It's again one of them things, no one knows the answer. You can't sit there and say that you know, that is the answer.
But what I can say Liam, is, the most probable and logical answer is the creator. And I would
ask you: what would you say is a more logical and credible answer than that?
-It's...I'm not an academic of any sort -You don't have to be
Yeah I know what you're saying but, it doesn't matter, everyone has their own opinions.
I believe that it's just...
the conditions were right and we're just...it's...I don't question much/question life too much.
-I just try to focus on living -Why do you think that is?
I don't know I just don't... it doesn't... it doesn't concern me.
I do think about it. I think- why are we here? What's the meaning of life?
Things like that, but then...
You shouldn't really waste your life thinking about that.
Anyone can... you can believe what you want to believe, that's got nothing to do with me.
All these other people here, that's not my concern as such.
I believe it's...
if- you can believe you're saying- you can do whatever you want to do, doesn't have any concern to me,
Unless it, obviously, it hurts or harms or affects other people then obviously there's a problem but...
Other than that it doesn't... I think everyone should be more worried about living their life to the best they can do.
Let me give you an example Liam. If you're living your life here and you're just
going about your business, being a good citizen and not harming people. Someone puts a bag on your head,
and then takes you away. And then sticks you on a train somewhere and takes it off,
and you're given nice food. What's going to be the first question that comes to you?
Why am I here?
You're not going to say, "you know what, forget why I’m here, the food is nice"
-I’m gonna enjoy myself -I’m gonna enjoy myself
It's tasty. Forget about that, it's not important. I need to worry about enjoying myself on this train.
Somebody goes "Do you know where you're going?" "It's not important"
But when you're gonna get off?
Naa... just look everyone's just doing their thing. Let everyone do their thing- like I’m not here to...
-That's fine, but... -do you know what, you've been doing this a long time ain't you?
You, you adapt quick.
You adapt to the situations quick. I know what you're saying...
It's because... I’m going to be honest with you Liam. Like look
look at me I’m a handsome guy, you know I’m saying, I’m young, we're both young...but think about it, this is
a Sunday. I work Monday to Friday. I’m here... look I’m not... am I forcing something upon you?
No, no, no
-Am I being aggressive? -listen if you was I wouldn't be here
You know what I’m saying? So the thing is Liam,
I was born in this country, I know about this sort of stuff, I love it here, but the thing is I’m still here
Liam spending time discussing this with you. If I wasn't sure about it, I wouldn't be here
wasting your time. In fact I would consider it a disrespect that if you ask me something and
I give you a fluffy answer. I’m calling you towards something and I can't answer your question? I would
actually say it's disrespectful to you. I would have to apologize to you. I’m gonna make a few
claims now Liam. Yeah that makes- and that makes Islam different and unique compared to all other
religions -Right
-yeah and you're welcome to challenge me whenever you want -yeah
-with whatever you want. -cool
First thing is this. If something comes from God Liam, and it's a revelation, surely that revelation if
there's a book with words of God, surely it should be free from human interference. You can't just dip
in there change stuff, move stuff about and then people are saying "you know what it's been changed
but let's go with the message..." no. The book has to be preserved because it's from God and you tell...
-Did God write the book? -No God... it's the word of God
and then it was compiled into a book.
-So that's that's going to be one of my arguments. -By people? But how do you know that
How do you know for certain there isn't corruption in that book. I’m not saying there is...
-no no of course, of course, that's a valid... -I'm saying like, how do you know there isn't...
Like you said it's been complied by how many
thousands of people (yes) put their contribution into the book (100%) exactly so it's more
-you're right I agree with you but let me answer that because the Qur'an is different,
I’m going to tell you how. (Right) the old testament, when it was revealed Liam, it had to be copied down
Yeah
Now I don't know if you know- how old are you? 25, you're a bit younger than me
When I was at school we'd write our essay out and then we'd have to copy out again (yeah)
yeah for display purposes, you know when it goes on display and that (yeah) so when we do it on display
what happens is sometimes Liam when I would copy stuff down, if two sentences ended with the same word
my eye would automatically skip a line (yeah) or if there's like 2/3 words that are similar in
like three four lines, you miss certain chunks out. Now Bart Ehrman calls this technique Parablepsis
or homoioteleuton yeah which just means that you're missing chunks. That applies Liam, to the Old
Testament and the New Testament, why? Because they were... like you've articulated, it was written down.
Now the Qur'an was different because the Qur'an when it was revealed, it was revealed by speech
and it was memorized. So primarily- whilst the other books they were written and they were paper based-
the Qur'an on the other hand was memorized. And because the Qur'an was memorized, that's how it
was passed on. Now, within the life of the prophet it was also written down, but the primary way
of preserving it was memory. Now, if you don't believe me Liam- you can google this/YouTube this,
there are children as young as three and four that have memorized the entire Qur'an
That's mad
In fact I'll put another challenge out there and I will say: there is no other book...
and I've got like four cameras here yeah, and like you said I’m well read as well
Yeah, yeah I can tell
so there's no other religion that can make this claim that their book has been
mass memorized. Every other book has been written, has been copied and... there's another bold claim I’m
going to make. When you go to a Christian, ask them: how many books are there in the Protestant bible?
They're going to tell you 66. You ask them what about the Roman Catholic 73 (corrected)
yes yeah and then the Ethiopian orthodox 86 (corrected) hang on a minute. This is from God, so it
depends what sort of Christian you are, and you've got entire books that are extra in those books.
I’m sorry but this isn't convincing to me as an agnostic, that's looking into religion. Now you
say "okay what about you?" I'll tell you; There's certain sects within Islam: Sunni, Shia, this, that... Liam, all of
them. They'll be dispute about other things, when it comes to the Qur'an, every
single Muslim believes in the same Qur'an. And there are manuscripts, and here's- I’m moving on to
the next claim now: Islam is the only religion that can track the Qur'an- the manuscripts of the Qur'an,
to the person that claims it was revealed to. There's no manuscript that we have today on
this planet that is traced to the time of Jesus, that's traced to the time of Moses,
but we do have- in fact it's not in in some Arab country, it's in this country Liam. Birmingham University
has one of the oldest manuscripts of the Qur'an. So this is the third claim. We have manuscripts
Liam that are tracing back to that time. But when it comes to Jesus and Moses, you don't have people
now listen to me carefully, you don't have people of independent,
other religions that can verify their existence. Now obviously as a Muslim we accept Moses existed,
Jesus existed because it's in the Qur'an, however if you're going for manuscripts
that can be dated and carbon dated- you know for you to tell (yeah) exactly there are three sources
if you want I can tell you exactly the names of those sources as well, but they sound
a bit funny yeah, you want me to tell you the name of the three independent non-Muslim sources that verify
that the prophet existed in the seventh century
Go on
All right. The first one is the Nestorian chronicle.
The second one is the more famous one, it's called the: Doctrina Jacobi Nuper Baptizati
you can see it was a mission to memorize
Yeah, it's Latin isn't it?
And the third one
the third one's the tricky one ah, Bishop Sebeos of the House of Bagaratunis.
So these are three independent sources that are dated to the seventh century that talk of
a Saracen leader- Saracens is what they call the Muslims at that time- who claims to have the keys
of paradise yeah. And we have archaeological evidence, manuscripts that trace back to the
people who succeeded the prophet in terms of khilafat, like you've got Abu bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali
yeah you have evidences, you have coins that can be (excuse me) traced back to the time. In fact
today I've ordered a book, it's by Anthony Shawn, he's written a book in which the first chapter is
just about evidence proving that the prophet existed from non-Muslim sources, be it coins
be it epigraphies (I think I’m pronouncing it properly) epigraphy is like you
know when there's marking on stones (yeah) like writings and stuff like that.
So you've got- but Liam when you speak to these other people, and you're more than welcome to
do so in fact I encourage it, they will not be able to give you this stuff, in fact they will...
pick up any bible- the most popular bible you're going to pick up is called the King James version
and read the preface. In the preface it says "this book has major and minor errors in it"
then pick up the Qur'an. And then you're going to see, there's no such word like that. In fact
bun (slang for "leave") the preface there is no preface. It just starts off, you know what I’m saying, go straight into it.
It's been preserved, there's evidence- then you're like okay Qur'an is preserved, the other books aren't.
They got proof archaeologically that can be carbon dated, you've got manuscripts that are present, you
got the Qur'an that accepts the previous prophets as well. It's not saying 'oh you're wrong, you're
this' it's just saying that at that time- we accept Jesus was alive at that time and he was
a prophet thereafter we say that the books were changed yeah and now the prophet came
with the final revelation and we're making the claim that the Qur'an has not been changed.
Jesus spoke Aramaic, the New Testament's written in Greek, we're reading in English.
Aramaic -Greek- English
okay what about you Muslim? What are you saying mate? All right, I’m saying the Prophet
spoke Arabic, the Qur'an is in Arabic, we read it in Arabic (yeah) yeah we read the translation but we read
it in Arabic primarily. All right cool, translation. what about trans... yeah just Arabic to English but
Aramaic is not- have you heard anybody saying "yeah yeah man's learning French,
Spanish, man's doing a bit of Aramaic on the side". You heard anyone say that?
-I've never even heard of it before. -you know what I’m saying? (yeah)
but Jesus spoke Aramaic, so the thing is Arabic is one of the top five languages, it's a live language
yeah
so surely if a language is being claimed, that the final testament is written then show me the
language. Okay you've got the Middle East that's speaking that language, it's a live language you
can do it let's study in SOAS, (other) universities like Birmingham university, you can study even in
A-levels if you want to study no problem. Who's studying Aramaic? Who's studying Hebrew? It's not-
even Hebrew the Old Testaments written in Hebrew. Here's what I want you to do today when you go home Liam.
Go on.
Today when you go home- you live by yourself? Yes. When you go home, before you shut the light or when
you're about to go to bed shut the lights, raise your hand in a way that you know is fitting. You
raise your hand and you pray however, and you don't use any name, any title, say "God if you're there,
whoever you are/wherever you are, guide me" you're not calling towards a religion,
you're not calling towards a person or a being. I’m not saying you have to go through me, I’m
not saying you have to go through Muhammad peace be upon him or anybody else.
I’m saying you alone, with no feeding from me, you converse with your lord because if he's there Liam,
if he's there and you're genuine and you're saying, you know what God I want to prove to you that I was
sincere today because I went there for the first time, and I stood with my man for over an hour
if that doesn't show my sincerity I don't know what does. I was respectful. Yes I pushed back
because he's making claims but you know what, it did make sense. So God if you're there like
allow it innit, like guide me (yeah) Like don't don't let me go astray if you're there. If not then
I'll live my life. That's all I’m saying Liam. I’m not saying for you to watch anything, speak to anybody
and then -You're saying pray
I’m just saying pray to the one God everybody here Liam believes in some sort of God,
so what you're doing is, that's what you're doing, you're praying to that God and you're saying if
you're genuine if you're genuine then I want you to guide me, to the right method to seek the answer.
that's all I’m saying Liam. We believe as Muslims that even if a non-Muslim- if let's just say I oppress
you I oppress you, but you don't believe in God and you make a prayer against me. That prayer will
still be heard by God and I'll still be punished for it sorry
That's alright.
so what I’m trying to say is prayer
is something that we believe that even non-Muslims can do. Just speak, say "God you know what it
does make sense like when I"- when you look oh just look at the way the sun is hitting us, the way
the light is in the grass, the way that tree is able to kind of you know spread out
and the way human beings are able to communicate language. What's the difference with us
and animals? We have language we question purpose, we cook food
we think deep issues with question purpose, yeah there's so many things that make us unique
and it's these sorts of things Liam that I want you to ponder upon.
and you use that when you communicating with God and then let me know .
You know what just thinking about it now, you know what you are a good speaker.
But I will definitely be back, you'll probably end up seeing me up here trust me
-Brilliant -It's like food for thought as such you know what I mean.
I mean... what do you think I'm going to be thinking about, I've got to ride back to East London, East Ham so
it's going to be- if you don't- once you see something you're always going to think about it
-as such you know what I mean so -yes
it's good to hear your side of things and speak to someone who's educated like yourself
-I'm glad to hear it -It's like, it just gives you
gives you more sort of stuff to think about as such, you know what I mean.
It's like- just the sorts of points you made about the Qur'an and things like that,
I'm not saying I will- change- I won't be religious in any way but
I'm saying it's all good. It's a good side to view something as such you know.
Like, it's good to hear your, to hear your beliefs, facts and things like that and then
not just sort of apply it to a different way of thinking as such you know what I mean.
Not just think as the way I think, just sort of see it as you see it you know.
I thank you for your time and patience as well and your questions
No problem.
-But no, it's mad, I'll definitely definitely be up here again -Excellent
Hopefully I don't get caught up by someone, I got a ride back yeah.
-No yeah it was good talking to you anyway -Likewise have a safe journey.
What was your name? My name is Zeeshan, and the channel is smile2jannah