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why I chose Islam. I mean, I’m not completely convinced that I chose Islam. I mean, in some ways, Islam chose me as well. So it’s, you know, guidance is a very strange thing for people. Like I saw an inevitability when I look back on what happened, I saw an inevitability of my embracing Islam. I had some very interesting experiences that could be termed mystical or however you want to determine them. But the tradition itself, what struck me was one, I got to keep all of the prophets that I believed in already. And I added in addition, what we consider to be the final prophet. And just as very often Christians marvel at how Jews miss Jesus, Muslims also marvel at how Christians and Jews miss Muhammad, although to be fair to the Jews, they do acknowledge the prophet as a providential force. And they do acknowledge him as a Noah Hiddick messenger preparing the way for the coming of the Messiah. So they do recognize that he was a providential force, at least the great, if you read George Coller’s book on Jewish theology as a chapter on Judaism and Islam, and certainly the great father of Orientalism, Ikenaz Golzahar, he actually said that he felt that Islam was the only religion that somebody of a philosophical bent could actually accept. And he wanted to really bring in the gift of philosophy into Judaism that had been that the Muslims had so richly participated in. In fact, there’s an argument that just as Judaism prepared the way for Christianity, it was Islam that prepared the way for a philosophical Western Christendom. Because if you look at the transmission of all of that knowledge that comes into Europe, it’s quite extraordinary. I mean, St. Thomas Aquinas, who’s 13th century, he dies in 1274. And yet, he’s the doctor of the church. Just look at the number of times he quotes Muslims. I mean, he calls Averroes the commentator. So I think Islam, you know, one of the beauties of the religion to me is that you’ll find whatever you’re looking for in it. I mean, Islam, you it has a very simple theology that anybody can understand in sort of the Ikhlas, the chapter that says, say, God is is unique. God is completely independent. God neither gives birth nor was God born and there’s nothing like God. So it gives you a very simple theology that anybody can understand. And yet embedded in that simplicity is an extraordinary complexity that actually created a metaphysical tradition that Western scholars have spent their lifetime studying people like Henri Corleone or somebody it’s like Maxime Rodinson, not Maxime Rodeson, but the great Catholic theologian and metaphysician Jacques Mérite, you know, recognize the genius of people like Al-Halaj and things. So within the Islamic tradition, there’s just an extraordinary spectrum, you can spend your entire life and have a satisfying life. And I know people that have done this, just mastering the recensions of the Quran and the qiraat, the actual oral expression of the Quran through the rules of tajwi. You can spend your life studying exegesis, you can spend your life studying prophetic tradition, you can spend your life studying the great mystics of Islam, we have the best poets in the world. We also have the best architecture. I mean, there’s nothing like the Taj Mahal, or the Alhambra Palace. And even Western architecture, if you read Stealing from the Saracens, she shows how some of the finest Western architecture was basically taken from the Islamic civilization, including Notre Dame in Paris. So you can find incredible I know people that just came to Islam through music. I mean, I know some really professional musicians that fell in love with Arabic music, which led them into Muslim culture. People that love just, I mean, one of the most interesting things about Islam is it is a truly universal religion in that you can go from Indonesia to California, and find all of these different expressions of the same central truths of Islam with their own local colorings. So the West African Muslims are not like the Middle Eastern Muslims, the Middle Eastern Muslims are not like the Indian Muslims. And you have people like, you know, one of the great impressionist painters of Sweden, I think he’s actually considered a national treasure in Sweden. But his his paintings hang in the museum there, he became Muslim in jail in, in for actually, he shot a matador because he was raised by his father was a veterinarian. And he shot a matador, because he was so horrified that they were bringing bullfighting into France. And there was such an uproar that they actually released him. But when he was in jail, he befriended an Algerian who used to recite Quran all the time. And he ended up becoming Muslim. And, and then studying in Egypt, and then going back to, to his native land, he died in Spain. But extraordinary individuals. So you have people like that you have people that anybody can find what they’re looking for. And that is the power of the faith, I think is that it is truly a universal faith. And I think one of the things that Western people tend to do, one, they don’t recognize that it’s a Western faith, because it is, it’s part of the Abrahamic faith. It was in Spain for centuries. It’s been in Eastern Europe for centuries. And even Istanbul, which is the great capital of Islam for centuries is half in Europe and half in in, in the East. And that’s why it really bridges these two worlds. And so there’s so much, I mean, why is it part of the reason why I think it makes sense for religious people, Christians, Jews and Islamic alike to focus on their commonalities in the face of the things that are disintegrating our cultures. We could start by trying to make some peace between us if we’re going to consort ourselves reasonably as religious individuals.