The Shaykh’s account of his meeting with a Lebanese Maronite priest on a train and the discussion that took place between them.

The Shaykh : But look at the second example. Once, a train brought me together with a man from the Christians, one of the priests of Lebanon. He boarded and entered a compartment, and I did not notice him. I was with some young men, so one of them whispered to me, saying, "A priest just boarded the train and entered one of the compartments." Naturally, I understood that his unspoken message was, "You should deal with him." So I stood up and entered the compartment where he was sitting. You know, the train has two rows of long seats. He was sitting there in the corner. I thought to myself, "I should not sit directly facing him, because that would provoke him." So I sat far away from him. I sat there thinking about how to bring up the subject with him.
Shuqara: ...

The Shaykh : Heh heh. And I will not say the rest. I sat thinking, and then Allah (Mighty and Majestic) was gracious and provided the opportunity. A person from the area where the train had stopped to pick up passengers boarded. I had known beforehand, just the day before, that this man had built a house for his wife, and he was greeting our brothers. I said, intentionally trying to provoke the priest, "This brother of yours built a house for his family yesterday, so congratulate him with the blessing of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and do not congratulate him with the blessing of the first age of ignorance or the age of ignorance of the twentieth century." So I said, and I told them to say with me, "May Allah bless you and bless upon you, and unite you both in good." As for the blessing of the first and last age of ignorance today, with "prosperity and sons," how many times have sons been a calamity for their fathers? I began to speak, and Allah (Mighty and Majestic) was pleased with it, and I remember clearly. I began to mention some of the virtues and excellences of Islam in the illiterate age of ignorance, where they did not write or calculate, while there were the Persians and the Romans. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) taught them the best of this world and the Hereafter. He forbade them from drinking from a cracked vessel or cup that had a crack in it, and they stopped. Why? None of the peoples knew, except in this twentieth century, what the reason was. It became clear to them that germs and microbes, very fine and very small, accumulate in that crack, and they are not seen except with a magnifier, the microscope. So Islam, in the name of religion, forbade them from what harms them, and in the name of medicine, it said, "Do not do such and such." I elaborated on such matters until I felt that the priest was filled up and wanted to speak, and that is what I wanted. So I took a breath, and he started. Look now at the difference between the Muslim whom Allah guided and the disbeliever whom Allah led astray. How I proceeded step by step until I reached my goal, and see how he surprised me. He said, "If Islam is like this, why do the Muslims declare Ataturk a disbeliever?" Look, there is no...
Abu Malik: Connection.

The Shaykh : There is absolutely no logical scientific progression. So we entered into the subject with him, and here is the point. I said to him, "Here they call him 'our father,' and by the wisdom of Allah, there was an English army soldier present at that time, who had come to Syria after the French left, the French Vichy army, and so on. The point is, there was also a Lebanese Christian soldier. I spoke with him and explained to him that the Muslims did not declare Ataturk a disbeliever because he was a Muslim, no, but because he disavowed Islam when he imposed a system on the Muslims that was not the system of Islam. Among other things, for example, he equalized inheritance between the male and the female, and Allah says in our religion: Then he imposed the hat on the Muslim Turkish people. He said, "What is wrong with the hat? The clothing he called 'national clothing' is no longer specific to those who oppose Islam, and so on." And then, these customs and styles do not need to be strict. I said to him, "The answer is from two aspects. The first aspect is that he is a wicked intellectual, and you know that the priests' studies are a conscious study, especially if they are attributed to the conversion that they call 'missionary work.' I said to him, 'You know that the foundations of peoples are their preservation of their language, history, and traditions. So Islam, in its perfection, I mentioned to him some of the hadiths that we always mention with you in the path of preserving the Muslim identity: and so on. Therefore, Islam wants the Muslim community to preserve its identity, even in its appearance, because the outward appearance is the title of the inner reality, and this is established in modern philosophy today. This is what is established for us in the Shari'ah today, and they have reached it: that the outward appearance affects the inner self of the person. I had read a book by one of the Europeans long ago. Of course, I do not know any foreign language except my Albanian language. Of course, this book is translated. Its name is *The Philosophy of Clothing*. I actually benefited from this book in the following way. It says that something seen by the eye does not need faith in the unseen. A poor man will be wearing worn-out clothes, and you will find him walking in humility and modesty, and so on. Dress him in new, beautiful clothes, and you will find him standing up straight like this and walking, and his unspoken message is like what they say about us in Syria: 'O earth, be firm, no one is above you.' This change in the outward clothing affected the inner self. At first, he was walking humbly and lowly, and then he stood up straight like this, strong. I spoke with him about this subject. Therefore, Islam commands Muslims to preserve their dress and clothing. I said to him, 'Let us suppose, and this is the point now, and the session has been long, and we will limit ourselves to this, if Allah wills. Let us suppose that there is a benefit for the Muslim Turkish people in this Muslim ruler imposing this. He claimed, and he refused to continue with his Islamic name, Mustafa Kemal Pasha, so he removed this name and called himself Ataturk. If there was truly a benefit for the Turkish people in wearing this disbeliever's dress, he could have put hair on it. I said to him, 'There are berets, you know, that have a shadow and are narrow like this, made of fabric...'"
Abu Malik: The head remains bare.

The Shaykh : No, it is the same hat, but on it, I don't know what you call it, made of fabric, meaning.

The questioner : Made of fabric.

The Shaykh : Yes. White, green, blue fabric, and so on. So this ruler could have, if he truly wanted to achieve a benefit for these Muslim Turks by wearing the hat, distinguished the Muslim hat from the disbeliever's hat by placing a white ribbon on it, so that everyone who sees it says, "This is a Muslim." I said to him, "The Muslim community is one block. And therefore, to realize this block, they linked them with a branched system, but it all unites the community and makes it one community. And among that is This greeting. When a Muslim in the Muslim community loses and weakens his Muslim identity, he weakens this bond that Islam linked him with through such a system, which is that if he meets you, he greets you. So if I walk on the road and see a Muslim wearing a beret, I say to myself that he is not Ahmad, but he is Antonios or Julius or something like that, so I will not greet him. But when he wears the symbol of Islam, then the bond will continue between me and him. So it is not permissible for us to treat Muslims as you see the Christians treating them, that this is clothing and has no relation to religion. Then I gave him the example that bound him with iron. I said to him, "Do I understand from your words that you are now the one wearing the black cap and the wide black robe like some of the shaykhs, without likening? I said to him, 'Do you see, if you now removed this hat from your head and put the white turban on the red fez and placed it as a replacement, is this not a problem for you?' He said, 'No, no, no.' I said, 'Why? This is clothing, it has no relation to belief and religion.' He said, 'Yes.' He said, 'No, we are men of religion.' Here I was left speechless. I said to him, 'This is the difference between us and you. The greatest Muslim and the smallest Muslim is a man of religion, but you are men of religion and men without religion. And what is not permissible for you is permissible for others.' And that was the end. The whole conversation was from Damascus to Mada'a, a distance of fifty kilometers. And the wicked one wished that he could sit with a Muslim shaykh like this session and be able to understand each other. It is very regrettable. That Lebanese English soldier in the English army, when we entered into a discussion with him about the doctrine of the Trinity, and what the Trinity is, what does that one say? By Allah, O our father, the words...The Shaykh : Or the professor, I don't know what he said that day. By Allah, his words were acceptable.

The questioner : He looks like a Christian.

The Shaykh : He is a Lebanese Christian, because the fitrah (the innate natural disposition) of Allah is Islam; the whole of fitrah is Islam. So, praise be to Allah, we must understand Islam and apply what we are able to of it. This is sufficient.

The questioner : A final question regarding... No harm, please allow us, O Shaykh.

The Shaykh : Go ahead.