Ibrahim’s Testimonial

TRANSCRIPT

Assalam Alaykum. My name is Ibrahim Khan and I have been blessed to study with Shaykh Hamza Karamali for the past four years. Before I studied with Shaykh Hamza, I would say I was a Muslim due to culture, and now I can confidently say, alhamdulillah, that I am a muslim due to conviction.

When I was in sixth grade, I was going to a small private Islamic school here in Southern California, and I joined the Orange County debate league, which was made up of many different private schools here in California, the majority of them non-Muslim. I took debate for two years, and during my time doing debate, I used to watch debates on YouTube to help hone my debate skills. And some debates I came across were the Muslim vs atheist debates, and when I watched those debates something happened that I didn’t want to fully admit. And that was that some of the atheist arguments seemed to make sense. And some of the Muslim debators’ refutations didn’t completely satisfy me.

So to be honest I walked away from some of those debates with some questions, with some doubts, but I was too scared to admit it, so I never brought it up to anyone, I never went to any teachers, I never asked, and I just put them aside and tried to forget about them.

But then when I studied with Shaykh Hamza, two things happened. Number 1, he ended up answering all those questions without me even asking, and number two, he created an atmosphere where I felt comfortable to ask. And throughout my time with Shaykh Hamza we studied all the atheist arguments, we studied the Islamic arguments from an intellectual sand point, we didn't shy away from anything, I told him about the debates, I sent him some if the debates that i watched, and told him some of the things that this guy said confused me, we went through them, and alhamdulillah I can say now that I have zero doubts in Islam, and I feel like I can debate any atheist, no matter how famous he is, no matter how many books he has published, no matter how many speeches he has given, no matter how many debaters he has destroyed; I feel like I could debate any atheist, and alhamdulillah I feel like I am a Muslim due to conviction, and I honestly believe that anyone can attain this level of confidence by studying at Basira Education. Alhamdulillah, BarakAllahu Feekum. Assalam Alykum Wa Rahmatullah.