podcast interview 1

The speaker is a PhD student in the Netherlands studying kinesiology and researching physical activity for people with disabilities. They discuss their journey of exploring Islam and challenging misconceptions about the religion. They emphasize the importance of seeking evidence and understanding before forming negative opinions. They also address misconceptions about violence in Islam, stating that it is against transgression and only permits self-defense. They highlight the respect for women in Islam, mentioning historical contributions by Muslim women and the equality between men and women in the religion. They encourage people to travel and interact with real Muslims to gain a better understanding of the religion and its followers. Alright, can you please introduce yourself, share a bit about your experience, your background? Yes, of course. Thank you for having me. My name is Jansen. I live in the northern part of the Netherlands. I am a PhD student. I am in my second year. I do research in kinesiology. This is the study of human body movement. And we do research about physical activity and exercise, especially in those who have disabilities and physical disabilities and find it hard to exercise. And we try to help them with that problem. So that's what I'm busy with now. Thank you. So about our topic, why we are here today, I would like to discuss your experience with Islam. So could you walk us through some key moments, experiences that you played? I cannot. I think I can cut it. Thank you. Could you walk us through some key moments or experiences that played significant role in your decision to convert to Islam? Maybe, were there any challenges, stereotypes, misconceptions you had to navigate during your journey? Yes, absolutely. Actually, I would say that I have looked into the misconceptions more than I looked into maybe the good things I heard, I would say, at the very beginning. So as we all probably know, there are a lot, or there has been a lot, there have been a lot of negative news about this religion specifically in the past decades. And I was curious always, where is this all coming from? Where are all these negative points coming from? Are they actually coming from a concrete set of evidence, or is it just some political views, or it's coming from an ignorant place? So first thing I did in my journey exploring Islam is to investigate this. Now I know there are misconceptions, but before there were negative points, so I wanted to understand, does Islam actually preach or preaches these negative points? So that was the first challenge. I call it as a challenge because you have to be very fair and open-minded to be able to do that, to give something that you have no relation to or something. You give it a chance and be open-minded and say, okay, I heard this view, but I will hear the other and the other. It requires some effort to do that, so that was challenging, of course, but it is the right thing to do. No matter what point of view you hear, no matter what side, you have to always hear the other side, what they have to say, always. And that's what I tried to do. It was challenging, but luckily I managed to do that. Okay, so you are talking about two sides, and what do you see as the most significant differences between this Western perception of Islam and reality, real Islam? Yes, I think the idea that has been drawn or painted is, I can say, totally contradicts the reality of this religion. Yes, it alienates human beings, and it paints them in a robe or in an image of, especially dehumanizing, if I am honest. And if you dehumanize someone, you can easily hate them and you can easily dismiss them, I think, and this is what was going on. And also ignorance, of course, of lack of knowledge plays a big role in this, because as we know, people are afraid of things that they don't know. And since they don't naturally, I mean, it's also, I have some sympathy towards this, not everyone is knowledgeable about everything. So, if some people don't know about Islam, sometimes it's not their fault. So, they are, a lot of the times, they are just afraid, just because they don't know. Not because they mean bad or they have hatred in their heart or something, no. It's just because they don't know enough. So, to go back to your point, yes, the image that has been painted is like, it's almost like these people are living a life of violence or oppression of women and that's their whole goal and objective in life, to oppress women and to be violent. Yeah, and that was absolutely contradicting the reality from my experience, because I had Muslim friends all my life. They are very loving, very respectful. The people, they are like any other people, Muslims or Christians or Atheists or Jews or like anyone else, they have hopes and dreams. They wake up, they want to go to school, they want to pass the exam, they want to get a job, they want to get married and that's it. Yeah, but because of this misrepresentation, all these human things, they get lost. So, they get really dehumanized, I think. So, what would you say to a person who has this misconception, who has this bond with terrorism and with Islam, for example? Does this relate to each other or it's just a stereotype? Yes, first of all, you should ask the person, please give me the proof. And I guarantee you, not even 99%, 100% of the cases, they don't know what they are talking about. So, a lot of times, we are all guilty of it. We just repeat what we hear. If we hear it from this channel like 50 times or from this channel 50 times and we watch it on YouTube and Facebook and everything, we unconsciously start believing something we don't even know what we believe in. And we don't even have an evidence for it, but we just repeat it. So, my point, if I'm talking to this person, please show me where is this coming from, this point that this religion is associated with violence and preaches violence. Show me exactly in their teachings, where does it say this. And of course, anyone can take any verse or any text and take it out of context, but I would try to challenge that person intellectually, of course. Challenge him to provide me with the evidence. To show me that he or she really understands what he or she is saying. That's what I would do. And if a person asks you what Islam says about violence and about peace, what would you say? I would say that Islam is absolutely against transgression. I'm not going to say it is like some religions, I think. I'm not going to name because I'm not sure. They claim to be totally pacifist, so that's their doctrine. Islam doesn't claim to be pacifist. So, for example, if you hit someone's child, we don't say in our religion, okay, the father will not do anything to you, we are pacifist. We don't say this. We say it is not transgressive, it's absolutely against transgression and attacking. It's only defensive. So, any ounce of violence that's committed against innocent people, and that's committed in an offensive way, so you are the one who's starting to attack people, to hurt people in any way, this is one of the biggest sins and biggest mistakes you can ever do as a Muslim. And one of the biggest pillars we have, this is coming from the Quran, is if you kill one innocent person, it's as if you killed all of humanity. And if you revive a life, a human life, it's as if you revived all of humanity. So, human life has a great, great, great value in this religion, and it's not about the physical violence. Even verbal, even psychological, even spiritual, you can really never harm or attack any other fellow human being. Unless, of course, it's in a defensive situation where you have to defend yourself. So, I would say to these misconceptions, it's absolutely and totally contradicting the teachings of what Islam actually preaches. Thank you so much. Talking about this specific topic, about misconceptions, I would just like to know your opinion about such stereotype that women are not respected. That's what I heard, that was my fear, for example, before I found out something. So, what can you say about respect and women in Islam? Yes, of course, I know this is a big point, but most people, for example, don't know that one of the first, if not the first university in the world, was created by a Muslim woman. They don't know that, for example, the right for inheritance was given to Muslim women 1400 years ago, which the worst they got maybe less than 100 years ago. The right for divorce, that a woman had the right to divorce her man. The right of a woman to choose who she marries to. Now, something should be clear here. There is a difference between what Islam teaches and difference between what cultures, for example, some cultures, they have their own traditions and something, and they do things their own way. And some, an external person, sees this person from this culture doing something, and then he says, oh, he's doing this because of Islam. No, Islam does not teach this person to do any of that, it's actually against it. But this person chooses to follow his culture or her culture, and they do these bad things. Islam is against any form of women oppression in any kind. In the Quran, it mentions specifically that men and women are equal and at the same level. Not just that, I would argue that even women in our faith is even more favored than men, because the man has to work for her, has to protect her, has an obligation, a divine obligation to do that for her, to die for her, to do everything for her, while she maintains the freedom to work, to study, to do whatever she wants, whatever a man wants. And on top of that, she can choose to, for example, not work. She has the right to say, oh, I choose to follow my hobbies, and my husband will do the work for me. She has the right to do that. What other constitution or law or religion in the world says that? So, women in our religion, they are truly, and I'm not even exaggerating, they are truly queens. And if you visit any Muslim country, you will see how women are treated, and you will understand what I am talking about. And this brings me to the other point, is to actually travel and to talk to people, to talk to real Muslims, to travel to real Muslim countries. And sometimes you don't even have to do that if you don't have the money. Just watch, go on YouTube and watch vloggers traveling to Muslim-majority countries, and see their experiences. They are not being paid for, they are not Muslim, they are not, yeah, they are independent, mostly Western young men and women traveling to these countries. And please, go ahead and listen and see for your eyes what the experiences are like. So, yeah. Thank you. So, there is a big difference between the perception of Islam in Western culture and real Islam. And so, you have this recent transition to Islam, and how would you say it impacted your daily life and your also relationship with Western culture? How it impacted you? Well, I think your life, first thing, your life becomes, I'm going to talk about myself, and my life became more meaningful. Now it has a meaning, a big meaning. So now, everything you do has like a bigger purpose. Whether, even if you take care of yourself, you take care of your loved ones, you do, when you do work, you do it properly and everything. All of this now, in Islam, are considered acts of worship. If you plant a flower, if you help an old man, if you help a lady like walk at night or something, all of these are acts of worship. So, everything you do, every small thing now has a huge and big meaning, a divine meaning. Other than that, also, because in Islam, it really stresses the importance of community ties, on the larger level, but also on the smaller level. So, you would, personally, you would have, I would have, I am having better or closer relation to my parents, because parents play, have a special place in Islam, considering all the sacrifices that they gave you, your siblings, all your family, and outside of your family, we are talking now society, your neighbor, as one of the narrations of Prophet Muhammad said, when he said, like, I don't recall the exact words, but with the meaning, if a Muslim goes to sleep while his neighbor is hungry, then that guy is not a Muslim. This is how much it stresses the importance of taking care of each other and being one community, and it preaches the brotherhood and sisterhood between everyone, and not just between only Muslims, between all human beings, as in the Quran, it said, we created you in two nations, nations or tribes to get to know each other, to know each other and to live with each other. So, you start becoming more, I would say, open-minded to other cultures and to other religions, and more understanding and more sympathetic. Yeah, this is my personal experience, which is, of course, totally contradicting with what you would hear in the media, because they would say, yeah, totally the opposite of what I just told you. While the difference is, what they said is based on, I would say, lack of knowledge, or sadly, at some point, some political hateful comments, while what I'm telling you, you can find it for yourself, you can read the Quran for yourself, it's available everywhere in almost every language, you can find YouTube videos everywhere, and then you would, and you can agree or disagree, but at least you would have done your research, and you would at least, even if you say something hateful, at least it's based on evidence, not just you watched one minute or 20 minute YouTube video and say, okay, now I know. We have to be honest and we have to be objective, and even if we don't have relation or good relation to a certain topic, we have to always be fair and objective. I know it's difficult because we are humans, we have our biases, and we can be subjective and so on, but we should all try to the best of our ability to be objective and to be fair to everyone. And if you do that, I did that, and I found my truth, and I hope that everyone finds also their truth. Okay, so you just came to my next question, which is for individuals who hold these misconceptions about Islam, what advice would you offer to them based on your journey? I would advise you, I don't know whoever I'm talking to, wherever you live, but I'm sure there are some Muslim people around you. Give them a chance. Take a visit to the mosque. Don't be scared if they have a beard or something. I don't know. Don't be scared. Just go inside and shake a hand of the imam or any person there and say, I want to learn more about this. Believe me, give that a chance. They don't bite, they don't like human meat, so don't worry about that. Just talk. Talk to another Muslim. Now we are living in the age of internet, no information is hidden. Go and do your research. Listen to people like my stories now, or other stories, other stories of converts. Why? How come? Because we hear all these stories. For example, where I live, one very famous politician, Yoram Van Klaver, something like this, he was a far-right politician. He was totally opposing Islam. And he was preaching for banning, can you imagine, banning a whole religion from the whole country of the Netherlands? And then he ended up becoming Muslim. How? How can that even happen? And it is not an ordinary case. Because as we know, you can Google this for yourself, this religion is the fastest growing religion. What's going on? Despite all this negative information that we see everywhere, but people are still converting, and not just any people, people who were far-right in their political views and their religious views and everything, who were extremists, and they end up choosing this religion that they vowed to fight. How? What they did, if you listen to their stories, I'm going to give you a spoiler, what they did is, they actually met Muslims in real life. They actually read. For example, this guy I'm talking to you about, a far-right politician in the Netherlands, you can find him online. What's his story? Basically, he wanted to write a book against Islam, and against the Quran, to prove to Dutch people, and to Europeans, and to Western people, that this religion does not go with the values of the West, and it's a religion of violence, and a religion of oppression of women. So he wanted to write a book about that. So of course, when you write a book, you need resources, right? So when he was reading his resources, he was learning more and more about Islam. He ended up becoming Muslim. Can you imagine? Just to put it simply, he ended up becoming Muslim while he was writing a book against Islam. Like this. And in conclusion, knowledge. Seek knowledge. I'm not telling you that you will also, if you seek knowledge, oh, you will become a Muslim or not. There's no such a thing. Just to be fair and seek knowledge, at least when you have an opinion, no matter what it is, it is for or against Islam, at least. It is based on factual information. That's all, that's the bare minimum that we need to do as fair, objective human beings, I think. That's my advice. All right. So the last question I have for you is what positive changes, developments, would you like to see in how Islam and Muslims are perceived in Western society? It's sad that I will say this, but it's very basic. It's sad because it's such a basic thing and we should not say it because we're humans. But the first thing I would like to see changed is just if Muslims get humanized. That's it. Can you imagine we have to say this? Can you imagine? But apparently, sadly, we have to say this because even I can talk about myself and my surroundings when the topic about Islam or Muslims comes, it's like they were not even seen as humans. They were like seen as something else who want to destroy humans or something like this. Like I was telling you before, like a Muslim boy or girl or man or woman, they don't wake up in the morning and then, oh, I'm late for school. I have to run to school. I have this exam tomorrow. And then I have to pass this and I go to high school. I want to go to university now. I want to get married. I want to have kids. No, they don't have any of this. They are this dark, violent. This is such a dangerous view that has been painted, sadly. And it's very dehumanizing which is very dangerous because if you dehumanize people, it can lead to atrocities. And if it doesn't lead to atrocities, it can at least lead to feelings of hatred and exclusion and racism and Islamophobia and so on. So that's the first thing that I would like to change. And maybe the only thing, because I think if you just dehumanize other human beings, the rest will follow. So that's my only... That's the thing that I would like to see changed, I think, yeah. Thank you so much for our discussion, for our topic discussion today. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, for giving me the chance to present to you my opinions. And as I said, everyone has their own truth. I would say, I would recommend everyone to just do their research and let the rest follow by itself. As I said, sometimes it's stuff you don't even choose. You just do your research and things happen. So just be open-minded and keep an open mind, yeah, keep an open mind for knowledge from everywhere, from everywhere. Yeah, that's all I have to say. And thank you very much for having me. Thank you so much. All right. Half an hour.