understanding of islam muslims and the issues they face here efforts will be made on this program to eliminate disapprove and result any misnomers about this religion focus on islam strives to open up lines of communication and dialogue with all groups of people and religions of this world this world we live in today has approach five billion people one billion of whom are muslim that translates into one out of five people on the earth today is a muslim what attracts people to this religion from all over the world every nation tonight we will try to answer those questions and many more tonight joining me my special guest is known nationally in the muslim students association of america he has given lectures he has traveled around the united states and lives here in seattle works diligently with the interfaith council of seattle opening dialogue between all the religions i hope you'll please help me welcome and knowledgeable interesting and  welcome brothers my son monica very cute very much i am very clear to be here but there is my you first i would like to talk about what is there are so many misnomers about this confusing word called islam islam is a religion so if you could just define what islam is and tell us briefly about it is it faith is a religion is a culture is a way of life however unfortunately the word islam and the religion of islam is very poorly received in this  you is learn in that sense try to promote peace in the mind and the heart of the believer and that's the definition of our faith is to achieve peace through submitting to the will of the almighty muslims submitter in fact the word submitter is the closest english word to describe what the christ or from the name of the region or the tribe like in the case of judaism dr drew there etc but rather the word islam is an abstract word which has a meaning and it carries real with it the whole concept of life the whole needing the philosophy of the creed well that's interesting brothers my own because when we think of islam from western  terms people here in america and of the world associate islam as an arab religion is it an arab religion is it a religion for arabs or what is islam in terms of the whole humanity you know it's interesting that you ask this question in fact many people think that because islam has it is essence in the holy koran and that the original revelation came in the arctic language the thin that islam is and of religion this is really far from being true islam is a religion for only mankind in fact it has been  all mankind we have a created you from a single pair of male and female we have made you nations and tribes so that you may know each other so that you may respect each other not so that  of prophet muhammad peace be upon him were three great personalities who represented three different nationalities there was a man who was a black who was a slave his name was hades and there was another person whose name was cell man and he was prudence and those three believers represented three different nationalities with the local which carries with it and the implication is that first slander derives its name from the founder of the religion who is a mortal being whose name is mohammed and this is ever wrong implication islam is a religion which is founded by because a lot of people hear the arabic word a lot and this is a foreign word so can you give exactly its meaning in arabic translated into english yes actually it's interesting that the eternal the compassionate the merciful the maker of man the word the law is never duplicated like in english we could use the word god with capital g and guard with a small g and we could use them in different meaning yes but in the name of the noun a bar is only used for the name of god almighty the proper name of god is capital g so the when speaks about god almighty they speak about the divine supernatural being whom they worship that is why when we talk about mohammed than them mohammedanism we are really making a big mistake by assuming that muslims worship or take their faith from mohammad as the founder muslims believe that islam was the religion of all humanity since the inception of man on earth adam and eve and this faith of islam has been revealed in different films to different to tribes to different nations or throughout the history of mankind in fact this would bring us to the fundamental principles of faith muslims not only believe in god almighty but they also believe in all the messengers of god so do muslims believe that islam is a continuation of the same idea or philosophy that the god the almighty was trying to bring through all of these messengers peace be upon them absolutely in fact and in that which was given to moses to jesus from their lord we make no distinction among them as to him we submit this verse makes it very clear that muslims do not make any distinction between all the prophets of god they accept the revelation from god almighty throughout history in time and place i think that's a very important point to make because so many people in the western world look at it as a new religion because prophet muhammad peace be upon him was the last messenger and it is such a new concept they believe that islam is a new religion and has nothing to do with any of the other prophets and messengers so i think that's a very important thing you bring up now it's nam is a way of life yes it does not depend on miracles it does not look for miracles it does not look for people to come back to life to show that they can be a believer or that they should believe or that they see should open up to believe how did the prophet muhammad preach islam and what was the essence of his message prophet peace be upon him who received the revelation from the almighty a last to show him a lot of admiration and honor yes he prevented them from doing so they were to to bar for him they wanted to kiss his hand yes he asked them not to do that he said i am but a human being who is receiving a revelation from god to convey to you a message to believe in god to worship him and to live according to his divine will that was the essence of the message which she was she preved peace be upon him prophet peace be upon him one two men to refine his disprove it so when he conveyed the principles of faith he wanted man to believe in god to believe in all the prophets of god in all the full responsibility for his life and father for the kind of life he wanted him to lead so he believed in the day of judgment the resurrection of the human body that man in this this life is responsible for the god to answer all the questions about what he has done in this life and that is what we call the day of judgment which is also one of the basic principles of faith excellent what are the principles of islam well islam is religion of justice is learned is a vision of a brotherhood of mankind islam is a religion which accept every human being as a member of the family of god it is interesting here to mission one of the saying to the family of carbon in islam man has to accept what we called the principles of faith by accepting all this principles of faith he is to lead a pious righteous life he is to be honest to be kind to be helpful he has to be good to the neighbors he is to take initiatives when there is a need for help and most of them it's supposed to look after other people who have concern  for other people on the other side a muslim is to afraid for any immoral act in fact for any human being is present and excellent pious life which is very highly moralistic a muslim has this consciousness of the presence of god in every minute of his life that's why you pray five times a day a muslim is always coming back to his lord to as a creator to develop a legitimate excuse yes but basically what we call the normal way of worship is that a muslim is obligated to pray five times a day we pray at dawn time that's after the person is woke up which is which is about one o'clock we standardise it in the mosque and we make it about one thirty and then one in the afternoon which is about five thirty depending on the day and the time of the year and one is at sunset immediately after sunset and the last one is about an hour and a half after sunset which we call the shopper here which means that throughout the we're looking time of the day and wisdom is supposed to stand before god to recite the prayers if you are going to face your creator at all these different intervals of the day i don't think you want to do any bad things or if you want to live a pretty clean life you have to go and face your creator all these different times exactly well that's interesting but you know as we look around here we live in the united states of america we live in changing times and i don't mean changing times in a positive way but i mean changing times in a way that there is a lack of morals a lack of ethics scruples we haven't seen this type of behavior just in the past ten or twenty years we have seen a transition that is a little bit frightening never have we seen in any time except maybe in the time of sodom and gomorrah or something to that effect one is the fact that a muslim living in this country has the freedom to practice his faith has the freedom to convey the message of his faith has the freedom to associate with  many attractions there are so many temptations within the environment or obstacles or obstacles you want to pray the time of the prayer comes and hear your at work when you do you want to attend the congregation of friday prayer and you have no time for that  washington students take a little bit of their time to pray in a corner in the library or in a corner in a lobby so they pray they perform their prayers in time well in a way you can be kind of a challenge than for a mustang to live in this kind of environment it is indeed some time call on in the herb icsa crypt as well as teaching them the basics instruction oh excellent well locations of places people pray in seattle what kind of a community do we have here is the community very diverse states and there was about about seventy or eighty muslim families with their children i suppose they were trying to escape persecution exactly exactly and we have given them we give them the early slavic center and now they use it as their own center in the south muslims go to pray five times a day in that place actually the mosque and the concept of the mosque is very simple in islam it's as simple as the religion itself muslims a where there is no pews or chairs or furnitures it is only a beautiful empty space carpeted clean where we can to stand to say he's a prayer to god almighty without any distractions are these mosques i mean for example growing up in the society i know i entered churches being a muslim they are wide open and in fact the christians encourage us to come and listen to them and hear what they have to say are the mass does it have an open house policy can people find out of his about it by strictly coming to the mosque what kind of policies distant past have actually we  any human being to come and visit us to have a dialogue with us listen to us or where they need to to to give us a call certain appointment and come over we have or congregation of prayer on friday and we we left to have people come there sit in the back section of the mosque listen to the person giving the sermon see how the muslim perform their prayers because we have all rituals which is very interesting to at least those who are not familiar with islam we go through prostrations borrowing praising god almighty and these rituals define what islam is because it is actually the submission of the human spirit submission of the human mind and the submission of a human body to the other way to god well i know you've been on radio talk shows recently i know you've lectured probably to jewish people christian people people of all faiths how receptive are people in this day and age about islam and are they interested about it are they fascinated with islam are they rejecting it how are people perceiving islam actually this is interesting that you are asking this question because many a time whenever we  their logo about islam feed people feel very enthusiastic about this faith first of all they express their lack of knowledge of the faith they think that our culture and not any more just judeo christian culture but rather judeo christian islamic culture because of past of the continue with the of the of the message so i guess people are very receptive and i'm so happy to hear that think that in the future an interview like this a dialogue is very important i'm hoping that we can include more people from different faiths on this program to talk about to talk about judaism christianity the similarities we have and not to emphasize on the negative but to emphasize on the positive because we are a world that should live in love and peace and i think that should be our objective absolutely well i think today show has been a very productive one a very interesting one i would like to think you the viewing audience and of course but there is my you but without you the viewing audience this program would not be possible this program is for you and we encourage your suggestions your responses if you would like to see something on this program if you would like us to address an issue we encourage you to write