to like 14 15. That's how my life went.

So your mom when she met your dad at that wedding, this was a Muslim wedding. So she she was Muslim.

No, it wasn't a Muslim wedding. There was just a regular like courthouse wedding. The where she met your dad. Yes. And so was she but she was Muslim.

Nope. She was a Jehovah's Witness. Wow. Yeah. And well, okay, I shouldn't say she's Jehovah. Well, she grew up Jehovah's Witness and left when she was 14 and identified as like a quoteunquote Christian, but kind of not really. And then, funny enough, she was uh 17 when she got married to my dad, and my my dad was 27. Uh, but legally you have to be 18 to do without parent permission. So, they actually forged my grandparents like signature for my mom to get married to my dad.

Is that cuz they didn't approve? Uh, yeah. Yeah, they were kind of racist like yeah cuz my dad he's from like the south of Egypt so he's quite dark and they're like we're not going to have this like in the family but my dad my mom was like okay screw you mom and then kind of just did it.

Whoa. But so it wasn't his it wasn't his religion, it was his ethnicity. That was the religion didn't help. I'm sure nothing none of it. Like you're a Christian Nova Scotian girl. Yeah. And you're trying to like marry a Muslim like almost look an African man. Like it's like it did not work at all. And so they had to like forge the signature and then they got married at the courthouse and then yeah eventually they like became friends my my dad and like the parents like the grandparents. I never met my mom's grandparents cuz they died at a young age. But uh apparently that after like a couple years they kind of severed they kind of fixed it.

So she was raised by her grandparents, your mother.

No, no, no. So this is your grandparents. My mom was raised by her mother and like her father and uh they were Jehovah's Witness. So it was a big deal. Also my grandmother, so my mom's mother, she was quite religious witness and that really rubbed off my mom in a wrong way. So it made her very like anxious against religion and very nervous about religion. So she left the JW religion around 14. And when she married my dad, uh my dad actually wasn't a very religious Muslim at the time. He was very culturally Muslim. And then when they got married at the court years later, my dad became super religious. And then uh when they have my brother uh in Egypt, it's actually better to have both spouses be the same religion because if you have a child and the father dies, the government can interfere and basically take all the inheritance away because you can't and Islam a Muslim father's like inheritance cannot be inherited down to a Christian. So it's basically like my my mom basically became Muslim just in case my dad got sick and died. That was the only reason. So her belief in Islam is very like non-existent. So she's Muslim by name. And that conversion happened in in Egypt, that conversion. So she registered because you have to register your religion in Egypt, right? Yes. Correct. On your ID card. So yeah. So she registered as as Muslim. And also that makes it very awkward too because once they had kids, which one is it going to be on the child's ID card? So usually you just take the m the the father's religion, but it's odd because it's very frowned upon, especially back then to have a Muslim and a Christian marry. So they were like, why are you married to a Christian? So it was just easier for her to become Muslim. So that's how that worked. So yeah.

When your dad was becoming more passionate about practicing his Muslim faith, that happened later on after their marriage.

Yes. Once he had children and he started to maybe think about how he was going to raise you, everything else.

Do you know if that impacted their marriage?

Oh, significantly. Cuz my mom, she was like, "We're not going to have religion in our household." She was traumatized by growing up JW. And my dad changed like completely overnight. Um he actually like went into the fridge, took all the alcohol and poured it down the the drain. Uh he started praying five times a day in Arabic and my mom had no idea what was going on. My mom was so scared of religion that she thought that she tried to hold a Quran at the time and she started crying because she couldn't even understand like a holy book. She was so traumatized from religion. So that was a very hard time in her marriage. Um, and I don't think my dad eventually calmed down with religion, but it never went back to normal. Like my dad till today is a devout Muslim and he still goes like he goes to like morning prayer every every single day. He goes to the mosque for morning prayer and then he prays five times a day. He does Ramadan even though he's like 70 years old now and he doesn't have to. He still does it. So like he's quite devout. So that still has an impact on her marriage.

So yeah, it sounds like it was it it affected his practice. Did it affect though the way he treated your mom or was it more I'm now this is a really important thing to me. It's going to change how I behave.

It definitely impacted the way my mom was treated. Um, I do believe that there was a time that my dad suggested he get a second wife. That didn't fly very well in the family cuz my mom being from like a western society and uh was just like yeah that ain't that ain't happening. So that I think my dad like stopped saying that just for the peace in the house. He was like, "You know what? Even if I wanted a second wife, is it worth it?" Because my mom her name is Lisa. She's not going to Lisa's going to give me She's Lisa's going to kill me. So like, so yeah. So that definitely had a huge impact. Um, and I think just the view of women as well changed overnight, too. Uh, so just the way he would interact with other women or allowing my mom to interact with other men to change significantly like things got more suspicious over time. And that's not me saying my dad was a a good or bad person. It's just like what happened like naturally. So yeah.

What does that mean though? He started interacting differently with women as now that he was more practicing his Muslim faith.

He just wouldn't talk to women. He just would be like, "Oh, it's like it's haram. So it's like forbidden to be like to have like women friendships." um if a woman's just wearing like something a little bit too like revealing, he'll just look the other way and that type of way. So that's not even like really a bad thing, but he became more isolated I felt and or interactions with different people, especially the opposite opposite sex. So yeah.

This was though in Egypt at the time, right? Because this this transition happened right before Well, actually it happened right before Egypt. The transition happened right before Egypt. Okay. Um, you saw it happen in in uh the transition happened before I was born. So, I always knew my dad as a developed Muslim, but my mom didn't. Um, the transition I believe occurred when my brother was born and like a year after he was born. So, and I believe that because my dad had a kid now that also had an impact on his religious beliefs. Like he was like, "Okay, I have to get my act together. I have to figure out like what do I believe?" And then he chose like fundamental Islam. So yeah.

Can you have two wives in Canada?

Not legally. No. But some people still do it in your, you know, they're roommates who are paying rent and they just, you know, they're just around town a lot. So yeah, like that happens here everywhere. They just find a way to do it. They're just roommates.

What was life like in Egypt when you moved there? You were 5 years old.

Yes. Um, so I would go to school in Egypt and every summer I'd go back to Canada because in technically I wasn't an Egyptian citizen. So every summer it's like a 9 10 months thing you have to go back. So it actually worked very well. So it was like almost like boarding school but with your parents. It was really weird. So I'd go to school there and I went to American school there and then I went to uh back to Nova Scotia every summer. And the contrast really was significant because I would live in one world for two or three months of the year and the other months of the year I'd be in another world completely. And it felt like I was quite divided between worlds. My mom was from one world, my dad was from another world and they couldn't really coinc exist with each other. Um, my brother decided to go down the Muslim route and I tried the Muslim route as a kid and I couldn't find peace in it. I really couldn't figure out why I couldn't find peace for a long time until I met Christ. And we can get to that part. But it was hard because I like the culture, I like the language, I like the food, but I despised the way the judgmental, the lack of freedom and the lack of expression. And just like for a good example of this was in um 2015 when the United States basically allowed uh gay marriage to be legalized nationwide. And there was a huge debate in my school about that.

um your school in Egypt. Yeah. So it was an American school. So all the teachers were from the US in in that school and all the kids were from different areas but vast majority of them were Egyptian and Muslim and the school was actually made for them to leave Egypt and go to like a better world like like to go to like it was actually based off the state of Virginia which is kind of funny. So whatever they were being taught in Virginia like like some Muslim kids in Egypt were being taught. It was like really weird and um so yeah, so we were talking about this like as a debate in school and it really bothered me like rather you agree or disagree with homosexuality. It wasn't that they disagreed with it. It was what they wanted to be done. And my own friends would say like, "Yeah, like if my brother was gay, I'd kill him myself." And I'm like, "What? Like you'd kill your own brother if he was a homosexual?" And like, "Yeah, you wouldn't kill your own brother as homosexual." like they would talk about it like it was like a normal thing like you know and this is like in the most secular school in Egypt so I couldn't even imagine what was going on in the public schools in Egypt and it was just like I remember one conversation in history class uh the teacher he was from uh Portland Oregon and he was talking about the gay community in Portland and uh this one kid was like the gay community and they're like yeah like there's like a gay community you know people who are homosexual they kind of interact together and he's like, "How do you guys allowed there to be a gay community? Wouldn't like the government go in and killed him?" And I'm like, "Me?" Because I've I've lived in the West and all the kids who were living in the West and in Egypt looked at him like, "No, they wouldn't just go in and kill him like they have the right to be gay even if you don't like it." And it it just baffled me. So that was like one side. And then the other side, every time I go back to Canada, it was like I don't know, people could be gay. They could be straight. They could be Muslim, Christian, Jew. They could do whatever they want. You know what I mean? And I kind of really appreciated that because I was able to ask questions about Islam and not feel like I'm going to about to like be killed by someone or being beat up. So, it was very freeing. And to the extent that there was one kid who was from Florida and he was there because his parents were teachers in the school and he started asking questions about why why Muslims believe Muhammad's a prophet and just him asking those questions the students were saying you know you shouldn't ask those questions are like we will beat you up just so just a heads up like saying it as like a nonchalant thing like you know like yeah you should stop asking that because if you do ask that we will have to beat you up. So that was how it was viewed there. And again, that's like the most secular school in Egypt. And so that contrast was so strong. And the contrast wasn't just in school. It was in my own family. So my dad would be like, I want to teach my kids about Islam. I want them to learn about Islam. And he even brought a religious uh uh teacher over wants to teach us about Islam. But then he started bashing bashing people who are Jewish. He was like, you know, like the only thing that's worse than uh an atheist is a Jew. And I'm like, and my mom overheard that. Like, cuz at that point, she was starting learning enough Arabic to understand what's going on. My mom went to my dad and uh she's like, "You got to this guy has to leave the house. Like, I'm not letting my kids like be taught this." And then the teacher was confused as to why my mom didn't hate Jews. Like, that's how much anti-semitism is widespread in that part of the world. Everyone hates Jews. Like I would even say like some Arab Christians hate Jews. It was just a Muslim thing. Like it was just cuz Islam kind of like leaves its mark on the Christian communities there too cuz it's the majority. So even in uh like Coptic or Assyrian churches that anti-semitism also kind of spreads a little bit. So in a general sense because Islam's anti-semitism it also leaves a mark on other communities in the Middle East to make them anti-semitic. So in a general sense, everyone was anti-Semitic. That was a normal thing until I met Jewish people in Canada. And I was like, "Oh, you're just a normal person. So you're just you're just you just wear a yarmaka." And like and then my dad wears his thing when he's at the mosque. Okay. Like that was like it was like a culture shock. Like every every 6 months it was like, "Okay, I'm either free or I'm not free." Like so it was very interesting.

I have so many questions even just about that. I mean, first of all, just about your mom because she sounds like was resisting. Yeah, I'm not we're not getting another wife. We're not going to hate Jews here. Like, she was resisting the the cultural um really domination that exists in Egypt around a certain, you know, kind of Islam. And I'm going to get into your opinions on like different branches of Islam or different expressions of Islam. I know you have a lot of thoughts on that, but for your mother's experience, if you can speak to it, what you know of it, for her to be resisting and even trying to call shots a little with your dad, like I'm not going to do another wife or, you know, I don't want this guy in my house. What was as you perceived it, what was their dynamic? Because my understanding is in in very, you know, devout Muslim uh marriages where there's a very strongly zealous Muslim husband, you know, his way is the highway. So for her to sort of speak up like that, you know, it sounds like she she had a sense of confidence that she could speak up.

My mom wouldn't take crap from anyone. She just wouldn't do it. Like doesn't matter. But she she didn't fear your dad. It sounds like

No, my mom doesn't fear anyone. Like never. She doesn't even fear. My mom is a type of person. And did she wear a hijab in Egypt?

Yeah. Over her dead body. She never wear hijab. She even she said, "If you put that rag on my head, I kill you." That's what she said. Like she would not let it happen. I I love my mom. She's a fierce woman. Like she would not let that happen.

Did she get in trouble for that?

She wouldn't let herself get in trouble for that. Like I I don't think my wife's watching this right now live. She knows like the mother-in-law, you know, the mother-in-law. Yeah. She would not let that happen. Like she she's a very strong woman.

Well, and there's enough freedom in Egypt where you're not going to be like penalized for not wearing the hijab. It's not like Iran.

Uh no, not like Iran. So like in 2013 we had the Muslim Brotherhood for a little bit. So it was kind of scary for a second, but even the Egyptians, all they're religious, they're not that religious. They're like, "Yeah, we didn't really want that." So they they had a coup and then the government came in. They're like, "You're not going to do hijabs around here every day, all day." Yeah. Like you can choose to have the hijab, but I don't want you to tell me to wear the hijab. You know what I mean? And it was like, "Yeah, maybe homosexuals should be killed, but I don't want to kill them." So that's how it was like it was viewed. Like they can do it in Afghanistan, not here. So yeah.

So, so we we approve of it in Afghanistan. We were not going to disapprove of it. We're not going to disapprove of it. Yeah. Yeah. So, they wouldn't they wouldn't just come out saying we approve, but they'd be like, "Can we really trust what's going on in Afghanistan?" Maybe they are. Maybe they aren't killing homosexuals, you know? And and it sounds like the school that you were going to in Egypt was maybe the most secular Muslim school in Egypt. It's run by Americans or

It was a secular school. It wasn't even a Muslim school. Well, that that was like as secular as you can get in Egypt. But didn't your how did that work with your dad? Cuz he went to Egypt. He wanted you to be Muslim and know Islam.

My mom would not let me go to a Muslim school. So they had to compromise. So it's like you can take them to Egypt, but you ain't taking to a Muslim school. So you can take to Egypt being a secular school. So even then there was a compromise. So this is the world I'm living in. There's always a contrast in everything. It's either like I'm always living in freedom of the West or oppression of religion. That's what it always was. So like I even remember when I was like 13, I was so confused cuz I thought God was almost like a monster because everything I thought about God was oppression. Cuz the way it would impact my mom or me or anyone around me was just like it was like a blanket of darkness over the country. That's who God was. He was a tyrant. And I I believed he existed even as a 13-year-old. And I believed he was Allah. And I believed in Islam. And I just came to the conclusion that God was good and bad. He's evil. God is evil and I have to worship him. That's it. And I don't think Islam disagrees with that. Cuz in Christianity, we believe God is all good and all holy. And Islam believes that God's all good. But they also believe God's all bad. So God can keep his promises, but he can also break his promises. And so Muslims actually make fun of Christians because they think our God's kind of weak because he's only good. And meanwhile, like, well, our God's good and bad. He can do everything. So like, what type of God is it that he does good stuff. So that's kind of like my view of God as a Muslim was, of course, there's evil in the world. God ordained it and he wants us to feel evil. He does what he wants. So yeah.

Isn't Isn't one of the common you know calls to Islamic God Allah merciful Allah like the word mercy is used.

Yeah he's the most merciful most compassionate. Yeah. But he's also he's the most deceiving and the most cunning. So like he's both. He's all he's everything. He there's he's not just one thing. So he'll be merciful to who he chooses and he'll be deceiving to who he chooses. And how do you know if he chose you? You'll find out. And how do you find out? H you die and you meet him. And a Muslim, a Muslim can be the best Muslim in his entire life. He can fast every single fast, pray everything, go to Mecca, do the whole nine yards, but if God ordained him for hell, he ordained for hell. And a Christian can be the best, the worst Christian in the world, hate Islam, curse about Muhammad, but if God ordained him for heaven, he's ordained for heaven. That's how Islam sees it. It's his choice. It's not our choice. So there's nothing you can really do in this life to really favor God. Um, except dying a martyr. I think there's some verses about that. And martyrdom is different in Islam than it is in Christianity. So if you die a martyr, like fighting for Allah, you go to heaven. Um, Allah does favor people who are sick. So if you have an illness, um he favors that to you over other people. So there's a higher chance you're going to heaven. So things like that. But if you're just like a regular Joe, you're pretty much ordained from the moment you are conceived. And there's a good about that actually. in a hadith just means a saying of Muhammad where Muhammad was actually he was walking around and it was a a little girl passed away and they're burying her and one of his companions is like oh she's going to be in heaven and Muhammad was like don't say that we don't know that cuz God might have ordained this little girl for hell before she was even born. So the the concept of like predestination is actually one of the six main like articles of faith for Muslims.

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What are the six main articles of faith for Muslims?

Uh, the belief in one God. uh there is the belief in the angels, the belief in the holy books, the belief in the prophets, uh the belief in predestination and the belief in judgment day. So the they believe that God sent down prophets to every tribe and nation. Um and God sent down holy books. So the scriptures, the Bible, the Torah. Um there's also a book of Moses, uh not Moses, uh Abraham, sorry. And that that's been lost. uh the Quran obviously angels like uh Michael, Gabriel, all those people and then the prophets and judgment day and then predestination.

How are Muslims meant to weigh the different holy books? Cuz you have the Quran, then you have parts of the Bible which contradict the Quran and there's different prescriptions for how to live.

So Muslims are like the majority of Muslims believe that the holy books in the past have been corrupted. So God allowed the holy books in the vast uh religions to be corrupted. So the Torah got corrupt. So God sent down the gospels for Jesus and then they got corrupted. So then God sent down the Quran. And the Quran is the only book he has preserved forever until judgment day. So there are there are aspects of truth in the Gospel and the Torah that exist. However, because they are corrupted, the Quran summarizes everything that's in those books. And therefore, you should only use the Quran. And you can only use the Gospels and the Torah if it agrees with the Quran. So, anything that disagrees with the Quran, you have to like disregard it because that's a part that's been corrupted. That's how that's how it's viewed.

When you were learning all of this, so a lot of this, it sounds like you learned between that ages of 5 to 15 while you were in Egypt. That's when you really had your the the the real imprint of Islamic theology if we can call it that or philosophy or whatever whatever we want to call it. Did you what time frame is this? What years are what year are we at?

This is post born in 2000. So 2005 2015. So when you heard about like jihadis as an example, you know, or terrorist acts, first of all, was there a conversation about that? Like for example, 911 had happened the year before or the year after you were born. What's the Muslim framework when you're in Egypt, you're at a I guess a more secular but still, you know, you're in an isl Islamic culture. What's the framework for viewing terrorism, extreme, you know, Islamic extremism, ISIS, things like that in an Egyptian culture?

Um, it depends on the person. It's more like, yeah, it was bad, but what did you expect was going to happen? Like you guys were supporting Israel and Israel was killing Palestinians. So what do you think was gonna happen? Of course we're going to bomb you.

That sounds like what most Americans say now. Yeah. Like not most, but many Americans are like, "Yeah, what what do you think?" I mean, we say that about, you know, Charlie Kirk who was assassinated. A bunch of leftists are saying, "What do you think is going to happen? He was giving hate speech." Yeah. So that's kind of a similar view basically. And same with like uh ISIS. When ISIS came around, it's like, well, you guys like like conquered Iraq and like killed a million people and now you're surprised that ISIS is bombing France and the US and the UK. It's like, well, obviously like they're they're fighting back. That's how they viewed it. And it was almost like they didn't, how do I say this? On the outside, they wouldn't say they agree with it, but on the inside, in Muslim circles, it would be like, yeah, maybe they're taking a little bit too far, but it is what it is, and they're doing more good than harm. ISIS is doing more good than harm. Well, yeah, cuz they're fighting back against the infidels. Like, you guys put on yourselves. You guys wouldn't have been bombed if you didn't bomb us first. Like, that that's how it works in every war. So that's how they view I'm not I'm saying that's I'm not saying ISIS is good. I'm saying they're saying ISIS is justified because of what countries like the US did in Iraq and Syria.

It's very chillingly like American liberalism today. I mean I remember being in at college. This was 2010 years after 9/11. Even then, you know, American college professors in UCLA at my school were talking about how terrorism needs to be understood in the framework of how they've been oppressed. You know, poverty has been they've been subjected to poverty by Western forces. You know, basically it's America's fault. You know, sort of like you wore the dress, so that's why you got raped. It's that same mentality. And so, you know, we are responsible in the end for the extremism or the terrorism or whatever it is in some way. Not like 100% but in

Yeah, I know what you mean. And it's uh it reminds me and it goes back to the like the psychology of religion. So, in Christianity, there's a psychology of forgiveness. So, if someone slaps you on one cheek, you present them the other cheek. Doesn't exist in Islam. It's an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. So, that still is the aspect of Islam. So they see it as justified and they see it as like well yeah what what do you expect is going to happen even if it is horrific. It's like well you guys are horrific first.

When you were uh kind of thinking okay well God I guess I'm Muslim but God is pretty rough you know like you said he's good and evil and you know I don't know did did you ever think when you were younger I don't want to practice Islam? I mean was that even an option in your mind that was on the table?

No, I if anything, the older I got, the more radical I got. Like I remember when the Charlie Abdul attacks when uh that was in 2014, I think where they drew pictures of the prophet and then ISIS kind of like they they sent people to France and they they killed the artists. This kind of spooked me a little bit because I remember seeing that and I was like, well, what did you expect? Like my first thought was like don't draw the prophet and you won't die. And I remember thinking that and I was like that's not a good thought Ishmael. Like you should know better than to be like hey we should kill people for drawing a picture. And that was one of the really first like moments in my life where I was like this there's something wrong here. Why was I so upset that someone in a country I've never been to who doesn't impact me at all drew a picture of a guy from 1400 years ago? Like I tried to think about irrationally and I I couldn't answer it. I couldn't answer it, but the only answer I could get was because my religion tells me to be upset about it. And that was one of the first things that really was like a red flag. And that was around when I was like 14. And I still got more and more radicalized. And after that it was um the 21 Coptic martyrs that um ISIS uh beheaded. And when that happened

Yeah. That was that was in Egypt, right?

Yeah, that was in Egypt or on the border with Egypt and Libya. And I remember watching that. I watched the whole thing as a 15-year-old.

And you watched the beheadings?

Yeah, I watched all the ISIS videos. Was that a typical thing for Muslim kids? A typical thing for a high schooler in general?

Yeah, I guess so. In the US, too, they're probably watching this. Yeah, they're What else are you doing in recess? So, that's kind of what you do these days, which is horrific. We used to play Pokemon, but now we do that. You watch videos of terrorism and acts of violence. Yeah. And it's just like I I watched that and the thing that bothered me the most was like, okay, we are making Egypt a Muslim country. Why did we have to behead these people? How does this help the economy? How does this help the infrastructure? How does this help the politics? If we killed all 20 million Coptics in Egypt, would this really help us economically? Probably not. That was my thought process. So, I was like, even from an Islamic perspective, this is just not good. And the thing that bothered me too was that they were quoting Quran verses and hadith while killing them. And when they quoted it, I looked it up and everything they quoted was true. Every single thing they quoted about killing the infidels and uh that Christians are the worst of creatures and all that stuff was true. And it hurt me because I loved the Christians. I had Christian neighbors. I had Christians in my classroom and I was good friends with them and I've met Christians in Canada. And this is when the conflict started getting harder and harder inside me because I was contradicting myself like these people deserve to live but my religious telling me not that they shouldn't live. And it was almost like my mind was in two. There were two things happening at once. And I could already see that I had to pick one eventually. And I felt like and maybe it was more subconscious. It wasn't like a conscious feeling. But now looking back on it, I could tell that eventually I had to side with one or the other. And I'm very happy I side with the other one. Not not the Muslim one, but um a lot of people side with the the ISIS one. And I think that's why a lot of people from North America and Europe who are second or third generation went and joined ISIS in 2015 because Islam and the Western society are not compatible. And everyone exactly like me who lived in both and were was a descendant of an immigrant who went to like Canada or the US or the UK had had an identity crisis. Are you Muslim or are you a Westerner? And you cannot be both. It's impossible. It's impossible to be a Muslim American or a Muslim Canadian or a Muslim European. I know that sounds harsh, but but Islam is not just a religion. It is a nationality. It's a political party. It is a movement. It is everything. So that's why it's impossible. You can be a Jewish American, a Christian American, atheist American. You cannot be a Muslim American. You can't be a good Muslim American. You can be a very bad Muslim American. Meaning like you just don't practice it. But you cannot be a religious Muslim and an American. It's impossible.

Why? What is it? What are like you said the ISIS terrorists who were beheading the Coptic Christians on the shore in Egypt and they filmed it and the whole world was able to watch it and you said they were quoting hadiths. They were quoting Muhammad. Mhm. And you were like looking it up and you're like, "Oh, he actually did say this." Yes. About how we should treat Christians. What is it about Islam that if you're really honest about what it teaches, it it is incompatible with the West?

Everything from the smallest thing to the biggest thing is the opposite. Just think about it. When you think of an American Independence Day, think of a barbecue and a beer. Two things you can't have as a Muslim. I mean, dead serious. That's how a Muslim mind sees it. Everything that they have is against our religion. Barbecue, beer, bikinis. Everything we can't have. We have the burka. We can't have the beer. I can't eat

The pork. Right? From the very smallest thing, it's a contradiction to the very largest thing, freedom of speech. I can't say everything I want to say about Muhammad or Islam or my family. You can contradiction. Everything about Islam is the opposite of Western values. Everything. Women's rights. Women get to be able to vote. Non-Islam. Women have the ability to move around the country by themselves. Not in Islam. They do now because the western world has been like pushing it on the Muslim world. But until like the 1960s, the Muslim world had slavery. They had sex slavery. That was a thing until the 1960s. Yes. Where in the Muslim world was they were selling they were selling slaves by the Cabba. There's videos of it. You can look up videos of slaves being sold by the Cabba, the holiest site. And so you just have a sex slave in your house. Like that was a normal thing in Saudi Arabia before 19. It's ordained in in Islam. You can have it. It's not considered adultery.

Where in the Quran does it say you can have a sex slave? Uh there's a few chapters. It's uh I'm not saying it doesn't say that, but just for folks listening. Well, in so in Arabic, you're allowed to have your wife and your right-hand possessions, which is an Arabic phrase meaning your sex slaves. that's what you can have for permission to have intercourse with. So if it's not your sex slave, it's someone else's, you can't have like intercourse with them. So there's a division of property there. And of course, it's only for men. So like that's not even like mentioned for women at all. So this is a thing that's ingrained in the Quran and a multitude of chapters. Um, it actually started because Muhammad circled this town once and they killed all the the combatants in the town and the Muslims actually were like, "What do we do with the women now that all the men were were dead and they were married?" And Muhammad said, "Well, you can just take them as sex slaves and then use them and then that's kind of like you're you're good now." And they actually didn't want to, which is the interesting part. A lot of the Muslim men in the army were like, "We actually don't want to have uh relations with them cuz they felt kind of odd about it because their men like the husbands were just alive like 2 hours ago and I killed them and now you want me to have relations with the woman of the man I just killed." And they're like, "This kind of feels wrong." And the prophet was like, "No, you have permission to do this." And so that's that's how that started. Um I believe it was Benoriza which is the tribe that uh was genocided by the prophet.

So yeah, how do how does it work with there's so much to explore here but with the Quran I mean I know Muhammad that an angel came to him and dictated the Quran to him. Mhm. But then you look at the like early the life and the behavior of Muhammad and the subjugation of peoples, you know, convert by the sword, you know, this harum. He literally had all these women, very young girls that were effectively a sex slaves, but you know, his wives, all of this, right? And do you I mean, what's your theory on it? Do you think he invent it was a demonic presence that came this angel that was actually something otherworldly that came? Did he invent it based on what he wanted to do to be sort of a powerful warlord? How do you think that worked where he was developing an ideology ultimately, but then he said he was receiving it supernaturally?

So when Muhammad encountered whatever he encountered in in the cave, um he didn't say it was an angel. It was actually interesting. So he went to his wife, his first wife, said that he was scared out of his mind. And his first wife took him to an Aryan monk who told him that he was a prophet and that it was Gabriel that met him. So he didn't even say it was Gabriel. Not once in the in the first few years of Muhammad's ministry did this being say it was Gabriel. It was only afterwards that started saying it was Gabriel. So Muhammad didn't know what he encountered. uh it was told to him by that Aryan monk and eventually it's actually interesting after the Aryan monk his name is Waka after Waka died the revelation just magically stopped and we don't know what happened for 2 years and the quality of the revelation actually was pretty bad after the two years so there's a theory by ex-Muslims that it was that was writing the revelation for Muhammad and like hiding it in the cave. Yeah, I I don't know. Like like maybe the whole cave thing was a story. They were like, "Oh, maybe we're going to make this up." So that's one theory. I actually don't think that's what happened. That's one theory that it was watercol behind it the whole time. Um I actually just think he met the devil. Honestly, I'm just going to straight straight up. I think it's Muhammad met the devil. Yep. He met the devil. And the devil knows what can confuse people. He knows what the truth is. And all you need is just a little bit of lies in the truth. Yeah. Yeah, we believe in Jesus, no crucifixion. We believe in Jesus, no resurrection. We believe in Jesus, no divinity. So everything that we need to believe about Jesus is gone. And everything we don't really need to believe about Jesus, like, oh, he healed the sick, he walked on water, those are cool things, but if you don't believe he's God, it doesn't really matter, right? And for so when Muslims say that we believe in Jesus, and yeah, they believe him as a historical figure. They believe the miracles, believe the virgin birth, but they don't believe the main thing. It's like saying, "I believe the Quran exists and I believe that it's written in Arabic and I believe it's in a book, but if I don't say if I say I believe the Quran, but I don't believe it's from God, then you don't really believe the Quran." It's the same thing. But uh so yeah, so I generally think that it was a demonic force that he met. I think afterwards in life it gets really sketchy that he eventually just kind of made it up on the way because there's like some verses where uh people are visiting Muhammad in his house and he says that the angel is telling him that he is too shy to say it but he wants them to leave. So the angel is telling the people to leave so then everyone leaves. So stuff like that kind of is kind of like okay now you're just kind of making it up. But did that like happen in real time though? He's like the angel just showed up guys. team wants. Yeah, literally like the So, he was like real time. That wasn't imagine if we're like we're just relaxing, right? I'm at your house and the God told me the interview's over. Gabriel's in the room and he's like, "You have to leave." Wow. Yeah. So, things like that.

How many year over how much period of time was the Quran written? Uh 23 years. So, he did it for 23 years. Yeah. And how many of those years was that monk alive for? Like two. It's just the beginning. Yeah. Was is the quality of the Quranic literature better towards the beginning than the end? Yes. Significantly better. Like significantly better. Like in the like at the end of the at the the Quran it gets like really bad. Yeah. It's like bro, who wrote this? Wow. Yeah. It gets like just goes downhill. Like at the beginning of it it's like it rhymes and it's poetic. At the end of it it's like don't eat pork. We're going to the policy suck. And I'm like what? Like it's just like it doesn't even rhyme or anything. Yeah. So it does it doesn't really like you can tell right away the last chapter of the Quran actually uh that was revealed and the Quran is not in order. So the last chapter of the Quran is chapter 9. So people it's kind of it's a whole that's a whole thing. I don't know why they did that, but the Quran is not in chronological order. But chapter 9 is like the most violent one and it's just basically a rant about how you should go out and kill all the like infidels and how like Islam is your only religion left and it was like revealed it was revealed to Muhammad right before he died. So it's almost like they knew he was about to die and they're like, "What are we going to do?" And they were like, "Oh, just go out and expand now." And then he died. So yeah, it's interesting. And the Quran's like literature was really good in the beginning. I I'll give it props. It was great literature and then it just goes downhill significantly.

Give me the sketch of what Muhammad was doing in those 23 years when the Quran was being written. So over the first few years he would just say things like there's one God. Don't worship idols. All Christians, Jews, and Muslims like we all worship the same God. Do good things. Feed the orphans. Very good things. Like nothing bad. So it would be very maybe winsome to a Christian. Yeah. Like Christians like I'm on board with this. Yeah, but they no one converted. I think after like uh how many years? It was the first half of it. It was just like he had like 200 followers and so he's like spreading this writing and he's speaking the writing to his town or was he traveling a lot in Mecca like his town and then he's just like talking to people and he gets like two 300 followers and eventually he gets kicked out of his town because um in that in Mecca it's a polytheistic uh town and if people keep becoming monotheistic they would lose income because people would come for pilgrimage and give money to the town every time they go there to worship their gods, right? But if everyone becomes monotheistic, no one's going to start worshiping their gods. So they basically told him, "Okay, you have to leave." So he actually he sends all of his followers, he doesn't go, but he sends like half his followers for safety to Ethiopia to an oriental Orthodox uh king. And the the Orthodox king basically because it was such a piece of religion at the time, he was like, "They believe in one god. They say believe they believe in Jesus and they said feed the orphans." Okay. Yeah, I'll keep them. Like it was like why not? Like I'll protect them. So they stayed for a few years. And it's actually interesting. Um there is a tale that some of the Muslims there became Christians under oriental like orthodoxy. And then when that started happening, all the Muslims moved back to Saudi Arabia because they're like, "Hey, we're losing our numbers because Muhammad's not here. He can't preach to us anymore." So they move back there and they tell them like, "Oh, the Christian king was good." So he actually has good relations relationships with the Christian king. And this is when it starts getting really interesting. They kick him out again out of Mecca and he goes to a town called Ythreb which is uh now called Medina. And Medina actually means the city of the prophet. So they rename Ythreb to the city of the prophet because of what happens. So he goes from Mecca to Yatre and he figures out that Islam is actually kind of powerful because in uh Arabian times back then what you could do is everyone was like connected to their tribe, right? And all the tribes were fighting each other. And he realized if I can make this religion uh basically take away all tribal like division then I I can become like a commander and the ruler. And that's what he did. And because he was from Mecca and at the same time when he got to Yreb, they were having like almost like an argument in the town between the Jews and the polytheists and they're like, "Oh, you're a foreigner and you have this little religious movement. It seems pretty cool. We want you to be the judge of this like dispute we're having and he judges it and everyone likes the judgment. So what they do is they crown him as like the the king or like the ruler of Yeth."

What was his judgment? Uh I don't remember what the argument was. to try to like make peace between the Jews and the polytheists that were living there. Yeah. And he figures it out. He's like, "Okay, the Jews can live here and the polytheists live here and everyone can respect every other's feast day." Something like that. And then they're like, "Oh, okay." So he makes the constitution. It's called the constitution of Medina cuz after that happened, they renamed it after him. And it's one of the actually the first constitutions in Arabia. And it basically says the Jews there had the rights to stay and the policies had the right to stay and the Muslims had the right to stay. So now he's not just a religious leader, he's now a political leader. And now he's joining an army and he's making an army because he he's like, okay, he's still from Mecca. He's still a Meccan. He's not a Medina, right? And he wants to go back to Mecca and he wants to make that shrine where all the polytheistic gods are for Allah, for the one God. So he dreams of coming back into Mecca and taking over that shrine. So he builds up an army and Mecca and Medina fight each other. I don't know how many battles. I think it's more than 80 battles in his life. They fight. He is fighting those battles. Yeah. He he's the commander. So now he's not just a religious leader. He's a political leader, a religious leader and a commander at war because he couldn't persuade the Meccans, the polytheistic Meccans. So he needed to go and conquer them. Exactly. And he could now because enough people had come under his authority in Medina. And now everyone's like his religion must be true. He just saved Medina from a civil war. He's the commander, political leader, and he's getting revelations from God. So, we're going to follow him into war. And say what you want about the Muslims. They were good at fighting. They won almost every single war because I think it's because of the incentive. They were like, if you win, that you live or die. If you live, you get to fight again and take the war booty. And if you die, you get to go to heaven. And heaven wasn't really a concrete belief in Arabia at the time. So they were like, "Oh, there's this place called heaven I can go to if I die in in battle." So that's the difference between Christian martyrdom and Islamic martyrdom. And Islamic martyrm you go to heaven if you die in battle. Um and Christian martyrm you go to heaven if you die because of your faith. So someone kills you for your faith. That's a little bit different. So uh there were like literally they won everything. And there was a guy named Mal and he was like so good that the when the maybe this is made up but in the hadith I said when the policies would hear his name they would shiver and go into their houses cuz they would come in and slaughter all of them like a day and night like so it was like a blood bath whenever he was around and eventually they encircle Mecca and Mecca gives up and he goes in he takes every single idol fell down except two, Mary and Jesus. He leaves the statue of Mary and Jesus up. No, not statue, an icon of Mary and Jesus cuz he said that these are like the prophets of God. And even though idolatry is like banned and like icons are banned, he respected it enough not to touch them. And he actually says, "These are the only two sinless people to ever live." And then he basically conquers Mecca. And the Meccans are like, "Oh shoot, we're going to die today." like they're going to gather us up, we're going to be beheaded. But he doesn't. He actually says that there's no more violence. Mecca is now a zone of no, no one can be killed. And even today, if you're like break if you do like the if you murder someone in Saudi Arabia and you're in Mecca, they have to fly you outside of Mecca to do the death penalty cuz you're not allowed to die there. It's almost like the Vatican. Like you cannot have like something so gruesome happen on that holy ground, right? So eventually they win. The Muslims take over all of Arabia. Within 23 years, he goes from 200 followers to the commanderin-chief of a country bigger than Great Britain. And then when he dies, it keeps expanding. Goes from Arabia to the Levant to North Africa to Spain. And within like 150 years, it's from Spain to China. is one of the biggest fastest like growing empires that ever exist.

Why do you think it was so at this stage so effective? I think it was because every time they expanded they give you three options. They said you can convert and join us. You can pay a heavy tax or you can die. Those are the three options they gave. Um so most people they uh if they're rich enough so the Coptics in Egypt if they're rich enough to pay the tax the Christians. Yeah. If they were poor, they had to convert. So, so Egypt was like 100% Christian before the Muslims came and now it's only like 10%. Because only the rich could pay the tax. And the tax wasn't just like 10%, it was like half of your income. And do you think to the cultural Christian at the time, so the Christian who was sort of semi-Christian or the polytheistic pagan who was sort of, you know, used to bumping up into Christianity a little bit or at least it was some sort of familiarity of it. Islam seemed to have enough little pieces like you could be sort of a Islam by name, convert because or die and and not have your life dramatically change. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that was part of it too? Yeah, exactly. If anything, your life gets a lot better because if you if you convert to Islam to give you incentives now like okay now you can join the army and now you can like give your own house and like we'll do all these things. So it's like if you became Muslim once you get to heaven you become Muslim now we'll defend you no matter what. So if someone tries to kill you and the court of law a testimony of a Muslim is overpowered by a Christian or a Jew or whoever. So if you have a conflict now with your Christian neighbor, convert to Islam, you'll win the court. So that's all you have to do. So everyone was like, "Of course we'll convert to Islam. Like I don't want to pay the tax. I don't want to like lose in the court of law and I don't want to be killed. So I'll just become Muslim." So that's why expanded so quickly.

What about the teaching on women? You mentioned it earlier, but you know, Muhammad ended up getting was it 21 wives? I don't know where he he finished off. I think it was 19. 19. It's close enough in that range. Mhm. And at the time in Christianity, you're only supposed to have one life. Polytheistic paganism, I I think it was probably I don't know what it would similar to Islam, like whatever. You could do whatever. Yeah. So, how did that, would you say, play into the expansion of Islam? Is it strange to say that Islam was kind of feminis feminist for the time? Really? Yeah. So, okay, I'll tell you why I said that and then there's parts of it that aren't. So before Muhammad started preaching, there was a a tradition that if you had a boy, you would raise it. If you had a girl, baby girl, you would bury it to death because it was useless. Basically, this was not in Islam, you're saying, but in this right before Islam existed. Okay. So in Arab and not the Christian part of the Arab world, this would be the No. Like, so the Christians probably didn't do that, but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't rub off. It was a cultural thing in Arabia. So when Muhammad heard about this and he started preaching his religion, he forbade it. He said, "No, you can't do that. You can't kill a baby a a a baby girl." Um so they basically fought against that. And they also said that women do have the right to be witnesses in the court of law to if a woman if a man has one witness or equals one person, a woman is half of a man. So it' be two witnesses. And this isn't a society where they just wouldn't count as anything at all. That's why I'm saying like it was almost feminist for the movement in in Arabia until it got to like the the Roman Empire and they had Christianity and that's where it wasn't feminist anymore and they were like, "Okay, this is actually anti-women, right?" And then that's when it was actually kind of an issue and basically but I think the threat of death and taxes still overweighted and women even though they had more rights in Christian uh Bzantium they they they still didn't have the same rights we had today. So yeah

And when you were talking about the this polytheistic religion that Muhammad was born into and but there was also like some Coptic Christianity happening around it. Mhm. What kind of real? So people I mean the timeline's so interesting because like western civilization is sort of emerging. Yes. And this is what year? This is 400 years after 600 years after Christ. Mhm. And so Christianity has already began to spread. But when does when does Constantine happen? That was a few hundred years. That was 300. That was three 300 years prior. Yeah. So there's an explosion of Christianity. Yes. But then there's still a lot of this polytheistic religion. Is that just kind of paganism generally? How is that different than like the Romans paganism or does it look look the same? So every tribe in Arabia had their own god and in Mecca had all the gods from all the tribes there. So you can worship all them at the same time. That's why they did pay people or people would pay to go there. Um it was similar to Roman paganism but the own Arab version of them. So like they might have like Jupiter but it was an Arabic name or something like that or a different god completely and we know that there were like there were three goddesses in in Mecca for example and they were like crane goddesses or like the goddesses of the sky. So we know that these existed and that it was just like basically like folk religion almost that existed in Arabia no one cared about Arabia at all. So we had the Zoroastrians in uh Persia who were fighting with the Christian uh Byzantines and that was the main thing that was happening in the middle was Arabia and everyone was like who's going to go down to Arabia and check it out like there's nothing there. Yeah, exactly. It's just Sandy small towns and like that's pretty much it. So they were they didn't know about oil yet is not a thing. So they're they were like we're not worried about anything coming out of Arabia. And then Muhammad came around, Islam came and then took over both Bzantium and Persia. So it was like I said, Islam spread very well.

What part of in the Quranic in the in in the writing of the Quran and then also the life of Muhammad? At what point did he start to really clash and try to and ultimately be violent against Christians and Jews for that matter? it was less about overcome, you know, defeating the polytheists and it it became no, we're going to we're going to kill Christians and Jews. So, a big one was when they started not believing that he was a prophet. So, a lot of it is a lot of slander to the Jews because Arabia had a lot of Jews at the time cuz they were kicked out of the Byzantine Empire by Christians. So, they'd be living in with the policy in Arabia. and he basically tried to convince them that he was like a new Moses and like he believed in the Old Testament. There's even a hadith that said that like there were two Jewish people arguing and he took the Torah and he said whatever this book says in this you have to follow it for your argument and he actually quotes the Torah and so Judaism was very big in Arabia at the time. The issue was he kept saying that he was prophesized in the Torah. And but because Muhammad couldn't read or write Hebrew, he couldn't clarify his term. He's just making it up. So the Jews were like, "Where?" And he's like, "Oh, you know, like the second book, the third book." They check it out and he's not there. So they wouldn't believe him. There was also a story about these Jews who actually go and ask him questions. And one of the questions is they uh they ask you about the spirit and they're talking about the Holy Spirit actually because the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the Old Testament. Um and Muhammad doesn't know what they're talking about. He has no idea what this Holy Spirit because God is only one. There's no spirit of God. Yeah. Well, there is a spirit of God in the Quran, but he doesn't know what they mean exactly by Holy Spirit. And he goes and he prays and he comes back and he says, "God told me that the spirit of people is only known by God and no one else can know him." So that's how the Jews knew he was a false prophet because he didn't know what the Holy Spirit was. Um, and there are a few other questions in that that uh they realized that he wasn't a prophet of God. And the Christians did the same thing. So the Christians asked him about tell us the story about the the sleepers of the cave. And the sleepers of the cave is a story about these Christians in Ephesus who lived under the uh persecution of Rome. And they eventually went to a cave and they slept in a cave and they woke up like hundreds of years later to being under the Byzantine Empire. And it was a miracle and they basically were saved because they were fleeing persecution at first and the Lord resurrected them in the cave and they eventually came out and they were saved. And Muhammad didn't know this story at all about the the Orthodox saints till today in in the Orthodox church. And Muhammad had no idea about the story. But he went and he asked some Christian monks. He might have asked water. I'm not sure about the time timeline. But they g they didn't know the story very well and they kind of they they twisted a little bit. So he got the number of people wrong in the cave. He got the time period wrong. And he said they were Muslims, not Christians, who were in the cave. So the Christians knew he's a false prophet. He has to know about our saints, right? So when he started finding out that they were asking questions that were too over his pay grade basically and he was like, "Oh shoot, these people don't believe me." That's when the violence started coming out. So is when people stopped believing him and that's when he would just start he would just order or command for violent invasion and basically the death penalty unless you convert. Yeah. Art of taxes. He was very much into money. So he was like, "You can just pay, give me half your money and then I won't kill you."

There's a lot of and and I know we've going to get to your story of conversion, which is incredible. But there's a lot of Muslims today who are in the West who are, you know, p I mean there's mom Dami who's running for, you know, mayor of New York City, right, as an example. And he is Muslim. Did he win yet or I don't think he's No, I don't think so. Okay. Please. Yeah. Anyways, but people are saying he's going to win. Mhm. And you know, he he comes across as I'm I'm a devout Muslim, but then I'm very ultimately he's very liberal progressive, you know, so somehow he's like in support of abortion, LGBTQ, all of this stuff. And then at the same time, he's a devout Muslim. And there's a lot of this in the US right now especially and and in parts of Europe. Then you have, you know, parts of Europe where you literally like in in the UK as an example or or France, there's parts that are become very Islamic and it's fundamentalist Islamic or like really trying to practice what the Quran teaches and they're living alongside Western, you could say even hedonism, you know, an opposite lifestyle is how at least they would maybe look at it. What do you make of that? these different expressions of Islam that are so prominent.

They're not different expressions. It's the same thing. It's actually the formula of Islam. It's like I'm I'm smiling. Not because I'm like, "Oh, this is amazing." But it's like coming from Islam, this is like if I was still a Muslim, this is the best news I could have ever heard in my entire life. Because think about what I just said. At the beginning of Muhammad's like ministry, he was peaceful. Then it grew and grew and grew and it got violent. And that's what they use as a formula. That that is the formula. If you're under 20 or 15% of the population, you can't be violent. It's impossible. You're in the minority. But what you can do once you get big enough as you can become there's two types of jihad. There's jihad of nefs where you can like which means like the holy war of oneself and jihad like outside, right? And that's that literally means like jihad of war, the struggle of war. And basically in the outside fight, you can do it in two different ways. You can physically do it, but you can't do that if you're the minority. But what you can do is do it through politics, through uh uh different aspects of schooling, different aspect in hospitals, anything. You can use anything in order to expand the Muslim empire to the extent that there is a a teaching called anda literally means to deceive. So what you do is you actually deceive people. So when you as a Christian asked me if I was still Muslim, do you believe in Jesus? I know exactly what you're asking me. You're asking, do I believe Jesus is the son of God? The answer is no. But I mean as a Muslim, the answer would be no. No. Yeah, but I know that if I say that, the conversation's over and I you're not going to become Muslim. What I'm going to say is, of course, I believe in Jesus and he's the son of God in a way like we're all children of God. That's what the Bible means. And I'll twist the Bible in order to make you a Muslim, right? Even though in the Quran it literally says no one is a son of God, not even metaphorically. But I'm able to lie about that in order to make you a Muslim. That is the that is the goal. So lying is not always a sin in Islam. There are a few exceptions. Lying to make people Muslims is one. Lying to your wife about having another wife or adultery is one. And you're allowed to do that kind of lying. Oh yeah. Because it's going to Well, if I committed adultery and my wife finds out, it's going to break up the family. So that's going to hurt the children. So it's better to lie about it. You guys can do whatever you want with that one. and lying with having another wife. So like I don't need permission to tell my wife to have I want another wife and I can lie about it. So I can have an entirely different family across town with a second wife. And because it would impact my first family and my first wife so much it would break it up. It is actually a sin to tell my first wife that I have a second wife because it would hurt the children and the wife so much. So it's better to lie to them than to tell them the truth. So lying is not always a sin in Islam. Being deceptive is good. And again, Allah is and he is the great deceiver. So you're allowed to be deceptive. God is not just good, he's also bad. So and that's what I believe is happening in New York. Really? You think Donnie You think mom Donnie is practicing tea? A thousand%. A thousand%. It's he's presenting as the Muslims are laughing at you guys. Like it's this is the funniest thing. Like dude, give it 50 more years. entire New York is going to be Muslim and then before you know there's going to be Sharia courts and then like y'all are it's like if it's like shooting yourself in the foot like I I I can't even believe and like you see Europe you look at Europe it's happening right now and then you're like oh let's just do it here in New York like it's like no like you have to stop like obviously tea is working and they're doing an amazing job at it and they're fooling everyone like and all the Muslims are like so happy that's happening like is this the best thing that could happen in Islam and he's going to win because we're too stupid. Like no matter how many times ex-Muslims will say Taya is a real thing, they are lying to you. They will take over within a 100 years. No one's going to listen because we just assume that our god is the same as their god. We just assume that their god will tell them not to lie. But their god tells them to lie. That's the difference.

But are you say could it be that someone like a mom dami he's Muslim? He's a practicing Muslim, self-p profofessed, you know, he avowed. That's what he is. But maybe in the back of his mind, he's like, I'll be practicing Muslim and I'll tolerate other people. But the more he leads, the more for him to practice, he has to dominate. But that I mean, I'm just saying, could it be in the back of his mind there's duplicity in his own mind where he doesn't realize that he is practically practicing tea is what I'm saying. Or you think no, it's like this is a strategy. I don't think you realize how bad it is. I don't think like they they talk about it openly like they'll literally be like guys we have to go out and say like we love the gays so that we can take over the west and then as soon as we take over we'll kill all the gays like this is just talked about. So mom dami at a pride did he go to a pride parade? Can we look that up? Type in mom donnie pride. So mom dammy at a pride parade is like the ultimate tequila. Oh yeah, dude. That's the funniest thing in my life. Like there Yeah, I'm I'm not surprised.

What does the Quran teach about people who who believe who who believe they're gay or who say they're gay? Who think they're gay? Muhammad said, uh, well, the Quran doesn't have a punishment for it. It just says it's a sin. But in the hadith, it says what you should do is you take them to the highest tower and throw them off and if they don't die, you stone them. That's the punishment. And what is a hadith? How's a hadith different from the Quran? So hadith is so the Quran tells you something's wrong. The hadith tells you what to do. Basically the Bible, it's like the Bible in the catechism. It's like, oh, we believe in the trinity, but how do we define the trinity? We believe that like Mary existed, but like what are the dogmas behind Mary? You know what I mean? So, it's kind of like that. So, it's a sin. Okay. So, what's the punishment for the sin? Thrown off the highest building. And then if they still are alive, you uh you stone them to death.

And what about honor killings? What are the hadiths on honor killings? Um, honor killing is a very cultural thing. And there are some hadith about uh women if for example they kind of did it to themselves type of thing. So if you're being promiscuous and you are leading men to want to do that to you then it's kind of the blames on you as well. So you're you're you're wanting to be can I say the word on okay you're wanting to be raped basically. So then you deserve to die. So yeah, but it's kind of like you have to read like every single like case cuz not everyone wants to be no one wants to be but in hadith it's like well if you're dressing that way then you're you want to be so what's the Islamic view of rape?

That's a loaded question. What do you mean like is it ever justified? Well, do you consider taking sex slaves against our will rape? Yes, definitely. then it's justified. It's fine. Well, if you if I had a sex slave and then my friend had a sex slave and he raped my sex slave, then he'd be a rapist cuz he's she's my sex slave, not yours. That's how it works. So, yeah, not not not pretty at all.

And what about the treatment of children? What's the view on children? So, there's no age of consent in Islam. So, uh in theory, you can marry someone born yesterday and that does happen, right? Very young marriages are arranged. Yeah, it's very much um there's And didn't Muhammad have a very a child wife? Yeah, she was she was married at six and he consummated it at 9. The only reason why we believe he consummated at 9 cuz he couldn't physically do it, not because he was waiting for something. So yeah, but in theory how do how does the modern Muslim take that piece of history about Muhammad that he nine-year-old That's a great question. And I don't know. I don't know. Like, is someone going to ask mom dami that? I hope so. I hope he says, "I I don't like pedophil pedophilia." Like, like I hope we're all in agreement here. But how can you say there is only one God and Muhammad at his prophet and follow a religion that Muhammad gave you from God, but Muhammad as part of his religious practice, he raped a nine-year-old? Well, no, no, no. She had to have consented in some way. It's not. He They just That's what they say. Yeah. It's just like, well, they'll just say that she had to have be been mature enough. Even if she was one years old, she had to be mature enough in some way. She would have to be. They would justify it. And how did they do it? I don't know. And the reason why I'm so uncomfortable right now, cuz I'm thinking about it, and um I have a family member named after her. And that family member is a baby right now. And it was very hurtful when that person named her that name, Aisha, because every time I look at that baby now, I think of that six-year-old. I don't want to cry on screen, but it's just like it really hurts because even though my family's Muslim and they named that baby Aisha, I can't call her that. Every time I see see her, I call her Princess Yousef because her last name is Yousef, too. Cuz I just cannot I cannot in my heart of hearts. It really hurts my heart and um yeah, it's just it's terrible. It's terrible and it's disgusting and it's I pray and I hope that people are better than that. But I obviously they're not. And as someone who I went through something similar when I was a kid that that happened to me and if anyone I something happened to me when I was a kid basically and it left a scar on me um with in that area and if someone did that to a child in front of me I think I would lose it so quickly like I couldn't even fathom and I think I'd ask every Muslim parent, would you allow your baby girl to to go through that? And if the answer is no, then why do you follow Muhammad? So, yeah. I'm so sorry that happened to you. To his life. Uh, can you share how young you were? I was eight. Yeah. And was that was it connected to Islam at all? No, that was just like evil people doing evil things. Evil that you experienced. Yeah. But it gives you a great heart for people who are enduring that. Let's just say when I heard that about Muhammad, it made it very easy to leave very quickly.

Tell me about why you left Islam. I left Islam when I was 16. Um, and it was because this was in Canada. So I did high school in Canada cuz I moved back when I was 15. And my best friend, he's still my best friend till today. He started asking me questions about um, Islam. And I think he realized that cuz he started reading about Islam just to check it out and he's an atheist. And he was like, "Yes, I don't think you know about Islam. They keep saying it's peaceful. I don't think it's peaceful." I was like, "Yes, it is. It's religion of peace." And he's like, "Okay, I challenge you to read about the life of Muhammad." I was like, "Okay, I'll do it." So I uh I picked up some hadith and I uh read it in Arabic and I started on a Monday and by that Friday I left Islam. Literally took me 5 days cuz every single thing that I read was like like almost nine things nine out of 10 things was like this is bad, this is bad, this is bad. And I realized on Friday that my morality as a 16-year-old is higher than this person's morality. And it was actually the verse about sex slavery that did it for me. When I read that and I saw that Muhammad said that it was okay to take woman against her will, I I literally felt physically sick. I I thought I was going to throw I was physically sick. I remember it so vividly. I was in my bedroom and I we I live by the water so I had like it was in the summer. It was June 2016. So I had the window open and I was and I I feel like people should have heard me cuz I was yelling at God and I I was I read it and I looked out in the ocean and I was like I started saying like f you God. Why would you do why would you do that? Why would you why would you tell your prophet to do that? Like what you how dare you? How dare you do that? You can do that to my mom. You can do that to like I don't have a sister, but I have some very close female friends. You going to do that to them? Like I was mad. And then I I was I couldn't sleep that night and then I talked to my atheist friend about it and he's like And then I re and then I actually he told me like, "Yeah, so why do you think you're still Muslim?" And then I said it and I said because it gives me comfort. And when I told my friend that that it gives me comfort, I I left Islam right away. Like as soon as I said that, I just came out and I was like, "Yeah, I can't be a Muslim anymore because just because it's comfortable doesn't mean it's true." And I I knew that from a young age that doesn't matter if it's comfortable. It matters if it's true. And I realized it's not true. It's a lie. It's a lie from the devil and it's destroyed societies and destroyed people's lives. And I was devastated. I was I was at a park actually and it was uh him and his girlfriend and they were talking to me and I was balling my eyes out and they were like and this atheist friend, God bless this man and he's probably going to watch this because he watched all my stuff. you know, he disagrees with everything, but like he he looked at me and he said, "You should go pray." And I was like, "What?" He's like, "Obviously, this religion meant something to you. Go and pray and see how you feel." So, I went home and I prayed to Allah. I did the Muslim prayer and it was the first time my entire life I felt nothing, no connection to God. I I every verse that I recited from the Quran, I got angrier and angrier. And I it was then I was like, I'm never going to pray to this God again. And I left Islam. And I didn't want to look into any other religion cuz I was like, my mom was right. Religion is bad. Like she grew up JW and it destroyed her life.

And Islam has just destroyed my life. So I'm not going to do religion either. So, I became like a nihilistic atheist and I kind of did a lot of drugs and drank a lot and yeah, that was that was a dark two years of my life when I was a nihilistic atheist cuz I just kind of didn't care about anything. But I was I was free though. I was free because you know what the first thing I did the next day? Eat some bacon. I had pepperoni pizza and I went down and I was like, "You know what we're going to do?" I told all my own all the guy friends like, "Yo, I just left Islam." He's like, "Yo, it's awesome. You want a beer? What do you want to do?" Like, "I want some pepperoni." So, we went down, we got pepperoni pizza. And I was like, "This is amazing." And uh there might be TMI, but if you're a Muslim and you leave Islam, eat only a little bit of pepperoni because your stomach is not ready to receive it and you're going to be suffering for a few hours. But that's besides the point. But the pepperoni is amazing and I loved it. And then I had like a beer and I was like, "Yo, this is great." And like just like I'm trying everything, but freedom isn't everything. Like just because you're free to do stuff doesn't mean you should do it, right?

Cuz I started doing drugs and I started just trying things. I tried and I realized I was doing these things now just to experience them, but to escape reality cuz being an atheist didn't answer my questions. It caused more harm than good. Cuz now I'm just like I have no I have no like moral code. I have nothing. I'm just living like a hedonistic life and I'm just like the even the way I looked at women now like even in Islam I almost like felt like I looked at women better because at least I didn't want to like commit like fornication but now I was like oh I'm just going to go around and sleep with women now and do whatever I want but it led me down a route in my life that I eventually ended up in the hospital due to drugs and uh how old were you? uh 18 and it was 3 weeks before I was going to university and I remember I don't remember much of what happened but I remember the next day um they were like yeah your heart stopped all this stuff and you could have died and I was just like it wouldn't have been too bad if I died and when I hit when that hit me and I was like I don't why do I want to die like why am I so depressed and I actually talked to God again for the first time and I was like God, I give you till November cuz it was like August. No, I give you till November 2018. If you don't show up till November, December, then I'm probably going to take my life. I'll give you 3 months. Why not be my guest? Little did I know he uh accepted the deal because I went to university and I tried to make friends with people and like it was it just wasn't working. Maybe it was too awkward. I don't know. But I met this uh guy um his name is Michael and he works for an organization called Catholic Christian Outreach in Canada which is like focus in the US and they go to different campuses and they uh basically they tell people about Jesus and it's like uh like five six lessons and they tell you the basic gospel and I actually went up to him um because everyone kind of was ignoring him. He was like doing these flyers and I was like don't didn't want to look at it and I was like oh I'll see what he's doing. So, I did and apparently there was like a survey thing and I I I guess I left my number because that same night he texted me and he's like, "Yo, uh, this is Michael from the the Catholic society. Do you want to hang out tomorrow?" And I was like, "Hi, Michael. No, I'm not Catholic. I want nothing to do with this." And he's like, "Yo, well, we got free food." And I was like, "I'll see you at 12:00." And I was like, so that that's all it took. It was like I think it was after pepperoni pizza. There you go.

So, and the next day I went there and um uh we show I show up and then I go to this room and it's called the chapency and at the time the reason why I say it's called a chapy cuz I didn't know what a chapy was. I thought it was the name of someone like there was like the I don't know like the Biden room I don't know like something like the chapy room. I was like okay. I walk in and there's like a little lounge area and then there's a a a chapel area with like a crucifix and there's like a window between the lounge and the and in and the chapel area and I look over and I see this huge crucifix with Jesus on it and I'm like, "Okay." And I look over and there's this nun. She's praying the rosary and this is like this other guy. He's uh he's sitting there with his Bible all highlighted and I think he's like just praying to God like this. like he's like talking to God and like where the heck am I and Michael shows up and he's like hey how's it going like let's go in a small room here we'll talk so we're in the chapel area and G and like he's standing he's sitting like in front of me and behind him is the crucifix so while he's talking to me Jesus is just staring at me the whole time and he's like yeah so we're Catholic society we do these things called like face studies talk about Jesus and I was just like oh I'm not Catholic I don't believe in religion and he's like that's fine like it's more philosophical anyway. Don't worry about it. And I was like, it wasn't that by way. It was very religious. It was not philosophical. And eventually like I agreed to it because I in my mind I was like this is kind of sad. They actually believe the religion is true. And I was like this is probably like Islam. I got to make them leave Christianity. So I came back every day. I failed my first semester university. And I came back every single day and told them why Christianity was stupid. And every single day they basically were nice to me. And man, did it make me upset. It made me so upset because I was an a-hole to them the whole time. And they were just like, "H, but we still love you." And I'm like, "Screw you. You shouldn't love me. You should be upset with me." And eventually they invited me to Thanksgiving. Uh, and they were like, "Yo, we're going to we're going You have Thanksgiving in Canada?" Yeah. Ours in October, though. Okay. Okay. So, uh, we're doing Thanksgiving and they're like, "Yo, we're going to this cottage area and then going to this what? Uh, cottage." And then we're going to stay overnight. And did you do the turkey? Yeah. Yeah, I did do the turkey. All the the whole nine yards. And we go there and then they're like, "Oh, tomorrow's tomorrow's mass, so we're all going to go to church." And that's when it hit me. I was the only non-Christian with them and I was like, "Okay, maybe this is planned. Maybe they wanted me to become Christian, but I can't leave now because we're in the middle of nowhere." Like once you leave Halifax in in Nova Scotia, there is nothing. Like the next city is like I don't know 500 miles away. So it's like the next thing is the bears. Like you got bears and and moose. So like either I stay with the Christians or I get eaten by a bear. So, I'm like, "Okay, I'm going I'm staying with the Christians."

So, I'm sitting there and I'm like, "Uh, it's actually funny cuz they're like, "Yo, make sure you guys wear uh church attire." That's what the one of the missionaries said. And I was like, "Do y'all wear like uniforms at church?" He's like, "No, just look nice." I was like, "Oh, okay." So, I dress up a little bit and I like sitting there in mass and then like mass is so strange. Is this your first mass? Yeah. People are standing up and down. There's bread involved. There's a cup up there and then uh people are doing a sign of peace and I'm like the lamb thing was so odd and like the lamb of God and he's holding a piece of bread right in my mind and he's saying the lamb of God takes away the sins of the world and I'm like are you all bringing in a lamb like I was like waiting for the lamb to come down the aisle and just nothing's happening and eventually like the mass ends and they're all like what did you think and they're all smiling at me and I'm just like very culty actually it looked very culty So, like eventually like we were about to leave and this woman came up to us and she was like, "Yo, I want all 15 of you guys to come to my house for a Thanksgiving dinner tonight." Like I felt called by the Lord. Which was a weird statement for me to hear, called by the Lord. But I was like, "Okay, I guess I'm going to die tonight cuz that's how how you die in movies." But I was like, and all the Christians are naive like, "Oh, yeah. It's very the Holy Spirit told her we're going we're going to Thanksgiving." And I was like, "All right, cool." So, we go to her house and we're sitting there and we're eating Thanksgiving. She got to have planned that. We don't just have enough Thanksgiving dinner for 15 people. Dude, there was like too many turkeys, too. And I was like, "You were waiting for Told her about that before." But it was like a small town like in the middle of nowhere. And then God was like, "These random university students are coming in. Like, you got to take them." And so, we show up to her house and they pray before the meal. And it's the weirdest prayers ever in my mind because the only prayers I knew were like Muslim prayers about like like they were formulized like oh like you pray to God in formal Arabic. You say this and that's it. These people are like Jesus man I thank you so much. You you heal my dad from cancer. Um, I got a B minus on my report card. And I'm like dude who you talking to? Like he's not here. So this wasn't just bless us oh Lord in these gifts. This was like we're all going to pray together and thank him. Yeah. They were like, "Oh, like they were praying like praying praying." And then I was like, "These people are very much like they think he's real. They actually think this guy's real. Like he's in the room with them." And that's that scared me even more. I was like, "These people are schizophrenic."

And so I'm sitting there and eventually it gets to me. I'm the last person like they planned it. And I didn't know what to say, but I do knew one word. I knew amen. So I was like, "Amen." I crossed myself cuz I learned that from a movie. And then they were just like, "Okay." And then after the dinner, they start doing praise and worship and they're all they're all like singing their songs and all looking so joyful. And I'm sitting there and there's like 15 of them going around like praising Jesus. And I'm sitting there and they look so happy. And I'm like, why are they so happy? How can they be so happy? And it hit me. They're happy because they have something I don't have. And I don't know what it is. And I have two conclusions. They all took like Xanax before coming here, but I know what Thanksgiving. Oh, turkey, you know, makes you feel a little sleepy. Exactly. And like, but I I did drugs. I know what drugs do. This is not it. Or this is real. They're actually encountering something I'm not encountering. And I whispered to myself and I was like, Jesus, if you're real, tell me right now. And as soon as I said that, I went from an atheist to a Christian. Like that, like literally a millisecond. At the time, I didn't know it was the Holy Spirit, but it entered my body and it it filled something in my heart that just expanded everywhere. And I I couldn't even imagine like I can't explain it in words. It it felt like, you know, when you're a kid and you have a nightmare and you run to your mom's arms and she hugs you. It was like I finally felt that again for the first time in my life. And then um I started crying. I'm going to cry again just thinking about it. And I I started remembering all the moments in my life where God tried to call me home to Jesus. Um, and there were so many moments where I could have become a Christian and I just kept denying it over and over and over. And eventually I left the house and the people followed me and they're like, "Isa, are you all right?" And I was like, "I don't know what happened, but I think Jesus is real. I think I felt the Holy Spirit." And they're like, "Do you know what the Holy Spirit is?" And I was like, "I have no idea what the Holy Spirit is or who he is, but I know he's real." And I was like, "Okay, I got to talk to God." So, I look up to God because I'm assuming he's up there. And I look up and like the moon's out. It's like a nice night. And I just look at him and I'm like, "Listen, man. I messed up. I didn't know you were real. I'm sorry. I love you, Jesus. We'll talk later." I just They're freaking out. I think they want me back in there. So, I think I say, "God bless." like, "All right, Jesus, God bless." And I walk into the house and then like, and they pray over me. And then this old the old woman, her name's Eleanor, the woman that invited me to the house, she had holy oil. And she starts putting it over my head and like my my arms. And then they're talking, not holy water, holy oil. Holy oil, like crismian oil that they had blessed or something. And eventually they um her husband was talking to me and I I will never remember this guy's name for the life of me. He told me like five times, but I'll never remember his name cuz I was so much in like awe of what was going on that he was he was basically telling me the gospel message like yeah and he died for us and all this stuff and I'm like I know I know he told me right now like he told he told me he died for me and then they all prayed for me and then it was funny we're going back to the city the next day and I'm like man how am I going to go back to university? Like when what am I going to do? So, I go back to university and I'm like I'm literally like I got to tell everyone. So, I go around my my university telling people about Jesus. I'm like, "Yo, I met Jesus 2 days ago. He's awesome. Like, yeah, you can actually meet him. Like, he's real. Like, you can almost like you're meeting me." And people were like, "This guy's weird. Like, this guy's got to chill." And then even the missionaries were like, "Hey, we got to we have a process here." Like, and they told me about like RCIA and all that stuff. And then eventually I got baptized, first communion, and confirmation. And then I never looked back and now I'm here. So, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Amen. Crazy. It's amazing. Yeah, it is amazing. What was it like to get baptized? Is it bad to say anticlimactic? No. Like it's just like you had the baptism of the spirit already. Oh yeah, exactly. But I I literally like also my hair is very thick. I didn't I didn't even feel it. So, and I wanted to get dunked. I was like, "Yo, can y'all dunk me?" like I want to be like like you know like the orthodoxy with the baby like I want that I get like five priests to hold me and push me down but they're like I'm a big baby I know exactly but they were like no we're not doing that like we have a pool and we're just going to do this so the priest takes it and pours it three times and like oh we're done and I was like what he's like yeah and he gives me a towel I'm like I don't even need the towel I don't even like it's all over like it just falls off my head and then um I would say the best the best one was first communion that was that was wild to me because I heard Like I I think I actually felt something when I received the body and blood of Christ the first time where I remember the priest I'm still good friends until today. He looked at me and he held it up and he said, "The body of Christ." And it was like slow motion in my mind and I was like, "Oh my goodness, I'm going to receive Jesus physically. I'm going to receive him physically. Am I even ready? I am ready. I'm I'm not sin. I have no sin in me. I just got baptized. Um, did I did I can I do it?" And I just like I said, "Amen." And then he like gives it to me and I consume it. And it was almost like a very similar feeling to receiving the Holy Spirit. Like just ignited in my life. And I was just like, "Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I received Jesus. This is so cool. I'm going to tell people I received Jesus." But then I realized people didn't understand that either. So I had to calm down with that one. And then um yeah, I I don't know. I don't know. Well, it's just everything was just so amazing. And then I went through a period after that where I started telling people about God and doing Bible studies. And little by little, I would share my testimony with Muslims. And I would actually in my university, I would look for people who looked Muslim and tell them that I used to be a Muslim. So I'd go over there and be like, "Yeah, oh, you're Muslim? Oh, that's awesome. I used to be a Muslim." And I slide it into conversation. And um eventually it just kept growing and kept growing. And then uh the Lord put on my heart to make YouTube and I started doing YouTube stuff and then Instagram stuff and then people found out about it and then now I'm talking to people around the world about it. So yeah, it's amazing. And you know I we we had Nikki Kingsley on the show. She's talking about how she had ultimately visions, these deep spiritual experiences of Mary leading her to Jesus. Was that part of your conversion at all? Did you have any sort of mystical experiences? You talked about being experiencing Jesus, saying, "Jesus, if you're real, show me." And then just feeling that he's real in every fiber of your being.

When I was 13 years old, I uh challenged myself once after one of my friends who was a Coptic Christian, and he's he still talks to me till today. Um, he told me like, "Hey, you know, you just got to ask God who he is and he'll tell you." And I was like, "Okay, I'll I'll I'll try." And I asked God, I was like, "God, I need a sign. I need something. Just show me something." And I had this dream that same night. And um the reason every time I talk about it, I get emotional. So I'm trying not to be emotional, but I had this dream. And in the dream, I I like I'm standing and I'm walking through a crowd. And eventually like the crowd's so big. I'm trying to get to the middle of it. And I get to the middle and I look up and I see three people dying on crosses. And then I look at the person in the middle and he looks at me. And it's so interesting because it looked like no other illustration of Jesus I ever saw in my life. Like I've never seen a picture that looks like him the way I saw him. I've never seen um I think the closest thing is like the Divine Mercy chaplet picture, but even that doesn't do it justice. And I couldn't even see his facial features very well because of how bloody his face was. But I did see his eyes. And his eyes were brown and he looked right at me. And I looked at him and that was the whole dream. He just looked at me and I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. And I I woke up and I researched. I looked on my phone. I was like, "Jesus dying." And cuz I didn't know that two other people died with Jesus. No one taught me that. And I I looked it up and I found out there were two other people beside Jesus that were being crucified. And I was like, "Okay, okay, that's weird. That's very weird." Um, God just answered me. Or or or it's Satan trying to trick me not being Muslim. Or maybe I made it up and I'm going to go to bed and I'm going to be a good Muslim and I'm going to live my life and bada boom bada bang. We're not going to talk about this. So, I went to bed and I never talked about it with anyone until uh a couple years later and I started telling people when I was like 15 16 like, "Hey, did you guys ever have like dreams of Jesus?" And they're like, "Uh, no." And I was like, "Okay, don't worry about it. Never mind. We're not going to talk about it." So, but I I'd mention it every once in a while to people like, "Hey, I had this dream of Jesus when I was a kid." And even before I became a Christian, the same atheist friend that told me about to read Muhammad's life, he also like I I remember telling him a few times like I had I had used to have dreams of Jesus when I was a kid. And he was like, "Oh, I guess you know make people have dreams." And I didn't think about it much. And it wasn't until my conversion that I realized God was trying to reach me through that dream. It really was. And he answered me directly in that dream. And it's the only dream where I actually could have I felt the ground underneath my feet and I could smell the air. Like it was like I was physically there. It's like I'm in the room with you right now. Like I was like physically there. And I am puzzled. Someone asked me in another interview if do I believe that in a sense somehow God actually brought me back to the resurrection somehow or the crucifixion. I mean and I don't know. I don't want to put anything like that on me, like I'm just a person. Um, but I think about it sometimes and I think it's interesting because my patron saint is Mary Magdalene and she was at the crucifixion and I always fell in love with Mary Magdalene even as a Muslim for some reason. I felt like she was always pulling me to the crucifixion and I always preach Christ crucified whenever I'm talking to people that he died. I don't know what it is like the resurrection is the most important part too but the the suffering he endured that he didn't have to endure. There are saints that said that if he even just let one drop of blood it would have been enough to fulfill all of the sin in the world. But he didn't choose that. He chose to go through the most gruesome, most horrific suffering. And his best friend John and Mary Magdalene, his own mother were there watching this gruesome event. And while they're doing it, he's saying, "Forgive them." Something about that event just like shook me to the core because I was always taught an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I was always taught that we had to fight the enemies. But this was a different fight. This was a fight of sacrificing yourself for the greater good. And that's the beauty of Christianity that regardless of what happens, you still sacrifice yourself for the greater good because there will be a resurrection one day. And that's where I have my faith. When everything else falls apart, when all the dogmas of the church make no sense to me, when the people in charge might be corrupt, I look at the crucifixion, the resurrection, that Christ really died and he really rose. And that is my faith.

Did you tell those Christians? Did you remember that dream when you were arguing with those Christians as that first year university student going to that Catholic group? And I told them about the dream and they were like, I think that's really important, Ishmail. Maybe you should really think about that dream a lot. Please think about it. I was like, nah, it's just a dream. And that probably made them really frustrated or like they're like the same missionary uh his name is Michael and met her friend's name's Ken and he would talk to Ken about me. He's like, "Dude, I know this Muslim guy or he used to be Muslim who he literally had dreams about Jesus and keeps coming to the chapy arguing about Christianity and he won't convert just like and then like 2 weeks later he's like, "Yeah, he converted." I was like, "Okay." So, it was just funny that like after I converted, they told me like they were talking about me like every day like, "How is this guy not Christian?" But yeah, so but the Lord had his timing and I wasn't ready yet. So, yeah. What did your dad think about your conversion? A and your mom. So, my mom found out first and she found out uh by accident. So, I had a rosary and I didn't even know how to use it. I thought I was all I knew was like there's a cool cross on it. It looks cool. I'll use it as a necklace. And I would take it off whenever I go into the house because I was still living at home at the time. And I put it in my jacket. And in my jacket, it literally has like a zipper and then a button. So, there's no way this rosary can fall out. Like, it's impossible. I go into the house and the first thing you see is the kitchen. She's like in the kitchen. She turns around and the first thing that happens is my zipper something like opens by itself and it falls out and the crucifix is right in front of her face and I'm just like, "Oops." Uh, yeah. So, I I'm Jesus's Lord, Mom. like I didn't know what to say. I was like there's no hiding it now. Like and it was interesting cuz it was like the second day I was Christian too. So I like there was no waiting time. There was like I couldn't hide it. And it was very hard because my mom actually like fell to the ground begging me not to be a Christian. She literally said like if you loved me you would not say Jesus is Lord. And I said I I can't I can't I can't say Jesus is not Lord. He is Lord. Um, so she was the first person to find out and she begged me again on her knees saying that like, "Please don't tell your dad. Not right now." And I was like, I had to agree cuz I didn't know how to tell him yet. Um, my brother was the second person to find out at the time. He was living in Toronto, so he wasn't at home. And I was like, "How am I going to tell him? I'm going to just FaceTime him and be like, "Hey, how's it going? By the way, I'm Christian." Like, I don't know. I'm going to do this. And I tried it. I actually tried to FaceTime him and he didn't answer and I was frustrated. So I was like, I got to tell him. So I took my phone, I texted him. I was, his name is Omar. I was like, "Hey Omar, I love you very much. Um, I became a Christian. Jesus, Lord, the Holy Spirit's real. God loves you. Uh, good night." Went to bed, put it down, went to bed, crossed myself, and I was like, "We'll see what happens in the morning." I wake up and he calls me and he's like, "Are are you good?" I was like, "Yeah, I'm good." He's like, "What do you mean you're a Christian?" And I'm like, "I accepted Jesus." And he's like, "Ishmail the you know, people don't become Christian. Like people leave Christianity like in flocks like all the priests are pedophiles. Like everyone like no one no one believes this man. It's a myth." And I'm like, "No, no, no. Like it's true. Like I don't want I can't explain to you right now cuz you're not here. Like when you come back to Hellifax, I'll explain it to you." But he started like bashing me almost. He was like, "Okay, no, you're just brainwashed." like, you know, it's my fault cuz I left Halifax. I went to the the big city, Toronto, and then kind of like and maybe I have to come back and help you. I was like, no, I'm I'm fine. I'm fine. And he so I think he blames himself a little bit that he couldn't have saved me from being Christian. Um, then my my dad finds out a while later, and that one was very hard. And he found out when I wasn't even at the house. So, uh, he calls me and I'm on the phone and there's something I said while I'm on the phone that kind of hinted that I wasn't a Muslim anymore and he says like, "Wait a minute, are you Muslim?" And he never asked me that directly. I think he just assumed I was. And he asked me that and I couldn't deny it. I couldn't say yes. So, I said, "No, I'm not Muslim." And I could hear him on the phone fall down. I could literally hear him fall. So, I rush back home and he's still on the ground and my mom's yelling at me. She's like, "Look what you did to the family." My brother calls me and he's like, "You're the reason why the family is breaking up." Um, eventually my dad gets up and he asks me like, "Hey, like what happened? Like, how did this happen?" And I tell him the entire story. And um for a year after that he didn't tell he didn't say I love you for a year after that. Um, and he would wake up at night with nightmares screaming my name. Um, and he would be sitting in on on the deck outside just crying every night because he thought that was it. like and he says something that really really hurts and like not not on purpose that it hurts but he's he he said that in Islam everyone gets buried together as a family and it hurts him so hard that I will not be buried with them. And in Islam too, the two sons are whoever the the male children are. When the father dies, the the boys, they wash the body of the father before burying him. Um, and it and it deeply hurts him that I won't be able to do that. I won't be able to say goodbye to him at at his funeral. So that was very hard on him. Um, years later now he we're all on speaking terms. Um, my brother lives in Montreal now and we're on speaking terms. Uh, my mom and my dad, they they live like two minutes from where my wife and I live. We see them every other week. We have dinner together and um I think it's just like a regular family now. It's just like we just don't talk about religion and politics and that's like everyone. So, like that's kind of what we do. And uh yeah, we kind of agree to disagree and move on. And I really respect my dad cuz my dad said that he knows what he his religion teaches him, but he loves me more than his religion. Wow. And when he said that, like I I gained so much respect for him and I I have so much respect for that man. And yeah, so I love my parents and they did an amazing job and this this is my life now. And when he says, "I know what my religion teaches, but I love you more than my religion," his Islamic, his Muslim religion. Is that because if he was practicing it in your in his relationship with you as now you're I guess considered an apostate, right? Because you've become Christian, he's supposed to disown you and not talk to you anymore. At the very least, yes, he's supposed to disown me. There shouldn't be any communication. So, yeah, but there is. So, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. What about your larger community? What about the atheist friend who's going to be listening to this? Oh, he's awesome. I love him. Come on. What's What are you waiting for? I I kind of I've known him for like 11 years now. So, I've preached him a lot. And uh so I kind of basically just like, you know, he knows Pascal's wager, right? Yeah, he does. Yeah. I don't know. He's got to do what he's got to do. He'll figure it out. If it's not real, what's the problem with believing it? If it is real, you get to go to heaven forever. Text me so hard when it comes out. But I love you, bro. I know. He's He's a great guy. I love him. And he's he's been there through it all. Like he uh actually he was a big part of your conversion. Yeah, he was. And regardless of who I was, Muslim, atheist, or Christian, he never left my side. Wow. He was always there and he's like, "I'm going to support you no matter what." Wow. What a guy. So what a guy. Yeah. Ishmael, why Catholicism? That is a great question. I tried to be Protestant. You did? I for Yeah. There was there's more to this journey. So after my conversion, I started asking Catholics like, "Hey, so why do we pray to Mary?" I don't know. Uh, do you know anything about like the Bible? No. Like they like nothing. Like they didn't know anything. Even these sweet Catholics who were singing the worship songs, they didn't have the formation. They didn't know how to answer you. I would say like 95% of Catholics I met know absolutely no reason. They have no solid ground as to why they're Catholic. Like they have no understanding of the catechism or and it was sad. It it was sad because I even talked to a priest once and I was like, "Hey, why do we why do we pray to the saints when it says in the Bible there's one mediator?" And he's like, "Uh, you know, I'll just why not?" I was like, "What?" I was like, "Bro, you've been you've been a priest for 12 years and you're like, you have no idea why you're praying the saints." Like, so like, and no matter where I went, it wasn't like just like a Nova Scotia thing. It was like everywhere I went, like 90% of the Catholics had no reason for being Catholic. No idea what they believed. But then, uh, a Protestant friend of mine invited me to a Bible study. And I saw people who knew what they believed and they were convicted about it and they weren't shy about what they believed. Like the there was a a pride parade that got shut down and they started clapping. They were so happy about it. And then the Catholics were like, "Oh maybe like maybe we shouldn't be clapping about it." And I'm like, "Bro, like do you not believe what you believe?" Like they were so shy about like to the extent that I'm going to say it. I'm going to say it. Say it. To the extent that when my bishop found out that I was preaching to Muslims, he was in shock. You're a Catholic bishop? Yeah. He was like, "What? What? What? What? Why? Why you Why are you preaching to Muslims? Like, how do the Muslims feel about it?" And how the Muslims feel about it? Like, who cares, bro? They're going to do You want them to go to hell? Like, I don't understand. But meanwhile, the the Protestants, even if their theology is a little bit off, at least they're on the streets preaching. At least they're trying. They're going door to door. building new churches and meanwhile I'm at the like the homaly and then the homaly is about like I don't know the the hockey game last week like every every homaly has to be like we have a joke that like every priest has to be a comedian like every priest has to have like they have to be like hey guys like I had a girlfriend once that's like the best joke right the priest had a girlfriend once but every time I go to a proing service like rather it be like smokes and mirrors or whatever at least I'm hearing something about the gospel you know what I mean And Catholicism was the most unattractive of all of them because and all the ex-Muslims I knew all became Protestant and then either Catholic or Orthodox or stay Protestant but they all started started with Protestantism because the Protestants were actually preaching to the Muslims. They were actually trying to convert Muslims. And every Catholic I've met to the higherups through my bishop to bishops in the US I I know bishops in the US and Canada who frown upon evangelizing Muslims and Jews. They frown. They don't think you should do it. And why? Because you know like it's maybe it's better to have them become go into heaven through ignorance. So like because of Vatican in Vatican 2. I think Vatican 2 is valid. In Vatican 2, people who uh don't know the gospel through their own ignorance can still get to heaven. So, that's been abused. They accept Christ at the moment of death. No, no. Even if they don't accept Christ and maybe you need to still have the you need to still accept Christ in your personal judgment. You can't you can't you can't just like fly into heaven without any movement of the will to accept heaven. Yeah. Your will has to be aligned with God 100%. But it's been abused so much that now people are using as if like we don't have to evangelize them to the extent that um when we were in the Vatican I know people in the Vatican who want to get rid of a confession just do general absolution and stuff like that and it's so bad Ishma it's bad it's terrible it's so bad Lord have mercy the church will prevail today I 100% believe that but these are the things that made me not want to be Catholic Um, but I I went back to Catholicism because I was uh I was in a Bible study and I realized we were talking about this verse in John and the verse in John said, "The father is greater than I, right? We're talking about it and like I just assumed everyone was trinitarian, like the basic Christian thing." And this one guy is like, "Yeah, that's why I don't believe in the trinity because obviously Jesus was created." And the Bible study They literally like half the people basically concluded that you don't have to be a trinitarian to be a Christian. And I was like, okay, this is dangerous. This is really dangerous. What do you mean you don't have to be a trinitarian to be a Christian? There has to be some limits here, right? So, I left that Bible study, that Protestant Bible study very worried and very anxious. I was like, what are the basis of Christianity and how can I know? And I thought to myself, why don't I just read what the early Christians did? And that's what I did. I started reading Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Rome, Augustine, Justin Martyr, you name it. And two things appeared. Number one, every single one of them believed Jesus was truly present in the Eucharist. And every single one of them called Mary pure ever virgin. Every single one. And when they were talking about pure, they were talking about sinlessness. So, the argument wasn't is Mary sinless. They were arguing about when was she sinless? Was it at conception? Was it right before she was uh about to have baby Jesus in her womb? Was it a little bit before that? Like, so they weren't arguing about if she was sinless. They were arguing about when she became sinless. And that's when I realized, oh, just because it doesn't make sense to me doesn't mean it's not true. again the whole like doesn't matter if it's comfortable it can still be true and I realized that there was only two options there was the eastern churches or Catholicism and the Orthodox are going to hate this but I just I don't know they were close enough like it was like why be Orthodox when like everything the Orthodox have the Catholics have and more like it was just like like I wanted to go to Eastern church I could do it like it's fine like and I have extra stuff too now like so sorry guys but so I I was just like, "Yeah, I'll just be Catholic." So, I went to confession and I was like, "Yeah." So, I went on like a 4 months journey after my baptism. Uh, went became Protestant, but now I'm back. And he's like, "You're forgiven." And I was like, "What? That's it. You don't have to do anything." He's like, "I don't know, man. Like, you're fine. Like, you didn't know. No one taught you. Catholics suck at this. Like, you're forgiven." And I was like, "All right, thanks, father." And that was it. So, then ever since then, I've been Catholic. So, then that was like late 2019, early 2020. And then I kind of stayed after that. There might be Protestants even listening who are like, "Oh, Ishmael, if you had just like gotten to know the real like Bible- based evangelical Protestants." Oh, I know. You know them. I love them. But they would maybe say like, "Hey, you you you don't need the Catholicism stuff." What would you say to them? I love Protestants. I think they're amazing. I do, too. But it's just like it's they're not Protestant for the sake of being Protestant. I realize. Yes. They're Protestant because they love they love Jesus very sincerely. But it's always like we're just not this Catholic thing. You know what I mean? It's not like I always found out that they always juxtapose themselves to Catholicism. They're like like well the Catholics believe this and we don't. The Catholics believe this and we don't. And I'm like okay Catholics don't exist. What do you believe? And it's like just like let's pretend Catholicism never happened. Yeah. How do you do church? How do you do life? How do you build out moral theology? Exactly. Who's in charge? Who calls the shots? And it just it wasn't consistent. What's the priesthood? What is communion? Yeah, it's a good it's a good point. And it just wasn't consistent. And I was like, you're telling me God came down to earth as a man and built his church and he couldn't tell us if we should baptize babies or not? Like really? He like that that that sounds pretty big to me. Like everything was a secondary issue. It's like that's a secondary issue. I was like, "Okay, what about the Eucharist? That's secondary. What?" And then like everything was a secondary issue. And I was like, "So what's a first issue? What's a primary issue?" And they're like, "Well, your heart posture to Jesus." And it's like, "What does that even mean?" Like, you know what I mean? Like I I had my harsh posture on many different things. Like before my wife, I was with someone and I thought she was going to be my wife and that ended terribly. So my heart posture was wrong. Like and the Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things. So, like what you can't just base it off of I feel and I think or this seems better to me. It's like forget about what I think and all that. Jesus says very specific things. You have to have faith. You have to persevere to the end. Sorry, not faith alone. You have to eat his flesh, drink his blood. There's many different commandments. You have to be baptized. Baptism saves you. Be born again by water and the spirit. So, in most if not all Protestant churches, regardless of their low or high Protestant, don't believe you have to do all those things to be saved. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you have to work to do it, but all those things contain God's grace and you have to receive them. And if you if you

have the knowledge. I mean, that's the the the crazy caveat which is so amazing about our faith is that it is the power of Jesus Christ. And we can receive the grace and choose to receive it. But the spirit blows where it will. Exactly. So there is this sense of, yeah, God can work. This is what he's established, the sacraments. This is efficacious grace here to receive him and on our journey to heaven, but he can also do what he wants to do. 100%.

So which is so, which is so, I I find it incredibly, um, life-giving and hopeful because, you know, I remember being really anxious when I was, you know, kind of becoming born again myself. You know, I wasn't raised Catholic. I was raised kind of evangelical and then I had this born again experience and then I became very anxious. I was like, well, if I don't preach to them the gospel, they're going to die and go to hell. Yeah. And it was like, it just seemed very arbitrary. I mean, this kind of Calvinistic view of things, like it's predestined, like I and so I have to do this thing and it, we'll see what happens, but God's going to in the end, you know, it's one way or the other. And there just seemed this like, you know, tremendous pressure of like, and we should have a pressure to to evangelize, of course, but it was more than pressure. It was a, it was an arbitrariness that didn't seem within the character of God. Mhm. That, oh, you accidentally were born and raised in ignorance of the faith of the name of Jesus and so you go to hell because of your ignorance. And that's given me a lot of freedom with my family. I don't have any anxiety at all about the afterlife cuz there's one judge and he's going to do it. And I feel like Catholicism has given me that grace to not worry about it cuz I think in other denominations it's like, am I saved? Am I not saved? Is he saved? Is he not saved? Does he really know Jesus? And in my, in my mind, it's like heaven and hell exists. God tells me to do these things and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. If I fall, I repent. I go to confession and I pray for my family and everyone else who doesn't know Jesus and I preach the gospel and he will judge. Like, it gives me a lot of peace.

That I found in Protestantism, it gave me a lot of anxiety because when a lot of Protestants actually say the opposite, like, "Oh, don't you feel like you're working for your salvation?" And I'm like, it feels like the opposite to me when I was practicing Protestantism because I was always so anxious about my family getting to heaven. And I was always so anxious about, am I really saved? And I, because there was never like, oh, okay, I believe in Jesus, but what if I mess up? What if I don't actually believe? What if I'm tricking myself? What am I ordained to not believe? Like, there's so many different things. And Catholicism was just like the answer because it was like, it's not your job to be the judge. There's one judge and it's Jesus Christ and all you have to do is say, Jesus, I trust in you and follow him and that's it and he will do the rest. So, I don't have a huge, I don't think I have any fear of the afterlife. And not like, oh, I'm like, I'm going to heaven no matter what, but it's more like I just do whatever the Lord tells me to do and then I trust in him.

How, how have you seen other Muslims post-conversion to Christianity? Because you, you know, there are increasingly Muslims I've also heard having dreams of Jesus. There's Muslims that are converting from Islam to Christianity. Have you talked to other ex-Muslims? What is their, what do you kind of see as a pattern of their experiences? Or is there a pattern to their experiences? I actually was talking to a Muslim woman the other day who, praise the Lord, she watched my stuff and then she just messaged me. Uh, she's in Morocco and she was telling me that she's now going to become a Christian. And wow. From seeing your content. Yeah. So that's, she was, Where is she? In Morocco. In Morocco. A Muslim woman in Morocco. Morocco. Yeah. I don't want any more specific than that, but it's in that country. And I was just like, wow. I, I don't know how to react when I hear that. It's like, thank you. Cuz then they praise you like, oh, you did, you're so amazing. Like, God's leading you. I'm like, I just, I just talk. Like, in my mind, I'm just like, this isn't like a lot of effort for me. I just kind of like, I like talk. I'm a talker. So, I like talking. I like going around and doing stuff. And it's, it's helping people. Like, I'm helping people just by talking. Does she have Christians she can connect with in Morocco to help her? Yeah, we, we hooked her up and I work with, it's a non-denominational group. And again, Catholics, you got to start doing this because the only people that are preaching to Muslims in the Muslim world are Protestants. Wow. So, I, I work with Protestant groups and I have no problem working with them. They do amazing work and they are getting in contact with her right now. Wow. Um, we had someone else in Libya. Um, and please pray for them. They, we lost contact with him, but, um, he converted, uh, two years ago and there was a video that was released of him and talking about his conversion and after that, we lost contact with him, but we still have missionaries in Libya looking for him. So, was you're saying he, he published, publicized that he was converting from Islam to Christianity in Libya and you're worried about someone, someone filmed him, uh, and told and filmed him at like gunpoint saying like, are you Christian? And he said yes. And they had to confess. And I think that's what happened. So it went to the government and then now he's in hiding. Like, I don't think he's, they caught him. I think we just don't know where he's in hiding in Libya. So there's these things are still happening and there's still missionary works happening there. Why? What happens if you convert to Christianity from Islam in Libya, right? Barely has a government. So the government's not, it's like not doing much, but there's a lot of groups that would kill you in Libya. Like a lot of groups. Like, so it's, we, I'm really praying he's, he found a way to get out and the missionaries are looking for. No one at this point would be better than they're looking for him in Libya.

What's your take on the persecution of Christians throughout parts of Africa and the Middle East and Asia? So again, you have to understand that if the, if the Christians are a majority and the Muslims are the minority, then the Christians are okay. But once the Muslims get to a significant percentage, the Christians are not okay. So we see that in Nigeria right now. Nigeria is almost like 50/50 Muslim and Christian. And the Muslims are just getting bigger and bigger. Like population-wise, they're growing. And every time the Muslims grow and the Christians shrink, there's more and more of a chance of genocide happening with the Christians. And I'm really worried actually about Lebanon right now because Lebanon used to be a majority Christian country. Then they had a civil war and all the Christian Lebanese people left for the West. So where I'm from, there's a huge Lebanese community. But what that happens now is that there are still Christians in Lebanon that are staying there and they're safe for now, but the Muslim population went from 40% to 60%. So, it's just a matter of time really. Like the, the Christians in in Lebanon are just waiting basically for the Muslims to either tax them or to slaughter them. And that's what happens. And I pray that it changes and I pray that conversions happen. Conversions do happen in the Muslim world. But, uh, we don't fight against flesh and blood. There's spiritual principalities that are fighting against us. And that's why the Christians in Egypt, while they're in peace right now with the government, if there's a new government tomorrow, then they can easily be killed. Like, you're never safe. You're only safe because I just don't want to kill you today. That's why you're safe. So, there's always a threat of you dying. Um, and that's why a lot of Christians actually here in Southern California, Coptics have moved here because they fled. Yeah. Cuz even if they're technically safe right now in Egypt, they might not be tomorrow. So, they don't want to live in fear all their life. So, and that's only the ones who have money to leave. Most Christians are very poor in Egypt. Very poor. And they can never leave. So, I pray for those people specifically.

What do you feel God is calling you to do? You're married now, met your beautiful wife, you're creating content, talking about your conversion. What do you believe God's calling you to? I believe that I, I don't know why God has put me in this position. I sometimes like I'll be sitting there at night just stare at the ceiling and I'm like, I'll, I'll tell my wife, I'm like, "Why me?" Like, what? What? Like, you could have picked anyone else. You could have picked any other born Muslim to an immigrant family in the West to do this, to become Christian. Like, sometimes I'm always like, could it have been better if I just lived in ignorance and just somehow like got to heaven through ignorance? Or maybe would it have been better if, like, someone asked me this once actually after a party. It was a couple years after my conversion and they were driving me home and he was like, "Why didn't you leave Islam like, if you knew it was so dangerous?" Like, wouldn't you have rather just like stayed a secret Christian? And maybe I'm an idiot. Maybe I, I am the one who is lacking IQ points, but something about me is that if something is true and I know it's true, I can't hide it. And I think God knows that about me. And he's like, Ishmael cannot stop talking and he needs to tell people about Jesus. If, if Ishmael was a Christian, man, he would be a good Christian. So God was like, we got to make Ishmael Christian cuz he will not shut up about Jesus. Like, we got to. So there's a lot of Muslims who need to hear what you have to say and non-Muslims too, but Muslims need to hear because you knew Islam. You studied Islam. You were raised in Egypt. You were raised by a devout Muslim father. You know the Quran. You know, you can read it in Arabic. You, you know all of this. Yeah. And it's just like, I don't know. I question about what am I doing? Why am I doing this? And how far is it going to go? And I don't know. I have no idea what God wants me to do tomorrow.

Do you ever worry for your life? Do you get death threats? Or do you think there's a threat to your life because you're such a public ex-Muslim? To live as Christ and to die is gain. Well, if they kill me, I go to heaven. And it proves Islam wrong. Have you received threats? Oh, yeah. But again, from Muslims. Yeah, from Muslims who say, "We're going to kill you because you're an infidel now. You're worse than an infidel." Actually, right. You're an apostate. Yeah, I have. And it's like, in my mind, it's like, well, if they kill me, then they prove that Islam is not from God because their God is so weak that he has to use human beings to kill people. But if I keep talking, it will prove Islam's not from God. Cuz I will tell you by talking to you that Islam's not from God. So, you're going to keep sharing the gospel? Yes, 100%. And like, I'm actually writing a, a book right now about, Amazing. Uh, it's about my life story, but I'm also writing about how Islam and Western society can't interact with each other. And it's originally it was about Christianity and Islam. But the more I write, I'm not good at many things in life. I'm good at two things, talking and writing, I guess. And the more I write, the more stuff is impacted on it. Dude, my, my writing producer person is going to hate me. It's a long book. Yeah. It's not, not that it's long. It's like all over the place. Well, Christianity built the West. Exactly. So, it's not just about Christianity versus Islam. It's about the whole identity and psychology of our society versus the Islamic society. And like I said in like earlier, from the smallest thing, the bacon and the and the beer to the largest thing, the freedom of speech and the freedom of practicing your religion, everything is contrast. Everything is the opposite. And that's what the book's going to be about. So, yeah, I look forward to reading it. It's a really prophetic book for a time like today. I hope it does something in the society. It will. It definitely will. Ishmael, thank you. Thank you so much for joining the podcast. Thank you so much for having. What a blessing. Yeah. And congrats on your marriage, too. Thank you so much. And as always, that's only a few months in, right? Two months. Yep. So, still, still getting used to it. It's very odd waking up and someone's there and it's the best. Yeah, it's the best. But also like, oh my goodness, there's someone else. But yeah, but glory Jesus Christ and, uh, yeah, God has been good. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Lo Show. Make sure that you are subscribed wherever you listen to your podcast and leave us five stars and a review. That helps the show grow. Thank you all so much and we'll see you next time. A huge thank you to our partner EWTN, the largest religious broadcaster in the entire world. EWTN is reaching millions of people every single day with the beautiful truth of the gospel. You can watch new episodes of the Llaya Rose Show 24 hours before they hit podcast app over at EWTN.com/ondemand.

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“I Thought God Was A Tyrant”: Ex-Muslim Speaks Out w/@ishofarabia | E254 Lila Rose Show

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