Revive Your Heart: Putting Life in Perspective

A-fa-lā taʿqilūn
—why don’t you think?
How do you make your decisions? This is a religion of: 
adʿū ilā Allāh ʿalā
baṣīrah
—I call to Allah with eyes open—a religion of thought. We are no longer
a thoughtful people, so Islam is no longer. We think, in the West, the threat of
Islam is its militancy. The militancy is nothing—this is nothing. The real threat
to the Quraysh—what rattled them—was not at Badr but back in Mecca. They
were shaken up just by the 
āyāt
, the word of Allah was enough. It was enough to
take a tradition that was there for thousands of years and it was rattled just by a
few words of Allah. Just by a few words. Something’s happened, we are not
connected with that word anymore.
You know, when somebody wants to win an argument, when two people
have an argument and you don’t have a response then you get angry, you start
yelling. When you start yelling, it is proof that you’ve lost. When, in an
argument, you start yelling, it is proof that you lost; because you don’t have a
reasonable answer left, and it frustrated you, so you got angry. When two people
have an argument and you’ve lost and you hit the other, that is also proof that
you lost; because you could not defeat him with words, so you figured you could
try to defeat him with your hand. This is actually an indication that you’re not
strong enough in what you have to say.
My argument to you is that in our 
dīn
, Allah has given us words—there are
no stronger words, there is no stronger message. We don’t have to resort to

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anything else and when we do, it is as though we are admitting that this isn’t
strong enough. But it is! 
We’re
not strong enough, because we are not connected
to this word enough. We have to be the people that produce the most intellectual
responses, the most reasonable responses, the ones that challenge the immorality
of the world in the most profound and thought-provoking way. We’re the ones
that are supposed to engage in the deepest conversations with the agnostic, with
the atheist, with the Christian, with all of them. Their accusation against religion,
you know what it is? It’s been there for centuries in Europe and now all over the
world—religious people are closed minded, religious people are fanatical,
religious people are intolerant, religious people cannot take criticism, religious
people are not open to conversation—so if you get rid of religion you will have
an open minded society where people can think for themselves.
This is their accusation and you know what? It holds true for the Christianity
that had pervaded Europe for centuries; but the Islam that Allah gave His
Messenger (
ṣallā Allāh ʿalayhi wa-sallam
) is the exact opposite of that. It is the
religion that encourages dialogue—
hātū burhānakum in kuntum ṣādiqīn
—bring
your evidence, why don’t you give me all of your criticisms against the Qur’an, I
would invite you to bring all of your criticisms. How is a book asking people not
just to have faith but to please collect all of your criticisms and bring them. This
is what you call open-mindedness, the book is calling to open-mindedness; we’re
the ones that are closed-minded; we’re the ones. We have to empower this
ummah again by opening up our minds, by opening up this book and thinking
the way it wants us to think. To show that religion is not a way to close the mind,
close the eyes and close the hearts. It is the way to open the mind, to engage in
dialogue and to bring civilization to humanity. They think the solution is when
you get rid of religion and we are saying the solution is when you bring the true
religion. Yes, false religion will bring oppression; but when you bring the 
dīn
of
Allah, it’s a thing of beauty.
If we don’t show them that who will? That’s why Allah put you and me on
this earth, to be members of this ummah is an honour, it’s not a small thing. We
are carrying collectively—one-fifth of the world’s population—on our
shoulders, the burden that was placed on the shoulders of