We have a saying that Shaykh hamza often uses. Let the dogs bark because the caravan is leaving and we have places to go. So, the dogs that Mr. Gatto alluded to who are barking up the tree of compulsory schooling can continue to bark because we have an antidote to this dilemma. Factually we have many antidotes and some of them appeared in front of you earlier today we had six fine men and women who represented real tried true alternatives. We had a representative here from the interio federation of teaching parents and we'd like to welcome actually all the members of the interior federation for teaching parents who are here tonight they've set up a wonderful display outside these are really courageous men and women and young children and families who are taking education into their own hands and I hope all of you will take an opportunity to visit their wonderful booth outside and and speak to their
some of the really fine representatives
we had representatives here from the
Montessori tradition from the Waldorf
tradition from the Sidwell Friends
Quaker tradition and also from our own
Islamic traditions
our next speaker tonight is not a
stranger to most of you he has come to
Toronto many times and every time he
comes mashallah the community comes to
listen to him shaykh hamza yusuf hails
from California he is presently the
director of the zaytuna institute for
traditional learning Shahana has himself
had an incredible array of educational
experiences that have taken him through
private schools in the United States
that took him through universities in
the Middle East and finally took him to
the place which tea this morning told us
was really a place where education was
happening in the wilds of the Sahara
Desert with men and women who were
really committed to learning and living
in communities of love and peace and
tolerance together she comes a Yusuf has
since his return to North America
several years ago dedicated his life and
masha allah der many young men and women
older men and women who to have
committed their lives to creating
educational alternatives within the
Islamic ethos that reflect many of the
values that John ended his talk on today
the zaytuna Institute and many other
organizations including dar al-islam
foundation heey productions and others
organized programs at a grassroots level
to bring different methods of education
that find their heart and soul in the
tradition of our particular faith a
reality Dean intensives rattlers jr.
Dean intensives and Arabic programs that
seek to reconnect members of the Muslim
community with their tradition in many
ways Hamza Yusuf is our version of John
Taylor ghetto tonight he's going to be
following for where mr. gateau left off
and just in the same way as mr. Gatto
has given us that picture we hope to
take the next step what do we do about
it where do we go from here what is
there a vision that we can all share a
Muslim and non-muslim alike as citizens
of the same land and of the same country
is there a vision that we can develop
together that sees learning as something
that really matters that educates the
heart and the mind that creates dynamic
citizens that takes us to the
vision of a good society that we all
hope and pray that our children will
have without any further ado it is my
great honor and pleasure to introduce to
you my teacher shaykh hamza yusuf hanson
sman r-rahim salaam aleikum salatu salam
ala rasulillah but I hold on report a
nebula in the name of God the merciful
the compassionate person peace be upon
all of the prophets and upon our
messenger prophet mohammed first of all
i want to say that one of the benefits
for me about hearing what I just heard
from somebody of not considerably but an
older age and I'm at and more life
experience and more teaching experience
can come to the conclusions that I came
to which makes me realize that I might
not be crazy after all and that in
itself I think is one of the benefits of
hearing an alternative perspective is
that what you surprisingly find is that
there are actually many people out there
that are having these same Inklings
something's wrong something's wrong with
the present situation the condition that
we're in and I think the primary reason
for that is the extraordinary factor
that is never placed into their equation
which is the human soul this is not in
the social engineers equation and I
think this the thing that sums it up
best there was a book written by a man
named Crosby about his basic thesis was
that the the incredible control that has
taken place in the last 500 years is
based on the ability to
things that human beings have have have
obtained a power of measurement they can
measure the air they can measure the
ocean they can measure the stratosphere
and measurement gives you power in fact
the Arabic word to measure and to have
power is the same word but one of the
verses in the Quran says mokka-dal la
haha kappa did he they didn't measure
God they didn't measure God he's not in
the equation and one of the things that
we see that is so prominent in modern
society is the attempt to remove the
sacred whether it be Christian sanctity
whether it be Islamic whether it be any
type a vision of a sacred world it is
removed and when it is included it's
included in a way that takes the teeth
out of it it's included in a way that
makes it an object of study as in
anthropology we can look at the quaint
natives the quaint beliefs that they
held I took a course in in the
University called magic religion and
science and you can see from the order
where they were taking you in other
words we lived in a magical period where
people believed that there were gods up
on Mount Olympus and they did
extraordinary things and then we moved
to the religious period a little more
rationalism introducing elements that
the intellect could share but still
retaining fragments of that previous
period that period the magical period so
the belief in angels despite the fact
that every culture on this planet has
some concept
of the angelic realm coincidence that
every plant every culture on this planet
has some concept of the demonic realm
and every traditional culture on this
planet has some concept of the Sacred
Realm but these are our remnants and
then the religious period was superseded
by the rational scientific period and
then the religious person becomes
irrational as if irrationality was not
part of the human makeup human beings
have irrational elements why do you fall
in love is there anything rational about
falling in love and yet a large part of
my life has been affected by the fact
that I fell in love with a woman and it
was a completely irrational event I
couldn't tell you why it happened I
couldn't even tell you how it happened
but it happened and and I've got some
children running around as a result it
was irrational but it was one of the
best things that I ever did so we do do
irrational things and we shouldn't be
ashamed of those irrational things that
we do if there's some type of
satisfaction that comes out of it is if
there's some meaningful event if there's
some purpose if it fulfills something
necessary to our humanity to our being
then we cannot say it's irrational but
what becomes irrational is a society
that claims to be the most rational
society on the planet and yet it has the
most irrational premises at its
foundation the premise that human beings
can be controlled the human being is a
loose can
on this planet and and we have to thank
God for that the human being is
unpredictable the human being will do
things because he's told he can't do
them because it's impossible and
sometimes because he was told he can't
do it he does something extraordinary or
she does something extraordinary that
changes the world for the better and
sometimes for the worse and that's being
human as well the ability to make human
mistakes there are people now who would
say what do we do we've got this system
what John Taylor Gatto just said it
would seem as he's saying throw the
whole thing out and we're told there's
no turning back the clock you can't go
against progress there are people that
will say that they'll say this is human
progress you can't go against progress
and yet one has to question the
intelligence of somebody who recognizes
that they've made a wrong turn down the
wrong road and it's taking them to the
wrong destination and they see a sign
you see you're going to a place called
Paradise South Dakota and you turn on
the wrong fork and suddenly it says
he'll Arizona you have to question the
sanity of that person to not turn his
car around and head back to where he
made that mistake because that's a sign
of intelligence to make a mistake and to
rectify the mistake that you've made and
if you can't do that then you're stupid
and those are the people that are
supposed to get the f's
really we have to question a society now
of lemmings headed for a precipice and
nobody is saying stop and the people
that are saying stop are called radicals
are called extremists a lot of people
don't realize that some of the greatest
most celebrated people in these
so-called universities these higher
centers of learning were radicals in
their time some of them were killed
because of their ideas burnt at the
stake put under house arrest and then we
can honor them like they used to say the
only good Indian is a dead Indian that's
what the Americans used to say the only
good Indian is a dead Indian well now
you can have Hollywood films in which
Geronimo's the hero he's the hero the
bad guys are these these stupid white
guys we can do that now but woe unto
Geronimo when he was calling his people
to rebel against control of free people
of free people look at the South Western
Indians I want to take one example the
Anasazi Indians they lived in our place
there's a place now called Chaco Canyon
Chaco Canyon nobody knows what it is but
there was a woman she's an
anthropologist who also happened to be
an astronomer and she was one day
examining some glyphs up on a hill on a
rock a Mesa that overlooked this this
site of these Native Americans they
weren't called Native Americans when
they were living there they got that
title later I never understood why the
Aboriginal peoples of America have
accepted that idea of being a native
american and
some haven't but some do and it always
intrigued me that but they weren't they
obviously weren't called that then this
woman was up on this rock and she was
looking at this glyph it was a circle
and it had a spiral that looked oddly
enough like what we now know as a galaxy
galaxies are spirals you always you see
these pictures from the Hubble
telescopes of these spirals and you
wonder about order what why is it a
spiral I mean why do you see that in a
seashell that same spiral down here on
planet earth that what is that in nature
the seculars word for the divine what is
it that in nature that that like spirals
in fact our whole bodies are spirals
it's called a double helix it's
everywhere so she was looking at this
and suddenly there was a flash of light
that went right through this spiral from
the rock and she looked back and there
was a slight sliver in rocks that had
been placed there and she thought what's
today and she realized it was the
equinox and she realized that she was
actually seeing the zenith point and she
said is this some kind of astronomical
glyph so she began to study it not no
longer as an anthropologist but now as
an astronomer which is we have to ask
how do these coincidences happen you
have to wonder I mean one of the
fascinating things for me to what in my
travels around the world is to to ponder
the fact that you've got six billion
people according to the control
paradigms latest estimate I don't know
who know who has anybody gotten counted
six billion people but anyway they
extrapolate somehow in that mystical
science called statistics which actually
got an A in
I can't remember a whole lot i remember
the bell curve and a few other things
about that but which is part of the plan
you can take those classes do very well
in them and they don't serve you very
well later on down the road so six
billion people each one of them has a
best seller if they could just write it
down in good language every single
person on this planet that's reached any
age of maturity has a best-selling novel
of their life if they could just write
it down in good language and the amazing
thing about it is those other five
billion 900 million or 99 whatever those
other they're all in that novel somehow
that they're either they're either
supporting actors or small-time parts or
extras and each one of them has that
going on in other words we have a cosmic
event-- of incredible complexity going
on here which is the fact that each one
of you is the center of the universe
each human being in this room is the
center of the universe and right now I
just happen to be part of your
experience each one of you I'm just part
of your experience i'm going to leave
and you go back to your lives and
hopefully they're changed for for the
better a little bit or we've learned
something or we go out to to make some
changes but we have an extraordinary
event going on here and it took place in
that moment in that Mesa where this
woman an astronomer who happened to be a
anthropologist uneasy people saw this
flash of light she happen to be up there
at the right time in the right place and
she had the right tools to understand
what she had just witnessed so they
began to study this Chico Canyon as an
astral astral site and what they found
out was was the entire place was a lying
not just to the sunrise and the sunset
to the equinox the shadows all reached
certain corners in this building and the
moonrise and there was the glyph work to
determine moonrise and sunrise to
determine moon set and sunset at
different times of the year and one of
the equations would take 18 years to
work out these were ignorant Native
Americans ignorant Native American
savages savages so they they asked these
anthropologists to say what was this
place what did it mean they're saying
well we don't really know we don't know
what it was but if they definitely knew
something amazing they had very high
astronomical and geometrical Sciences to
work all of this out they asked a Native
American from the Hopi Indians no degree
no diploma had in fact they just said
Native American that was his
qualifications to be interviewed and he
was a simple looking guy there with it
these they asked him what do you think
this place was he said you know what
this place was he said these people were
people that looked into the heavens and
they saw order and they wanted to bring
a portion of that order down to earth
that's what they saw they looked up in
into the heavens and saw order we used
to say in this culture before it was
taken over as in heaven as above so
below as above so below the idea that we
live in an orderly universe an ethical
universe one of my favorite statements
ever by a theologian in the history of
theology is Kierkegaard statement in
which he said if every human being on
earth was led into heaven and only one
man was condemned
hell and I was that man then from the
depths of the abyss of hell I would
declare the eternal justice of god
that's what these people were looking at
they were looking at adjust universe a
universe of purpose not an eloquent
dance to nowhere as a leading
anthropologist at Harvard University
called life on Earth an eloquent danced
to know where a meaningless random event
of extraordinarily complex coincidences
billions of them that happened to come
together at the right time in the right
moment to make this event why is there
something as opposed to nothing I was i