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Sincerely, Nazir Khan

He is an imam, a neuroradiologist, and a da'wah geek. Meet Dr. Nazir Khan.

Don't miss this exclusive opportunity to learn the unique experiences, challenges, and funny moments our scholars, preachers, and teachers of Islam face in their personal lives and communities!

Join our live talk-show hosted by Sh. Imam Ibrahim Hindy and Sh. Abdullah Oduro every Wednesday starting at 7 PM EST.

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Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
For our first episode in a while, for sincerely yours, this is Ibrahim Hindi. I'm with Sheikh Abdullah Durro. Sheikh, how are you doing? I'm good, Alhamdulillah. Happy, healthy, Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah, it's been a minute. Alhamdulillah. Allah is very kind. So what have you been up to for the past, it's been a couple months now? Yeah, just, you know, just staying busy, Alhamdulillah, just staying real busy. Keeping my family busy, the boys busy, you know, a lot of projects and stuff like that. So with school, so we're in the second semester, so got a lockdown, lock in actually. Alhamdulillah. I saw you went to, you took a trip? A couple months ago. Yeah, I was Ghana. I went to Ghana. How was that? Oh, it was beautiful. I mean, yeah, I got to see all of my family. I mean, I have, my mother has like 11 brothers and sisters. So you can imagine how many cousins. It's a whole village, it's a Qariyya. And so Alhamdulillah, it was really, really beautiful. It was, I mean, it was for my grandmother's funeral, but it was, it was, I learned a lot of my history. I got to go to the museum and learn about the Ashanti culture and the Ashanti, the origin of it. And it was, it was very, very enlightening. Planning to share it on my Instagram soon. InshaAllah. I got to meet some of the students from Medina that I, that I, well, they were my mentors from Ghana. They were in the doctorate program. So went out to the village and got to interview them. And so it was a beautiful moment. It's really cool, inshaAllah. Have some jollof while you're there. Of course. Come on, golden standard, Shaykh. Come on, come on. It's better than the Nigerian one, right? This is Maroof. This is like, this is Maroof. This is well known. I heard someone actually get into a fight about that, an argument about it. And I immediately thought about you. This is like Osen Khazrajan. I didn't realize this is like a longstanding argument.
Oh, Nigerian versus the Ghanaian. Maroof, Maroof. Yeah, you have to have your allegiance. InshaAllah. It's like the Briyani fights. Briyani fights. Oh, inshaAllah. Well, there should be an Instagram page for this stuff, you know. There's already people in the comments like Nigerians are better all the way. Oh, wow. I saw some of the comments on my page too. That's crazy. Beautiful. As always, we want to hear from all of you. Give us your salam. And also if you have any questions, inshaAllah, for our guests today, put them in the chat. We are going to take them, bi-idhnillah, if time permits, inshaAllah. So today we have a great guest with us. Dr. Nazir Khan is the president of Yaqeen Canada and the director of research strategy at the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research. He is a neuroradiologist and assistant professor at McMaster University in Canada. He's also a specialist in the Quranic sciences with a certification and a jaza in the 10 readings of the Quran through both major and minor routes of transmission. He has also received other certifications in Quranic studies in ulum al-Quran, hadith, and aqeedah, Islamic theology. He has memorized the whole Quran during his youth and served as an imam for many years. He has taught Islamic theology and Quranic studies classes, workshops, and seminars, and is a consultant for the Manitoba Islamic Fiqh Committee. Dr. Khan completed his residency at the University of Manitoba and fellowship in diagnostic neuroradiology at the University of Calgary. A lot of long words. His expertise in both medical sciences and Islamic theology uniquely positions him to address challenging contemporary questions regarding faith, reason, and science. With that, let's welcome Dr. Nazer Khan. How are you doing? Alhamdulillah, I'm doing good. How are you doing, Sheikh?
Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah. Great to have you. A little more Canada on the show. Yeah, there you go. We should have coordinated and met up and just done it from one camera. Then a little like Sheikh Omar and Sheikh Abdullah pulled on the Quran 30 for 30. So, Sheikh Abdullah, you should know, Dr. Nazer keeps inviting me to go swimming in his pool. And he has this idea. He keeps pitching it to me. Let's do sincerely yours in the pool. Sheikh Abdullah will approve. He's the fitness guru. Anything fitness, Sheikh Abdullah will green light it. Exactly. I'll be clinging on to the side, trying not to fall in. Sheikh Abdullah will be doing back flips. As long as you don't break the mic, as long as we can hear you, everything is fine. Alhamdulillah. So, so much of Sincerely Yours is about introducing people to the people of knowledge and helping people break down the barriers between understanding the challenges that people face on their way to gain knowledge and also to feel relatable to the people of knowledge. So, we like to like know your life story. And this is challenging because you and I have known each other since a long time. I don't want to count the years. Feels like at least 15 years that we've known each other. It makes us feel old. Yeah. But let me ask you, you know, the question we like to start off with, you know, when did you decide to pursue knowledge? Or when did you make a decision? I'm a Muslim. Like this is your decision. I decide that this is a religion that I believe in, not just something my parents gave me. Right. Jazakumullah khairan. That's a beautiful question. Beautiful place to begin.
So, growing up as a young Muslim in Canada, the importance of our Iman as an identity was something that my parents instilled in me from a young age. And I would say that they did it in two really important ways. One is that truth matters. And the second is that actions matter. So, with respect to the first, the fact that truth matters, what I grew up understanding about Islam is that Islam is not just a cultural identity. It's a worldview. It is a description of the truth of reality. Truth with a capital T. And when you love the truth, you want to share that with others and it informs the way in which you perceive the world. So, I grew up with a very da'wah oriented perspective on seeking Islamic knowledge. The first time that, you know, I spoke about Islam and explained Islam to others was when I was in grade two, when I was seven years old. And my mother helped me prepare a presentation to explain to the class what is Eid about, what is Islam about. Because, you know, I was going to class in school. At that time, I was probably the only Muslim in the class, if not the school. And it was a predominantly non-Muslim area. There was a lot of Islamophobic perception. I can remember a lot of Islamophobic comments. And so, at the age of seven, starting to speak about Islam to my classmates, like I had that idea that we are ambassadors of our faith. And that was something instilled in me from an early age. And that continued later on, getting involved in more da'wah organizations as well. And that really shaped my journey of seeking knowledge. The other thing I would say about my parental upbringing was the emphasis on actions.
We know that in Islam, early, early scholars of Islam emphasize the concept that iman is qawlun wa'amal, that iman is statements and actions. How we believe in Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, our relationship with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la should manifest itself in the way that we deal with others. And that was something that my mother especially emphasized to us, growing up, that our good character, our good conduct, our striving to excel in knowledge in all disciplines. This is a part of our deen. This is a part of what makes us Muslim, is the striving for excellence, striving in all domains of life and in the way that we interact with others. And the fundamental values of Islam are our duty and commitment to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la through caring for his creation. And that worldview really shaped my journey and empowered me. So Islam as an identity was not just a cultural label. It was something that really empowered me in all aspects of my life. And to this day, really inspires me not just in seeking knowledge, but in my career as a medical doctor, right, in all aspects of my life. So were you, I mean, you mentioned at the age of seven, how was it when you started to, when you became a teenager? Was there any times where you were conflicted with an instructor or a friend that possibly brought some level of doubt? Or was there a level of, for lack of better words, did you face within any of the communities that you were in where people would say that you, for lack of better words, culturally apostate, right? To where, OK, you know, I found that when I was a new Muslim, I'd see a lot of youth and they would be those that are trying to, not a lot of youth, only chosen few actually, that would try to study the knowledge.
But there would be a conflict with their parents, with the community. Did you face any of that upon your teenage years? So JazakAllah Khair, that brought to mind a few interesting memories. So SubhanAllah, in my high school years, at the time I was doing my tahfidh al-Quran, I was memorizing the Quran, which I finished when I was 19 years old. And during my high school years, when I was memorizing Quran, I would go online and download recitation of the Quran. You know, initially we just had the CDs. And then when MP3 files came out, then it was like, OK, what are the websites I can go to? And, you know, I remember looking for these online websites that had imams of the Haramain recitation recordings. And the reason why I mentioned this is because on one Internet platform that I found some of those recordings, I also found there was a discussion forum. And in that discussion forum, there were Muslims and non-Muslims debating about different topics. And I noticed that, you know, a lot of people were on that forum just listing allegation after allegation against Islam. And just making all these arguments against Islam. And for me as a young Muslim at the time, maybe 16 years old, that really shocked me that there was this level of, you know, animosity, this level of organized Islamophobia, this level of like concerted efforts to try to attack Islam and to instigate doubts or a crisis of faith in the hearts of Muslims, as you alluded to. And so I remember, you know, just registering right away, making an account and then consistently, almost on a daily basis from age 16 till I graduated from high school, I was engaging in Internet debates with people from all different backgrounds.
My parents were concerned that like you're not spending any time on homework, coming home, skipping class to engage in debates about religion, philosophy and science and all this kind of stuff, you know. And that's but I was so passionate about it. It goes back to what I mentioned earlier. Truth matters. Right. And when people are spreading misinformation, like that was something that I took very personally. I'm like, I know the answer to this question. I got to do something about it. And then that also affected my journey of seeking knowledge because I see an allegation against the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. And I have to go to the books of Sira. Right. And I see a statement against the Qur'an, this interpretation of this verse. And I go to the books of Tafsir. So in the 90s, I pretty much exhausted the existing English literature on Islam. And then I realized I got to learn Arabic. Right. I got to I got to get more resources. And so, as I said, like Da'wah really shaped my my journey of seeking knowledge and specifically seeing the context of Islamophobia, the context of Muslims undergoing a crisis of faith with a lot of misinformation being spread about Islam. That definitely inspired me to to continue this this journey. So so I can imagine you in the social media age, if there was social media back in Sheikh Nasr's day. I would have an alias name and just would have went to town on people. I did have an alias name. I won't reveal it, but somebody, some clever person is going to like search it up and find like 10,000 posts from me. And all of a sudden, you know, they're going to like start digging through things that I said when I was in high school. But maybe that's also why I'm not on social media, because I experienced that amount of Internet debates, you know, so early on. And I experienced some positive of it.
You know, it definitely had a profound effect on my own growth and critical thinking and ability to respond and just get to the root of the disagreement, to the root of the objection or to see when people have an objection, what's really behind it. But at the same time, like it also showed me a very pessimistic side of social media and how some people are just interested in argumentation. And you could spend hours and hours and hours on sometimes the most basic thing. And it still won't convince a person. And the example I always give is that, you know, the people who were flat earth theorists, people who believe that the earth was flat was actually an extreme minority until the rise of social media and the rise of the Internet. It caused this to come back and people were able to connect with others and follow these conspiracy theories. And so as much as the Internet is the age of information, it's even more the age of misinformation. Did you find yourself? So these debates, were they only was it more of an interfaith, but more with non-Muslims or was it even, you know, it within Muslims that were, you know, people that claim that they're Muslim? Did you find that you had debates with them as well? Yeah, both. Yeah, absolutely. So I would say the majority was with with people outside of the faith. Some of them were not, you know, hostile debates. Some people genuinely wanted to learn about Islam and had some misconceptions. They came from all different backgrounds, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikhs. You know, some religions that I had only ever heard of or encountered on the Internet, you know, and I would be dialoguing with these people. And there were other people who really were hostile and belligerent. And sometimes a different style of debate was needed to kind of expose their ignorance that they were using to launch their attacks. But with Muslims as well, yeah, there are people with different viewpoints.
And I think, you know, one of the things that I benefited from is while I was reading these books and engaged in these debates, I also had mentors and teachers that I would go back to because you need to have that guidance, right? And you need to have that tarbiyah. And so when I see people coming from different points of view, one thing that I appreciate is that my mentor also had different viewpoints. Right. And so they they were not all the same. They were not all, you know, homogenous. And it gave me that ability to to take the best from everyone and have that kind of critical approach as well. So let's unpack that, because that's what I was going to allude to next was did you find yourself drowning in this in these Internet debates and getting involved? But then when you mentioned mentors, I mean, there are so many youth right now that are Masha'Allah, they're trying their best to practice religion, but they cannot let Islamophobia slide if it's on their screen or if they see some type of deviance from Muslims. You know, for instance, saying that I can be a mumin and not pray like we talked about in the amal and the iman. So did you find yourself getting into a deep hole and some of your mentors kind of indirectly or directly pulled you out of it? Did you find that? Was that was that something similar to what you faced? Yeah, I would say that there was potential for that. There was definitely potential for me to go down the path of confusion if I didn't have, you know, mentorship. That was that was really great, you know, and very beneficial. And that's an important part of our deen to be connected back to scholars, not to be somebody who self-taught. Right. And so and that's something, you know, I can pursued Islamic classes. That's how I met Sheikh Ibrahim. We started attending a lot of the same classes together and pursuing one on one instruction as well with the shiur. Whatever I would see on the Internet, whatever I would encounter in my debates and discussions,
I would write down a list of questions. And the next time I knew a major scholar was visiting Toronto, I would be one of the people who would be in class with a list of questions that people used to be like, you know, like leave the Sheikh alone, following him, you know, after the break, after lunch, after dinner with all these questions. But later I realized, you know, I think that's something that really helped me because Abdullah ibn Abbas radiallahu anhuma when he was asked about how you gain knowledge, he said, bilisanin sa'ool wa qalbin aqool, right, being with the inquisitive tongue and a comprehending mind. And so asking a lot of questions from from qualified teachers and deferring to people who are more knowledgeable, I think that's so important. And one of the biggest fitna's I see online now is people don't want to defer to those who are senior in knowledge. Right. People go online and that's it. They're Sheikh al-Islam. They answer debates here and there. And now they're dishing out on every single topic, every topic. Right. SubhanAllah. So that's that's one of the issues as well. Yeah. I was just contrasting that in my mind, like you on these late 90s message boards, responding to people versus like today. I mean, I see a lot of the youth and they're on TikTok and on Instagram. And they're trying to respond to people today as well. But there seems to be like negative aspects of it, of that kind of like refutation response culture, even when sometimes they're responding to like missionaries or people who are distorting Islam. Like you said, one issue is they're not necessarily going back to scholars. Are there other things that you feel like is lacking in this space today that maybe, you know, didn't exist in the past? Things that are lacking on social media currently. Yeah. Like in this whole culture, like are they are we dumbing down the discourse versus in the past?
Yeah. So there's a there's an interesting article that was that I saw recently, not too long ago, which was talking about why the past 10 years of American history have been uniquely stupid. And what the article is arguing is that they traced it back to the invention of the like button on Facebook and the retweet button on Twitter. And they were arguing that the way social media is set up, the actual machinery of social media is set up in a way that things go viral, depending on how outrageous the content is. Right. So you're you try to express a very polarized opinion, a very hostile opinion. You have to go on to Twitter with all your rage and be mad about something in order for it to go viral. Right. And so if you're out there just talking about like, you know, clarifying misconceptions, establishing some usool in the deen, just, you know, saying some very normal stuff, it's not going to go viral. You're not going to get a lot of followers. So in a way, social media is set up in a way that brings out the worst qualities of people. And so far, you know, as part of my I think I've mentioned to you, Shikha, before that I'm doing this PhD in Islamic theology, University of Nottingham. And this one of the parts that I'm looking at is how scholars talked about actually, actually certain the certainty and knowledge and looking at it. And I think the way that I'm looking at it is that when you look at the statement of Abu Madin of Imam Abu Hamid Al Ghazali in Kitab Al Ilm, he talks about this problem. And if you look at some of his statements, you're like, man, this is so applicable today.
Like it's like he's describing the social media generation about how people are so invested in their image and in their disputes and in argumentation. And they're not gaining knowledge or the truth in the words of their opponent. They just want to try to prove their own point. And the whole social media machinery is really the cult of the self, the worship of the nafs. Right. And it's just bringing that out more and more in people because it's all about this is how many followers I have. This is my image. This is who I am on social media. I'm an influencer. Right. And so unfortunately, it brings out the worst. So so so when you when you I mean, you mentioned how you and I remember those days, I think maybe one other thing that you want I want to mention is that I remember the days where it was. Remember the day. Wow. We get a flyer, it'd be the paper flyer hung up in the masjid and it's going to be like a conference, a weekend conference. Remember those weekend conference days where the sheikh would come down and he had the table in the masjid and it'd be Friday night, Friday, Friday night. If you're from the Khawas, you get to go to the brother's house and sit with the sheikh and ask all your questions. And then Saturday is the Dora and me and like the Islamic full day intensive. And then he leaves on Sunday. But it was just like the barakah of the masjid. So with you, when you had from you mentioned you had questions you would ask the sheikh and you said that. You wanted to learn Arabic because you fully exhausted all the English resources. How was that transition from, you know, I've read a lot English now to get further, deeper into the knowledge. It's got to be Arabic. So what did you do at that moment? Yeah. So initially when I was pursuing knowledge, what I was doing is while I was memorizing the Quran, I was learning Arabic through the Quran.
I never took any Arabic courses, never attended any classes. I kind of did it the hard way. Right. But with respect to the Quran, it's the easy way. Right. So as I was memorizing the Quran, I would focus on trying to understand the meanings of the words using sarf, right. Using the morphology of the words. So you learn three letters and all of a sudden you can make so many different words out of it. Right. And so understanding those principles behind the Arabic language allows you to rapidly learn a lot. And when you understand the Quran well, then the next thing that I would look at is works of tafsir in Arabic. And I would, because I knew I wouldn't get lost if I'm reading a paragraph in tafsir and reading the verse, I know what the paragraph is explaining. And I used to start to listen to Arabic lectures. When I was listening to Arabic lectures, initially, maybe I would understand 40 percent of the lecture, just purely based on this kind of book study that I had done before using dictionaries and translations and whatnot. But if you keep doing that after listening to maybe like 500, 600 lectures in Arabic, your brain starts to automatically habituate itself to the language. And subhanAllah, the brain is amazing how it rewires itself. Right. That neuroplasticity of the brain. You just constantly expose yourself to that language. And there's all this subconscious learning that's happening. Right. It's recognizing where words are used. And so by this kind of immersion into listening to Arabic lectures, reading works of tafsir and not giving up initially and then going back to mentors and teachers to get further clarification.
That's how I gradually made that transition to then doing all of my research in Arabic resources, right, and not even going back to the English resources. MashAllah. So let me ask you, because I think a lot of people would just give up when they hit that wall of like, oh, I don't know Arabic, so I'm just going to stop. And I'll go back to like maybe the way that you were raised, because, you know, maybe people don't know, but mashAllah, both of your parents are doctors. And your brother, mashAllah, is a successful surgeon. Your sister is very active, mashAllah, in da'wah herself. So it seems like your parents really got all of you guys to have high ambitions. And you had this ambition of like giving da'wah and gaining knowledge. And when you hit like a wall of, OK, everything I need to know now is only in Arabic, you still have the ambition to learn Arabic and to go even further. How did you get that ambition? How did your parents put that in you? And I know you were going to bring it up at some point, mashAllah, your new father. So when you look at your son, how are you thinking of getting that ambition in that? Yeah, mashAllah, that's a really deep question. And it goes back to an important principle in our deen, which is ardu al-himmah, right, having high aspirations. And you're absolutely right that this is something that my parents instilled in us. I would actually, in addition to my parents, I would also add my grandparents. So my maternal grandparents, alhamdulillah, may Allah have mercy on both of them, passed away in the recent years. I had a very close relationship with them and I had the opportunity to accompany them on Umrah maybe like four or five times, alhamdulillah. And during my childhood, you know, they played a really important role.
So I would remember as a young child going and seeing my grandmother doing lectures to a group of sisters over the phone. And I would be asking her, what was your topic about? And she would explain it to me afterwards. And, you know, at the time when I was a kid, we have these home videos because my parents got my older brother. Well, you know, those camcorders back in the day were like this big. So my older brother was, you know, like this small kid carrying around this massive camcorder, taping, recording everyone's waist, right, running around the house. And but there's one video where he's recording my grandmother teaching me how to make dua. And she's, which is something really interesting. And she's explaining to me in the video, you hear me saying, you know, you know, ya Allah, you know, make the poor people rich. Like this is kind of a kid's version of a dua, but it's still, you know, beautiful. I'm saying make the poor people rich and make me into a doctor. And I was probably like six years old or younger at this time. And my grandmother, you hear her say, you shouldn't just want to be a doctor of deen, you should be, sorry, you shouldn't just want to be a doctor of dunya. You should also want to be a doctor of deen. And her teaching me to say, you know, make me a doctor and an imam, right. And so you would think that that kind of instruction that a grandparent tells their kid at age six, it would have like no lasting effect. Yet here I am, right, and that those aspirations were something that I really internalized and it meant a lot to me. And it shaped my worldview and it shaped the view of what I want to contribute in the world. And so to answer that question about where does that aloo wa l-himmah come from? It comes from our dua to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And if you really understand the power of dua, what do you want to ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for, right?
If you have nothing to ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for, you're aiming for nothing in life. If you have lofty ambitions, you will find that manifested in the duas that you make to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. InshaAllah. That's amazing. Me that's why I was a kid. Allah accepted it. Alhamdulillah. So from there, so you went on this journey of learning Arabic through the Quran and then continuing the journey, I mean, until now we all are, of learning the Arabic language and reading the transition from English resources to Arabic resources, excuse me, and learning it. When did you start to give to the community? Like when was your first khutbah, your first class? How did you feel? Were you nervous? Yeah, mashaAllah. So first jumu'ah khutbah that I gave, I used to give it at high school. And there was just like maybe five, six of us who were Muslims in the high school that I went to. And like now, if you talk about the greater Toronto area, that's like every single school has tons of Muslims. But the high school that I attended, you know, predominantly white neighborhood, very few colored people of color and very few Muslims in particular. And I remember those khutbahs like, and maybe because it was that relaxed setting, I'd ask the guys before when they'd walk in, I'd be like, what do you guys want to hear about for the khutbah? Kind of like suggest topics. I'm like, OK, yalla, let's talk about this. Right. And I give it, I start doing the khutbah. And at the time, like I just read like, you know, one small book of fiqh that had been translated about the fiqh of the jumu'ah khutbah.
I got the basics done. And then when I went to start my undergraduate studies at McMaster University, that's when I started to do halaqas. And that's also when, you know, I was surrounded by a group of other, you know, brothers who are very passionate about the deen as well. And in fact, the house that we used to live at just off campus, people nicknamed it Fatwa House because it was a group of brothers who were there like, oh, man, these hardcore brothers. They're just talking about deen and fatwa. This is a fatwa house. Right. So. But that was that was something that really showed me how studying the deen is something that is enjoyable. It is fun. Right. It is. It's invigorating. And that was that was when I started to give halaqas at the university. Yeah, exactly. So what did what did you teach? So so this is throughout your whole your four years in college, I'm assuming. Right. You were doing giving halaqas. You were part of the MSA. We did President MSA. I wasn't president of the MSA. I went from like public relations, external first da'wah booth coordinator, public relations, external and then like senior advisor. So I I just had more of a role always in the Islamic education side of things and the da'wah side of things. The first halaqa series that I gave at McMaster and people who are from McMaster will remember this. It was entitled Ark and it was that I chose the title based on the statement of Imam Malik, As-sunnah mithlu safinati nooh man rakibaha naja wa man takhalafu anha halak. The sunnah is is like the Ark of Noah. Whoever embarks upon the sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was saved and whoever abandons it perishes.
And so the entire halaqa series was about exploring the concept of the sunnah. Sunnah in its broadest sense, not just in terms of hadith transmission, preservation of hadith, but sunnah also as a theological concept, sunnah as a concept in our aqidah, sunnah as a concept in usul al-din, right? That's as masadir al-tashri'ah, right? The sources of Islamic legislation. So studying that concept in comprehensively and I deliberately kind of had some marketing techniques as well to make it enticing to youth, to university students. The poster just said Ark and we had like some video trailer that we filmed at that time. And we used to make some crazy MSA videos at that time. And mashallah it brought together many of them are still involved in Islamic da'wah in some shape or form. Mashallah, mashallah. That's great. Mashallah. So that continued all the way on to, I mean, not the Ark class, but I mean, just continuously teaching throughout college. Yeah, so exactly. So during undergraduate and medical school, I would be doing that on the side. And then when I graduated from medical school, I started my residency in radiology in Winnipeg. So I lived in Winnipeg for five years and Winnipeg is like in the middle of nowhere for geographic reference. People don't know where Winnipeg is, right in the middle of North America. But in Winnipeg, I was in a smaller Muslim community. I had the chance to get involved in a lot of activities that I didn't have the chance to before.
All kinds of things like in Winnipeg, I was involved in doing talks between Muslims and Christian neighbors at the church, doing introductory Islam classes to the police station, to police cadets, doing intro to Islam or stuff about end of life care to health care workers, all sorts of different things. And then in addition to that, doing their Eid Khutbah in Winnipeg, where people from all over Manitoba would come, the province of Manitoba come together in Winnipeg. So we had, mashallah, like a huge congregation. But also at that time in Winnipeg, I was studying intensively on the side with a scholar who I met when I first moved there, Sheikh Ammar Khatib, and I've kept that studying since leaving Winnipeg till today. I still meet with him once a week. Right. You know, I still do my classes with him. So I've studied with him now for for 10 years. And the knowledge is, of course, beneficial. But also the relationship, the Tarbiyah, the mentorship relationship is something that you can't take for granted. So it's something that I really treasure that ability to hold on to good mentors from there. All right, Sheikh, it's time to get into our rapid fire questions and questions from the audience. So those of you in the audience, if you have any questions, put them in the chat. And after this session, we'll we'll turn to your questions, inshallah. So let's start off easy as we normally do. Right. Do you prefer the spring or the fall? The spring or the fall? I like the fall weather. There's something about the fall that I like. Going hiking.
Yeah. You know, after living in Calgary, that's when I lived in Calgary for two years during my fellowship. And you really experience the outdoors that we have the Rockies, the Canadian Rockies, beautiful nature. And so you really start to get connected with that through hikes. All right. Pancakes or waffles? Pancakes or waffles, Sheikh? I don't know. This is you know, there's this concept called decision fatigue. That are so like meaningless. You just take up your brain space. You got to save your brain power for some more important decisions. Let's say let's say pancakes. Chocolate chip pancakes. More consequential. A book or a podcast? A book, definitely. But podcasts, I used to listen to them on my drives to work. And I have a much shorter commute. So I often listen to podcasts at the gym, actually. And what I've also found is that in Arabic, there's more audio books that are available of like some really important works. So recently I was listening to Ibn al-Qayyim's Addat wa Dawa in audiobook at the gym, just listening to that. And it's amazing. You can get through so much. So that's what I started doing. And I found that very beneficial. So it's a nice shift when I'm at home, I'm reading books. And then, you know, if I'm in the car at the gym or something, I'm listening to podcasts or audio books. Nice. OK, who do you want to have dinner with? But you can't choose the prophet, any of the prophets or the companions. OK, I want to have dinner with you, Sheikh. It's so hard to meet up. We're both in Toronto.
You have dinner with me. It's not all cracked up to me. What about Sheikh Abdullah? When is he coming to Toronto? I don't know. Trying to bring him here. Yeah. So, no, Mashallah. I think one of the things being involved in Yaqeen has really blessed us with is having, being connected to such an amazing team of individuals, of scholars, researchers and people contributing in all different shapes and forms, not just scholarship and research. And so I've it's one of the biggest blessings that I've appreciated that Allah has given us through working with Yaqeen is just that those friendships and those close relationships and being able to benefit from others in the institute. So I don't know if you want to if you want a historical figure, I could give you one. But I think, Mashallah, the contemporary figures keep me occupied too with dinners. I thought you were going to say like Ibn Taymiyyah. I was going to be like, this is going to be my PhD. Help me finish that PhD quick. Yeah, yeah. There's definitely a lot one could ask Sheikh Osama Ibn Taymiyyah. But you know what is even more interesting is asking some of the scholars, like having a meeting with a scholar whose works, we don't have as many of their works, like some of the early scholars where you just wonder, like, oh, you know, how did they view this particular issue? There's many amazing, incredible scholars. There's Islamic history that you'd want to sit down with, especially in the first three generations and and just get their insights on something like someone like Imam Sufyan al-Thawri. Just an incredible individual, right? Very eccentric personality. What a person to sit down with, right? Like it would be so interesting to sit down with some of these scholars. OK, less consequential questions. Yeah, as a kid, what was your favorite cartoon?
I don't know. Then I have the other question. As a kid, the real answer is Darkwing Duck. Do you know that cartoon? I remember that. Darkwing Duck, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The catch line is, let's get dangerous. I used to say that. And that's when my parents would know something bad was going to go down. I would have to be like, let's get dangerous. Uh oh. All right. What book would you recommend our audience? So a book that really influenced me in my own journey of knowledge. In fact, I would say if I had to say one book that kind of changed my entire trajectory in seeking knowledge, it would be the book Waabil al-Sayyib by Imam Ibn Tayyib. I'm doing an explanation of that right now. What's that? I'm doing an explanation of that right now. Oh, no way, SubhanAllah. Is it online? Can people attend? Can we put the link in the chat? Yeah, SubhanAllah. I always have it with me. It's a tadheeb. It's a muftasar. But it's, yeah. Yeah, so it's also translated in English as The Invocation of God. And the reason why this book really changed my life is because prior to that, I used to think of knowledge as just a collection of information, facts of this scholar said this, this scholar said that. But when you read that book, it shows you how the most fundamental concepts in Islam like dhikrullah, remembrance of God, how that is a paradigm and an entire worldview in and of itself. It's a different psychology. It explains to you the psychology of dhikr. And one of the things that blew my mind when I was reading the book is how Imam Ibn Qayyim talks about how our spirituality, our remembrance of Allah, our relationship with Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala can alter the way that we perceive reality. So there's a famous hadith in which, hadith Qudsi, where Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
you know, when a servant becomes beloved to me, then I become the sight with which he sees, the hearing with which he hears. And the scholars of Islam have mentioned this is the light of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala that transforms a person's sensory faculties. And that led me to this concept of that's how I came up with the concept of spiritual perception. And I created this this website just about, you know, explaining Islam, explaining the philosophy of Islam or the worldview of Islam and how the fundamental Islamic concepts provide a meaningful explanation of reality and answer the big questions of life. And so that really was a big change for me reading reading Ibn Qayyim's work. Yeah, Risalah Tabukiya did it for me, like when I was a new Muslim. That changed my whole like understanding the sunnah, this is the portion of hijrat to Allah and hijrat to his messenger. Right. It just blew me away. That really just that really made me want to study the deen. Yeah, SubhanAllah. And it's always interesting to go back to those works and see that that big picture. Right. When we get lost in the details and you just go back and you see the big picture of things. Yes, let's get to some audience questions. Inshallah. I thought this is a good one for you. This person says, Hello, if you see this, please explain how a God could possibly exist. What is the proof of his existence? Do you have proof? I know, Dr. Nazer, you've written a lot on this topic. I'm not sure if you can provide a quick response. Yes, JazakAllah khair. So there is an article that I wrote for Yaqeen Institute called Atheism and Radical Skepticism. And it's talking about Ibn Taymiyyah's explanations of the topic. But there's many other scholars who have made similar points as well. One of the things that's really interesting is when we make this, when we say prove to me that God exists, we have certain assumptions that go into that statement. Right. What is proof?
What constitutes proof? So there was a debate once where an atheist was asked, you know, what would convince you that God exists? What kind of proof are you looking for? And he said, I will only believe in God if I see him directly. And then the person asked him, well, even if you see him directly, would you then believe in him? He thought about it for a second and he said, well, actually, I would probably think I'm having a bad hangover. Right. And that's something the Qur'an actually alludes to this phenomenon, which is radical skepticism. Where in the Qur'an says in Surat Al-Hijr, for example, وَلَوْ فَتَحْنَ عَلَيْهِمْ بَابًا مِّنَ السَّمَاءِ فَظَلُوا فِيهِ يَعْرُجُونَ لَقَالُوا إِنَّمَا سُكِّرَتْ أَبْصَالُنَا بَلْنَحْنُ قَوْمٌ مَسْحُورُونَ If they were to see the gates of the heavens opened up, and they were to see the angels ascend up into the gates, or in another tafsir, they ascended up into the gates, they would still say that we are hallucinating. Someone has bewitched our eyesight. So they would still find reason to deny. So the question is, if somebody were to ask you, prove to me that you exist, why do you take that for granted? There's an entire philosophy called solipsism, which is that nothing exists other than my mind. This idea that you could be in a matrix or a brain in a vat, and everything that you're seeing is just fed to you by chemicals. Now you're not in any state of doubt about this and wondering, how do I know if that's true or not? Can somebody give me proof? So you take all of your reality as meaningful because you believe that reality exists. In the same way, in order for existence itself to have any meaning, we have to believe in Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. And so the proof is therefore all around us. And that's why Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says at the end of Surah Yusuf, وَكَأَيِّم مِّنْ آيَةٍ فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ يَمُرْغُونَ عَلَيْهَا وَهُمْ عَنْهَا مُعْرِضُونَ
How numerous are the signs in the heavens and the earth that they walk right past and they turn away from them, right? So the signs are there, the proofs are there. The question is, do we have the right mindset to recognize proof? And for more details, refer to the article. As-salamu alaykum. It's so true now, everybody keeps saying, oh, how do you know we're not in a simulation? I guess another word for the matrix. Yeah, and that's another interesting concept. The idea of a simulation, when people talk about how the universe could be a computer simulation generated by an advanced alien civilization or some advanced being, somebody asks them, well, what if you call the being who created this universe God? And they're like, well, this was actually asked to one of these popular atheists. He's like, well, I guess you could. He's like, you're willing to conceive of these elaborate scenarios to get out of something that's really simple, which is that, you know, Allah ﷻ says, كيف تكبرون بالله وكنتم أموات فاحياتكم How can you disbelieve in Allah ﷻ when you didn't exist, you were in a state of death and Allah ﷻ brought you into life. Allah ﷻ brought you from non-existence into existence. That's only meaningful, you know, through the Islamic worldview. It's so true. The other thing is like, they'll be like, oh, it's the universe has been around. So they just like take the, like there's no such thing as God, but the universe has been around forever, which I know is a different point. But it's almost like they take the attributes of God and then they just attribute it to the universe. If the universe wants me to have this, I'm praying for the universe to give me this. And it's just, they just replace God with the universe, but it's still in essence. Yeah, that's especially become common now.
You know, people talk about how with the rise of atheism, decline of traditional forms of religion, people are still just as, you know, religion seeking. But they're creating new forms of new age spirituality where they say things like sending positive vibes instead of sending prayers. Right. Or say, you know, the universe manifested this in my life instead of saying that Allah blessed me with this. So it's interesting to use all these substitutions. And, you know, they say, what is the universe trying to tell me? I'm trying to figure out. Well, the universe is not trying to tell you anything. The universe is just particles. It's a creation. It's makhloop. Right. It's the creation of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. So you really can't escape that. You can't escape the fact that consciousness is there and that the one who created us is none other than the divine essence that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala with all of his names and attributes. This is a longer question. I'll try to read it here. So there's a few questions for Dr. Nazer. What is your advice in balancing both dunya pursuits and deen and being excellent in both, inshallah? Also, what is your response to youth nowadays who ask, how do we know Islam is the right religion? I think that's what she says. Islam is the right religion in the midst of all other religions. Yeah, so two very different questions kind of rolled into one there. So with respect to the first question, balancing deen and dunya pursuits, it comes back to having very clear goals, making a lot of dua to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala for those goals. You're not asking the universe to manifest anything to you. You're asking the creator and sustainer of the heavens and the earth, Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, to allow you to achieve those goals, and then you construct practical steps towards those goals. So you have to look at your time, and you have to maximize your time
according to what your goals are and what you want to contribute to the ummah. So if you have all these goals, but you're spending all your time gaming and chilling and doing all these things, one of the things I realized in my own journey is if I hadn't used the time that I had in high school to read books nonstop, there's no way I would be able to do what I'm doing now. Even if I started my journey at a later stage and was super intense about it, like at a university level or wherever, I could not get to the point where I am now. It's only because I capitalized on that early period in my life. So my advice to people who are in their teenage years is you don't know what opportunity you have now that you will never have again in your life, and that will determine the trajectory of your life, subhanAllah. And the scholars of Islam talked about the importance of time and the value of time. And of course we know the hadith about the person being asked on the Day of Judgment about how they spent their youth, right? So your youth, your teenage years, that will determine your trajectory in life, how you use your time in those years. So that's what I would say about balancing deen and dunya pursuits. In terms of how do we know Islam is the right path, it's through the Islamic worldview. You don't need to go to some complicated external proof here or there. The message of Islam is the only way to make sense of the big questions of life. So every single human being has certain questions about life, spiritual questions like why do I exist, what is the purpose of life, why does my existence matter? And then there are moral questions like how do I live a good life, right? There are intellectual questions like why does the universe exist, right? What is the point behind existence as a whole? What is the point of my faculty of reasoning?
Why is my reasoning able to understand and discover truths about the universe? So you have these spiritual, intellectual, moral dimensions of life. The beauty of Islam is that those are all answered in the fundamental message of Islam, in the message of tawhid, right? So tawhid empowers the human being by giving us a worldview where we understand that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la has created you for a purpose. You use your mind, your faculty of reasoning to understand the signs of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la in nature and in scripture. You use your human capacities to take on moral duties, to take care of the creation of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, to strive to achieve moral excellence. Everything fits together and all of that goes back to the spiritual path of coming closer to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. So Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says in the Qur'an, فَبِأَيِّ حَدِيثٍ بَعْدَهُ يُؤْمِنُونَ In what narrative are they going to believe in after this? And people have searched, looked at different narratives, looked at different ideologies, but there's a reason why today, in an age where religion is in decline, Islam remains the most religious religion, in the sense that Muslims have this zeal and commitment and passion about their religion that other people find somewhat strange. People who take their religion as just a cultural label. Because Islam is something that sits at the core of a person's heart, and sits at the core of a person's soul, and informs their entire worldview. So understanding the Islamic message, the more you understand it, the more you increase in your certainty, in your yaqeen. This is the last question, inshAllah. How do you maintain hijab while practicing medicine as a woman? I know this might be difficult, but I thought, given your medical background, inshAllah, you might have some insight.
Yes, inshAllah, it's an interesting question, because I believe it was just last year, there was a big controversy in Canada, where someone published a very Islamophobic article in Canadian Medical Association Journal. Because there was a Muslim girl with hijab on the cover of one journal, somebody wrote a letter, a physician wrote a letter, actually, with all sorts of ridiculous Islamophobic remarks, like people who wear hijab can't ride bicycles, and they can't, like really nutty things. And it's crazy that it was actually published. But in response to that, a lot of Muslim physicians felt compelled to write about the experience of Islamophobia, even in the medical profession. My mother actually wrote her experience as a Muslim medical doctor wearing hijab and seeing Islamophobic remarks from some of her colleagues. So yes, there is going to be negative pressures, and those things exist in the medical profession, which is very unfortunate, because you're treating patients, so you have to put those biases and prejudices at the door. How are you going to treat a patient from a Muslim background, and you have these backwards, ignorant, kind of Islamophobic ideas about Muslims, it's ridiculous, but unfortunately, it exists. So for Muslims, one of the best things that you can do to support your other Muslim colleagues is be proud of your identity, be confident in your identity. Don't be shy about requests for religious accommodations. Don't be shy about expressing to your colleagues and explaining to them the religious celebrations that we have. It's interesting, whenever I was on call at the hospital over the Christmas holidays, throughout my residency, it would always be funny that day, on the 25th of December, when you're on call at the hospital, every single medical service
that calls you, it's like, yes, this is Khaled from cardiology, yes, this is Abdullah from orthopedics, and every single person in the hospital that day is Muslim, because it's the Muslims who are running the entire hospital so that their colleagues are able to go on their holiday and vacation. That just goes unappreciated, right? There's barely a hospital without Muslim physicians on staff or Muslim nurses or other health care workers, so it's not like it used to be where Muslims were still a minority. The Muslim presence is there, so be confident in your identity, inshallah. Insha'Allah. We're going to end on that question, but then another question came in, I think you might know the questioner, so we'll take this, inshallah. Amanah Fitness, shout out to my sister, Amanah. A lot of people think her name is Amanah because it's called Amanah Fitness, but her name is Amanah, Amanah Khan. Amanah, how do you feel about the recent shift in the culture of Da'wah? I think there have been many interesting shifts. I don't know if you noticed, but any interesting shifts you noticed in Da'wah culture over the past 15 years? I would say that there have been some positives and some negatives. So I would say that the negatives have been predominantly expressing outrage over things, going back to my earlier comments, and people have lost the passion to just explain things so that somebody understands the topic. Don't worry about refuting this person or that person or trying to get more followers and trying to cloud chasing, that's the other term for it. Just focus on how you can help others understand the deen. That's the first thing.
The positive though, in terms of the Da'wah culture, is we have at our disposal more resources today than has ever been available in the history of Islam. And that's something really remarkable. The idea that you can search the entire literary corpus of a scholar like Imam Ibn al-Qayyim in just a few seconds. No previous scholar had access to that. The idea you can search all of the works of hadith on your computer, from your phone, from your smartphone. It's an incredible amount of resources. The computer resources we have is incredible. So we have those resources, but all of a sudden we've lost even basic literacy in our own tradition. I think people in the Da'wah culture get a lot of zeal for going out there and getting exposure without first solidifying their knowledge. Really, if you're going to spend time out there doing Da'wah, I would say that 10% of the time should be in your output. 90% of your time should be focusing on developing yourself. Yeah, I mean, subhanAllah, with the emergence of the information, they say the cost of information is attention. So knowing where to put your attention. But then now you see with this, this is a whole conversation, separate conversation with chat GPT, what's going to take place. Especially with research. We've got our input being generated. Yeah, Allah musta'a. JazakAllah khair, Dr. Nazer, for your time and for all the amazing insight that you gave us, alhamdulillah. It's great having you. And inshallah, we hope to have you back soon, biidhnillah. Maybe we can talk about chat GPT more. InshaAllah. Daragallah fiikum. It's a pleasure and jazakAllah khair, guys. Wa alaikum salam.
InshaAllah we'll be back with Sincerely Yours, not next week. Not the Wednesday, but the Wednesday after inshaAllah. And inshaAllah Dr. Ruhi Tahir will be our guest that week inshaAllah. So we hope to see you all then, biidhnillah. Wa alaikum salam. Wa alaikum salam.
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