Comments on the Andrew Tate Interview

Welcome to the Mill Nation. Although this is maybe more for the playlist. A number of people have asked me to respond to the interview on the Dean show of Andrew Tate. Muslims, for whatever reason, they wanna recruit this guy. I mean, we wanna spread Islam.

We want people to convert. We wanna make dawah and so on and so on. If you're only interested in getting this person to accept Islam, you don't have to do it in front of a camera. You could talk to the guy, you know. You can just talk to the guy personally and explain Islam to him and so on and so on.

When you're doing it on a show, obviously, you you you have, divided motives. You know, on one hand, yeah, you wanna make Dawah. On another hand, you wanna be seen making Dawah. And on another hand, this is a name that's gonna get you clicks and it's gonna get a lot of people viewing the thing. And, for example, I'm doing a response video.

So that's one of the reasons why they would have Andrew Tate on the show in the first place. I just started watching the first few minutes of it. And they begin by the the brother on the Dean show, the host of the Dean show is asking him, do you know the words of the Adan? Because he Andrew Tate has a video of him in his fancy car with his fancy watch outside of a masjid while the Adhan is playing. So he is he's asking him, do you know the words of the Adhan?

And he said, no. Since he's become, known in the Muslim world for having said things about his, version of respect for Islam. Over the course of these months, his respect for Islam and his interest in Islam hasn't even prompted him to know what's being said in the Adhan even though he's hearing it in Dubai five times a day. But his curiosity is such that, it did not prompt him to find that out on on his own. I've got it on speed it up because I didn't wanna watch this in the first place, but I'm watching it because y'all requested it.

My first impression is that this guy's respect for Islam is a dunya based type of respect. And I can compare that to you know, in prison, everyone forms gangs. There's black gangs, Latino gangs, Asian gangs, white gangs, and Muslim gangs. And the most one of the most formidable, maybe the most formidable group of people, prison population, are the Muslims. Nobody messes with the Muslims because the Muslims protect each other.

This is sort of like the framework through which he has respect for Islam, that nobody messes with the Muslims. If you were to get on the wrong side of the Muslims in prison, that's a big problem for you because the Muslims have very strong beliefs and they members of the community will act out their commitment and their conviction in those beliefs, sometimes in violent ways if they're offended. He likes the things that he likes the things about Islam that are the stereotypical ideas about Muslims held by Islamophobes. You know, it's very similar to someone like Daniel HaKiguchu or a lot of the extremist sides, in our community who have not really learned the religion properly, and they've learned what they've learned about Islam from mostly western sources. And mostly western sources who are hostile towards Islam and who stereotype Islam and who have who have very negative views about Islam.

The idea that Muslims are violent, that Muslims are oppressive, that Muslims oppress women, and these are stereotypes that Muslims have tried to fight and have tried to, correct. But there is a segment of the Muslim community who embraces those stereotypes and thinks, yeah, why we shouldn't apologize for that. That's that's the way we are, and it's right. These are the the most ignorant in our community, but there are people who, embrace those stereotypes and who want to be, you know, the tough guy on the block, and they think that, well, the Muslims are the tough guy, so we wanna be the tough guy. That's the way I see so far.

His his view of Islam is that it's the toughest gang in the prison. It's the world is a prison, and the toughest gang in the prison are the Muslims, and so they're formidable, and I respect them. That's kind of the position that he's taking as far as I can tell. Okay. So I'm continuing on with the video, and he's talking about how in a place like Qatar or UAE or Saudi Arabia, you could fall asleep in the middle of the road with a million dollars in your lap, and no one will take it from you because everyone has values and principles and ethics and law and order.

See, again, it's the idea of the earthly benefits as he perceives them of the strictness of Islam in maintaining order, which is again akin to Muslim prison gang that you don't mess with. But here's a here's a problem, in that he's talking about how the Muslims have spiritual values, and they're worried about Yamaktiyama and the Akhira. But he's viewing the entire religion in materialistic terms. Of course, you couldn't fall asleep in Dubai with a million dollars in your lap and not have it be taken from you. But that's his experience because also he's a millionaire.

He's a rich man. So whenever he goes to any part of the world, he's in the rich part. He's in the rich part of, Dubai. He's not in, Deira. You know?

He's not where the workers are. He's not where the he's not in the labor camps. He doesn't see the the other side of these countries. The point is this guy is a materialist. He's I mean, the video of him outside of the of the masjid is a perfect example.

He's showing off his fancy car and his fancy watch. So his whole way of understanding Islam and his appreciation for Islam is materialistic. Yet, the thing that he is pointing to that he appreciates about Islam is that it is not materialistic. So there's a confusion there. Now again, okay, this guy could come to Islam and he could change.

Many people have done that. Many people were low lives and and terrible people before they came to Islam and then they became Muslim and they were righteous and good. That I'm not saying that it's impossible that that could happen to Andrew Tate, but what I don't like is that everyone is kind of pursuing this guy and trying to recruit him into Islam because they have in their heads that this guy is basically already Muslim in his worldview. When actually he's completely wrong in so many things that if he were to come to Islam, he would have to make a 180 degrees change in his view of women, in his treatment of women, and the meaning of life, and his lifestyle would have to make radical changes. It's not that this guy is basically Muslim already in his worldview.

He is radically outside of in any Islamic framework of understanding life. It's a miss understanding by a certain segment of our community that's trying to recruit this man into Islam in that they think that his views already align with Islamic views when they do not. See, as someone who came to Islam myself in my early twenties, and who's known many reverts to Islam, I don't know anyone and myself included. No one has that I know came to Islam on the basis of Islam's worldly benefit to society. We came to Islam searching for the truth and what Allah expects from us in terms of worship.

Most people who come to Islam make a religious journey of I know that Allah exists and I want to know what he wants from me. I wanna know how I can stand before Allah and be safe and be satisfactory and be acceptable to Allah. I said, everyone that I've ever known who came to Islam came to Islam on this basis. I don't know anyone who came to Islam on the basis of the worldly benefits of Islam for society. His respect for Islam is based on this evaluation and his critique of the West, which is largely correct.

His critique of the West is largely correct. And he sees that Islam is the solution to the problems that the West has, and that is correct. But it's a a very superficial now I don't I don't blame the man. I think he's a superficial person with a superficial mind and a superficial mentality because he comes from the West. So, of course, he's gonna think that way.

But his exploration of Islam is not deeper than that. He sees it for its social utility, the stability that Islam provides to a society. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's fine. But I don't see that as a basis for converting to Islam.

You you come to Islam because it is the truth, not because of the worldly stabilizing, effect that Islam can have on society and on families. That's a byproduct of, acceptance of the truth and conformity with the truth. That's a byproduct. I I will say that one of the things that made me start to look at Islam was, my admiration for Malcolm x. And my admiration for Malcolm x in terms of his discipline, in terms of his courage, in terms of his honesty.

So I so I looked at it in terms of these are qualities of character that one can associate with belief in Islam. I I didn't look at it in terms of, well, Islam builds stable society, stable families, patriarchy, what and so on and so on and low crime and all of these things. These are all byproducts. The objective of Islam isn't the stable society. The objective is to worship Allah and to confirm tawhid in all aspects of life.

So a byproduct of that is the stability of society. This is also a problem with Islamism by the way, political Islam. Political Islam frames the religion in terms of its impact on society and the building of a stable, safe, secure, healthy community. All of that's fine, but that can't be the primary emphasis on the importance and the value of the religion. Now, okay, he just said something interesting.

Would you marry like, he's he's talking about hitting his critique of the West and saying men don't wanna get married. And he said, would would you wanna marry some chick that you met in a club in Miami, you know, 02:00 in the morning or whatever? Drunk girl at the club. Would you wanna marry is that wife material? Okay.

But are you husband material though? Why are you in the club? You know? I mean, his critique of western society is based on his own participation in all of the things that he's criticizing. That's why he has the knowledge and the insights to criticize them because he's a participant in that.

Okay. So so he just said, what's the point of a belief system if it doesn't, create a stable society? The point of Islam, the point of a religion is to please your creator and to secure your akhirah. I mean, Ibrahim didn't create a stable society, Lut didn't create a stable society, Isa didn't create a stable society. You know, there's only been what?

Nabi Musa created a stable community. Suleiman Dawud created a stable community, is a stable society, and Rasulullah created a stable society. Were the belief systems of all of the prophets? You know, were the belief systems of all of the prophets useless because they did not create a stable society? No.

They were valuable because they were the truth and because they pleased Allah if you conformed with it. If if they form a stable society, Alhamdulillah. But the point is, it's the truth regardless of what the worldly consequences may be. So again, it just seems clear. I'm I'm not actually gonna continue to watch it because it's annoying.

But, from what I can gather, his entire framework for understanding the value of Islam is based on the dunya benefits of it. This is this does not appear to me to be someone who is searching for the truth and searching for a way to please their creator. He's looking at like I said in the beginning, the Muslims are the toughest gang and the most organized gang and the most disciplined gang and he respects that. That's it. I mean, if he comes to Islam, but if he comes to Islam, he's gonna have to change a lot of his views and become a much, deeper and more spiritual person.

I don't really like this obsession with trying to recruit certain people, certain celebrities or whatever into Islam. And like I said, if you are very interested in this guy converting to Islam, do it off camera. Otherwise, I don't know if I can trust the sincerity of this Dawah. You know what I mean? I mean, respect all due respect to the brother on the Dean show.

But my point is, when you're doing this on a show, you have other motives for doing it on the show. You could have talked to him offline and made Dawah to him and talk to him and all of this. By the very fact that he doesn't until now, this was the first time that he ever even knew what the words of the Adhan are, it's clear that no one is actually making dawah to him. They're just seeing him as a valuable guest on their show in order to be able to get a lot of views and clicks and likes and so on and so on. So, I don't know.

That's about all I have to say about it. May Allah guide him to Islam. And once he if he if if he were to come to Islam, he would be completely unrecognizable. And many of the things that are causing Muslims to want to invite this guy to Islam, he's gonna have to shed and change about himself. So that's it.