Euthanasia, Aliens - Contemporary Issues

Contemporary Issues: Euthanasia and Aliens - Dr. Bilal Philips

Opening

(بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ - bismillahir-rahmanir-rahim)

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Most Merciful.

Introduction

We'd like to welcome you, dear viewers, to our program, Contemporary Issues, in which we like to examine some of the new issues which are in people's minds, in their thoughts, in the newspapers, etc., you know, today. What do we do as Muslims? Or what is the Islamic position on this? Or does Islam have a position? And as we've pointed out in many programs, Islam has a position.

It's from God, there's guidance in it regarding everything. Human beings cannot bring anything into this world wherein there is not some guidance from Islam addressing it. The issue we're going to look at first today is that of euthanasia.

Following that, we will also look at the issues of the aliens.

Topic 1: Euthanasia (Mercy Killing)

Definition and Types

Euthanasia, which really is a Greek word, which means literally a good death, a good death. And it has been defined as the act of killing a person for reasons of mercy.

Because of that, they call it also mercy killing. Your relative, your husband or your wife, they're suffering in some disease or whatever, put them out of their suffering, you know, just like we have animals. When a horse breaks its leg or whatever, you know, some animal hurts itself in such a way, they put it out of its misery, just kill it.

So similarly, you know, your wife, your son, your whatever, relative, your good friend, they're suffering, there doesn't seem to be an end to their suffering. Okay, inject something, kill them, or withhold water from them or food or whatever, let them starve and die. So mercy killing can be either active or passive.

Active meaning you inject something in them, you actually do something to kill them, shoot them or whatever. Or you do it passively, that is you don't, they need such and such to continue to survive and you don't provide it

for them.

Arguments in Support of Euthanasia

Now, those, the supporters of euthanasia basically argue that it gives relief from pain and suffering.

Furthermore, it emerges from the human right to control their own lives and then die with dignity. They also argue that by ending the life of a hopeless case, another's life in need of an organ could be saved. Sounds good.

That sounds good. But it is the product of the secular view of life that if you can't live life without pain, no point in living, really. There's no purpose beyond enjoyment.

The purpose of life here is just to enjoy, to do enjoyable things, to live a life which is pleasant, etc. So if you can't live that pleasant life, which is all your purpose is, then why live? This is the kind of rationale behind this approach to euthanasia.

Islamic Perspective on Life and Suffering

Whereas from the Islamic point of view, life has a purpose.

The purpose is to worship God, to live a life which is in the worship of God. It may involve pain, it may involve suffering, it may involve good times. Both aspects, we continue to worship God.

So, basically, we are not allowed to take a life. To take that life is murder. The so-called mercy killing is just plain killing.

From the Islamic perspective, when a person suffers in pain, if they are patient with it, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, it purifies them of sin. And for those who Allah loves, He will put certain trials on them at the end of their lives, etc. So much so that they emerge from this life pure from sins, from their sins.

Their past sins have been eradicated by the suffering. It's a general principle, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, that the believer, if he is only pricked by a thorn, he's walking on the road and a thorn sticks in his foot, he's patient with that, so simple thing, it removes from him sins. This is the nature of suffering from the Islamic perspective.

If one is patient with it, one is rewarded by the purification of sin. So, therefore, the idea of a person suffering at the end of their life, to go just to finish them off, put them out of their misery, no. You're denying the person the chance to purify themselves before leaving this world.

So, from the Islamic perspective, we encourage them to be patient, to hang in there, remember Allah, and it is good for them.

Prohibition of Wishing for Death

Even wishing for death, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) forbade it. They don't wish for death, not

allowed.

If you really feel in such dire straits, you need to express something of this nature, the only thing you're allowed to say is, O Allah! If living is better for me, let me live. But if dying is better for me, then let me die. That's all.

You're still leaving the affair to Allah. But to say, Allah, let me die, I can't stand this life anymore, this is forbidden. Not allowed in Islam.

Topic 2: Aliens and Extraterrestrial Life

Modern Obsession with Alien Life

Now, the other topic which I mentioned was that of aliens. Of course, this has become, you know, very, very popular today. Whether it's in the X-Files or the various other programs that have developed, you know, talking about alien life, you know.

You have the Star Trek series and all these different things, all focusing on human beings living in a universe loaded with other beings that are their equivalents and sometimes greater than them, you know, because they believe life could have evolved elsewhere.

The SETI Program

So, you have millions and millions of dollars spent on the SETI program, which is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, where they've set up these huge, you know, electronic telescopes in islands in the Pacific and in islands in the West Indies, et cetera, listening, pointing to the heavens, listening in. You know, and more and more are being set up.

They want to hear, they're waiting for some alien being to finally make contact. They've been doing it for years. Millions have been spent, time, hour, energy, and all this kind of stuff which could have been used to benefit human beings here on the Earth.

But instead, no, they are driven by this desire to make this contact. So what, so they couldn't do it, they made a movie called Contact, you know, which is about one of these programs, SETI programs, where people are listening in. Finally, they heard it and they got some, you know, plans for some spacecraft which will take them out to the universe.

It's a set of nonsense. Anyway, the point is that that's the only place that it's going to happen in the movies. We are not going to make contact with any more intelligent life.

The Search for Planets

Right now, the big thing is we have seen these new, so many millions of stars out there, millions and billions of

stars, millions of billions of billions of stars, trillions of stars out there, so many of them like the Earth. Surely, there must be planets around them, and if there are planets around them, then the chances for life to occur on Earth must have occurred there. So they're busy now trying to find planets around stars.

And they found them, 70-odd planets, the latest count I read in the papers a few days ago, 73 or something stars they found now, stars which have planets around them. Of course, they can't see the planets. It's too far away.

But, you know, from the effects, the movement of the star itself, you know, they detect this kind of wobble in its movement, which is the product of having bodies around it, and they can sort of detect like the shadow of the planet as opposed to the actual planet itself. So, from this now they've identified. So they say, oh, we found 73, and there's many more.

So the chances for life, they're obsessed with this. Going to Mars, you know, trying to find life on Mars somewhere, you know. I mean, why, why, why is this obsession? Because they have denied God.

Root Cause: Denial of God

They've denied God's existence. And they said, we're here by accident. And what is the nature of an accident? That it can be repeated.

That's the nature of the accident. It happened one time. It shouldn't be able to happen again. That's the idea. We're here by accident. So, accidents somewhere, somewhere else in the universe must be producing other beings.

Got to. That's their, you know, enthusiasm. But, you know, at the bottom of it, they're scared. We are, in fact, alone in this universe. There's nobody communicating with us. There's no other life that is involved anywhere else.

Or if we do manage to find it, it will only be some microbes. We'll not find other beings which come here to us, you know. Because then it's a very scary thing to be all alone in this universe. And there be no God. What then is the point of life? It's this situation which causes them to be so obsessed with finding life externally. And why the whole alien issue pops up, you know.

Historical Context of UFO Phenomena

Pops up when? Basically, in the 40s, the 50s. This is when the atheist view started to really pick up in Western civilization. Whether it is in communist Russia, China, or in America.

Atheist views became very strong, very prominent. People were speaking it openly, you know. Programs developed for the television.

Carl Sagan, you know, and others carrying on the atheist tradition. So, parallel to this was people, since, you know, people searching for extraterrestrial life. Oh, people have found it.

Space flying saucers have been coming to the Earth, flying around the Earth, picking up human beings, experimenting on them, and all these kind of things. People have seen them, little green men, you know, slit eyes and big heads, walking around, stinging bodies, and this type of things, you know. This is a common phenomena.

Islamic Explanation: The World of Jinn

Well, if there is a reality to it, to the UFOs, because much of the sightings and all these kind of things can be explained away. Natural phenomena, fakery, all kinds of things. But there is an element which there really doesn't seem to be any explanation for.

Okay, we'll say that some people actually saw what appeared to them to be alien beings. What was it? What did they see really? Is it really alien life? No, it's not alien life. If anything, this is from the world of the jinn, the parallel beings that have a choice just like human beings that live along with us in this world.

These beings have been called a variety of different names in different societies. They have appeared amongst the people, and they've been referred to as fairies, leprechauns, demons, spirits, a variety of different names have been given to them. But this other parallel world to us is something which all human societies recognize, but they've given it a variety of different names.

In Islam, it's clearly defined. They're referred to as the jinn. Not the genie in the lamp that we see from Aladdin.

Probably the lamp and the genie pops up and you have three wishes, master, whatever, this type of thing. This is a distortion of the idea of the jinn. They can take forms.

Nature and Activities of Jinn

And those, I mean, of course, they interfere with our world. And it is the evil amongst them who do so, because among them are believers and among them are disbelievers. The evil amongst them, and Satan is from that world, the evil amongst them seeks to draw human beings into disbelief, corruption, idol worship, and a variety of other things.

So, if there were, in fact, real sightings, then it is from the world of the jinn, because it confirms for people their belief that they're not alone in the universe. You know, super-intelligent beings have come here. Maybe they're responsible for the inexplicable developments in various societies, whether it's the building of the pyramids or the Aztec temples in Central America, or a variety of structures around the world which they can't seem to find an explanation where and how these people did these things.

You know, the alien theory is the easy explanation. And, actually, it has become a sort of replacement for religion. People, the alien, the idea of, you know, it gives importance again to human beings.

Aliens as a Replacement for Religion

So the idea of beings coming from galaxies, traveling light years through the galaxy to come to the Earth, to circle the Earth and to, curious about the people on the Earth, you know, taking them up into their spare craft and checking them out, et cetera. It gives us, again, a sense of importance in the universe, you know, without which, once people denied God's existence, then we became nothing, just a nothing, having no purpose, no nothing, you know. That vacuum that people then felt was filled by the idea of the aliens.

So many movies have been made about them, et cetera, et cetera, you know. And this thought is revolving in the minds of so many people today. But it is part of the tricks of Satan, well, some of the satanic tricks to keep people away from God.

That's the bottom line.

Islamic Position on Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life

So, from the Islamic perspective, the idea of life existing beyond the Earth is not acceptable. That is intelligent life, meaning that they have a chance to choose between good and evil, just as we do, so on and so on.

So why does Islam reject this idea? Because Prophet Muhammad, may God's peace and blessings be upon him, as it states clearly in the Quran and as he stated himself, was sent to all the worlds. He gave us information to deal with whatever was to come in this world. He prophesied the ending of the world, the signs of the last day, all these different things.

Where did he get that information from? We don't believe that he made this stuff up. It came out of his own head. This was revealed to him by God, through the agency of the angel Gabriel.

And all the detailed information of the ending of the world and the signs, etc., that he gave, surely, if human beings were going to run into aliens, aliens coming and dealing with them, etc., who never came in contact with the religion of God, etc., then, or if they had their own revelation or whatever, then the Prophet would have given us, may God's peace and blessings be upon him, information, information of this world. And what would happen, and these type of things, and how to deal with this situation. So, for Muslims, this is unacceptable.

That there may be some other form of microbial life, the level of microbes, cells, and so on and so forth, it's quite possible, plant life, these kind of things. But other intelligent human beings, no. This is unacceptable.

So the whole alien theory, alien beliefs, which are based on denial of God, Islam rejects totally. In its place, God's system is focused on God, it's based on God, the belief that there is a God, that we are created here with a purpose. Yes, there are, quote-unquote, alien beings that do exist in this world along with us.

The Reality of Jinn in Our World

This is the world of the jinn, invisible to us for most parts, but sometimes some elements among them do

become visible, visible in different forms in our world. They do interfere, they appear as visions, etc. They might even enter into the idols of the idol worshippers.

The phenomenon which happened here about three years ago, in different parts of the world, in India, etc., where the elephant-head god of the Hindus, Ganesh, started to drink milk, appeared to be drinking milk, all over the place. What was happening here? How did that happen? Scientists tried to explain it as capillary action and all this kind of stuff in the storm, but this was rejected. No explanation for it.

For the Hindus, that was confirmation that what they believe in is really true. Ganesh really is a god. But for Muslims, it's just confirmation that the jinn will possess objects and cause certain phenomena to take place, which will give the impression to those people that these are in fact true objects of worship.

Historical Example: The Golden Calf

Just as in the case in the time of Prophet Moses, when he went up to receive the commandments, and he left behind his people, and an individual among them made this golden calf from their gold jewelry, and he claimed to have cast in the mix, say, dust from the footprints of an angel. People didn't bow to that calf until the calf lowed. So the calf said, moo, communicated, made a sound, the sounds that calves do.

This is what led them to the worship of the calf. Where did that come from? Was it the calf mooing? Of course not. We believe it was the calf, this golden calf, was possessed by a jinn.

The jinn went into it and gave that sound, gave that impression to the people, and led to their worship of that calf, golden calf. So this kind of phenomena has happened in different parts of the world. In all of the various religions which involve idolatry, worship of statues and humans, etc., you will find different phenomena taking place in their worlds, stories which they hand down or things which may even happen today, which tend to reinforce their beliefs and their practices, because this is what the jinn or the evil amongst them want.

As they're involved in disbelief in God and worshiping others besides God, and evil and corruption, they want others to share in. The mischief of that world affects our world. And unfortunately, people have fallen into this trap, believing or thinking that this is in fact true, and that their beliefs and their practices are in fact true, and as such it becomes much more difficult for them to find the real truth, the real truth of Islam.

Conclusion: The Truth of Islam

This is where the truth lies. All of the answers, the method of dealing with the things of this life, whether ancient or modern things to come, the answers lie here in Islam. Islam, the religion of God, which encompasses all things, because it is ultimately from God, is a religion of reason where the human intellect is not negated and cancelled, asked to believe in things which are unbelievable, like God being three yet being one.

This is nonsense. This is confusion. This is not the religion of God.

The religion of God is that God is one God. This is the religion that he taught Adam. All of the prophets taught the same religion.

There is only one God, and that one God is the only one who should be worshipped. Worshipped without any intermediaries, anyone between oneself and God. And all the explanations people give for why we should have some between ourselves and God, these are all unacceptable.

They all make God like human beings. For example, people argue, if you want to see the president or the king or the head of the country, you cannot go to him directly. You must go to somebody who is close to him, and then he will carry your request to the leader.

Similarly, you want to go to God, you are a sinner. Better you go to somebody who is closer to God, one of the righteous people. So it becomes an intermediary.

This way we have intermediaries between human beings and God. And the jinn will support this intermediacy by putting phenomenon on the hands of some of these people where they may do certain things, which may people convince that they have powers, divine powers, etc. But all of that is misguidance.

There is only one God. Human beings were created to worship that God. They are alone in that sense in this universe.

The other world, the world of the jinn, which is parallel to them, has also human beings which are able to have free will. That is the alien beings. These are the true alien beings.

All of the others that people are expecting from other planets, etc., etc., this is all false.

Closing

With that, dear viewers, I would like to thank you for being with us in this segment of our program, Contemporary Issues, in which we have looked at the issues of the aliens, very popular today, as well as the issue of euthanasia, the idea of mercy killing, doctor death, both of which are unacceptable.

With that, dear viewers, we would like to bid you farewell now, and we hope to see you in our coming programs.

السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ