questions and i think for completeness of quote the question he writes and i quote i could not accept that prophet muhammad was a true prophet or even a religious man he desired wealth status leadership and power to dominate and rule over the documented it's like it said to be like an open book that you can refer to any aspect of his life and an exemplary life so that mankind gets guidance from from that life and perhaps it is this detail in so much detail that he has been under so much scrutiny over the fourteen hundred years and from time to time you find that people have made certain iranian allegations about the pristine quality and nature of his character as muslims obviously i mean we attach so much love and devotion to this this prophet who was elected by god almighty as the last load bearing prophet and the most excellent  respect so this is what we muslims believe in in that respect however to be fair there are many unknown muslim critics actually who have studied his life in very much great detail and have written many glorious long sermon recently only recently that referred to in london in which has who actually gave a glimpse in that hour long sermon about some of the things that western critics had written about the excellence of the character of dictatorship of the modern world he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness so this i think is what people feel that this was the man that  do away with all the troubles that we have because of the purity of his character the purity of his nature of his examples so our plea to almost all non muslims out there is that with an open mind and being fair minded you should understand the life and the mission of profits or loss of liberty in the circumstances of her arabia fourteen hundred years ago and you will find that you can get to the crux of the matter and find find his mission up the question or actually alleges that the question is is that his friend came to my mind which i hope will actually answer all these aspects that he has alleged as you know the in mecca the persecution that the muslims were under was very much intense not only were they martyred but they persecution that they were under however the message of islam was being accepted by the americans slowly in school and the time came when two great meccans accepted the message of islam who we don't know what you want to achieve or what you want to attain but we have a plan that will we hope that you will take up in will be the answer solution to this or if you require wealth and you want to become wealthy then  will give you all the wealth that you desire so that you will be the one person who will be developed in all of arabia however if it is honor and status that you wish that to we are agreed to that silent until they had finished and then he smiled and he said all chiefs of mecca i have no ailment or disease that i need to have treatment on i do not require i do not wish to attain any of the things that you are offering to me at this time i am a messenger of god i have come from him with his commandments to him is what i am all calling you to and that will be to your benefit and to your mercy so this is my message this is all i require a few i do not require any of these things now if you analyze that rationally when you look at his circumstances at that time he could have easily taken up the offer and acquired with one stroke everything that he had simple life the whole time even when they were in medina and he was the he was regarded as the chief at that time and people were obviously in abeyance to him in that state he lived a very simple life that he in his bed was made of simple life at home his domestic life in all was of very simple nature so where are we talking about the wealth and the status that people allege that he required and when we talk about his life in general th persecution and troubles and he was followed these followed him to medina and therefore he had to defend himself so when we look at it from that aspect we must realize that he was a man of peace wanted peace and to spread the pleas and circumstances that time would not allow him to do that so his entire goal and focus was on the association of men with god almighty and towards peace is in the nature going on to jihad as you have rightly pointed out the jihad is one of the commandments of god but it is to strive in the way of god and that does not mean holy wars on what the holy prophets allow or some of them has been  specific examples you've given i think it's very powerful as you rightly pointed out george bernard shaw for example and there are others writers who when objective leave even previous programs talked about understanding faith when you objective really look at someone and what they did not just what they said they have actually reached these conclusions on what he was actually doing did he gain wealth perhaps the community gain wealth but not through a personal desire to gain status of course he did it because this was the design of  those who were following his message of truth and his leadership and any perceived power that then subsequently he gained was again because of the fact that there were more people subscribing to the message of god almighty not because it was something that he actually put out the life in that respect that he was the most excellent modeling in that respect but it was god almighty's designed that he would become so highly favored and looked upon by people who would come in generations to come after him and that was the respect and dignity that he achieved was not through his own personal desire for that but his own desire was only one that man should be connected with his creator and he did his utmost to make sure that he did companions around him  mbassadors in the same clothes that i am among to meet my ordinary people and so that was you see his distinction that he made no distinction in that respect that he was a man who what you as i've often said on these programs it's an amazing set up on this many people not just the people you see in front of the cameras but many behind the cameras and in austria's who do an absolutely sterling job in bringing you the programs of m t a twenty four hours a day seven days a week but moving specifically to a question it relates on the concept of jihad and enjoying yourself if i could come to you with this they been having discussions with various friends both our discussion here just to quote a few of the points he's made some of the remarks that been made to him for example quote those who say that islamic wars were always to defensive do not understand islam and have not read sufficient history it should be prayer prayer and pays a cop money if they do not do it their blood and their property if they do it rather their blood and property are safe for me now these are things taken we've talked in previous programs about looking at the overall context also specifically and literally the meanings of words as well but i put it to you and your use of these allegations which we've dealt with in part before as well but starting very much with this whole issue of offensive defensive the concept of  protected from me except for the right of islam and the reckoning is up to a law except for the right of islam means our daughters will require of them from their property apart from that the rest of it which they keep that will be safe for me now this does seem like a open declaration of war against people in general does it not but had the prophet muhammad's a lot of understood this his own saying he is the one who said it to mean that my question to these people who  are making such allegations would be when the delegation of the christians from not one came to see him what kind of fighting did he do against them what about when the delegation of afghans came to see him to discuss  following the mosaic law when they came to discuss things with him how did he fight against them every single day there were people coming to ask him questions the jews of medina asked him questions others also in the auditors are some questions did he ever fight them he said you does that mean you know it's a bible thumpers that they actually go thump your of the bible does not mean that you have to go out and take a call on you know god forbid and go and start walking people around you know if the one of course not it means give them the message give them the good news and want them as well that if they don't come to the commandments of god they are going to hurt themselves that's what's going to happen and that's what he did now when you take that into context now let's see what he said again he said that i have been that i am not going to give up on you i'm going to keep struggling with your with the hold on until you accept these things i will make it clearer and clearer for you until eventually we'll have no argument left and you will have to have to keep it in front of the arguments of the put on and you will become muslim so this was his mission that he said he would never leave and again coming back to a little earlier with it also reminded me of an of an incident where he said that if you put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left even then i will not stop preaching the message of god so he was given everything and here's a man say today that he wanted that he wanted the world he was for worldly things but when they were given to him he rejected them and what was looked like everything they were going for was towards the minus you know it wasn't again anything where they were losing everything they lost people they lost you know lives they lost the livelihoods they lost their properties they lost everything yet they went for it so that must show some kind of sincerity people but also to bring peace to them and one of the ways of peace in society is to make sure but there was freedom of expression that there was freedom of religion but freedom of conscience so he said that if patiently so long but now god has commanded me and that's what he did so a lot said in the hall and that you have to fight them until that religion is professed freely for so this is it so that means of the people have the right to become muslim and nobody goes and takes their lives or beats them up because of it he said he's going to fight to establish start right with everyone has a basic right and he said that you will not see me stop from the he said if they let people say that god is one and th messenger and they let them pray in the let them play there's a god then their lives and their properties will be safe for me means then i will stop fighting them as soon as they let these things happen as it should be in a free society then i have no fight against  them nothing to do with them but if they oppose it i will fight them because he was fighting on behalf of everybody so that the freedom of conscience could be could be established to see so this is how when you look at it in the correct context and when you in effect he was a good example as well and if you want to understand his words you should see what he did those are in the true interpretations of his words and of his of the commandments as he brought to the world so it's disingenuous to go and say  previous question again it's sometimes very fundamentally misunderstood the issue of what is an offensive war and what is a defensive war and what was permitted as in the word jihad now to the common person out there indeed to a lot point to that but to the contrary that there is no compulsion in faith and therefore you cannot force anyone to become a muslim or force anyone to leave islam is as such so that is very specific and particular in that respect so if you feel that you are under threat from force then of course you have to take up arms in order to protect you once religiously god had given permission for defensive walls so in that respect we find that in the look at the history of islam the first battle that was for the battle of brother now people may say that those people were passing by and they had no intention of fighting waging war on the most humans in mecca but look at the disparity in the numbers and how the disparity then you are able to understand that this was a defensive war that had to be undertaken to protect the people of medina by the holy prophets of the law who were there were some so either the either you had to protect your own surroundings or if you were under an impending threat from some people and there was some progress being hatched against you then in order to protect yourself then you could also prepared to wage war against those people in a defensive manner in that respect so that they would not harm you in that respect however the laws laid down by islam as far as far as the conditions of what the muslims were allowed to do dur is is so prohibitive you know that the mek the muslim armies were told that they should not fight they should not kill women they should not kill children they should not destroy property they should not cut down trees they should not  going to do you damage and not a war with an open agenda in that you go there and i laid the people and the town in so that there is nothing left of that town this is what wars were in those days and even today we see that the collateral damage that they talk about is very much broader sense of the damage that really is islam has given very specific rules of engagement and therefore they were very prohibitive only to achieve the purpose of protection of yourselves and of your property and that is where we find that the essence of islam that these are defensive wars in order to protect yourself in the nature of a very proportionate response most of the prophet muhammad they were allowed to come all the crucifix is an implement and they were allowed to pray inside his mosque now if he had come to fight them then that would have been a very strange way to enact the commandment coming to fight literally physically fight the disbelievers until they proclaim that god is one of the become muslim basically and they will not cease to find them and to do so so if these people are led to get into power then we can only in the mind boggles you know what question this is an important issue and i hope you will understand the time we spent on this particular question and even this is very brief to actually understand the nature of the nobility and the true character of the holy prophet of islam pro not the actions of a man who was there seeking to wage wars on their particular religions through physical  birth and she had grown up and had there been any of any inclination in his mind to marry her he could have married her when she was unmarried number gene at that stage so therefore this is this is one way to look at it the second thing is marriage and for this union however unfortunately when the match didn't work out there were differences of temperament perhaps and said wanted to divorce his wife because of these differences the hol very hesitant about this and it was only after the divine commandment of our law to say that this was not illegal match as such it was not a bloodline match therefore there was no harm in him in that respect so the therefore he he married her and under divine command and according to divine instructions at that time he would be prophets have lost a limb in all his marriages would only marry if he was under divine command to do so so as far as the background to this is concerned and she was thirty eight years of age at that time hundreds and of you know maybe at that time that was late sort of middle aged don't want wood so she was a divorcee you can well imagine that the holy prophet so lots of them had no intention to marry his exam before she was made it was that or when she was married to her in that respect and because of the him having arranged the match in the first place he felt obligated that he had to cater for her and god permitted him to do so you see the the thing is that the holy prophets of us along through his practices wanted to dispel you know  of you know in arab society and the holy prophets or loss of them started from his own you know household as it were in that he arranged for his adopted son to marry a full blooded arab in that respect so that that barrier would be would be broken down so we have to be very clear in that respect that we do not obviously agree to the allegations in this respect and also in all the other marriages that the holy prophets of the laws of them did for example yes divine intervention is a very convenient way of putting it but i think your putting it into the context of the circumstances that's something we really need to emphasize is that when you look at the example that was asked for an allegation which is made research the that respect i have wanted to marry her then you would have wanted to marry her before she had got married to somebody else and therefore this allegation is totally baseless and as you rightly said getting rid of cultural taboos which existed at that time young himself if i could bring you in i wanted to say that just very briefly it would be perhaps interesting for the viewers to know a little bit what you know what the reasons were behind the marriages of the prophets of the seven percent i gather so much to say yes exactly so much is said against his marriages and the reasons you know that people perceive that they're far from being so one thing which you have to put things into context first we need to remember that the prophet muhammad sort of salaam came into an arab society which was totally to apart by bike you know clan clannish warfare and feuds and all this and he had to unite all of those people who had been fighting for hundreds of years some of them and one of the ways which that could be done was would be to a personal relationship with each one of them over as many as possible and one way to do that would be through marriage either by marrying himself or by offering his daughters to somebody for example or if he had sons then that would have been also possibility so for him the were the roots which are open and it was very it was very useful and it actually you know very positive effect on the melding together of these you know had these prisoners of war with them because they didn't have a prison system then there's to have them in their own homes they released all of them saying that they didn't find it appropriate to have people of the clan of the wife of the prophet as you know the  muslims had been sent peacefully to go and instruct them about islam they murdered all of slaughtered them so when one maimuna this changed the whole atmosphere and not just accept accepted  he couldn't refuse the gift either so the only other option was to marry her so he married her so that she was his christian wife and that's why he he you know he married his late is this that this is the background behind it all and i think that's us we're sort of heading towards the sort of last fifteen minutes of the program and our next question which i'm going to take his form from here in the u forbid was a false prophet because it says in chapter sixty nine verse forty seven and they quote and surely we would have severed his life artery they back this up according to based on decent traditions that christians use that this is how the prophet muhammad felt after eating a poisoned sheep when he had some food he felt or expressed that's how he felt and they put these two things together john geer solved and actually presented years so basically that the person would die in a very specific way where people would be able to see this death as a person of death and therefore they know that this person is a liar and god is not supporting him on the know i feel like i'm dying you know and things like this i'm burning up you know we don't really mean that these things are happening to us it's only a feeling does that mean that because he felt his life altering was being said but th said this portion of meat has told me that it is poison so he was given tidings that this was poison because of that and he did not suffer death because of that this is three years before the demise of the holy pro be able to live for three years and carry on his duties carry on his hardships and then die of natural causes be assigned to death by the poison but also we have to remember that there are so many people as you said who are watching him in every detail  summarizing this perhaps when you have discussions is perhaps they should read history and look at it from a historical context as well and they'll have their answer there before such allegations are made perfectly valid in putting these forward just as a reminder again the lifetime of the holy prophet of islam peace be upon him he then says if and they then raise the issue that if there is no compulsion in matters pertaining to faith why is as such the cop forced upon such people that they there's no compulsion in religion because truth has become distinct from false would so that is the spirit of the freedom of religion that we have absolute freedom to become a believer or a muslim and no one can coerce us to do that and we have absolute freedom to believe whatever faith that we follow and no one can force you to do to do that as well however if you adopted religion then of course you have to follow the that this is an obligation that he have made upon ourselves by becoming a muslim that these become obligatory on us so there is no sort of compulsion in that respect that once you have made the proclamation of faith then you are bound to abide by these rules and regulations in a more sort of day to day life for instance i mean in order for me to practice my profession in this country i have to be a member of the g d c and the d d c obviously have many regulations that i have to abide by if i don't have indemnity cover in this country i cannot practice my faith i cannot say this is my freedom of choice whether i have to indemnity cover or not but because i belong to the d d c a member paid a member of the g c and i have to follow whatever directives they have i have total freedom to leave the d d c and not practice therefore i have taken that freedom of choice and become a member when i have to follow each and every guideline that is set for me otherwise i become disbarred from being a member of that council and the same is the case with faith we have absolute freedom to believe or not to believe but once we have believed then we have to of last sort of few moments of the program as well and i'm going to try and see if we can kay from london has also sent in a question as well we will see which relates to another form of tax and we will also that if not in this program a subsequent one but and refuse to pay their taxes which have been ordained by god no doubt but they are taxes nonetheless then where will the country go so this is this is a something which has to do of the government as well and they have absolutely no right to for example  not pay their taxes here in england so they wouldn't have the right to do it there either just because it has a religious coloring to it does not mean that it's the same as praying or the same as you know doing the pilgrimage for example some muslims may decide not to pray nobody will go  here in the u k as muslims we pay taxes to non muslim government so they should expect to do the same when they're living in a muslim under muslim government it's exactly that thank you very much gentlemen and i think again emphasizes the structure sometimes people get pleasure i myself feel greatly educated when i'm sitting in the program so i always have the easy job in just posing the questions you've course but without you coming back to the questions viewers we would ask questions to answer these gentleman or the questions i posed would have