The Engineer Fadel Suliman is the manager of (Josour) Bridge Foundation to introduce Islam in the British capital “London”. He holds a master’s degree specialized in the Islamic law from the American Open University in Washington D.C, and he is a founding member of the International Union of the Muslim Scholars. He is a formal member of the supreme council for the Islamic Affairs in Egypt.

He held many positions -that gave him the opportunity to present his lectures to call the non-Muslims to Islam in many western countries including; Canada, the United States of America, and Mexico- as a manager of the International Youth Assembly’s office in North, and Central America. He, also, presented a lot of television programs calling for Islam in many countries around the world; such as the weekly television program (the Islamic Program), which was broadcasted in the channel 30, in Washington region, as he presented the weekly television program (after prayer) on the Egyptian channel (25), and presented the two programs (Islamophobia) and (remembrance and lessons) on YouTube, and he presented the weekly radio program (let the Quran talk). Besides, he has a huge number of filmed episodes and lectures through which he replies on the doubts of the missionaries about Islam.

He published a book (Coptic Muslims before Muhammed Peace Be Upon Him) which topic revolves around the role of the Arians in the conquest of Egypt.

Rawahil: welcome our honorable professor in the 8th edition of Rawahil Magazine which is honored to interview you…

First of all, why does (Josour) Bridges Foundation care about the issue of atheism and dialoguing the atheists in particular?

Does the atheism form a real problem that threatens our youth in the present time, especially in the Arabic world?

Hello and I welcome you… Bridges Foundation – from the beginning- has been working on several sections. Section one; is with the Muslims. Section two; is with the non-Muslims. Section three; is with the former Muslims. 

As for the Muslims, we have started courses in introducing Islam; such as courses in introducing the Islam to non-Muslims, courses in how to reply on the doubts. After that, we have started the work on the education; we set up the course of Thinking Keynotes which teaches people how to think and understand the Quran, then the course of the faith education, and after that came the course of the spiritual education or what is called “Purification” – means purifications of souls.

With the non-Muslims, we started conducting lectures in the churches, temples, and Universities. Then it turned to holding some debates in (Oxford University) and (Oslo University) and (Tromso University). We produced 3 movies about the Islam; one of which was translated to 31 different languages, including the Hebrew language and we presented many episodes in the television.

With the former Muslims, in the beginning, we started conducting counseling and guidance sessions. These were divided into two groups. The first one: who left the Islam and belonged to the Christianity. The second one: those who left the Islam and belonged to the atheism (means: they didn’t belong to any other religion). We were conducting counseling and guidance sessions to the evangelists. Then we stopped, and we recorded two clips; the first video’s name was (the Original Sin Between Islam and Christianity), and the other video was named (the Trick of the Evangelism). These two videos were very enough to deal with the evangelists and the percentage of their success in dealing with the evangelists went over 97% by the grace of Allah.

As for dealing with the atheists, we conducted counseling and guidance sessions. We, also, presented television programs holding the name (Islamophobia) in both Arabic, and English language. Then we found that in this case (Prevention is better than cure) so we focused in our work on the children through the electronic games.

Rawahil: Do you see that the official religious authorities in the Arabic World are playing their full role in confronting the phenomenon of atheism? Especially in the light of the fierce western attack, and the multi westernizing campaigns?! Can the independent authorities face this danger alone?

Regarding the official religious authorities in the Arabic World, they are certainly not playing their roles as they should. On the contrary, most of them are very negative. It would have been better if most of them did nothing at all because the bias of most of the religious men to power makes religion lose its trust in peoples’ hearts especially youth because people – in general- connects the religion to its men. I wish they keep quite or disappear.

The other –unofficial- parties are certainly not enough. The issue needs reconsideration in the entire strategy to confront atheism. We can’t just keep resorting to defense and acting on the reaction! It’s necessary to initiate, it’s necessary to confront the atheists and debate them publicly in order to show the shallowness of their thoughts in front of the entire people.

Rawahil: How was your vision formed to resist the atheism and address this difficult problem?

After around 20 years of giving counseling and guidance sessions, some youth decided to leave the Islam. They have ideological problems, and after debates and a lot of discussions with atheists, we (Bridges Foundation to Introduce Islam) have gained a massive outcome of causes for the atheism, or the root reasons that cause the atheism. This outcome is not merely the work of (Bridges Foundation). It’s, in fact, a result of a cooperation with other Islamic foundation like; (Yaqeen institute) which is managed by sheikh (Omar Suliman) in America, and like (AIERA) which is manage by brother (Hamza Tazoortezes) in Britain, with the cooperation of many Islamic scholars who are interested in fighting the atheism; like the doctor (Mohammed Abdulhakam), and doctor (Shoaib Malik), doctor (Nidhal Qasoom), doctor (Amro Sharif), doctor (Mohammed AL-Awdhi), doctor (Basil Al-Ttaie), and of course the beloved brother the doctor (Mohammed Jalal) who has been cooperating with us for years. What is important is that we did count all the reasons of atheism (or most of them), and maybe there are other reasons that we don’t know about yet; these reasons are educational, or issues that are related to the way of presenting the religious concepts.

For years, I have been dreaming of inventing an antidote that protects from the atheism in case a person is exposed to it, especially the children and youth because we are all exposed to these reasons anyway and it is out there in life. However, I want to create an antidote that makes the human being unaffected by the atheism if exposed to it exactly like the Measles virus; you can’t avoid it, but there is an antidote that the human takes while he is young which makes the virus unable to affect him if exposed to it. I have been dreaming of conducting a course that implants an antidote(s) inside the children against all the reasons of atheism. Each antidote prevents from one specific reason.

Rawahil: Doctor! In your opinion, what are the most important reasons of atheism – especially that you have been investigating, resisting, and fighting atheism all these years?

Atheism, basically, is a psychological problem. It has too many reasons which reach around 40 reasons, the most famous reason is the evil, then comes the reason of the missing father or the corrupted father or the corruption of relationship with the father or losing the relationship with the father. There are actually too many other reasons that lead to atheism, but most of which are psychological.

Rawahil: We have known that you take a special care of the children and youth in resisting the atheism, is that true? And what efforts do you exert in this field?

Indeed, we have conducted two courses; one for the children from 8-13 years, and other one for the youth from 14-25 years. The children course is presented by a twelve years old boy named Ahmed, lives in Britain. I have personally prepared each and every word he says, or films because when children find a child in their age saying these words, they will receive his talk better than if I presented it myself –especially that I am white-haired like “Santa Clause”!

The other course for the youth from 14-25 years will be presented by me personally. Its content will be deeper than the content of the children’s course. Some of its topics will be different from those of the children’s course. Some of its topics will focus on the youth interests; like the relationship between the men and women. We don’t talk about the relationship between the two genders jurisprudentially, because I explain the etiquette of mixing between men and women. I will explain why did Allah the almighty impose that on us. Hence, the reason that causes the atheism will be revealed; which is not understanding the wisdom of the thing, as if Allah just wants to narrow on us, or exhaust us in life!! This is what we will address in this course since it’s not a jurisprudential course that addresses the rules of the legal and the illegal.

The clips of this course will be too short, and all of them will be video clips available on the internet (online) because some people ask me” When, and where will this course start? And when will you tell us so we can go and attend? And where is the place of the course in the city?”. This course will be online, and you will watch it from your homes. The clips of the course will be too short so that it attracts the children and calls their attention, the same case with the youth.

In each of the clips we implant a specific concept or a special principal. I’ll give you an example; the phenomenon of the human’s anger with Allah, or his hatred of Allah (and Allah forbids), and this is for instance the book (Hating God) by (Bernard Schweizer) means the hatred of Allah which is caused by specific reasons. When you ask why, you will find the reason for that is because the child or the young man is not feeling comfortable with the reality he lives.  He has been told to pray and read the Quran and he will feel comfortable and all his problems will be solved. So he prayed and read Quran and yet, all is still the same. We have prepared the clips that focus on the implantation of the concept that we came to life to be tested not to be punished! So don’t ask for your punishment in life since you will not live life without troubles or misfortunes even if you prayed or read Quran. It’s all about how we deal with these troubles and misfortunes and these hardships. Hardships are coming anyway! The difference is in the manner we receive these hardships. Some of us are strong, others are weak. We don’t want to deceive the children when we tell them “you will not be harmed when you pray. No! we pray because this is Allah’s right on us, because Allah deserves to be worshiped.

Rawahil: But aren’t these concepts a little hard for the child to understand? How can these information be delivered to the children in an easy, and simple way?

It’s very hard to make the child understand the term “Worship”. We –praise to Allah- have simplified the term “worship” for the child. However, it’s not a simple issue. For that, we have –in this course- many specialists in various fields like psychiatry. We have consulted them on how to present some of these concepts; like the hardships we find in life. They are like a test that we should face, be patient with, and get over eventually. We implant such concepts step by step through these clips.

All the hard concepts can be simplified on different levels. For example, the meaning of worship can be explained for the child in the age of 7-10 years. It’s possible to explain it for the teenager in the age of 14-16 years. You can, also, explain it for the old. The challenge that faces us is how to simplify some concepts. Sometimes, you don’t give the concept itself. You just give another concept that prepares the child to accept the wanted concept when it’s the proper time later. It’s like the doctor who prescribes a specific medicine whose goal not to cure the sickness itself, rather to prepare the patient to accept the sickness’s medicine when its time comes, like raising the percentage of the plasma in the blood so the medicine works properly. In this case, the doctor prescribes a different medicine in the beginning which will not cure the illness. It’s –in fact- a leveled-goal medicine. Sometimes, we do some stuff that are level-goaled, and after that we use different concepts to reach our main goal. This issue is largely, and deeply-studied – all the praise be to Allah.

Rawahil: facing the atheism – especially in this early age- needs a collaboration between more than on side –particularly- the sides that deal with children in this age; like the parents, school. Do you have some exerted efforts in this field?

Yes, we have. We will conduct another course for the fathers and mothers in which we explain the concepts that we try to implant in our children in the previous two courses (the children course, and the youth course) so the fathers and mother could be on the same ship with us. They should implant and build along with us. They can’t destroy what we have been building just because of some misconceptions. We can’t keep digging if the kept filling, we can’t keep building if they kept destroying!

We have found psychological solutions for the problem of losing the father, and an antidote that will be implanted inside the child during the course if Allah wills. As I said before in a previous episode, the problem of the missing father, or the bad father is a main problem that causes the atheism.

Facing atheism really needs a cooperation. It needs huge funding because what we do now –producing video games- needs a massive funding. If we wanted the project to be big and with a high quality level to attract the children, there is no doubt it will need funding. It, also, needs the official authorities to realize how important it is. So that it can spread in the schools and that is the more important; to be a part of the religion teaching in the schools through electronic games and this is not a novelty, because teaching through electronic games is there in a lot of sciences now! It’s a must to increase the awareness of those responsible for the children in order not to be a reason to destroy the child’s mind since they are responsible for the awareness and education of the child. The fathers, mothers, and teachers are the responsible. They are the important category in this issue, and they must be aware and understand the base of the problem and how to resolve it.

Rawahil: The following question may come to the mind of some people; “When the children or “especially youth-  know about the topic of the course which is the protection from the atheism, will they initiate to participate and attend it? Is this direct way a good way for the treatment?

The course is special for the children and youth and we will not call it (the course of prevention form the atheism)! We will call it (the match), the three courses for (children – youth – fathers and mothers) will be prepared in both Arabic, and English languages. And for the record, these courses will not be limited by a number of clips, no, there will be an extended relationship –for years- between Bridges Foundation and your children. Every two or three weeks, or maybe a month new clips and videos will be published.

The matter should not be presented to the child as if it is a course of prevention from atheism because I don’t want the child think that once he played the games, and watched the videos, he became qualified to debate the atheists and enter their sites and except to be able to reply on their suspicions and debate them. If a man is learning how to swim, it doesn’t mean that he is ready to throw himself in the ocean! This is not good. Hence, we don’t want the children to know that this course if part of prevention from the atheism, but it’s a good way to learn about the religion via having fun and playing.

What could be said about this? The first game that comes after the match aims to deal with the basic philosophic reasons of the atheism like; “the dilemma of the evil, the suspicion that claims Islam is a religion that is not fair to homosexuals and to women” and some other ideas that target Islam.

The second game will be published at the beginning of Ramadan, or maybe before that- if Allah wills. It’s a game called (Save the turtles!) which deals with the issue of establishing the presence of Allah in the child’s mind.

As for the third game, will be published next year and its goal will be to implant the certainty of Islam’s authenticity; means the proves of the prophecy. In other words, the game’s goal will be to prove and establish the honesty of the prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him) within the child.

Rawahil: one last word that you direct to the educators in different educational fields about this scary phenomenon?

For the educators, I invite them to understand the issue, as I invite them to study it and read about it in the inspiring books. So that they can avoid the things which can increase the atheism while we think we fight the atheism with!

It is a big deal. It’s a battle of existence. However, Islam is a strong religion, and whoever doubts that Islam can defeat the atheism, should review his faith, and religion. Islam is strong. Islam is the only thing that can defeat atheism, especially after the conditions of Corona virus. Now, the Islamic speech must be changed whether for Muslims, or non-Muslims. We must always talk about the human failure to find solutions, and failure to prioritize his life as much as his failure to evaluate his abilities, and the falling of what is called (Humanism); that is a NEW religion in which the human worships himself thinking that he is the GOD! This new religion completely failed in the crisis of Corona. its repercussions will be very bad and all Muslims have to seize the opportunity to prove the validity of the Islamic beliefs, and the validity of believing in the Creator, Allah.

Pray for us because the war against Islam is so strong and the plan is really diabolical. I ask Allah to guide me and you, guide my children and yours, and guide all the Muslim’s children.