KHUTAB IV: 2. YUSUF ESTES

2. YUSUF ESTES

Brothers in Islam,

This is a summary of the story of Sheikh Yusuf Estes, a former preacher against Islam, and how he found Islam. He himself, his wife, his children, his father and stepmother all embraced Islam. This story might give us an idea what some non-Muslims think about us, Muslims, and how to have a good dialogue with them.

In his talk about Priests and Preachers entering Islam he said that his father and he had a business in a mall some years ago. When his father came home he told him that he was going to have a business with a man from Egypt, the land of Cleopatra and the pyramids. When he was told that the man was a Muslim, he told his father not to deal with this kind of person. “Muslims are terrorists, hijackers, and do not believe in God.” But his father insisted that they should meet him.

          So he wanted to meet him on Sunday after returning from the church, carrying his Bible and putting his cap on where it was written Jesus is the Lord. He was expecting to see a man like Ayatollah Khomaini with a beard, wearing a turban, but found a normal man, without beard and even without hair, bald.

          After introducing himself as Muhammad, he was asked whether he believed in God, Abraham, Moses, David and Solomon, the Old Testament and the New Testament, in Jesus and his miracle birth. As he did, Sheikh Yusuf Estes agreed to do business with him, hoping to convert him to Christianity. But his father told him to leave this person alone, which he did not do. He met his friend carrying a big cross, and preached Christianity, but also advised him to stay away from this Muslim, because he said he was very dangerous. When the man with a big cross got heart attack, he visited him, and he met a Catholic priest in the hospital, who told him that the Muslims knew Christianity as well as Islam, and the Christian priests also knew about Islam as well as Christianity, and advised him to stay away from the Muslims.

          In a discussion the Egyptian Muslim, Muhammad, told Sheikh Yusuf that he would go to his religion and become Christian if his religion, Christianity, is better than his religion, Islam; but he made a condition, namely, proof. To this, Sheikh Yusuf said that religion is not about proof, but about faith. He said “In Islam we have both, proof and faith.’

“Are you going to tell me there is proof that there is God?”

“Yes,”

“I don’t think so.”

Thinking that the man was no match for him, Sheikh Yusuf needed help. His father was an ordained minister and read the whole Bible when he was ten years old, and had a certificate for that, his wife was conversant in the Bible and had her own Bible.

          After dinner, he cleared the table, brought his own Bible, his father with his Bible, his wife with her Bible, and the Catholic priest with his own Bible. But his father had King James Bible version, he had Revised Standard Bible, his wife had Jimmy Swaggard Bible and all are different Bibles. The Catholic priests had 73 books in his Bible, and they had only 66 books.

“How are we going to justify what verses we are talking about in the Bible to this man”, he said. Since they could not agree, he turned to the Muslim how many versions are there in the Qur’an. He said “One, and it is in Arabic, if not Arabic it is not Qur’an, it is recitation in its original language.” He had not seen anything like this before. People did not realize how powerful it is to have the original, in Arabic, while in any other religions they have copies and translations, people’s opinions, and books written about it. If someone writes now about the Qur’an, and then one thousand years from now and claimed it to be the Qur’an,  it is not the speech of Allah.

          The next night they wanted to talk about Christianity which is the easiest religion in the world. “You just say the magic word, you do not have to pray, you do not have to fast, you do not have to pay zakat and do the Hajj etc., you do not have to do anything.”

          Talking about salvation, how are you going to be saved. He said that in Christianity we have the perfect salvation, we have the grace. God can’t forgive sin, so he sent his son to die for everybody’s sin. Muhammad said,

 “Why can’t God forgive sin? If he can’t forgive sin, how come after killing his son he can forgive sin?” Sheikh Yusuf cannot answer this.

“So, you are guilty and His son is innocent, where in history do we find that it is good that an innocent was killed for the sake of the guilty one?” He did not know the answer, he had a problem with that one. Sheik Yusuf’s commentary to the audience, “If you have a bad son, really bad, ran round the house with a skateboard, broke the television set, broke some windows, you say ‘I can’t forgive him, so, I have another child here who did not do anything at all, so I will beat him up, no, I will kill him, the innocent one,’ people would put that man in insane asylum, won’t they? Society would not accept that, so why does religion accept it? And if you accept that, it will be OK to kill innocent children. But Islam forbids killing innocent children.” (In pre-Islamic era, some ignorant Arabs did that, esp. their daughters)

          Forget about the Bible, forget about the salvation, it does not work, especially when we say that nobody is safe except by grace, the Muslims also said it, and grace in Arabic is rahmah, and Allah said بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيْم and the word rahmah is mentioned many times throughout the Qur’an. According to the hadith Allah has 100 rahmah. The rahmah we have now   is only one part of 99 rahmah which will be given in the Hereafter. The Prophet said that nobody will be safe except with this rahmah, and he was asked, “Even you, O Messenger of Allah? He said, “Even me.”

The Muslim asked him whether he believed in God, and said “yes”.

 “Do you believe in Trinity?”

“Yes, three, one in three.”

“How does it work?”

Sheikh Yusuf went to his friend who had brought the big cross.

“Did you meet the man?  He said “yes” and told his problem.

“Stay away from this man, and I have told you.”

“But he believes in Jesus and his miracle birth and miracles he performed.”

“But he does not believe in the Cross and Salvation.”

“But all I have to do is to explain the trinity. But how can I explain the trinity?”

“Like an apple, it has a skin, inside the skin is the meat, and inside the meat is the seed. Three things, one apple, same way, the Son, the Father and the Holy Ghost, One God.”

The next night after supper, they sat together, the priest, his father, his wife, himself and Muhammad the Muslim. He pulled the apple and said:

“You see this apple? It has the skin, inside it the meat, and inside it the seed.” But Muhammad said, “There are six seeds there, what is that equal?  It looks like a worm gets through.”

Sheikh Yusuf went back to his friend, and said:

“The apple did not work.”

“Stay away from this guy. Forget about the apple. It is like the egg. The egg has a shell. Inside the egg is the white, and inside the white is the yolk, one egg”

He went home and said:

”See this egg?”

“What if it has a double yolk? God has just become four. And what if it is rotten?” So, Sheikh Yusuf forgot about that.

A few days later, he was at a parking lot, met somebody and told him his problem, how to explain the trinity. The man told him,

“You are a preacher…You see me, one person. You see my wife right there, one person, you see my child right there, one person; altogether, a family of three; it is a family of God.” Sheikh Yusuf said, “That is it.”

While returning home he thought about it: “… what if they have another kid? What if they have twin, what if they divorce, because in Texas if the woman got divorce she got the house, the car, the savings, retirement, (almost) everything.” So, he sat at the table and tried to find a clue. The Bible said, god is one, one, one, one, there is nothing except one, throughout the Bible there is no trinity, just one god.: O, Israel, your god is one Lord. That is in the book of Deuteronomy and the Book of Mark, the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Jews and the Christians are ordered to believe that God is One. Besides, who wants a god who in one minute can become rotten, and can become divorced. So we asked the Muslim about God. His answer was,

 قُلْ هُوَ اللَّهُ أَحَدٌ.  اللَّهُ الصَّمَدُ.  لَمْ يَلِدْ وَلَمْ يُولَدْ.  وَلَمْ يَكُنْ لَهُ كُفُوًا أَحَدٌ (الإخلاص : ١-٤)

Say (O Muhammad), He is Allah,(the) One, the Self

 Sufficient One, He begets not, nor was He begotten,

 And there is none comparable to Him (Q. 112)

Allah is the Uniquely One, the Eternal; He is not the father of anything; He is not the son of anything. He does not compare anything, and He is unique, one. He exclaimed:

“Wow, that sounds what I believe anyway.” After long discussion, the Catholic priest asked Muhammad the Muslim:

“Can I go to your church with you?”

“Sure, come on”, said Muhammad. They saw how they prayed. When they returned, Sheikh Yusuf took the priest aside and asked him what he saw. He said, “They stood there like monks, praying, and then they bowed, and made what only high priest used to do, prostration, and then left.”

“What kind of music did they have?”

“They don’t have any music.”

“How in the world you worship God without music? I was a music minister,” so he asked his Egyptian friend.

“Is it true you guys don’t have music in your mosque?”

“It is true.”

“How many mosques are there in the world?”

“Millions”

“They all have electricity there?

“Yes” Because he was selling electric pianos and organs, he thought he could get rich. So, he asked:

“Do you think they are interested in any music?”

“You can try, but I doubt it.”

[He did not make anything like haram (prohibited), haram]

Muhammad kept on tawhid (the Oneness of God). No matter what was the subject, he went back to lā ilāha illallāh (there is no god but Allah).

A few days more go by the Catholic priest asked if he could go again with him, because he said “I found such peace there and just would like to go there again,” and Muhammad said “sure”.

So, they left, and they did not come back, and was so late at night, and finally they come out of the car, and he recognized the Muslim with a man with a white kufiah and long white robe: that was the priest.

“What happened to you, did you become a Moslem?” He said  أشْهَدُ أَنْ لا إلهَ إلاّ اللهُ وَ أشْهَدُ أنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُوْلُ الله  (“I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah”)

 Sheikh Yusuf was shocked, and considered this was the biggest part of the story, because this man had dedicated his entire life to the Lord. He had completely given up all worldly things so that he could be a priest, he could not get married and have children, the priests don’t even gamble, they did not do anything, they just pray.

“So, wow, you have given all that up?” The priest said:

           “I am giving up nothing, I am gaining. This is the right way.” 

          Sheikh Yusuf came upstairs telling his wife: “Can you believe, a Catholic priest becomes a Muslims?” She said:

“I want to get divorce.”

“Ha, wait a minute; this is a different subject, what happened?” She said:

“I am listening of what is being talked about around here, I see where you are going, and I know where I want to go, and a Muslim cannot marry to a Christian, and I heard him say that, so I want divorce.”

“I am not going to become a Muslim, take it easy! Did I say I want to be one of them, no, I did not say that.” What she meant that a Muslim woman cannot marry to a Christian man, but if Sheikh Yusuf also becomes a Muslim she will be alright to be a Christian.

“That is what I am talking about; I want to become a Muslim.”

  By the way there is some good news here. He said,

“I do like to be a Muslim.”

“What?”

“You know, I don’t know how to say, but I also want to be a Muslim. I don’t know how to say in front of Dad, I also want to be a Muslim.”

 “You are a liar.”

“How can you say that?”

“You are either lying right now or you are lying five minutes ago when you said you did not want to be a Muslim. Get out,” she said.

He went down the step, all his life was flashing in front of him, his children, then remembered that this was his father’s house.  How was he going out from there?  He went down and woke up his Egyptian friend, and said:

 “We got to talk.”

“What is the matter?”

He told him his whole life story, and they were walking up and down the country roads, until dawn. The Egyptian was so patient and intent, and this was not the only time he listened. He told him to go for his fajr prayer, while Sheikh Yusuf found a piece of board, tried to face the direction his friend did, put his head down, and thought that if it worked for the Muslims it might work also for him, put down his head and said: “O God, if You are there, guide me.”  He found that the hardest part of changing religion is that he is responsible for what he did, and you pay for what you did. He took a bath, then came to his Egyptian friend, pronounced the shahadah (testimony of the oneness of God, namely, (“I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah” as above). A few minutes later, his wife also came and pronounced the shahadah. His father did the same later. His stepmother, a few months before she died at the age of 86, also said the shahadah.

Sheikh Yusuf said, that that year a woman of 99 years gave the shahadah, and her children, grand children and great-grand children, all became Muslims, all were Americans. An Indian woman from India had a vision, and said: “I was in a store and saw a book and knew I had to buy this book.” Her driver took her to a store and recognized it. She saw the book and started screaming, and bought it; it was the translation of the Qur’an. She wanted to read it and believe in it. Her driver for over 7 years, she found out, was also a Muslim. He never told her, she thought he was a Hindu. The one who sold the book was also a Muslim. The lady, the brand new Muslim, came to him and said: “I would like to take one of your tapes and made CD out of it” He said: “Go ahead and have a good time.” She did and made over 600 000 copies and distributed all over the United States. Sheikh Yusuf said that many people came to Islam because of her efforts, not his. He said that you can be part of the story. You go to the website: Islamtoworrow.com and Islamyesterday.com and download as many as you like for free, make copy of them and give them out to all people. (27 June, 2008)