Conner

Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen. Wasalatuhu wa Salamu Alaa Asharafil Anbiya'i wal Mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi wa Alaa Alihi wa Sahbihi wa Sallamu Al Jaseeman Katheeran Katheeraan. Fama Badhu. My brothers and sisters, I want to begin by once more congratulating our brother Conor for becoming a Muslim today. He gave me the honor of having Iftar with me and we were sitting in my room, there's the two of us, and eating our food. When he said to me, I wish I was born a Muslim. We talked about how he came to Islam and so on. And he said, I wish I was born a Muslim. And spontaneously a thought came into my heart and that thought was, I wish I were accepting Islam today. Wallahi. I wish I was born a Muslim. My family for at least a thousand years have been Muslim. Traceable. But I said that I wish I was accepting Islam today, now. And the reason is that he accepted Islam and right now, this is the purest person among all of us. The only one who has zero sins, insha'Allah with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the only one whose, whose amal, his book of deeds is absolutely pure as the day he was born, is this man here. So I said, I wish I was born a Muslim. So the first thing, then the thought came to me again, Wallaha, I'm not claiming to get Wahi or something, naul billah. But the thought came to me was, what prevents you from accepting Islam today? Who said I cannot accept Islam today? So I'm going to do that now, loudly and clearly, before all of you, whoever wants to join me, join me. And then we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to count us from today as Muslims, meaning wipe out all our sins, whatever we did till today. From today we are newly born, insha'Allah. Ashadu an la ilaha illallah, wa ashadu anna Muhammadan rasulullah. Wallaha, I bear witness that there is nobody worthy of worship except you. And I bear witness that Muhammadan rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam is your rasul and the last and final of them after whom there is no other. This is the wealth of Islam. What is the value of that? And Conor said to me, so what is your advice to me as a new Muslim? Alhamdulillah, today all of us right now are new Muslims, insha'Allah. He said, what is your advice to me as a new Muslim? And I said to him, because before that we had a conversation about his education in Amherst College. And he said how he was studying religion and different religions. And he made a very beautiful statement which stuck in my mind and heart. He said the problem with approaching religion from an intellectual perspective is that it takes the belief out of religion. It takes the religion out of religion. It became extremely academic. And the thought to me was, if I were to say Muslims believe that there is no one worthy of worship except Allah. See the statement, Muslims believe that there is no one worthy of worship except Allah. This is one statement. And the second statement is, there is no one worthy of belief, worthy of worship except Allah. Is there a difference between the two statements? The difference between the heavens and the earth, right? One is Muslims believe there is no one worthy of worship except Allah. And the second statement is, there is no one worthy of worship except Allah. There is a world of difference because one is coming out of the heart out of belief. The other one is an intellectual state, Muslims believe this. So I said to him that the advice I give him and the same advice I give myself is, leave the intellectual piece out of it. Know Allah. Know Allah. Because if you look at Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala from an intellectual perspective, you can only define Allah in terms of what He is not. He has no shape. He has no form. He is unlike anything. He is not. He is not. He is not. What is He? What is He? So the way to describe Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala is in two ways. One is to look at how He described Himself. Who did Allah say He was?