SIO61: What Is True Islam? with Qasim Rashid

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 61. I am your somewhat sick host, Thomas Smith, and so because of that, I'm not going to do much preamble here. I'm just going to get to a really excellent interview with Qasim Rashid. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I think we disagree a lot, and I think we're coming from two very unique places, and it's a conversation, conversation, that I don't think I've ever heard like the kind of conversation we had, which is why I wanted to do it. So I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Without any further rambling, let's get over to my interview with Qasim Rashid.

0:01:13 Thomas: Joining me right now is Qasim Rashid, and thank you for the pronunciation help on that, Qasem. Nice to speak to you.

0:01:19 Qasim: Hey, thanks for having me, man. Great to be here.

0:01:21 Thomas: It is really good to have you. I'm super curious how exactly this will go, because I feel like we're coming from such different perspectives, but I think we share a lot in common, and I know, for example, I mean, you're a big advocate of Black Lives Matter. That's really cool. That's something that's important to me too, you're interested in, well, there's a lot. Lot. I'll let you speak for yourself, but I can't wait. Thanks for having the conversation. But would you mind, for those not familiar, maybe give a brief background, where you're coming from, who you are, that kind of stuff?

0:01:50 Qasim: Definitely. So, Qasim Rashid, you got my name right. Rhymes with awesome. I'm a national spokesperson for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, which is the nation's oldest Muslim organization. We're worldwide in scope and we are united worldwide under a caliph, which makes people panic when they think of caliph because they think we're talking about that terrorist in Iraq and Syria. But the caliphate that leads the Ahmadiyya Muslim community is a spiritual caliph, faith that believes in separation of mosque and state and universal human rights and stuff that we can get into a little bit later on.

0:02:24 Qasim: I'm an author. I mean, attorney, I'm married to my wonderful wife. We have three very awesome children. And I practice law in D.C. and Virginia.

0:02:24 Thomas: Oh, that's excellent. Okay. Yeah. My partner, Andrew Torrez over on Opening Arguments also practices law in DC. So what do you know? I guess it's a a good place to be.

0:02:44 Qasim: It is well, depending on perspective. But I mean for human rights work is definitely great to be here in D C. And that's kind of why I chose to move here after growing up in Chicago.

0:02:44 Thomas: Yeah.

0:02:53 Thomas: Right. So what would you say has been the focus, I suppose, of your activism? And your book is Talk to Me, by the way. Check it out, everyone. What would you say has some of your main goals and what you're trying to accomplish in terms of the, I I suppose that the dialogue around Islam and other things.

0:03:13 Qasim: Well, I think if I had to pick one driving motivation, it would have to be universal freedom of conscience. I think everything stems from that. Black Lives Matter, gender equality, rights for children, you name it. I think everything comes down to this fundamental concept of universal freedom of conscience. And that when you look at the world, Pew came out with a global attitude survey, I think in 2011, where they reported that roughly 75% of the world over 5 billion people live under some form of religious or social oppression, either from the government or through society. And there's a direct correlation and causation as well, that the more oppressive a society becomes and in terms of freedom of conscience the more violent and extremist it also becomes and on the flip side the more pluralistic society becomes in terms permitting people to believe whatever it is they want to believe without oppression then the more progressive and peaceful it becomes, people live longer, people live healthier, they live happier.

And so my, my driving focus that I've taken inspiration from the Quran, from the example of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is that I should do everything I can to champion universal freedom of conscience. And within that, that also means service to humanity. So that means feeding the poor and speaking up for those who are being marginalized, or giving my platform to those who are marginalized so they can speak for themselves.

0:03:20 Thomas: Hmm. Hmm.

0:04:41 Qasim: But it really drives back to this fundamental principle that people should be allowed to believe or not believe whatever it is they want, as long as they're not hurting somebody else, of course. But that fundamental aspect is missing in our world right now. And I feel like what's happening in the United States is under threat in many respects we can talk about. But, that's really why I get up in the morning.

0:04:50 Thomas: Hmm.

0:05:04 Thomas: Totally agree. I totally disagree with where you're coming from there. I think that's really awesome work that you're doing. And I think, but I think where the conversation gets, I suppose, interesting is as someone who's an atheist and, you know, secular, tend to see a bit of a correlation between, I suppose, Islam in the world and this lack of separation of mosque and state, I guess. And I know one thing that's really interesting in the atheism community, and I'm sure that you've seen this, I know, because I know you're pretty big on Twitter. So I'm Sure you deal with a lot of anti-Muslim bigotry, a lot of, you know, what I don't know if you prefer or if you like the term Islamophobia. I think from ex-Muslins I've talked to, they prefer anti-muslim bigotry, but that's another discussion. There is a fine line to walk between criticizing some bad ideas that, you know, from my standpoint, I see a lot bad ideas in Islam, as I do in Christianity and other religions.

0:05:58 Thomas: But doing that and then being sort of an anti-Muslim, which I, I, of course, see as a bad thing and I see what Trump is doing is awful. I see his solutions and his, you know, the support that he has is really detestable and racist and bigoted in a lot of ways. But it's so interesting because when I see the you're coming from, because it seems like when you talk about being, is it Ahmadi or Ahmadiyya or both? Is that?

0:06:25 Thomas: Oh, okay. Okay. Being Ahmadi, is I it fair to say it's a very small group of Muslims, right?

0:06:24 Qasim: Both work, yeah. Well, I mean, how do you define small? I mean if you want to talk about Overall, yeah, I'm even numbers, right? I'm mean, if want to the single largest Muslim community in the world, um, that's united under one leader, it's undoubtedly the Ahmadiyya Muslim community. I mean, we're, like I said, we're in over 200 nations worldwide. We have been around for 130 years. We run about 17,000 mosques, close to a thousand secular educational institutions, several dozen hospitals, and I don't know how many water wells and and villages. We're building smart schools. We're around the world. So from that standpoint, nobody, and I, and I will, I'll fight this tooth the nail to anybody based on facts. There's no single Muslim community that is larger than us on a worldwide scale, none. And there's no community that can provide this proven model of Islam. This is what I talk about as well, that when I'm presenting

0:06:32 Thomas: Just the numbers, I guess.

0:07:20 Qasim: An argument that Islam teaches X, I'm not just saying this is my scriptural interpretation, because anyone can come up with any interpretation they want, Right? What I'm saying is this is the right model, and here is a proven 130-year example showing that this model works, that it's not just theory. So this terrorist in Iraq and Syria, al-Baghdadi, who's promoting this violent concept of Islam, the reason why we can show that that has no merit is, one, it's non-provable, it's not sustainable, it is being destroyed and obliterated, right? So if it's truth, it should withstand the test of time. It's gone, what, two years now, three years, and it's on the verge of collapse. The second thing is, and I, I think this point you'll definitely agree with me on, is that if you have truth, you don't need a gun. If you have proof, you need to force people to believe it. The only time you need to force someone to believe something is when you don't have truth and you have to make up for it.

0:07:27 Thomas: Yeah.

0:08:16 Qasim: That's why you have censorship laws. That's what you have blasphemy laws. That's when you have apostasy laws, when you do not have truth. And you need to force them to believe what you believe because otherwise, if they think logically and rationally, they realize this is a bunch of garbage and I want nothing to do with it. I think we agree there, right?

0:08:31 Qasim: I don't think you agree with that, right.

0:08:31 Thomas: Well, I don't know that in that, like in what context you're speaking of, because I would certainly think that, you know, around the time of World War II, too, a lot of people needed guns who, you know, I think would probably, roughly speaking, had the truth. I think it kind of depends on the context of what's going on in the world.

0:08:49 Qasim: Well, we're talking about religion. We're not talking about right.

0:08:51 Thomas: Okay, so if you're talking about spreading your religion or trying to spread your ideas, yeah, go ahead, sir.

0:08:56 Qasim: Right, right, right because you asked me in the context of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community and I'm Telling you from a religious standpoint, this is why I believe that this is the true interpretation of Islam, because we spread with peace, with education, with logic. I mean, if you're talking about World War II, that's a whole different conversation altogether, yeah.

0:09:02 Thomas: Okay, yeah, I just, that's why I want to clarify the context. So I think I agree with you in the context you're speaking of. I didn't mean to try to pinch you into the the wrong thing. I'm just checking.

0:09:14 Qasim: Yeah. Yeah. I think blanket answers in general are a bad thing, but now I was responding specifically to your question about the Ahmadiyya Muslim community and and and where I would differentiate us, you know, to like a Wahhabist or a Daesh or Taliban or any other kind of group is, you know, we are the ones who are fighting for religious, religious freedom, fighting for the right of people to leave Islam if they want to leave Islam without any kind of oppression or violence. My first book, The Wrong Kind of Muslim, has a whole chapter dedicated to people in Pakistan who are leaving Islam.

And I argue that they are making a moral decision because what they've been shown is a religion of hate, of violence, of terrorism, of oppression and misogyny. Now we can argue about whether that Islam actually teaches those things or not. I say it does not, but the point I make is that what they've been presented as morality is in fact immoral and they're making the moral decision, the right decision to leave that life and pursue whatever it is they feel best pursuing. But whether I agree with their beliefs or not,

0:09:24 Thomas: Sure. Yeah. Yeah, right.

0:10:30 Qasim: The one thing that's clear is that they should be allowed to leave Islam without any fear of punishment or harm or retribution or retaliation.

0:10:38 Thomas: Right. So I want to say first and foremost that I mean, I agree with just I can't even think of one of your values that you've mentioned that I don't agree with beyond, you know, I'm not religious. I don't believe in anything supernatural, but no big deal. Like, I just want to says your values sound excellent to me. It sounds like the kind of thing I would want to be spreading. And I just wanna make that clear.

But I wonder if you could comment on, because I'll just talk about Christianity because that's the community or the, I suppose, the religion that I've dealt with more in my personal life just based on where I live and all that. And it's so interesting as an atheist because when I see people, let's say a really progressive Christian sect or something, arguing that, no, actually the Bible is totally cool with things like homosexuality and all And it's such a weird experience because it's like, on one hand, I'm like, well, that's a good idea. And I want, I would rather more Christians believe that gay people are people, you know, like I would Rather more Christians have

0:11:13 Qasim: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:11:40 Thomas: These good beliefs. But at the same time, I see the arguments. And And I look at the text and I'm like, that doesn't really say that. Like, it's from an atheist perspective. It's like, there's no reason that I would believe someone in the, the first century or the seventh or eighth century would have had the right ideas about homosexuality. I just don't, there is no, I mean, they could have, but I don't. There is no reason I would by default assume that.

And when I look the Bible in context, it just doesn't seem to be true. And you can make different arguments. You can interpret things different ways. But so that's why it's such an interesting conversation, I think, for you and I to have. Could you comment on that?

Like, how do you, I mean, do you at least understand, like, from my perspective, when I look at the Ahmadi Muslims who, I take your point that you have the largest, like organized, you know, sect, but in terms of just numbers, if I'm from an outsider's perspective, and I'm looking at the pew polls, and I see that Ahmadis are something like 1% of Muslims. And I don't know if you want to dispute those statistics. That's the numbers I'm seeing. So it's weird because when you look at the pupils, the number of Muslims who believe really horrendous things is far higher than 1%, at

0:12:55 Qasim: Right.

0:12:55 Thomas: Least certain things.

0:12:55 Qasim: So, I mean, I think it's probably closer to 3%, 4%, but at that point, you're still in single digits, right? So I think your point is still valid, right. But I think we need to look at two things. One, percentage and influence are two different things. I mean, the United States is 4% of the world's population, but the world revolves around the United States, or at least it has been up until the last couple of years. So maybe I'm undercutting my own argument.

0:13:00 Thomas: Okay, right.

0:13:18 Thomas: I know, yeah, it's finally not. And it's so funny because I have so many international listeners and they do like to call out from time to time like, hey, you know, there's other countries. It's like, darn it. You're right. Sorry. Sure.

0:13:28 Qasim: But I mean absolutely, but I think you see my point, right? Like from an economic, military, powerhouse standpoint, the U.S. is still on top, right, and so influence and size are two different things. So that correlation doesn't necessarily mean, and like the numbers I spat fed out about 70,000 mosques. I mean, I'll give you another one. The whole Muslim world combined has translated the Qur'an into about 30 languages. Our allegedly minority community has translated into over 75 languages.

0:13:36 Thomas: Yeah. Right.

0:13:58 Qasim: So the influence and the impact is significant, right? We were the first ones to launch an international satellite network, which is still going strong today, Muslim Television Ahmadiyya. You can check it out at MTA.TV. be. But on a deeper level, and I think this is really where the rubber meets the road, that if somebody is coming to me and says, hey, Islam says that apostates should be killed. My first question to them is very simple. Prove it to me. Show me in the Quran where it says this. And what I can tell you and what I Can tell your listeners is that for 130 years, we've issued because our community was founded in 1889, for nearly 130 years, we've issued this challenge that meet us in the field of debate on these questions and on these issues. And every single cleric or mullah or extremist who has claimed such a thing has backed off.

0:14:48 Qasim: And their only rebuttal has been, we're going to censor your books completely. We're goingto block access to them completely.We will not let people read them. And so if that has been the answer of these these extremists, you know, I mean, let's let's take our White House, for example, right? Our White House. If it is shutting off media access to the press briefings over and over and over again, what are people going to think? Are you going to leave a White House that will continue to shut off press briefers? Of course not. Why would you Who would believe in the right mind? Somebody who continues to censor information and not allow people to decide for themselves. And so and so, you Know, when people make these claims outlandish, you that gays should be killed, for example. I said, okay, fine, show me from the Quran where it says that. And if you can't, then stop censoring those who are promoting an idea that you simply can't refute.

0:15:35 Qasim: The founder of our community, Mirza Ghulam Ahmed, once wrote that religion that uses the sword to spread cuts its own throat before reaching others. And that's the fact here. These groups like Daesh that are promoting these barbaric ideologies, like throwing gay people off roofs, or like, you know, raping women, calling them their sex slaves, the reason why they have to force these things is because they don't have the ability to meet scholars in the field of debate, in the feel of logic, in the fuel of argument or dispute the centuries of history that prove otherwise. I mean, people forget the 700 year golden age of Islam, where Muslims advanced in unprecedented fields. This wasn't by accident. This was because of Quran. Well,

0:16:16 Thomas: Well, but it also wasn't Ahmadi by definition, right?

0:16:20 Qasim: The, I mean, the Ahmadiyya Muslim community started 130 years ago. So I guess, I guess the point I'm trying to make here then is that what we're promoting is not a reformation of Islam. It's a revival of Islam that led to 700 years of growth and progress in academics, in astronomy, in physics, in, in mathematics, in astronomy, in medicine, in aeronautics, camera technology. Think, I mean, I'm going to keep hitting that point home hard because education is a foundation of any progressive society. It's a foundation of the Ahmadi Muslim community. It's why we've been successful at what we do. And it's because of education that we had, you know, the first Muslim scientist to win a Nobel Prize was an Ahmady Muslim. The first Muslim president of the UN General Assembly was an Ahmadi Islam.

0:16:23 Thomas: Right. Yeah, that's what I mean.

0:17:11 Qasim: One of the first directors of the World Bank was an Ahmadi Muslim. Them So this is what I mean when I say it's a proven model, that that if it didn't work, we wouldn't have these success stories in this century-long history to prove that it actually works. That's

0:17:22 Thomas: Right? This is super fascinating. So I think that from what I'm hearing from you and from the little research I've done on this, I think it makes a ton of sense in terms of, I suppose, worldwide influence or maybe or maybe even like Western influence. Ahmady Muslims seem to because their ideals, because your ideals, from my perspective, are objectively better than others. Your ideals of openness, education, secularism, I believe those ideals are objectively better. And for that reason, I think that's probably why all the things you mentioned, how well your community has done, your specific religion has done.

I thinkthat's why, because those are good values and they encourage education. They encourage accomplishment. They're not worried about people believing exactly certain things or not overly really concerned with your behaviors in the bedroom, for example, like they're not bogged down with stuff like that. So that makes sense. But it's a weird question. I think the part that I can't quite wrap my mind around is how you judge what a religion is. Because I I think that if I were to try to throw at you, I mean I've done some limited research here. I've got pages and pages of horrendous Quran quotes. But

0:17:38 Qasim: Sure. Yeah.

0:18:37 Thomas: I'm not an expert. Like I think you would probably wipe the the floor with me once I said, oh, what about this one? This is your religion. This is something you've studied. You would have the apologetics for it. But it's just hard because when it comes to Christianity, how measure what Christianity is short of what the majority or what the most Christians believe? Because when you look at the Bible, now the Bible and the Quran might be fundamentally different. I don't know. But in the Bible is so large and vast that you are just able to pick which parts you want. And if Christians are not doing things like stoning each other, if they're not doing even bad things that Jesus said, for example, and by the way, Christians, largely speaking, I'll just speak in the US, Christians are not even very good with charity and with a lot of Jesus' good teachings.

0:18:37 Qasim: So

0:19:25 Thomas: They don't do those. All the stuff about rich people really have no chance of getting to heaven and just all this this stuff. Like largely speaking in this country, they're not even good at that. So how do I judge like what is Christianity? And the only thing I can do from an atheist, from an outsider perspective is say, well, it kind of is as it does. Like Christians are as they do essentially, because it might morph and they might, this particular passage might go out of vogue and then another one might be focused on. And it's sort of equally valid in a way. And so when I turn to Islam, I can't help but kind of look at it the same way. Maybe you could make better arguments than them about the Quran. I'm not sure, but I do know that there are plenty of, I mean, what I couldn't help, but call scholars, uh, who are on the side of, of ISIS.

0:20:13 Thomas: Yeah, I'm... I'm in the middle of, um, Graham Wood's book on that very thing. I mean... It does exist. You may disagree with it. I may disagree, but it does exist, so... How... You know, like, how do... How do I deal with that? That's the... That's the weird question.

0:20:24 Qasim: So so a couple things to look at, right? So one, I think it's important to understand that no group is a monomer, right? I mean, if I, if I want to talk about atheists, I'm not going to go and say, well, look at atheist China. There's 1.3 billion atheists there, and they are consistently a country of particular concern for religious oppression. They destroyed 400 crosses last year. They're forcing Muslims to stop fasting, forcing them to shave their beards, forcing women to remove the hijab. It's a pretty abrupt. So therefore, all atheists everywhere are just horrible human beings, right? I mean, nobody in their right mind makes that argument, right. So we have to understand that no one society is a monolith, and people are going to have different perspectives and different points of view, right, I mean I think we can agree on that basic principle.

0:20:42 Thomas: Right.

0:21:03 Thomas: Well, yes, but when you're talking about atheism, the only problem with that is atheism doesn't have, it's fundamentally different than religions. It doesn't Have foundational text.

0:21:04 Qasim: Right. It doesn't it doesn't have a scripture. Right, it doesn't have a scripture. So right, but it goes to show that even in the, in lacking any scripture, human beings still do a horrible and horrific things on a mass scale, right? So it's not the scripture that's making people doing bad things, is the fact that there are people that they're doing bad thing that human beings just think, well,

0:21:13 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. So it's a little different. Oh, sure. Yeah. Well, it could be. I think that it could Be either, right? I mean, don't you think, do you think people never do bad things because of scripture?

0:21:36 Qasim: But then, that's it. So now we're getting to the second part of the question, right? So once we've established that people have the innate ability to do bad things, then the question is, does the scripture come to enhance that and make it even worse, or does it come to channel that and prevent them from doing bad things by explaining what one objective sense of morality is, right? That what does the Qur'an define as morality? And so here, this is where the Qur'an itself says repeatedly, extensively, that you must investigate, you must study, you mus contemplate, you must reflect. I mean, for crying out loud, the very first word of the Qurr'an ever revealed was Ikra, which means to read, to recite, to convey. They, this is the, the genesis of the Quran was you must read, recite, convey, investigate, and contemplate, reflect. You know, without that basic fundamental principle, any idiot can, can contrive whatever they want out of the ground, and some idiots do, like ISIS. You know, a study just came out of Germany just yesterday.

0:21:38 Thomas: Okay, sure.

0:22:29 Qasim: I was reading this. And this has been corroborated by the, the FBI, that's been corrobarated by MI5, or I'm sorry, MI6, that radical Muslims consistently have a novice or naive understanding of Islam. It's a consistent factor across the board that extremists will recruit religious novices. And this is not just in Islam, but this is also in white supremacy terrorism. This is also terrorism done by Christians.

If you look at the Central Africa Republic, for example, if you look, the Lord's Resistance Army, this is a Christian terrorist group in Uganda who will kidnap children at a young age, brainwash them, and then force them to commit atrocities, because when they're young and naive, they're easy to mold. So, you know, that's a tried and true method across the board. It has nothing to do with Islam. Isn't It has nothing to with atheism. It has everything to do with, with extremists finding a way to manipulate and to misrepresent what a teaching actually is. But now we get to your fundamental question, that, hey, what about all these violent verses in the Quran, how do you reconcile these? Well, the Qur'an answers that beautifully as well. In chapter 3, verse 8, it says that this Quran has been revealed by God. It is a book that must be read in completion. In every verse must be taken into account.

And then the follow-up verse says that there are some verses here that people can manipulate, and those in whose hearts is a disease will find ways to manipulate and bring about violent interpretations. So at the very beginning, you know, it points out very clearly that one, you have to look at all the verses in context, so you can't cherry pick verses.

0:24:01 Qasim: And two, there's no doubt that some people will misrepresent these verses and find violent interpretations thereof. But in that very short argument is a solution to prevent people from taking violent interpretations. And that is you look at the Quran as a whole, you cannot cherry pick. So these violent verses that you're referring to, what I can guarantee you, and this is something that Graham Wood refuses, and I've talked to him about this. I don't know why he refuses to acknowledge this very basic principle. I mean, he's not an Islamic scholar. He's not a scholar of Islam in any capacity. So it's remarkable to me that he's trying to speak with such authority in the first place. But this is a point that people like Graham Wood and other critics and extremists like ISIS refuse to acknowledge, that every single time the Quran addresses fighting, it is in the context, the very clear context of fighting in self-defense.

0:24:49 Qasim: Once you have been attacked for your faith, you leave, leave your country, you are pursued, and then you are permitted to fight in self-defense. And even then, the Quran says that when you fight in self-defence, you fight to protect churches and synagogues and cloisters and mosques. And it spells them out in that order specifically. So this idea that Islam teaches to spread Islam by force and destroy churches and synagogs is nonsense, because the Quran specifically condemns it. If some imbecile ignores a full context and detailed explanation of when you're allowed to fight, and only looks at the verse permitting self-defense, that makes them an extremist, that makes them a evil person, that does not hold a ground liable for their own stupidity and their own cherry picking.

0:25:34 Thomas: That's hard for me. Okay, so you, as I said earlier, you are steeped in this. This is what you've done. This is, you know, you will win any sort of debate about apologetics for the Quran, but from an, like, do you not think the Quran is anti-Semitic even? I mean,

0:25:52 Qasim: Not, and, and you don't even need to take my opinion for it. Dr. Phil Jenkins is a Christian scholar, he's one of the foremost scholars of religion in the country, and he's, he's written a book called Laying Down the Sword, where he analyzes these alleged anti-Semitic verses and points out that there's literally nothing anti-Semitic about these at all. Compares it to the New Testament, which he calls anti-Semetic. The New Testament refers to the Jews as the children of Satan and other horrible things.

0:26:20 Qasim: When the Quran refers to people who do evil things, it leaves its most harsh language for Muslims, who are hypocrites. When it refers to Jews doing evil things, it refers to a specific group of Jews at a specific time and place. So it's very nuanced and specific in its approach. But on the contrary, what we find from the example of Prophet Muhammad, and that's the other thing I want to point out as well, that when we talk about the Quran, it's not just a theoretical exercise. Prophet Muhammad was called the walking Quran, in that he exemplified everything the Quran taught. And so we got to see firsthand how he implemented certain teachings. And therefore, the Islamic jurisprudence concept is laid out very clearly, that you take the Quran first, then you take the actions of the Prophet, and then you the words of the prophet, in that order. You can't reverse that order, it has to go in that order, because the Quran has been preserved in its original format, whereas the Sunnah and the Hadith, the second and third levels of jurisprudent were recorded for sometimes up to 200 years afterwards.

0:26:19 Thomas: Man,

0:27:17 Qasim: So what we have here is a situation where, I'll give you a perfectly good example, and I think this you might find revealing, that when the Prophet entered Medina as a refugee, the Jewish tribes of Medina, along with a few Muslims that lived there, unanimously decided that he would be the head of state. Now he had political power. So what did he do? Did he enforce Islam or tell people to convert to Islam or you're going to die? Did he enforced the Qur'an, did he enforce Sharia law? No. He established the Charter of Medinah, the Constitution of Medenah. This was a secular document that had several dozen provisions that established, among other things, a separation of religion and state, an equality of Jews and Muslims, universal religious freedom, and a military alliance that the state of Medina is one state of Jews and Muslims combined, and that if attacked, Jews and Muslim would fight side by side to defend each other.

0:28:09 Qasim: This does not sound like a person who was dedicated to a military destruction or a theocratic rule. Rule, when the very first opportunity he had, he established the world's first secular document that the United States Constitution only caught up to 1,200 years later. So when we talk about this, this is what I said at the very beginning, that we're talking about proven models. We're not talking about empty theories, and what these extremist groups are promoting today are merely empty theories. And rather than meeting us in the field of debate, they just resort to these ridiculous blasphemy laws, these ridiculous apostasy laws. And I'll close this with this one final point that I forgot to make earlier. You mentioned Islamophobia, and I agree with you that this word has been abused and misused and is thrown around ridiculously.

0:28:57 Qasim: It does exist, but I agree that Muslims need to slow down a little bit and not just call any criticism of Islam Islamophobia. Because the fact of the matter is, criticism of Islam is not Islamophobia. It's necessary. It's good. And I wouldn't be a Muslim today if I was not allowed to criticize Islam.

0:29:16 Thomas: Where to go? I I mean, are you going to, I suppose, give me an alternate version of the prophet marrying a nine-year-old and having sex slaves and stuff? I mean is that a misconception in your view?

0:29:27 Qasim: Not just in my view, but if you look at the history, it's a misrepresentation, yes. It's a flat-out distortion, misrepsentation.

0:29:33 Thomas: Okay, so I suppose the biggest difficulty though is in if you have the right interpretation and if that's the way it should be and that's the way the prophet was and all that. Why are Ahmadis such a minority? And why do so many other Muslims not even count you guys as actual Muslims? If you look at the numbers, I mean, it's astonishing. It's somewhere in certain countries, it is like 66% think Ahmadis are not even Muslims, like Pakistan, for example. And it varies, but it is shockingly high. I mean, it is probably the average is somewhere around 30, 40%. Right?

0:30:12 Qasim: Well, reforming humanity takes time. I mean, you know, aside from the fact that, you as I mentioned, we are the single largest sect. There's no individual sect or imam who can claim more adherence, more followers. You know, reformation takes time. Let's look at, you know, when Galileo claimed the blasphemy that the earth is not the center of the universe, he was imprisoned and died in prison.

And I think it wasn't until like 1980 or something that the Catholic Church finally apologized that, yeah, we maybe made a mistake. Take. So, you know, reformation takes time. And just because the majority believes that the earth is flat, which was true at the time, didn't make it so. The counter argument, the argument that you should be making, which I think you'll agree with me on, is to these extremists who consider us non-Muslim or who persecute us, is To say that if what these guys are preaching is simply wrong, wrong, if it's so ridiculous and foolish and nonsensical, then why do you need to have such a united and violent effort to stop them? Why do you have to work so hard and spend so much money to censor them? And why, according to the World Christian Encyclopedia, an unbiased source, despite all your opposition, they're still the fastest growing sect of Islam on a worldwide scale?

0:31:29 Thomas: Well, with respect, I think the problem in the assumption, because again, I want to go back and emphasize, I do believe in your values. I believe they're good values and I agree with them. But I thinkthe assumption behind what you're saying is that the best values are going to be by definition, the right interpretation of Islam. But as an atheist, there's no reason for me to think that. The right version, the most objectively Islamic Islamic version of Islam could be good or it could be terrible because it was something from a long time ago. And, but like, I don't, you know, cause I don't share your religious beliefs. So I could go either way on that.

So when I look at how it's been taken throughout the years and I look at the fact that, you Know, it's not just extreme extremists, by the way, when 66% of Pakistani Muslims say Ahmadis aren't Muslim. I mean, that's 66% is a lot. It would be hard to call them all all extremists, right? Like, when I look at that as being the mainstream of Islam, it's hard for me to not say, well, I guess that's probably more of an indication of what Islam is.

0:31:37 Qasim: I get that, and I think your question is a valid point too, But, I think you're asking two slightly different questions and they're both valid questions, but I just want to make sure that, because the question I answered is different than the question you're bringing up right now, which is what you brought up, to my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, was, if what you guys have is this right understanding, that why is there so much opposition, why are all these groups, what do you say about all these troops who call you just non-Muslim or who persecute you, versus who knows what is the right, what is wrong interpretation. And so the the latter question is a much longer discussion, and my simple answer to that is, I'm going to sound like a broken record, my simple answer to that is the right interpretation is the one that doesn't need force to prove this, right? And I mean, I think that's a very broad, but very simple, right,

0:32:35 Thomas: Okay. Okay, well, okay, hypothetically, just to stop you there, and I'm trying to use a different example to maybe make it clear what it looks like from my angle, because Because pretend you take some hypothetical religion, you know, and the foundation is some guy and he wrote a book. I don't know that the correct version according to that prophet is going to be the one you don't need a sword for. Maybe you do need a sort because the guy was wrong, you know, like so it's there's a difference between what objectively is better values, which I believe yours are objectively and what is tied to the religion. And I think the I think what makes the conversation interesting and difficult is that because because of what you believe, I think by definition, the better values have to be more Islamic. Does that make sense? Like where the disconnect is there. So I don't know how to resolve that other than to say, I hope that more Muslims start agreeing with you.

0:33:40 Qasim: Right. Yeah, but that's where the need for the, you know, why the Quran repeatedly says to investigate and reflect and contemplate. I mean there's no such concept as a blind belief. I mean, this is one of the, I can tell you from my personal experience, one of my defining moments in my childhood was when a Christian evangelical tore my beliefs to shreds. I mean he just ripped me apart inside and out. And when I went to my father to ask him for help to prove this guy wrong, my dad looked at me like I had two heads and said, "Go figure it out yourself." And when it threatened, "Well, what if I convert to Christianity," he didn't look up in his newspaper and simply said, "All right, if that's where you find your peace, knock yourself out." Out so You Know, yeah.

0:34:10 Thomas: And I apologize just to clarify, was you've always been Ahmadi and your parents were too or?

0:34:46 Qasim: My, well, so my father was the first one in our family born into the, this community. My Grandfather was raised agnostic, um, that's the, that came out wrong, he was agnestic, I don't know if he was raised agnostic, but he was aggnostic as an adult. And after about 15 years of study, chose to join this community. Um, we were raised in a Muslim environment, certainly an Amity Muslim environment, but upon adulthood, we were all, uh, or as we neared adulthood, we were all told explicitly, clearly that, you know, we raise you with morals and values, but you need to figure out your own path and you need affirm your own faith. This is not something that we're going to impose upon you at all. And that's something that is kind of the calling card of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, that if there's anything that we indoctrinate our youth with, it's a simple concept of service to humanity, that your job, your purpose of life is to serve humanity. And along with that, we encourage interfaith dialogue.

I mean, I've been into I don't know how many churches and synagogues and gurdwaras and temples. And it was, again, not by accident. But go back to, you know, how we know what value is right or wrong, I mean, that's where the investigation and study comes in. You're not going to have this, you know, hallelujah eureka moment on accident. I mean it's going to come with years of study and investigation and contemplation, which extremists haven't done, these Google scholars,

0:34:51 Thomas: Okay. Right.

0:36:02 Qasim: Islamophobes haven't, and that's why they can cherry pick a certain verse or a certain hadiths, I'm not saying you did this, but you know, these people that come after me on Twitter, they'll Google Islam is evil, find the first cherry-picked hadith or verse they find, and say, you know Eureka, I have evidence, here we go. And that's dangerous in any spectrum, if it's not worthwhile.

0:36:21 Thomas: Yeah. Well, Well, OK, I agree and I totally will grant. I said at the beginning, like there's definitely legitimate anti-Muslim bigotry. I don't support that in any way. But I think is it different when you're looking at let's say I got another people up, for example, when you look at the percentage of Muslims and this one's by country, but percentage of Muslims who support Sharia law and for for someone like, I don't know, me or whoever you're talking about on the Internet to say, look, Muslims support Shia law. Law. Here's this data. Is it a little bit, I don't know, is it a little bit disconnected for you to answer? No, they don't because the Quran says this. Whereas, aren't you kind of saying two different things? I mean, there may be an idealistic or, in your view, a correct reading of the Quran that would say a certain thing on it.

0:37:10 Thomas: But from an outsider's perspective, it's like, well, here's the percentages. Like, here is how many Muslims believe this. So it's not like it's bigoted to say that, right?

0:37:20 Qasim: So let me dismantle that a little bit. What is Sharia law? I mean, depending on who you ask, you're going to get two very different answers on what Sharia law actually is. Somebody might say, well, for me, Sharia means that I pray five times a day, that I give charity and that I fast during the month of Ramadan. I don't think you'd have any problem with somebody who says I support Sharia when that's what they mean by Sharia.

0:37:23 Thomas: Okay. Right.

0:37:46 Qasim: For somebody else, Shariah might mean, "Well, I think Sharia says death to apostates." And yes, you would certainly have a problem with that, so would I. And that needs to be understood as well. So, so part of the issues with these polls is that you take something that's super complex, like Sharia, and try to minimize it down to a yes-or-no question, and that's just simply not possible or practical. But then the other thing that it does is that it doesn't take into consideration the nuance of 57 Muslim majority countries, which are as different from each other as America is from any of them.

0:38:19 Thomas: Right, right.

0:38:20 Qasim: And the third thing is that it ignores that people simply aren't educated on what Islam is or on what Sharia is. And they're just following what they've been told their entire life for the sake of just a yes or no question. It's like, for me, you know, me asking you, do you support atheists? And you might say yes, but am I talking about Stalin and Mao? Or am I taking about the guy who's at the coffee shop who happens to be an atheist who makes the best cup of coffee I've ever had in my entire life? There was a public policy poll done here in the United States just, I think, in 2015, and it asked Republicans if they should dismantle the Constitution and make Christianity the national religion based on the Bible. OK, 57 percent of Republicans, 90 million Americans, said yes, dismantle the Constitution and make Christianity the national religion.

0:39:11 Qasim: That's 90 million Americans. In a country where it's Christian majority, you have evangelical Christians, allegedly Christian, running the White House. This kind of a data poll is extremely frightening because these people have the moral codes. But you don't just therefore say de facto America is a Christian terrorist state. No, you say these individual people who are obviously not very well educated made a very stupid decision in their poll and a very uninformed decision. But to extrapolate from that, to therefore demonize all Christianity and Christians, I think it would be a leap. And the same with this Pew survey.

0:39:23 Thomas: Yeah.

0:39:44 Thomas: Well, I think you can demonize exactly that group. And demonize isn't the right way. You don't need to demonize, but I thinkyou can judge that for what it is. You can say, well, those, I mean, Republicans in this country have a problem, and I believe they do have a problems. So in the same way, I would be wrong for me to say this whole country or something is better than the whole religion. But when I look at these percentages, I feel like you can make the judgment to that exact precision, essentially, where it's like, yes, in this community, whichever one you're looking at in this country, this... Like, for example, let's say I'm looking at more numbers here in... Okay, go ahead.

0:39:45 Qasim: Right.

0:40:20 Qasim: But I mean, I Think one more thing that's really important to look at is this, that, and this is, you know, I give a TED talk on this as well, that you're talking about some of these countries where blasphemy is a crime, where dissent is a a crime, so if you ask me, for example, in in Pakistan, if you say to me, "Hey, do you think Ahmadis are Muslim," right, and I know that saying yes is going to land me in prison, then yeah, I'm going to say no because I don't know

0:40:22 Thomas: Sure. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

0:40:47 Thomas: Well, they're not... But it's not being asked by the police or something. It's not, not being asked by the government, right?

0:40:53 Qasim: It's not, but uh, but, but from what we know about uh paranoia and people being spied upon, and you know, you know, like Rimshan Masih, for example, was a Christian girl who was accused of burning the Quran, and she escaped for her life. I testified with her, with one of her representatives, before the U.S. mission a couple of years ago. The evidence against her didn't exist. I mean, there was literally no evidence. It was simply a guy who made up a random claim a little while later, and therefore it was a mob that attacked her. I personally know people who have been killed in Pakistan simply because somebody made up it, concocted allegation that had no semblance of reality, and stuck a mob after them. So I guess I'm not saying this to make excuses for Pakistan. I've written a whole book condemning the unjust government and the draconian regime.

I'm saying this to point out that I think it's unfair to draw this mass conclusion based off of a Pew survey of a yes or no question. I think what we can withdraw from the survey is that oppression of conscience in a country like Pakistan is epidemic, it is destructive, and it must stop.

0:41:14 Thomas: Well

0:42:00 Qasim: And until we can have a country that's dedicated to universal religious freedom, even these kinds of questions, which may seem innocuous in nature, are going to give you skewed, false, and misleading results, notwithstanding from the fact that you haven't even defied what Sharia is. And so you're asking people what the color blue is, who are all colorblind and have never seen color before.

0:42:20 Thomas: They but they have their belief of what sharia is, they might disagree with you, but I mean they're answering from what they believe, and and the other thing I'd ask the very people that answered the poll, like when an individual person answers and they say yes, they have a view of sharia, you might not agree with it, but right

0:42:27 Qasim: But who's they, though? Right. But it might give me the view of those, you know, 500 people surveyed, now the 190 million people there. I mean, I understand the extrapolation, but even within Pakistan, right, you're talking about, I don't know how many dozens of different cultures and languages being spoken. And I say all this with the caveat that I'm not defending anything Pakistan is doing, trust me. Like, my family left that country to escape all this persecution, and I don't know if I can go back without being killed. I just want to draw a strict line between what a political regime in 2017 is doing and what Islam actually teaches, and what was established 1,400 years ago is what Islam actually teaches.

0:43:15 Thomas: But then what, why is it, like, what are the odds that when I look at all these numbers, southeastern, southern, eastern, Central Asia, I can link it. Homosexuality, I mean, it's in the 90%, the percentage that Muslims say it's wrong. Suicide, sex outside of marriage, it is in the 80s, 90s. Drinking alcohol, abortion, I mean, why do these so highly correlate? I mean, it seems if that's not truly what Islam is about, what are the odds that all of these places have such high, and it's not in the 40s or 50s, it's in the nineties of, of these beliefs.

0:43:47 Qasim: Well, it's a combination of two things that I'll submit to. One, it no doubt failed Muslim leadership, completely ignorant and completely failed Muslim leadership. You have countries that are being run by people like Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Hosni Mubarak, dictator Zia-ul-Haq, Assad. The list goes on and on. People who have completely sold out their own people, dictators who have sold out their own communities, have seized power. And then you have that combined with unjust Western interventionism. I'll give you a case in point. The very first time that the Afghanistan school textbooks translated jihad to mean holy war against the infidel was when it was when the Reagan administration printed books at the textbooks at the University of Nebraska and shipped them over to Afghan youth to radicalize them to fight against communist Russia for us.

0:44:39 Thomas: Hmm.

0:44:39 Qasim: This is the very first time that they were, that these books said that jihad means holy war against the infidel to kill the infidels, and killing them will get you heaven and martyrs and virgin and all this garbage, right. So now you can simply blame America, which I don't think is smart, because you still have to ask, you know, who allowed those books to come in? And that is where I mean that you have.

0:45:00 Thomas: Well, why would that idea be so easy to spread? I mean, if you gave me a book like that, I would say that's absurd. You know, like it's, I can't, I not, not to, and by the way, no, by no means to apologize for the Reagan administration, but also, I mean it's you need more than one party to make that work.

0:45:07 Qasim: Yeah, but yeah, but you're talking about a developed that's what I mean. It's a combination of the Western investor. That's what said you could blame America. But I think that's unwise. You also need to blame the failed Muslim leadership. Right. Then you have a country like Saudi Arabia, for example, who we know is is is killing apostates, arresting apostates. Who is arresting, killing blasphemers. Who is, in my opinion, most atrociously bombing Yemen, where I think 90,000 children have died of malnutrition and cholera and is being bombed over the last year alone. And guess who is supporting them? Billions of dollars in arms, United States.

0:45:20 Thomas: Sure. Yeah. Okay. Okay, Okay. Yeah, yeah.

0:45:55 Qasim: And so, I mean, so I think we have to look at this from a nuanced perspective that, you know, it's not just as simple as, oh, well, it's in that book. That interpretation is in that book. Therefore, you know, 1.6 billion people believe this radical thing. No, it's you've got a literacy rate in Pakistan of like 47%, you've, you know, the the death for apostasy and death for blasphemy laws were passed in the early 1980s, and it was passed by dictator Zia-ul-Haq, who was funded and supported by the United States. And so you've that toxic combination there, and now you've people in their late 20s, early 30s, who were raised in an environment, environment, that teaches that if somebody commits blasphemy or if somebody apostatizes, then you can kill them. You've got an entire generation raised with this barbaric ideology, and Pakistan is still considered one of the United States' strongest allies.

0:46:44 Qasim: We're giving them $20 billion in aid over the next, I don't know how many years. So if we want to reform this, it's not going to come by finger pointing and saying, well, it's that one religion and that's said, or it's that one person that said, we need a a better ideology that's based on education, that's based on freedom of conscience, that's based on pluralism. If if if it was Islam that was radicalizing these people, then you would have seen that in every aspect of the Islamic world, but you don't, you know, you look at Indonesia, it is it's it is a combination of different right so

0:47:13 Thomas: Well, sure. I mean, it's a combination, though. I think it, yeah, but a combination doesn't mean 0% Islam. I mean, a combination could mean, I mean you could, you could say that Islam is a large portion, but you need some sort of catalyst. I would be hard to evaluate exactly how responsible each thing is.

0:47:33 Qasim: So what would that, what would the counter look like? Right, I mean, and the reason why I asked what the counter would look like, like, what would it take for it to prove to you that it's not Islam that's radicalizing people? And I'll give you an example, again, with the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, that we've been around for 128 years, in 209 nations, tens of millions of numbers worldwide, we are being brutally persecuted and arrested and lynched and killed, literally burned to death, shot up, you name it.

0:47:58 Thomas: Yeah.

0:47:58 Qasim: We've suffered the most vicious persecution of any community, or as any community, I don't want to compare scars, but as any, as anyone out there. And it's been systemic generational persecution. But despite that, in 130 years, we've never had a single terrorist or extremist come from it.

0:48:14 Thomas: But yeah, that's because of your beliefs. I I would never, ever say that Ahmadi's are at risk of terrorism because you have specific good beliefs that put a check and balance on that. And I don't think that other sects necessarily do from

0:48:25 Qasim: That are derived from where though? But those beliefs, but those beliefs don't exist in a vacuum. Those beliefs are derived form somewhere. Where are they derived from?

0:48:33 Thomas: Your, from, from whoever created it 130 years ago, right? It's a particular interpretation that not all Muslims, actually, most Muslims don't agree with, but your community does. And it's a beneficial interpretation, and it's one that, go ahead.

0:48:47 Qasim: But, and I'm going to ask you to keep digging. And where did the the founder of our community get his interpretation from?

0:48:54 Thomas: I don't know. I mean, his view of the Quran, I'm sure, and then the Prophet, but

0:48:58 Qasim: From the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad. So that's what I mean. This is not a reformation of Islam. It's a revival of Islam and so this is what I mean. We have a 130-year proven model that Islam, unadulterated, leads to peace and pluralism.

0:49:10 Thomas: Unadulterated from that perspective, though. I mean that's why it's so weird because Islam means different things to you and I because of, you know, or to everybody essentially because of what you're talking about. I mean, when you group these vastly different sects, under one name that I agree you cannot label, you put every person who believes in this religion in one blanket. That absolutely doesn't work. But I do believe that these polls indicate things, you know, I

0:49:37 Qasim: But connect the dots, right? I mean, yeah, it's our interpretation, but then our interpretation is derived from the Quran and the Hadith and the Sunnah 100%. But then the question comes in you know, you talk about these Muslims who disagree with us, then the question comes in. Those that disagree with Us, who has proven us wrong on merit? None have. The only ones that have quote-unquote proven us wrong are the ones that criminalize.

0:50:02 Thomas: Can't really answer That question, though. I mean, can You can You Understand from my perspective, I can really answer that question. Like, I can't really, it's hard to take your word on that. That. I mean, there's going to be, right, right.

0:50:04 Qasim: What's that? No, no, you don't need to. That's the beauty Of it. That's the beauty. You don't need to take my word on it. You can look at the history. In 1974, when we were declared non-Muslim in Pakistan, Pakistan, a representative from all 73 sects of Islam was there. And they were present. And they debated with us for two weeks. And at the end of the debate, they refused to release a transcript. They just finally released a transcript. Now, 40 years later, you can read it for yourself and see the arguments for yourself.

It's as clear as day. So that's the beauty of it, that everything I'm telling you, everything I've said today, none of it is theory. None of it is opinion. It's all documented. You can read the facts for yourself and arrive at your own conclusion. And until and unless people are willing to do that, this, I want to drive this home again and again and again, until and unless people are willing to do the investigation and research on their own, you can't expect to come at an answer that makes sense, because if you don't know, you simply don't know. And my invitation to people is, don't take my word for it, don't take anyone's word for do your own independent investigation and study. And if you're not willing to do that, then you can blame somebody else for something not making sense to

0:51:16 Thomas: Sure. But I don't believe in any of this. Like, so it's, I'm not, there is no right answer. Like for me, it's still going to be with Christians and with Muslims. And I mean we can, I, it sounds like we've said what we're going to say on this. So I'm, I'm happy to kind of, I suppose, come to a close, but, but well, let me finish this sentence for Muslims and for Christians.

0:51:30 Qasim: You. No, no, but I'm not talking about China. Right.

0:51:34 Thomas: The religion is going to be as the religion does for me. I means that is going, like when I look at Christians, when When you cited that poll of Republicans, like that is representative of Republicans. I can make that judgment about Republicans. You could try to cite me like, well, hold on, look at Reagan and look at like these foundational documents of Republicanism or look at these past heroes. And it's like, yeah, sure. But Republicans are what Republicans do. And I look at, you know, Christians and Muslims that same way. And I don't think we can really reconcile that because we are coming from different epistemologies.

0:52:09 Qasim: But by your logic then, China, which is the world's largest atheist state, a billion atheists there, it's a world leader in human rights oppression, a world lead in domestic violence, a world leader in religious persecution. By your logic, that's what atheists do. They persecute people.

0:52:24 Thomas: Well, but there's causality and then there's correlation. You could certainly, I mean, why would it apply to one and not the other? Because you could also look at... Because there are certain things I would never blame on the religion. I wouldn't look at, I wouldn't also be fair to say, well, people who look a certain way because they're all the same race, that that means it is what it does.

0:52:29 Qasim: But why does that apply to one and not the other, right?

0:52:47 Qasim: We're talking about belief. Belief, let's keep it in the realm of belief. We're talking about belief, right? I mean, belief in Christianity, belief in Islam, or no belief, and therefore atheists, right. So I think, I think the point that I'm trying to emphasize that what I've posited is what Islam teaches is not from a supernatural standpoint. These are secular concepts. I mean you can check out,

0:53:05 Thomas: So, that would be the difficulty because you're labeling atheism as just another belief, but you can't because it's just a rejection of the other belief. So it's like the group of other. You can't assign, because there's no causal connection. They believe in what? They believe an oppressive government. That would be the belief that has the causal connection, not atheism.

0:53:28 Qasim: But they don't, but that's the thing, but they're not considered oppressive. They just think that in our human knowledge, we don't have a higher power to tell us what's moral and what's immoral. We do, we believe that what we're doing is the moral, the ethical, the right thing to do, this is not oppressive, this is just the right and ethical thing to do and so that's

0:53:43 Thomas: Well, yeah. So that would would be the operative belief. So the belief that that form of government is okay is the belief that's causal, not atheism.

0:53:44 Qasim: Right and so therefore but I

0:53:52 Thomas: Does

0:53:53 Qasim: Think you're missing one significant element of it though, right, and that is that if atheists are what they do, this is what the majority of atheists worldwide do right

0:54:00 Thomas: Well, no, but it's too broad of a thing. I would say that are what fascists... You could subdivide it to a more descriptive category that that makes sense in that context. And that's why I wouldn't support this, like the same, I suppose, calculation for different actions. But when it comes to things that are specifically in a book that, you know, I mean, you can argue the interpretation, that's fine. We could argue about that. But are things in this book and historically throughout this religion that would causally make this happen. When I look at those specific beliefs, like, for example, example, homosexuality is morally wrong, suicide, you know, all the things I just listed, like that makes more sense because there's a causal link there. Whereas when you're talking about all of atheists, atheists is just a rejection of beliefs.

0:54:46 Thomas: They're an atheist and they are a fascist or they're whatever they are. You're talking about depending on the government you're looking at.

0:54:52 Qasim: So I think to two things to bring up, one, I mean, I think your holding on tight to atheism is the direction of belief. I think that's a very basic definition. We agree on that. There's no issues there. And what a believer would say is that by rejecting a higher power, by rejecting a higher sense of accountability, this is what de facto happens and what's happened throughout history of atheist regimes. And so therefore, atheism, there's a causal connection between atheism and this kind of oppression.

We saw what happened in the Soviet Union. We saw what happen in under Mao in China, over a hundred and some million people killed under these state atheist regimes, and so therefore there is that causal connection of rejecting accountability to a higher power and the immorality of humanity coming to fruition. But I think the second thing I'll point out is that it's easy to make a blanket statement that, um, because one Muslim or one group of Muslims does this horrible thing, therefore, uh, the Quran must us teach it, or therefore this causal teaching from the Quran is the motivation behind it. And the reason why it's wrong is because it's intellectual laziness. And this is why I don't like Graham Wood's work, because he tries to make this connection without providing the actual scholarship or evidence behind it, I mean, his viral article last year or two years ago, whatever that was, What ISIS Really Wants, I read that whole thing, he doesn't quote a single Islamic scholar, not a single one. And I found that not only intellectually dishonest and disingenuous, but it didn't

0:56:28 Qasim: Actually drive him.

0:56:28 Thomas: How are you defining that? Because I thought I remember him quoting at least the ISIS scholars, right?

0:56:32 Qasim: He quotes Haeckel from Princeton, who I've never seen Haeckel define himself as an Islamic scholar. And then he quotes Anjam Chaudhry, who is in prison now for promoting terrorism. So, you know, if you're trying to promote terrorism, that's a good way to do it, by quoting terrorists. But I would have loved if he had called any imams of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community or of any mainstream.

0:56:56 Thomas: Well, but of course they would say, but, but of course, yeah, that's a different belief system. I mean, why would you call an Ahmadi Muslim to get insight into what ISIS is thinking? I don't understand the point you're making there.

0:57:07 Qasim: But his argument, though, is that ISIS is very Islamic. And so to quote ISIS as saying, yeah, we're very Islamic, as your evidence of ISIS being Islamic, that's like me saying the Koran is from God because God says the Koran's from God. It's like, well, of course, it's going to be a self-fulfilling thing. You need to find independent verification or independent logic for that as well. Um, and and so, you know, this is why I go back to invest. So if somebody wants to say to me that the Quran says death to gays, show me where it says that. You can't just make this outlandish claim without any evidence and therefore say, well, yeah, it's in the Qur'an, it's done, and, you know, ISIS did it, they said they got it from the Quran, therefore it's it's the Qu'ran, when we know for a fact that not only is it not in the Quran, but we also know from repeated studies, independent studies of intelligence agencies that the people joining ISIS are not okay.

0:57:51 Thomas: Well, let me, let me try to give you an analogy. How would you, how would you evaluate this with Christians? Let's, let's talk about American Christians. Now, I'll use some hypotheticals. American Christians overwhelmingly tend to believe that the poor ought to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Now, let's say I have a statistic. I don't know, maybe it's 60% or something like that.

0:57:59 Qasim: Yeah.

0:58:14 Thomas: Would it be fair to say then that American Christians have this, tend to have this belief? And let's, hypothetically, let's just say it's 90%. Wouldn't it be fair, let's say if it's 90%, hypothetically, okay, yes, American Christians believe this. Now, I can go back in the Bible and show where Jesus said the exact opposite of it, but that doesn't mean that Christians believe that. Like, if I were to judge the religion of Christianity in America, I still have to go by what they do and believe because there's all kinds of things in these books. And it's up to the community, like your community does it one way, other communities do it a a different way, to pick and choose what they want to listen to more. And I know you can argue about it, but all the American Christians,

0:58:14 Qasim: So

0:59:00 Thomas: Like let's say it's 90% who believe that, they would be wrong about what the Bible says, but they would still be Christians. Like they're still that group, you know?

0:59:07 Qasim: Things. One, I mean, obviously I'm not a Christian, so I can't speak for what a Christian would answer for that. But I still think we need to draw a line between what Christians may or may not do and what Christianity actually teaches, right? There can be two divergent, two very different things. And and this, this is something that the Quran calls out as well. And, you know, I mentioned earlier that the Quran uses its most harsh language for those Muslims who are hypocrites. The Quran calls them the lowest. They use the word asfala safaleen, which translates to the lowest of the low, that they are beneath the lowest scum, just the most disgusting creatures that exist, are those Muslims who commit hypocrisy, where they say one thing and they do another. So the Quran actively calls it out. So, I mean, it's so critical, at least in my my eyes, to make this distinction between what a book actually teaches and what human beings may or may not do.

1:00:01 Qasim: Because we know that even in the absence of God, even in absence of a divine guidance on what morality is, people are capable of doing some pretty horrific and horrible things. A mere verbal statement, okay, now I'm Muslim, doesn't necessarily mean a change in behavior. That takes time. There's a reason why the Quran was revealed, for example, over 23 years. It didn't just happen overnight and said, okay, now this is a moral code, abide by it. There's a reason why it's called a constant journey and a constant development. And there's a raison why the Quran repeatedly declares, la ikraha fid din, there shall be no compulsion in matters of religion, because the right has been made distinct from the wrong. And so going back to what drives me every morning is this fight for religious freedom.

1:00:49 Qasim: If somebody wants to be an atheist, I will fight for the right to be an atheist. If somebody wants to be a Muslim, I will fight for the right to be a Muslim. Because I believe that only when we have universal religious freedom and people are free to believe or not believe as they wish, or people are free to investigate and research as they wish, only then are we going to have an environment where, for lack of a better term, the best idea will win out.

1:01:11 Qasim: And that, I think, is the ultimate test.

1:01:10 Thomas: Yeah. Well, I agree with that. But at the same time, when I look around the world and I look at Islam, it does not tend to promote that except for, you know, Ahmadis certainly, certainly. And I agree with that, but, but that's, that's the kind of judgment I'm talking about. Like, I'm, is it bigoted if I say that even because by your definition of how you look at the Quran, it says one thing, but I'm looking at all these other examples that don't even, by the way, more people, more Muslims who don't think you're a real Muslim think this, like it's, it's. You know, like that's weird line that I don't, I don't get how to walk, but

1:01:44 Qasim: I think it's... No, I don't think it is bigoted. No. I think it's incorrect to say that Saudi Arabia is de facto Islam. I mean, there's as many Muslims in China as there are in Saudi Arabia, right? And again, these things don't happen in a vacuum, right. Saudi Arabia is a political regime that started 140, 150 years ago, that is heavily supported by Western power, by Western military. And so you have the US government effectively supporting a regime that oppresses dissent. So if somebody even wanted to present a different point of view, they couldn't, because they They have an oppressive regime backed by Western powers preventing them from doing so. So, you know, to suddenly blame that on Islam, you know, I don't know. I don't think it's bigoted, but I definitely think it's incorrect. And I don't think it does anything to advance the actual conversation forward.

1:02:32 Qasim: China is on the U.N. Security Council and, you know, they have every bit of power to pass a resolution against Saudi for this stuff. They haven't yet. Why not? I mean, what's what's stopping them from doing so um does that and again I mean not to belabor the point about atheists but what does that say about atheism that this is not a priority for them um you know so it I guess you may point yeah

1:02:52 Thomas: There's no foundational, there's just no causality, but we shouldn't. Yeah. I mean, mean, we've gone over that, but, but I, I think that also, uh, you know, you're going to get nothing but agreement from me in terms of a lot of foreign policy blunders that lead to supporting like support of Saudi Arabia. I agree. I think there's complexities in, in times where there's not really any clean, totally innocent party to support when you're trying to look, you Now, so that, I mean, it gets difficult there. So it's, It's hard to say, oh, we've provided billions in this, so therefore we support it. It's like, well, maybe we supported what they're doing over somebody worse. Who knows?

1:02:58 Qasim: Right right

1:03:25 Thomas: But there's a lot, certainly a lot of fault to go around. I wonder, maybe to try to draw to a close here, if there's a final question, like you said, what I said earlier wasn't the way to progress the conversation. What do you think is the way for, and don't answer from an Amity perspective. I mean, what is the Way for, if you're looking at, say, Americans in general, Like, if we're looking at our politics, because, you know, Muslims are not a very large percentage here, what are Christians, I suppose, and atheists, and just basically non-Muslims, like, what is the way to advance the conversation around this? What is theway to get, Isuppose, more people in these places to value the values that we very much agree on, you and I, like secularism, education, whatis the way forward in that?

1:03:25 Qasim: Well I I will answer from an Amity perspective and I'll ask you to keep me honest and tell me if anything I say is not an action item. Okay and that is the the head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, His Holiness the Khalifa of Islam, has been speaking on the world circuit before European Parliament, before U.S. Congress, before British Parliament, House of Lords, you name it. And he's been advocating for three things. One, a stop of the arms trade. He's pointed out repeatedly that this arms trade is the source of upholding dictatorial regimes. It's also the source for the arms trades. It's the source funding for ISIS as well. Amnesty International came out with a report last year that they estimate at least one billion dollars in arms of U.S. arms have ended up in ISIS's hands through

1:04:18 Thomas: All right, fair enough. Hmm.

1:04:45 Thomas: Right yeah

1:04:57 Qasim: Mismanagement and through misapplication. So the first thing he said is that we need to stop the arms trade altogether because it's creating more refugees, it's killing innocent lives, and it's preventing us from allocating those resources to the famines and the starvations that are happening that are easily preventable. To, is he says that we need to uphold justice on an international scale, and what that means is getting rid of things like the U.N. veto power that is used by powerful regimes to prevent criticism or prevent accountability of less powerful regimes. So it's an imbalance in powers and injustice, completely. And so now you have a regime like North Korea, for example, that's doing something horrific, and we can pass a resolution, but guess what, China can just veto it and we're back to square one or Syria,

1:04:57 Thomas: Yeah yeah same with Syria and Russia, yeah, it's, yeah, I don't how do you, how can we get, you're a lawyer, how is what is the law now? Is there any way to get rid of it that can't be vetoed in itself, you know, like, yeah.

1:05:43 Qasim: Russia. Exactly. So that's the second thing. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's effectively a complete failure of the United Nations, right? I mean the interesting thing is United Nations was created primarily to resolve land disputes, and it's failing on that horribly in every stretch of it. So I think you need world leaders to be accountable. And so then that's the third part of it, is people need to be individually accountable and to elect world world leaders who are promoting justice, who are promoting separation of religion and state, and who are promoting a justice-based society.

And so to that end, our Khalifa has admonished us and advocated for us to be our brother's keeper, to stop worrying about our rights and to worry more about the rights of others and others who are being oppressed. And that's a lot. I mean, that says a lot come from him when members of his community are being oppressed in dozens of countries around the world. He's telling us, worry less about your rights, worry more about the rights of other people. So that's why things like Black Lives Matter so important to me, gender equity is so important to me, because it allows me to fulfill this obligation. Now, I mean, I should, keep me honest, are any of these religious mandates, right? Um, they're

1:05:56 Thomas: Yeah no

1:06:57 Qasim: Not those

1:06:57 Thomas: Yeah those three things I don't think require any yeah I don't think they require any uh Amity like perspective necessarily so

1:06:59 Qasim: Are secular mandates you know absolutely not enough. Us, he's told us to, to, you know, relegate to our, to prayer and to increase our prayer and increase our supplication and our fasting, and for those, those who believe in God, that's a very good thing and they should do those things. But whether you believe in God or not, those first three things I think are very practical and real things that if we can manage those things, we will go a long way towards promoting peace and pluralism in our world today.

1:07:04 Thomas: Yeah Yeah. Well, excellent. I mean, I think I've kept you a little longer, so I want to let you go. But I think that there's more conversation to be had, certainly. But I take that point. I think that's a very good list you have there. And I want also say, from what I know, I'm not an expert, but from what I've read and heard from you, the Amadou religion, it seems beautiful. And it seems really, especially in the face of so much persecution, it really does seem like a good thing, and it, like, that's why it's such an interesting thing to look at from an atheist perspective, it's like, I would love if everybody just dropped the whole religion thing, but it's never gonna happen, I don't, I'm not under any illusion that's gonna happen, so I would, I would wish that more Muslims would be Ahmadi, so it's a, it's kind of a weird position, you know what I mean?

1:08:10 Qasim: Well, I will say this last thing. This is important to me as well. I don't want to paint this as the Ahmadis are the good Muslims and all other Muslims are bad Muslims. I want to be very clear about that, that there are some extremist clerics who promote hatred and violence against us, and unfortunately some Muslim youth are influenced by them. But I can tell you my inbox is constantly getting hundreds of messages a week from Sunni and Shia Muslims who say, hey, man, we believe what you believe, this is beautiful, this is amazing, I'm not an Amity but I love the way you're presenting Islam. And so what I would submit is that another reason why this religious freedom is so critical is that people, simply, saw the arguments we would put forth, if they had the opportunity, they'd be willing to accept it, because it appeals to human nature

1:08:50 Thomas: They could take it on as mainstream maybe and it wouldn't be just a yeah no I I mean I would root for that too, that's really interesting that you get those letters, I'm glad you do, and it makes, makes sense. I mean, certainly, I think no matter what, I do take your point that people are going to answer these questions a certain way, maybe depending on how oppressive the regime they're under is. But at the same time, that has consequences. It's not as though their answers are 100% the opposite of what they think or whatever.

1:08:52 Qasim: Exactly that's exactly Exactly. Yep.

1:09:12 Qasim: It does. It does. So

1:09:18 Thomas: But yeah, I mean that's good stuff. Fantastic conversation. Conversation. Really, thank you so much for coming on. This has really been fascinating for me. I appreciate it a great deal. Where do we want to point people to, to find more of your work, more of yourself, your book?

1:09:18 Qasim: You're right.

1:09:33 Thomas: Talk to me.

1:09:33 Qasim: Well, yeah, you can, you can follow me on Twitter at Muslim IQ. My book, Talk to Me, Changing the Narrative on Race, Religion, and Education, is on Amazon. And then, uh, check out this education campaign that I'm a part of called the true Islam education campaign at true Islam.com. Uh, and then meet us for coffee and cake. We will literally buy you coffee and cake just to have this conversation.

1:09:53 Thomas: Ooh, I wish I were near you. I could have done this whole podcast with free coffee and cake. Darn it.

1:10:00 Qasim: So, uh. You could have. Well, maybe it'll have to be a part two next time.

1:10:02 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Excellent conversation. Thank you so many for giving me your time. Really appreciate it.

1:10:07 Qasim: No doubt, man. Thank you for having me.

1:10:31 Thomas: Alright, really cool conversation, I think that was fascinating. So I want to head a couple things off at the pass. I do want to note, and I did mean it, I had no intention of trying to go toe-to-toe in any sort of Quran-based conversation because it's frankly, even for an atheist, it's something that I just haven't spent a lot of time on. I mean, my focus has been the Bible and even that, I'm not terribly interested in apologetics about the Bible. We'll So it's never been my focus and certainly the Quran has never been a focus of mine. I wanted to try to take a different trajectory on this. So claims that he made about the Quran I didn't really challenge. I hope...

1:11:41 Thomas: Really interested in like a Muslim hate site that has a bunch of quotes from the Quran because I can pull that up easily. But let it suffice to say, I find it highly doubtful that the Quran is as peaceful as a whole as he makes it out to be. But that wasn't really the important part. The important part was the philosophy of how do we decide what Islam is? Like, is it the book or is it its followers? Really interesting stuff. I think I made some good points there. I think you do need to judge Muslims by how they are and how they act and same with Christians. I think when you talk about atheists, I think that you could do that but you would have to evaluate it at the correct level. Like I would put Ahmadi Muslims in a different category, the same could be said with atheists.

1:12:30 Thomas: If he keeps bringing up Chinese atheists and saying, well, they restrict religion, they do all these bad things, it's like, okay, well then you're describing a certain...

1:12:58 Thomas: He used that as the counterexample to say, well, Muslims aren't just as they do, but I tend to disagree with that. I think when it comes to how many, what percentage of Muslims are using their religion and justifying things like condemning homosexuality, I think it's fair to judge the religion that way. But you can also use both lenses. I mean, you can also say, well, ideally, Islam could be something else if maybe people interpreted it differently. But the important part is which people are in the world right now and what their views are. You know, the important part, just as I wouldn't judge Christianity now by how Christians behaved in the 1200s, you know, the important part is who is there now?

1:13:46 Thomas: Christians have changed. The Bible hasn't changed, for the most part. It's translated slightly differently, but the foundational text is the same. So that's why I view the metric of how are people acting in the real world as the proper way to evaluate these kind of things. But very interesting stuff. I'm looking forward to feedback on this one. Leave some voicemails. Maybe I can talk about them on Thursday. You can always find the phone number. In the show notes and with that said, thanks for listening, thanks to everyone who supports the show over on patreon.com/seriouspod, very important to continue to do so, and I will see you guys on Thursday.