Now before of course we actually go into the main topic itself I would like to spend a little bit of time dealing with what may seem to be periphery issues but they are very important. I want to talk about what is proof, what is faith, when I say we can prove that Islam is the truth what do I mean by that? Some people would already look at that as a type of oxymoron. How can you prove a faith to be true? Isn't faith supposed to be something that you believe without proof? Isn't that what the meaning of faith is? So I want to examine that, what is the meaning of faith & what is the meaning of proof.

But first of all I would like to mention an ayat of the Quran. The ayat of the Quran is actually, it's not only one ayat, it's something that is repeated again & again in the Quran. So the Quran tells us: Say. If what you claim is true bring your proof, bring your evidence, bring your proof, if you are making a claim about Allah, if you are making a claim about anything in fact, what is upon you & what is an obligation upon you is to bring your "burhan", your proof, your evidence. And this is something that Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah mentions many-many different times in the Quran. In other words it is not enough just to make a claim, you have to prove your claim. And this is something that the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam, he also mentioned that the proof is upon the claimant, the person who is making a claim has to prove it, because otherwise we would claim the blood & the property of each other. And this is the reality. So I'm sure that every single one of you is familiar with this in your daily life.

For example if someone comes round to check your electricity meter or to check your gas meter if you have such a thing, or your water meter if you have such a thing, then that person would usually be wearing a uniform or they will usually carry an identity card. If that person came knocking at your door dressed like someone from the Hell's angels' motorbike club with you know long hair & I don't know leather jacket & with you know love & hate tattooed on his fist, you, I don't think you would be letting that person in your house. Rather you would say: "You know what you stay right where you are cause you are not coming at my house & checking out my house & seeing what's in there" because what you are thinking: "Oh. this person is now going to come, this person is now going to rob me, this person is going to come in my house & steal everything." So if someone is coming to check the utility bills you want to see an id, you want to see the person wearing a uniform before you let that person in your house. In other words you want some type of evidence that that person is who they claim to be.

Similarly in another example if I said today for example all these studios here they don't belong to peace TV, they belong to me, they belong to Abdur-Raheem Green & this is my place & you guys get out, I'm in charge of here now. No one is going to take me seriously. If I go to court & I want to make a claim about something, if I want to claim some place belongs to me, or some property belongs to me, then I have to bring evidence, I have to bring proof, I can't just say: "Well, what's my proof? I believe it, I have faith. You know that's not good enough, no one accepts that type of thing in everyday life.

So why should it be any different when it comes to religion? In fact if you think about it, the issues in religion are even more important than these worldly issues. Whether this place belongs to me or belongs to Peace TV, whether someone robs my house or not is very insignificant compared to the consequences of what any religion is saying because religion is talking about the purpose of our whole life, religion is talking not only about the purpose of this life, but about what is going to happen to us in the life to come, the eternity. So therefore is it enough that someone just comes along & makes a claim, someone just says: "Oh, God says this, God says that, you should believe this you should believe that. Surely the logical approach to anyone who makes a claim about God is "bring your evidence if what you say is true" and this is what Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah tells Muslims to say.

For example if a Christian comes to us & makes a claim about God that Jesus is God or he is the son of God, or the Bible is from God, well, bring your proof if what you say is true. And this is the same for anybody about anything. It's only a matter of time before a person is going to say: "Well, you know, you Muslims, you claim your religion is from God, you claim your religion is from the Creator, well, you bring your proof if what you say is true. And in fact really that's just what we are waiting for, because we will be more than happy to furnish & to provide the proof to show that Islam is the Truth. And that's what we are going to be hoping to do Insha Allah Wa Ta Allah over with the will of God, over the next few programmes. And that is to really show some & to give a bit of insight into some of the evidences that we can have and that we can show in order to illustrate & to show that Islam really is the religion that has been revealed by Allah the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth. And I say bring evidences because if you open the dictionary & you look at the dictionary "evidence" or the dictionary description of "proof", "proof" actually is a collection of evidences. And when you get enough evidence then you could say that that thing is proven to be true.

Because of course on a philosophical level we could say we can't really prove absolutely anything. In an absolute sense you can't prove anything, there is always I suppose a type of room for a little bit of doubt, however small, there's always a potential for some type of doubt. And so what we really mean here when we say "we are going to prove that Islam is the Truth", what we hope to do is to provide so much evidence that a person will not really have any reasonable cause to doubt that thing. It's rather like a court, it's rather like when you go to court.

for example, Now in the UK for example we have a jury system that means that when a particular case goes before the court the jury makes a decision based upon the evidence in front of them. And that's what they should do. They shouldn't be looking: Oh what is the colour of this person's skin. They shouldn't be looking at whether this person is beautiful or ugly. They shouldn't be looking at whether this person is rich or poor. No. The way that it should be done is that people should look at the evidence, and they should look at it dispassionately & they should look at it clearly from a type of intellectual unbigoted point of view & so based upon the evidence they make a verdict. They have to make a verdict: "Guilty" or "not guilty". Now ultimately that verdict has to be made, ultimately that decision has to be made: Is the person guilty or not guilty. And that in a sense is what I want to move on to is the actual, what we could call faith. What is faith? What do we mean by faith exactly? Because for some people as I've mentioned, isn't it an oxymoron proving faith, isn't faith supposed to be something that you just believe. Well, that's what we are going to look into. Isn't faith something you just believe or is it something that can actually be proven in some way.

Today we are talking about what is proof & what is faith, & can we prove a religion to be true. Now let's go back to the issue of faith. What do we mean by faith? Now let's take an example, one of the things I often ask people is "do you believe the Earth spins on its axes & goes round the Sun in 365 days. And most people I ask this say "yes, we believe that, we do believe that's true". I say "do you believe it 100 % are you absolutely sure, do you really believe it? They say "Yes, we believe it, we are sure it's true, it's a fact". So they call it a fact. Then I say: "Ok, prove it. And it's very interesting how many times I get complete blank expressions. Because although most of us believe that the Earth spins on its axes & goes round the Sun in 365 days, if we were actually asked to prove it then most of us will not be able to do that. That doesn't mean that we don't believe this thing based upon some good reasons, & of course the reasons that we believe that is because well, for example, the scientific community, scientists have examined certain things, they've come up with certain theories & they have made certain observations. So based upon those theories & those observations of those theories in practice & so many scientists have observed these things so many times than they consider it to be a fact they consider it to be something that is proven to be true.

But of course most of us ourselves couldn't really prove it, we wouldn't really know what exactly is the evidence we might have some type of idea, but we have faith in the scientific community, we have faith in science because, look at what science has done, look what science has produced, so there are many reasons so that we might have faith in something & this is a type of faith, it is a faith in science, it's a faith in the teachings of science. It's may be not what we are used to in terms of religious faith, but it's still a belief, it's still a type of faith. And therefore when it comes to Islam, when it comes to the teachings of Islam, when it come to our topic here "the proof that Islam is the truth", the evidences that we can accumulate, to know that Islam is the divine revelation from Allah, then what we are really talking about here is this type of faith. It's the same type of faith when you go to a doctor, & you know you put your faith & your trust in a doctor, & you know he examines you, & he looks at you, & you believe that because he is the doctor, you trust him because he's the doctor, because he studied, because he's got knowledge, you trust & you believe that his diagnosis is going to be accurate & is based upon some information.

And so this is the type of faith that we are talking about in Islam. We don't mean when we talk about faith in Islam, when we talk about belief, when we talk about Iman we don't mean believing something unbelievable something unbelievable without any evidence. No. What we mean in Islam is we are asking you, Allah is asking you to believe something entirely believable. That there is one God, that this universe has one Creator. And you watch my previous series of programmes about the proof of the existence of God which I do encourage you to refer to as an essential part of this, then you'll be familiar with what I'm talking about. So we are asking you, the Islam is asking you to believe that there is one God & to believe that God has sent guidance to a human being Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him. And that God has given some evidences through which & by which any reasonable rational person can come to know that Islam is truly the religion that has been revealed by the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth for the benefit of all the human beings.

And so that is what we are going to be touching upon over this series. These evidences what are they? Now some of these evidences are rational proofs that are connected with what we've already talked about in previous series about the existence of God, but we are not going to be repeating that. What we are going to be going through is some of the miraculous aspects of the Quran, we'll be talking about what exactly is a miracle, what do we mean by a miracle exactly, what place does it have in this process of proving & understanding that something is from God & we'll be going through those things to discuss & to understand these evidences. Finally I would really like to finish with a sura from the Quran & it's sura "tobayana" where Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah says never kullilathina kafiru min ahlil kitab wal mushrikina. So never will those people from the ahlil kitab from the people of the book, or the mushrikina, or the people who are making shirk with Allah, they are making partners with Allah whether it is the idol worshipers or the atheists or the pagans or whoever. They will never leave off their disbelief. They are not going to leave off their disbelieving in Allah and they are not following Allah's guidance until there comes to them aldeyana until it comes to them the clear evidence. So this is Allah is telling us something really about the nature of people. People need evidence, they need proof, they need something to make them realise & understand that this thing or such & such thing is true. And what is that proof? Rassula min Allah. A Prophet, a Messenger from Allah. So this is one thing. The Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam himself is of course one of the clear evidences that Islam is the truth.

And actually we talked about this already in a previous series of lectures so we won't be repeating that. Rassula min Allah yaklus suhufam mutahara. And that means that he is bringing purified pages. And this here is a reference to of course the Quran & that is something that we are going to be talking about. We are going to be talking about the Quran. This is of course the great miracle that Allah has given to the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam, the Quran. Thiha kutubun kaima & that means with like the laws that are clear & that are obvious. So this is the other thing. It is the guidance of Islam, the guidance of the Quran that the laws that are there in a religion of Islam. This is another whole topic, my dear brothers & sisters, that we are going to be exploring. Some of the beautiful aspects of the religion of Islam, the Muslim way of life, how we can examine it & how this way of life itself is a type of proof & an evidence that it is from Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah. So these are some of the areas that we are going to be examining.

We are going to be talking about the Quran, we are going to be talking about the preservation of the Quran & memorisation of the Quran, some of the miraculous aspects of the Quran, for example the amazing scientific facts that are contained in the Quran, the historical information, the facts that are concerning historical events that no one could have known 1400 years ago. Also the prophesies of the Quran & the prophesies of the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam, some things the Quran tells us about the future & things that Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam told us about the future, things that he said were going to happen & they happened exactly how the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam said it would happen. Also we are going to be talking about the miracles of the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam, the amazing things that were done by the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam.

In addition we'll be talking about the miraculous nature of the Quran, its linguistic miraculous nature, the beauty of the Quran & other amazing facts about the Quran. Also we will be talking about the witnessing of the people of the book. This is some of the very strong evidences that many people from ahlil kitab, from the scholars of the Jews & the Christians have recognised that Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam is the messenger of Allah. So Insha Allah we will be mentioning some of those evidences that have been used from the Bible to show that the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam has been foretold in the scriptures. And also we will be talking about the stories of some of those people like Abdullah Ibn Salam, one of the Jewish Rabbis of Medina & of course the famous story of Salman Al Farsi which is very-very instructive in that regard. So we'll be talking about some of those things which is a very-very interesting aspect, which is another series of evidences. And that's what we say: we are going to bring these evidences together: the miraculous nature of the Quran, and the linguistic miracle of the Quran, the scientific statements, the historical statement, the witnessing of the people of the book, the prophesies of the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam. really in fact if we look at any single one of these items on, they would be really unique & amazing.

But really when we begin to combine them & when we begin to gather them altogether we can see that really we have so many evidences to amass from so many different angles to show that really our claim is not just a claim. It is not just something we are saying based upon just faith as people understand it. No. Really there are many-many good strong reasons to believe that Islam is exactly what it claims to be - the revelation from Allah the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth for the benefit of all of humanity. And there's something I would like to add, maybe it's not exactly part of our topic but I would like to add it is that evidence is very important for us as Muslims. Whatever you do as a Muslim, whatever you believe as a Muslim, whatever you practice as a Muslim it should be based upon evidence. Our religion is not based upon guesswork, it's not based upon what I think or what I imagine or upon some cultures or some traditions that we may follow. Being a Muslim is supposed to be based upon following the evidence. And the evidence means what the Quran says & what the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam says. So my brothers & sisters we look forward to you in our next programme to continue with this exciting discussion, Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi wa ta Allah va Barakatu