- You have been living in the United States for a long time. Could you briefly tell us about your work and your relationship with the Islamic community?

- I have been living in the United States for about 20 years now. I went to Dallas, Texas for the education of my daughters. About 40 years ago a dozen of Muslims from India and Pakistan gathered here in order to study fields like engineering and medicine and they formed the IANT (Islamic Association North Texas). Their efforts bore fruit and the number of Muslims in that region today has reached about 150,000. One of the centers they established is the Dallas Central Mosque. In the same way that the Prophet used the masjid for multiple purposes during his time in Medina, this masjid also serves as the center for many social functions. Today it has been transformed into a complex with eleven classrooms, a great conference hall with a capacity for a thousand people and room for various sports and recreational facilities. Moreover, a clinic within the Islamic center looks after patients, without discrimination on the basis of religion, three to four times a week, free of charge. Another important institution within the body of the center is the Quranic Academy (IQA), which is a school that was established four years ago with the purpose of raising Islamic scholars in the United States. This school has no precedent. From the pre-school (from the age 5) up to the ninth grade, we currently have 150 students. There are ten students in each class. Apart from the official curriculum, in the elementary and middle schools students work at memorizing the Quran and mastering Quranic Arabic. The aim is to teach, with the help of teachers and families, the meaning of the most frequent words that appear in the Quran. As such, we want children to memorize the Quran while internalizing its meaning deep in their hearts from an early age. Twelve of our students, six of them girls, have already completed their memorization. Their level of Arabic is also very good. This year, the "scholar program" has been initiated in which the education of hadith (sayings of the Prophet), fiqh (Islamic law) and tafsir (exegesis) are being conducted with classical Arabic texts. I teach fiqh and akaid (Islamic rulings). The students have read and memorized all of el-fıkhu'l-Ekber by Imam-i Azam, the akaid text, el-Akidetü't-Tahaviyye by Tahavi, and Akaid-i Nesefiyye by Nesefi. Now they are about to complete the two and a half page text of Bedru'l Emani. In fiqh, we are reading Nuru'l Izah. They are also memorizing Kitabus-salat.

- Are the classical texts being read and memorized?

- Yes. Our aim is to educate these children, who were born in the United States, speak perfect English and know the American culture very well as Islamic scholars and strong Islamic leaders. We desire that they will continue their education at an institution known as the Suffa Seminary when they graduate from high school. The director is a convert American named Matthew Mois. Sask accredited this school a while back.

- Does your school have any problems to do with accreditation?

- The school does not have any such problems. The official accreditation decision will be taken in Florida on December 9^th, but they have already congratulated us based on the early reports. They also told us that we are being shown as an example to other schools. This is a first in the U.S. I mean, we are first in terms of being the first school to teach Islamic sciences in Arabic from the classical sources as well as other cultural courses.

- Then, in a sense, you are offering classical and modern education under the same roof over a large age range.

- We must. In this quest, everyone must contribute their share to raise our daughters and sons in a way to represent Islam in such a leading country as America, which has a population of 270 million. These students will receive their high school diplomas in three years. I am still the founding dean of the Suffa Islamic Seminary, which is like a university. Today we have Arabic, tafsir, hadith, fiqh and seerah courses on weekends and after work hours. The aim is to get students to read and memorize Ottoman madrasa (school) texts in these four years. Moreover, we also want them to learn Latin, Greek and Hebrew. We also have a program that enables the students to articulately address crowds. Graduates from this school will hopefully pursue their PhDs in schools with great programs in Arabic, Persian and Orientalism such as Harvard University, and the Universities of Michigan and Chicago, later becoming lecturers at these same universities. As such, we hope that these students will represent Islam as great scholars in 15-20 years and contribute to interfaith dialogue.  

- We pray to Allah that your work will blossom. We would also like to ask you a few questions about lastprophet.info, which has emerged as a humble contribution to describing our Holy Prophet...

- Of course. I attended the opening ceremonies of Lastprophet.info that were held in Istanbul on April 19. This was rather a surprise gathering for me, and it is a work to be proud of. I hope that it becomes a vehicle that will describe our Prophet to all mankind, with all his beauty, maturity and exemplary status. Our aim must be to be mobilized by questions such as "how can we represent Islam by living it, how can we transmit it to others?" I believe that today's world is in need of the Ottoman understanding of religion, that is, gentleness and tolerance, but also one that never allows concessions. Muslims and non-Muslims alike are all in need of this type of Islamic perception. All living creatures, even animals, are in need of it.

- Your program is important in relation to this issue. May Allah bless you with success. May we spread this proper understanding of Islam by informing people about Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

- Modern technology has enabled us to reach other countries, cultures and religions. In this context, do you think that we have been able to sufficiently describe Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to the rest of the world?

- Today, globalization, the internet, high-tech equipment, satellites, etc. have transformed the entire world into a single global village, a single market, a single building, a single room. We can listen to any other person and we can reach anyone we want to. At this point, Muslims encounter many obstacles when it comes to the Holy Prophet and the leadership of Islam, because all opinions are monitored and automatically translated into other languages. Thus, how Muslims should act, how we should describe our Prophet, Islam and the Quran as a coherent whole is very important. First and foremost, there must be strategic planning. And in this lay out, we have an urgent need for intellectual, dynamic and flexible scholars who are aware of today's circumstances.

I believe that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) should be described in two ways. One concerns the issue of describing him in a popular language to the larger populace. Of course mawlids, meetings and general explanations are very beneficial and their numbers have to be increased as we need to access the individual, their heart and brain. Secondly, we also have to think about how we can describe the Prophet in a scholarly and intellectual fashion. First, we need strong institutions that analyze the Prophet comprehensively. A research center or even a library that covers all classical and modern studies on the Prophet must be established. In this 

way, all these former compilations can be accessed by the specialists when explaining the Prophet to the rest of the world.

- Why should we do all of this? What can you tell us about the importance of the Prophet of Islam in understanding the religion itself?

- Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is the key. All prophets are key people for the Abrahamic religions. In other words, we can reach Allah only via a prophet. As the ummah (community) of Prophet Muhammad, we received the Holy Quran from him. He brought us the Holy Quran. Angel Gabriel was his tutor. The Quran and the revelation can be learnt only through the way of the Prophet. All prophets confirm one another, and as the last prophet, Prophet Muhammad confirmed and accepted the other prophets. I will now state something rather different; even the Quran is the Sunnah (practice of the Prophet). Let me explain what I mean: The Quran reached us via the Prophet. The Prophet made the revelation scribes write down the revelations he received from Gabriel. He memorized them and then repeated them. Thus, the Quran was preserved in three ways, making it the strongest book in the world. Therefore, if we accept that every action of our Prophet is Sunnah, the Quran also relies on the Sunnah, for it has been sent to us through the Prophet. In order to be able to believe in the Quran, in order to be able to believe in Islam, one must first believe in the prophethood of our prophet. This is why we need the supplement of  "Muhammedu'r-Rasulullah (Muhammad is His Messenger)" right after we say "La ilahe Illallah (There is no God but Allah)". Otherwise "La Ilahe Illallah" would remain solely philosophical. Our Prophet is the critical key source in understanding the Quran and Islam. We enter through this path and we make our way along this path. We can test our understanding of the Quran by checking our proximity to the actions and deeds of Prophet Muhammad.

- Thank you very much for your contributions.