ASalam-Alaikum,

<DUA>

It's good to see everybody, Mashallah. It's a nice hall; seems better than last year, so I was

gonna do Sinan and mohtadeen but it's

actually I because I had a family

emergency so I I didn't come I was

supposed to be here on the 20th and it's

it's a book that needs time to get the

structure out so what I'm going to do

instead is just some sections from

Amalia delay that which is shared olive

in Bayers book on all sort of cook and

before I do that though I want to

explain who he is to the best of my

ability

and also give you a sense of what he is

attempting to do may Allah give him

tophi up Sharon Donovan baya was born in

an Eastern Province of mauritania

mauritania tradition was called she

appealed in in Islamic geography Moody

Tonya is actually an ancient Roman name

for the whole of North Africa it means

the land of the dark skinned ones tanya

is usually land Britannia right and and

more is is like marisco in Spanish the

the Morrow's are the the dark-skinned

one so the Moors which are often the way

Muslims in Spain are referred to still

to this day interestingly enough they

don't say the Muslims they say the Moors

of Spain which i think is misleading but

moody tanya included morocco and algeria

and it was obviously part of the

Phoenicians

had outposts there the Romans conquered

it and you'll see still to this day

Roman ruins in North Africa the North

Africa became Christian there were

really important Christian outpost there

people should know that st. Augustine

who's probably the second most important

person of later Christianity I mean he's

5th century but he and by later I mean

after the the first the the first period

of the Apostles Paul is obviously the

most important after Jesus but Augustine

and Aquinas are probably the two most

important in terms of Catholicism

because Aquinas although it took them a

considerable amount of time before

Aquinas actually became the dominant the

dominant position of the Catholic Church

it was actually the night early 19th

century when when they finally declared

Aquinas as positions the official

positions of the church but st. Agustin

was from algeria and so you had

christians there the Berbers are very

similar to the Irish the Berbers

extremely Free People

they resisted anybody that went into

their lands they fought them they tended

to be somewhat matriarchal so they often

had female leaders and we know kahin

know who was a famous one that fought

against the early Muslim conquest of

North Africa and fought very hard they

were fiercely independent and but

eventually and it was actually through

the hello bait Elise who came fleeing

from persecution in the east after the

failed attempt of Mohammed Neffs ezekiah

to conquer

and establish a Khilafah based on the

elevat-- he was in Medina

I think his reign lasted for about 18

months and Imam addict was alive during

that time he did take me out with him he

waited til that it was considered a

fitna but he actually considered him a

righteous person and he was I mean

episode Zakia was his epithet so he was

somebody who was a pure soul but that

was a failed attempt and so what

happened is the the the mudiad Rhys and

his his mola which is a freed save his

mola

I think it's a rush adore Rasheed I'm

not sure but he they fled and ended up

going to Morocco now Morocco had already

had Muslim incursions Alfa Bonavia had

the famous story when he arrives with

his army to the ocean takes his Spurs

his horse on into the ocean and when the

horse stops as the waves are crashing

the legend says he said well nahi if I

knew there were people beyond this ocean

I would build ships to take this message

of late a lot to those people and then

there was retreat and there was give and

take so the Muslims were it took them a

while to subdue North Africa and because

of the Berber resistance but Maliha

Driss

the Berbers accepted him he married from

them he married a woman kenza this is

Moroccan legend now I mean it's not like

it's true but it's it's legendary he

married a Berber woman during the reign

of how do not Rasheed spies were sent to

actually assassinate Maria breeze he was

assassinated but his wife Kinser was

pregnant with Maria Greece the second

who establishes fast the city of Fez and

he establishes it with an amazing door

to make it a city of knowledge until the

end of time and so it really is a city

founded on knowledge and and then in the

mid 3rd century an extraordinary woman

fall Timothy idea created a really the

what

considered to be the first University in

history I mean there's an argument that

Plato's Academy was a type of university

but Paul Simon Faria founded this mosque

College madrasah that really would

become a minaret of learning in in

Africa and so knowledge spread from

these extraordinary bases in North

Africa and the there's a period of time

Yussef even tesha Fein who was the great

mirabile founder of the Mohabbatein

dynasty the Marathas on his way back

from Hajj he met a scholar in Tunisia

and he told him he lived in this desert

land and they were ignorant people and

he needed a scholar so this scholar and

this is this is a type of sacrifice that

we used to find in our community that

you still find in the in the Christian

community

you'll meet Christians that literally

will come they have MD degrees and

you'll find them in treating Ebola

patients in in West Africa fortunately

this is not as common in our community

because the sense of sacrifice I think

has diminished greatly but he left a

very nice lifestyle in Tunisia which was

a very civilized beautiful place to go

to a very harsh climate to teach these

people Islam and that begins the marabi

phone and shavelev India is from one of

the tribes there mazuma tribe and it's

difficult kabila tribe is it's it's

problematic for me in some ways tribe is

actually originally what they call

venery noun do you know the memory nouns

there the venery is like the hunting

nouns so you have like a tribe of goats

a murder of crows a murmuration of

starlings an army of frogs a plague of

locusts those type you know those those

are called venery nouns their type of

collective noun so tribe is used

for goats in the English language so

it's I think it's there's a derogatory

aspect it's interesting that we call

African tribes but we call Scottish

clans right so he's from a clan in in

and then tribal is seen as it's really a

derogatory term in the West I think you

know there's a an association with

primitive people and and true primitive

this is one of the most primitive

civilizations in human history the West

it's very sophisticated technology but

if you actually look at the people their

language is totally impoverished and in

that way it's a very primitive Society

all you have to do is look at the the

type of I mean this film the interview

what's the artistic merit of that film

it's unbelievable though this is freedom

of speech its freedom to produce garbage

I mean that's a troubled civilization

when this is held up as art and freedom

of speech I haven't seen the film but I

I know enough about Seth Rogen and James

Franco to know that there is absolutely

nothing of merit in that piece of tripe

to use a word related to tribe

in any case the mazuma clan is from a

group of Mauritania is known as Hawaii

the Sawaya the Mauritania Yusef

advantage Fein basically segregated the

society into functional components so he

was quite brilliant in that way and this

is a even though it's not necessarily

Islamic it's something that happens it

tends to happen organically in societies

you get a scholastic class the mavens

they're called in if you want to use a

term from from Gladwell Thank You

Malcolm Gladwell's book the the mavens

so these are the the intellectual elite

they're called Brahmans in India right

now it's the obviously the technological

mavens are really the dominant ones the

scientists now because we're in the age

of quantity and not quality so what was

traditionally considered early edition

is no longer but he came he used to have

in tishreen classified these different

groups so they they had different

functions so you had the xariah which

were the Brahmin you had the out of

which were the warrior class in in

Hinduism the Castilla class and then you

had the you had the Zen Agha which were

like they took care of the animals but

they were really like the vaisya class

in in the hindu classification which

which Gandhi was from Gandhi was

actually a third class Hindu he was not

a Brahmin very interesting his

solidarity with the other classes so

this the zoo ayah class was they were

committed to learning and literally you

if you were a male from that class it

was a given that you memorized the Quran

until very recently every single person

from that class

memorize the Quran and learned grammar

and sip but a tradition developed in

Mauritania that was very very

interesting because what would happen is

they would get to a certain level of

knowledge and then very often they would

go too fast to study in the pada Wien

this was the common practice and they

they ended up in the last few hundred

years they have produced some of the

most remarkable scholars of late because

they've held on to a pre-modern

tradition of learning that was quite

right widespread in the Muslim world and

is no longer in fact it's almost

non-existent now in most of the Muslim

world and so the Muslim community is no

longer producing the type of scholars

that they used to produce now undeniably

there's an ossification that occurred in

this madrasa all of the Muslim schools

unfortunately fell into a type of a type

of just dereliction they were no longer

producing scholars that were really

engaging the the world as it was

changing one of the Mauritania scholars

told me that we're like the people of

the cave we went to sleep for 300 years

we woke up and the world was different

and but what they did do was they

preserved in the desert of the Sahara a

tradition that was very very functional

in the desert of the Sahara it worked

very well for them they had their Foca

they had their Muftis they had their

judges chef development they his father

Shekinah

Michael was what he was considered the

greatest scholar of Mauritania of his

time when they met in the nineteen when

they got their independence in the early

sixties all of the scholars of

Mauritania convened in Norwalk shop and

they put chef chef Abdullah bimbe his

father as the Imam to lead them in

prayer and this is some really really

truly great scholars so he was

recognized even at that time he was a

judge

in the eastern province and from a very

very notable clan the mazuma clan

they're noted for their humility in

knowledge and in learning and they're

noted also for their mastery of the

Quran but what what's interesting about

chef abdullah bin baby because in the in

the eastern part of Mauritania they tend

to focus on Quran and fill and in the

western part they tend to focus on the

Arabic language

chef Abdullah's father his own father

was a master of the Arabic language and

so he focused on in his early education

on learning language and one of the

important things about our civilization

is it was a civilization entirely

predicated on knowledge and this is

something that the great Jewish

orientalist in his book knowledge

triumphant Franz Rosenthal writes that

as far as he could tell and he's a

world-class historian as far as he could

tell he could find no other civilization

whose entire reason for existence was

the pursuit of the the development of

and then transmission of knowledge he

said the Islamic civilization was a

society that was completely obsessed

with knowledge in all of its forms and

but at the center of that civilization

was language and the mastery of language

more important than numbers

was the language and in particular what

we would call in the West the Trivium

although it's Trivium I think is a

misnomer in that it's not really three

the the Trivium indicates three Sciences

the Arabs called them asana at the

ffedith the three arts asana is like a

craft and and that was originally what

the Trivium was seen as but the first

one grammar has many dimensions so it

has literature I was looking there's a

poem that gives the number of Sciences

that you have to learn twelve language

Sciences but although there's over 30 in

the Islamic tradition one of them

emanuelle that is almost gone they still

teach

in Turkey but I haven't seen it taught

anywhere else and it's a very

interesting science it's unique to its

although Glavine and eg really developed

it out of rhetoric and logic and it's

the science that enables you to

determine quickly the context of a word

it's it's its position in a sentence in

any case one of the sciences was Mahara

and and there was a discussion on on the

internet like what did Muhammad I mean

and nobody knew what it meant it was

very interesting like all these Arabs

writing you know what cinnamon

Mahabharat and then somebody said oh

it's lecturing because that's a modern

term Mohammed and then somebody says no

I think it's something else I mean I

don't know you know none of them knew

what it is Maha Dada

was what we what et Hirsch who some of

you might know he wrote The Dictionary

of cultural literacy and emphasized the

fact that you needed to be culturally

literate in order to to become somebody

who could who could understand the

society then read books understand we we

tend to forget how complicated literacy

is how sophisticated it is when we're

speaking we're using words and that's

why there's so much breakdown of

communication now because we're all

saying things but understanding

different things from the same words

that we're using and this is a problem

because we no longer have a unified

knowledge domain knowledge was the

knowledge that was necessary to

understand your culture or civilization

so for instance those of you who are

born in Canada or in the United States

even though your parents migrated here

there are things that you know about

this society that they'll never get

because they didn't get the domain

knowledge it's as simple as that

there's metaphors that they won't

understand there's linguistic idioms

that they'll never get or never

understand in the same way that if you

go up in Britain if you grow up even and

then we have micro culture so if you if

you grew up speaking Ebonics there's a

whole aspect

of that culture that you will not get if

if you're outside of that culture and

the same is true even within the the

dominant soon-to-be minority culture in

America of what's called the white

anglo-saxon Protestant culture that is a

culture but there were other cultures

that were minority cultures that are now

considered white that weren't considered

white so for instance Italian Americans

they have a whole set of references that

somebody outside of their culture won't

understand if you grow up in an Irish

neighborhood in Boston there's a whole

set of cultural references that people

outside of that will not understand and

these are the micro cultures but then

you have a macro culture and this is

what enables multicultural societies to

function effectively when we have common

ground and we can understand each other

and this is education this is not

learning a culture as a master culture

so there's people that argue that this

is just the dominant culture forcing or

imposing itself on minorities no there's

a reason why it's dominant because it

has certain tools that those cultures

that are not dominant don't have and

that's why when you learn those tools

you've become a formidable enemy if

you're from these other cultures Malcolm

is a good example of that who learned

the tools of the culture who could go to

the Oxford Union on December 3rd 1963

and hold his ground toe-to-toe with

masters of that tradition because he

knew their language he knew their

cultural references he quotes Hamlet in

that speech because he actually read

Shakespeare if you read his biography he

he was interested in literature he knew

English very well he mastered the

language he knew rhetoric very well he

mastered rhetoric and he was a master of

logic if you listen to his arguments

he's always making solid logical

arguments and this is what this is what

the dominant culture is very afraid of

when people actually

learn these tools that they use to

empower themselves and and so the Muslim

civilization was a civilization

predicated on learning these tools and

if you want a really beautiful study of

this fact then I would recommend reading

John Wall bridges book about the kata

fate of Reason in which he shows that

the Muslims were obsessed with the arts

of language with grammar with rhetoric

and logic and this is what was at the

center of their teaching because they

knew if you try to access revelation

without these tools it'll be a disaster

and that's what we're seeing all over

the Muslim world now we're seeing people

trying to access the Quran without

understanding the tools that will enable

you to access the Quran now people will

say well the Sahaba didn't know those

tools absolutely they did they were

masters of rhetoric they were masters of

the Arabic language they knew grammar

intuitively they knew if they heard

something that was wrong said no model

delano saw some people shooting arrows

and he said so we will so we will run

your comb you know straighten up your

shooting and one of them said an animal

Pythian were beginners and that's that's

that should be a Joomla is MIA it should

have a muqtada and a hubba the move

today should be national move Teddy own

is the hopper so it's mark or because

they're both myrfor so he didn't he they

said nano move Teddy in as if it was

among super active US National move

Teddy in learn anima darica you could

say that they're there at mon-sol

practices but they said Nana move Teddy

in he said wallah he in the lagna cone a

shed do earlier I mean how to configure

Michael this mistake in your in your

grammar is harder on me than missing the

mark

because Arabic was already diminishing

because of the ajan that we're becoming

Muslim

the Milani just like if you go to some

Gulf states you have these little Arab

kids that speak English with the order

do accent because they they grow up with

and then they use like if you go if you

go to certain Gulf States

there's Arabic terms that come out of or

do now or if you go to Egypt they have

all these terms that came out of Turkish

bottle do include Bri because the Turks

were living there and so this is what

changes the language in the same way

that you've got all of this type of

language degradation that's happening

because of all of these slangs

interestingly enough some of the ulama

actually prohibited inventing words

there were animal that considered the

invention of words and slang to be

prohibited because they said through

that communication breaks down and the

purpose of languages to communicate so

people should not have private languages

and it's very interesting so share

Abdullah bin Vega grew up in a place

that has had this tradition and what is

unique about these people is that they

were Bedouin and we as far as I can tell

we are the only civilization that ever

created highly literate Bedouin people

they're better when people live all over

Aboriginal peoples they live all over

the world

but this is the only civilization that

ever created highly literate Bedouin

people it's this is one of the miracles

of Islam and when I was in Mauritania

and seeing them studying logic

Aristotelian logic Bedouin living in

tents studying Aristotelian logic I once

saw when what up that Hajj was trying to

explain what Jawahar thought was to a

Bedouin boy he was studying Arpita and

one of the concepts 'as in in inanimate

Kanab there's the atomic theory which is

similar to the string theory that that

the entire world is made up of

indivisible atoms

not what we call the modern atom that

can be split and massive chaos comes out

of that splitting no the atom that is

indivisible the Monad so this is the the

the particle that cannot be split it's

like a geometric it's like a geometric

point you know if you look at Euclid's

definitions the point is is really a

mystical concept because it has no depth

breadth or width the point so this is

like the Johanna father in the Arabic

Jews

so what up that has took some sand and

he said if the veil was lifted from you

and he threw the sand up he said you

would see the whole world like this so

he was explained in the Sahara

explaining to a young boy what we now

know is the field this is extraordinary

so this is this the culture that he grew

up out of but now he is obviously what

we would call in in our culture a genius

so he was gifted with a phenomenal

intellect but there's other components

there spiritual components that are part

of this Imam al-ghazali said that that

our theology is not based simply on

discursive thought but it's also based

on spiritual states and and so there's

an element that which we call the fattah

ya fattah if defin enough attend Kariba

allah is le citta he is the one that

opens the intellect people that are they

they can actually we know now that

intellects grow with learning the more

synaptic connections you have in your

brain the more effective the brain

becomes we know that learning will

actually make you smarter we know that

the saint-omer sets a limit arrabiata in

the heart Aziz will often learn Arabic

because it increases your intellect so

you you you you you can actually become

more intelligent

the more you learn and so this is the

environment that he grew up in and with

his brilliance at an early age he was

mastering the the sciences of Islam and

we called him Sciences or loom our

sciences the modern word science has

been has been relegated to mean the

material sciences like biology or

chemistry but in our tradition a science

is something that can be learned

unlike intuition

what what what the Greeks called news

what we call alkyl there's a deuce

between alkaline and alkyl understands

it grasps but science can actually be

imparted you can't impart grasping you

either understand something or you don't

if if I say you know this cup is heavier

than this cup you have to understand

that if you don't understand that I

can't really prove it to you I could put

it on a scale but you're still not going

to understand the concept so so you you

have to just grasp certain concepts and

upon those concepts you can base other

knowledge so what we don't know is is

based on what we already know so

learning is like building blocks you

build upon what you already know to

arrive at things that you don't know so

if you know grammar you can learn logic

but you cannot learn logic without

grammar if you know logic and grammar

then it's very easy to learn rhetoric if

you don't know those two then rhetoric

becomes very difficult because they're

all related

so sciences are imparted this is nothing

so you have outcome and nothing Apple is

understanding knock'em is what's

imparted and these are the sciences

traditionally the first thing that

Muslims learned was memorization of

Quran the reason for this is a child

does not have

capacity to understand their

understanding is very limited but they

have an extraordinary ability to retain

knowledge most children I mean obviously

memory is is there's a genetic component

is also in Chinese medicine it's related

to kidney strength stronger your kidneys

are the better your memory is there are

things that diminish memories sinfulness

diminishes memory is well known in our

tradition obedience strengthens memory

they say 21 raisins every morning

strengthens memory that's Imam zone

Mooji says that and then obviously there

are other things that are used but the

having a retentive memory is a blessing

having a photographic memory I've only

met a few people that I that I think

have I met one moody tiny and man in

Medina whose father he was from the

tissue Kanak clan his father said he

never read anything that he didn't

understand and he never read anything

that he forgot everything he read he

retained I met a man in Mauritania that

memorized the entire post the dictionary

but there was a body I also met a man

that knew all nine books of the hadith

by rote with this nad and in fact I gave

him my copy of vacati which was

handwritten it was the most precious

thing in my possession I think and and

he opened it out and he found a mistake

in one of the rewire so I said you can

have it

yeah so that's true story and it was

actually a really precious book it was

had gold it was written in gold and has

done done from the zeliha De La Hoya and

Morocco in any case I mean I've met

those people so when we read about Imam

Abu Hadi I know that it's true because

I've met those people shared although

one of the things that he does that's

interesting to me is he does not show

off his knowledge like he doesn't you

know he wants it he'll only take what he

wants to convey the meaning he wants

conveyed and I've seen many examples of

that in translating for him I'll give

you one example

he mentioned once a hadith which is in

stocky Muslim and he just mentioned one

part of it and I was curious about the

hadith and I asked him about it later

and he said so long hadith and then I

said I said you know which which book is

intention he says a long time we thought

he says long-headed and then I said

where does that come in it and then he

recited the whole hadith to me which was

probably about a page and a half but he

will often quote hadith by meaning he

won't even quote the nufs even though I

know he knows the nuts

he'll just quote the meaning from the

hadith so he has mashallah

phenomenal memory blessed with a really

extraordinary understanding and those

two are rare in individuals Imams you'll

be said God usually gives a retentive

memory but the the understanding is

diminished or he gives a lot of

understanding but the the memory is

diminished and he said and he said and

the wisdom between that is is they the

nude orichalcum at the rarity of

wholeness or completion because it's

just a rare thing in the world to see

that in the world but in most you'll be

said but when they come together like

they did in me that's what he said he

said when they come together like they

did in me then you'll see wonders but

Imams you'll see himself you know they

say that there's a Persian proverb that

says

the the peacock only looks at its ugly

feet it never sees the beautiful plumage

and any mom seal 'they could not do

mathematics for the life of him

he's a brilliant man but he just could

not understand math problems and and he

was actually opposed to logic because he

because the iruma considered it a

condition for the most ahead so he a

bridge even Tamia's refutation of the

logicians but there's an interesting

story because his logic teach teachers

stole a book that he'd done in also

thick and he never forgave him he was he

was only 16 when he was studying logic

with him

and he stole his book and he said i know

that he's going to go back to Turkey and

claim it as his own anyway that'll

that'll get you against logic if your

logic teachers stole your work

so when sheikh abdulla was in his early

20s he was sent to tunis with a group of

judges one of them and very interesting

chef Don I both share a teacher because

one of my teachers in fifth was his

teacher in Oakland Bay you been setting

a brilliant Mauritania scholar really

one of the most amazing people I ever

met and he was his teacher and Lolly

will def have a mastani Ninh Medina who

wrote a book on on Medina

that's quite well known it's in all the

bookstores in Medina Holly I was reading

his book one day and I saw a footnote

and I went down he said and he wrote and

and I didn't know that he knew sheikh

abdullah but he wrote in the book I

first heard this from an alum ah the

great scholar abdullah bin billah and he

said he was my companion during my

student days in in the madara which is

what they call the madrasah and he said

one of the things that about him that

struck all of us was if he ever heard a

line of poetry he would say who wrote

that and then he would go find the posse

and memorize the whole casita and he

said he had amazing him map and so he

learned all of the pre-islamic poetry by

rote and his his mastery of the Arabic

language is phenomenal which is but he

has a distinction that I think is is

really important to his development and

understanding of the modern world that I

haven't seen in other scholars and that

is he mastered a European language when

he was if he came back from Tunis and he

graduated number one even though he was

the youngest of the group and they were

all accomplished jurists he graduated

number one in 1961 he was actually

interviewed by The Voice of America in

Tunisia which I'd love to find that

interview because they put him as the

spokesman for the Mauritanian group as

they'd gained their independence he was

involved in the independence movement

one of the first positions that he he

went to a city a town where a lot of the

because this was a time when Mauritania

still had Ric which is this servitude

they still had the rep and there were

runaway slaves he went and taught them

and he has always been opposed to

slavery he was against the slavery in

Mauritania and he went and taught them

these runaway slaves he went and taught

them Arabic and reading and writing and

Poron and Basic v and this was the first

thing that he did and then he became a

minister he was Minister of Justice he

held several ministerial posts he was

the permanent secretary of the he also

convinced the President to implement the

Sharia and he wrote all of the marriage

laws for Mauritania and and the the he

was involved in all the Ted we know

these that are still intact in

Mauritania so these are the laws that

are on the day after the President

signed the the decree to implement

Sharia there was a coup in Mauritania

and and he ended up in jail

so people think you know they see shanab

loading bay and now they don't know the

struggles that he's been through his

commitment to this Deen and but he's a

very pragmatic person he's he's very he

knows the world and he knows how it

works he knows history and he

understands the time we're living in in

a way that I haven't seen in other

scholars he he ended up going leaving

Mauritania he went to Saudi Arabia

became a professor a king out lizzi's

and he's always he's always been

committed to the teaching that he

learned in West Africa from his father

and and then studied also in Tunis where

he got his doctorate but he learned

French in a very short period of time

because all of the ministers new French

except for him and they used to speak

French and then they'd say oh pardon you

know share of the Alumni out of infancy

and then they'd start speaking French

Arabic so he would get a radio and

listen to French news every night and he

learned after learning the alphabet he

listened to the words write them down

and then find them in the dictionary so

he actually taught himself French just

from the listening to the radio and then

one day he came in they were speaking

French and and they said I was here and

he said no no it's not it's not a

problem go ahead and and so anyway what

he's been doing one of the things that

we tend they don't write books using

when they're young it's quite rare

because they really believe that it

takes a long time for no budge to become

mature they tend to write later in their

lives his incredible output has been in

the last 15 years

he's almost 80 and what he's done really

is he has done touch deed of all sort of

thick broth of this banana said that the

scholars of Islam are like regimented

soldiers and he said the generals are

the Oh luli scholars these are the ones

that that really understand now probably

one of his most important books is

called a

Delilah's or Delilah's or dual Allah its

authority it can you can use all three

more Italians use it with delay that

Eastern Arabs tend to say Delilah

so omalley are what you recite from

memory you know you may leave so this is

called Amalia delay that it's what the

the the connotations of the words are

telling us what they're telling us and

so it's a study really a also terrific

but one of the things that he's

attempting to do is one restore the

centrality of Arabic back to the Sharia

and the importance of it because many

many people that go to Shetty at

colleges now do not learn Arabic in any

deep way they learn enough to be able to

read and they still even educated Arabs

make a lot of mistakes when they read

especially if you read the older books

because of soft more than now sort of

his very takes a long time to master but

he wrote this book and then he also

wrote several other books one of them at

high water and bird which is a dialogue

from a distance he wrote another book

which is called

Elliott which is probably somewhat

unfortunate because there's another

minority tip that is associated with

other scholars that has nothing to do

with his minority v and so people lump

them together share abdullah is not a

modernist and he said that before he

said analyst to hadith Ian I'm not a

hadith II I'm not a modernist he is

totally committed to the tradition but

believes that the tradition needs to be

reactivated that it's lay it has lain

dormant for a very long time and

scholars are reluctant to activate these

osuni tools that were so important in

the past and he feels that it's

absolutely necessary because of the

challenges that we're facing as a

community that we've never had

challenges like this we have economic

challenges he said that the traditional

books of commercial law do not deal with

many many of the commercial transactions

he actually gave a talk to a group of

economists in France and the head of the

IMF was in the audience and she was

completely flabbergasted and said that

she had never seen such accurate usage

of economic terms by somebody who was

not inside their community but he he

knows Islamic commercial law and he

wrote an entire book on the the the

authority aspects of commercial law and

he dealt with derivatives the problem of

derivatives he gives an analyses of why

the Western system is so flawed and how

it could be improved on by principles

that have been known for centuries in

Islamic commercial law and he goes on on

he gives all the reasons why usury was

was prohibited and it's a very detailed

study of economics and this is an area

that the Illuma have grossly neglected

I mean Malaysia has done some you know

they've attempted to do it but the part

of the problem is is you don't have

scholars that have knowledge of the

tradition and then knowledge of the

modern complexities and this is where

the crisis lies

you either have traditionalists who

don't know anything about the modern

world or you have modernists who

understand the modern world to whatever

degree but they don't know the tradition

and there's an assumption there there's

a lot of Mythology I'll give you one

great myth that is constantly thrown out

there the idea that the Muslims shut the

door of ish D had that is a complete

myth that comes out of Orientalism and

has nothing to do with our tradition

every single book of o Sole there's a

chapter on HT had all of the unum are in

agreement that is jihad is necessary

until the end of time none of the ummah

have ever said that HT had stops because

there's always new problems

so you have to make you sad where they

where they felt that the HD had one door

was closed which is what is which is

called an HD has an mukluks absolute HD

had in other words they felt that one of

the last people to claim it was in mom

seal T it was rejected which is to say

that they don't have to follow the rule

of one of the Imams that they're outside

of that even Tamia who was a humble

scholar but despite that he broke rank

with the the scholars of his time

arguing that that following the met have

stuck lead of the med hebbs was a

problem and that you needed to work not

just within the methods but allow the

possibility of going outside of the

methods and share Abdullah in certain

areas he will do that although he's

deeply committed to the o soul of Imam

addict Laurel Delano and he knows the O

soul of the other three Imams this book

is a comparative study I mean that's not

the the central point of the book but he

goes into the comparative study of the

of the I mean let me give you just one

example the the anima determined that

language has different types so you have

what are called ha ha yep no hawea these

are how kya

their the the the realities of logo of

arabic or any language but they say

there's a haqiqa Whataya so this is the

the reality of the what we would call in

in Western logic the Dennett ation of a

word what the word denotes in other

words what the original meaning of the

word and the purpose of the word so for

instance marriage is the joining of a

male and a female in Arabic now you you

can change that meaning like they're

doing today but the original meaning is

clearly in fact

Yamato's which is the Greek word for

marriage is where we get gametes

from so age in Arabic is is the the

marrying of opposites so in the Arabic

language you so we Jew means xoj is an

opposite right Allah created everything

in opposites right so the whole concept

of marriage and linguistically the wubba

of the of the word is the joining of a

male and a female now then you have

what's called a happy thought ophea

which is a customary usage is to

conventional it could be slang or it

could be the change in the word overtime

there are many people that argue all

English is influx very little of English

has changed in the last 500 years and

that's that's a fact you can read

Shakespeare with a little bit of

training

I mean Shakespeare who was writing at

the at the end of the sixteenth

beginning of the 17th century

Shakespeare you can read Hamlet if you

have a basic education from you know any

Western school here you know there's

going to be words that you don't know

things that he uses but it's still

English it's the English that we speak

and and so it hasn't changed that much

but there's this argument no there's all

these radical shifts in language it's

not true language has a stability

because language is tradition so you can

change the meaning of marriage to mean

the the marriage of two males

conventionally and you can call that

marriage and you can have a ceremony and

say that that's all but that's not the

wubba of the Doga it's not what the the

word was placed for went went when

people first used the word it's not what

they meant so for the last you know

millennia since human beings have been

getting married nobody ever had the

concept of two women getting married or

two men getting married you just didn't

exist so now there's people that want to

argue no weak marriages whatever we want

it to mean because they don't believe in

essences they don't believe that there's

natural meanings to these terms

and then you have what's called a haqiqa

Sharia which is the what the Chettiar

says the word is used for so for

instance Kadeem to the jahaly arabs

really meant extravagant was a

spendthrift who was extravagant it came

to mean something different in economic

mind a lot it's calm so a lot changed

that meaning for the Arabs and related

it to piety so that's an example and

then you have happy permit jazia which

is figurative meaning what it's used a

figure to like SE dabangg zeta is a

notion we don't mean he's a body of

water right we mean he has an

extraordinary amount of knowledge as if

it was like the ocean so it's metaphors

are similes without the the use of as or

like in in a fool the anima differed

about if a word had a literal meaning

but then it had a conventional meaning

what which one do you use first

so the chavies said that you should use

the a pica Whataya what was the literal

meaning of the word well sort of kinda

Matt how PIPA that's a kinda the the

basis of speech is literal you should

always take something literal if I say

I've got a headache you know you should

take that literally that I feel pain in

my head before you think that I'm just

saying you know all this trouble at the

office is giving me a headache so I

don't really mean I have a pain in my

head I'm just saying it's like a

headache right so you take things

literally before you take them

figuratively in Sharia that's according

to manic and Abu Hanifa said no they

should be taken by customary usage

before you take the literal usage so

what people use and then some made tough

steel Imam al-ghazali from the chef that

he said you should go by the throat

before you go by and Imam and Jelena

said that also you should go by

customary usage before you go by literal

usage so these are differences in

assault and it's going to have a

difference in so if I swore for instance

well la he let out a couple baton right

and then I rode a so I swore an oath and

I'm not gonna ride a camel but then I

rode a donkey now donkey in in the Quran

there's there's a hemudu barrier in the

Quran that is is is actually means

donkey so barrier in the Quran there's a

there's one area where some of them

officer don't interpret it to mean

donkey but that doesn't include when I

swore not to ride about year

I wasn't thinking donkey I was thinking

a male camel so there's an example of

where that difference of opinion would

have some import in how the Ummah assess

it so what this is this is in essence

what what Sheikh Abdullah is trying to

do is really revive also landfill as a

means for dealing with our problems I'll

give you an example of what he did there

was a woman who became Muslim in in in

the United States and she was married

and the man was not Muslim and so all

these Muslims told her the marriage is

no longer valid you have to divorce your

husband now I saw this happen in there

was a young woman who became Muslim with

me in in Santa Clara and then she just

disappeared and I asked what happened

and they said oh they told her she had

to divorce her husband so she left Islam

now this woman they were telling her oh

you the marriage is invalid now because

he's not a Muslim and a Muslim woman

can't be married to a non-muslim man

well shann abdullah gave a fatwa based

on a sound transmission from a situation

that happened in Iraq where Christian

woman became Muslim and the husband was

not a Muslim but he did not have a

problem with her being a Muslim and so

say Nadia actually judged that she could

stay with him

so chef Abdullah said in this time when

people's iman is not strong to where

they would actually leave their family

for their religion that very often

they'll end up choosing their family

over their religion that's an example

where you should take something that

even though the four med hubs don't have

that especially in the lands of

non-muslims because there is an opinion

that if she's in the lands of the

non-muslims she can stay with her

non-muslim husband if he doesn't oppose

her Islam and so that was his opinion so

she called me and I gave her that

opinion which I learned from Chicago I

wouldn't have known that if I did I

would have told her the same thing that

most Muslims know and she might have

left his son but she didn't she said oh

I'm really glad to hear that because

they were telling me I had to leave my

husband her husband became was some six

months later so there's an example where

we could have lost two people to Islam

without having the wisdom or the hikmah

and the vastness of our Sharia because

the Sharia is vast and it's a Rama

before anything else and so this is

these are the the you know these are the

types of situations that he's grappling

with azimu stead and and and really

trying to revive the importance of using

these tools that were given to us but

the tools need to be mastered they take

a long time to master and they need

serious students and that's part of the

problem because the the scholars of his

caliber are disappearing from our

community anyway that's that's a little

introduction a minute does anybody have

any questions they want to ask or go

ahead that was quick usually it's like

few minutes they say you're supposed to

wait for modern day well he's like I

said he's pragmatic in that the economy

is what it is so the the the attempts

you know this idea that Muslims Muslims

can simply get out of the economy

there's a global system that's very

powerful it's a very destructive system

it's caught it's wreaking a lot of havoc

but

his approach is to is is really first of

all we have to understand what it is and

then we have to understand what the

Sharia enables us to do given the

situation and so you know he addresses

different problems like the problem

obviously fractional reserve banking is

a problem even in corporations the idea

of a corporation being a fictional

person is anathema to traditional fit

you can't have limited liability in

traditional fit you have to have

responsibility yeah the corporation

cannot you can't have an entity that's

disembodied that's responsible you have

to have human beings that are

responsible and so granting in in the

United States I don't know what the

situation I mean I know they have the

same type system here but in in the

United States corporations were granted

protection under the Fourteenth

Amendment

which which when you have a corporation

that has five hundred lawyers it's it's

unequal protection under the law because

they can do a lot more if you try to go

if you try to sue a corporation good

luck mm-hmm what's that on what I said

then more on that it's it's a dot on men

had stood in Jeddah it's in Arabic all

his books unfortunate in Arabic was with

the exception of and and I've tried to

get people to translate them I've even

paid people on but his Arabic is just

really difficult so people have a really

hard time even like educated people that

have good background because there's a

lot of technical terms

his Arabic he uses a pre-modern Arabic

in his writing so he's not he doesn't

write in modern Arabic which is heavily

influenced by English and he actually

really hates it I once gave him adopted

Hajj an article from shelf cut I was up

and he read it and he asked me what

language is this I'm telling you the

truth

yeah I said it's Arabic he's that it's

not the Arabic I know and he has a

commentary on the LT of automatic you

know he's a great grammarian and scholar

of Arabic but he just couldn't

understand it thank you could you just

repeat the reference that you mentioned

in the beginning the book that explains

how Arab thought Muslim veterans are

interested in the linguistics and

masters of the language which one the

triumph of knowledge John something Oh

John Walbridge that's a really important

book the Caliphate of reason Caliphate

of reason God logic and Islam the

Caliphate of reason that's an extreme

that I consider that a very important

book and for Pakistanis one of the

interesting things or Indians because at

this time it was it was one country but

for Pakistanis one of the things that he

has a chapter on a study that was done

in the 1880s by a brilliant he was

Hungarian Jew who had been naturalized

in British and he did a study for the

Foreign Office in in what is now

Pakistan on the madrasa system and made

a very strong argument that the madrasah

system in Pakistan was actually far

superior to the schools in England at

the time and he said they produced a

much more learn in person they tended to

be learned in three or four languages

with a great knowledge of literature of

logic of rhetoric mathematics and so

it's an interesting study to see and how

the British undermined among many other

things they've done how they under my

sorry dr. winter how they undermine the

you know the the Muslim educational

system and the French - I mean

they're to blame as well two peas in a

pod

thank you sorry humidor reference to

chef de bellas experience with what

slavery mmm at that time I'm light of

what's going on with Isis and whatnot

the issue

slavery laudanum in Islam have come up a

lot and people are criticizing the early

Muslims at concubines and things like

that well how would you how do we

respond to this yeah I mean yeah I first

of all there's no legitimacy there's no

that's not a can of fate so the idea

that it's a caliphate is absolutely

absurd

the Provencal I said him said whoever

fights under a blind flag and dies dies

of Djali death

we don't know who's where this flag came

from I mean we know literally where the

flag came from but we don't know

figuratively where the flag came from we

don't know who these people are who ever

heard of Abu Bakr al-baghdadi seriously

who who is he

everybody knew who I'm are gonna fob was

everybody knew who a buckaroo Siddiq was

everybody knew who they were Mallya was

known his son Yazid was known people

knew who they were

I don't know who this guy is there's all

these different opinions some say he was

like a taxi driver so I'm saying he was

a had a doctorate in Islamic law there's

all these different things we don't know

where they came who made the flags I

want to know what factories producing

those flags so there's so many of them

you know where did those orange suits

come from like who provided those I mean

that's really interesting you know so I

mean what's going on I don't know but if

you if you think that is a clear

situation right then you're using clear

in the Scientology's usage you know I

mean that is a completely ambiguous

situation we don't know what's going on

there but you can't say say no mob said

if somebody claims to be Calif don't

take be out with him right you can't you

can't just you know I'm gonna I'm short

our Baena home somebody declares he's

Calif

what is that you know that's Zig Heil

that's another religion so I mean that

that whole idea and and so slavery was

abolished you know the prophet ice had

freed slaves the Quran encourages the

freedom to free slaves concubinage

existed in the pre-modern world it

existed in the Bible and it was practice

Islam humanized what were inhumane

institutions right and and and it's as

simple as that but the modern world

there's more slavery today in the modern

world than there ever has been in human

history so this idea that we've

abolished slavery is a load of crap and

there's all these women in horrific

inhumane concubinage in the United

States right and people go and they and

they sleep with these women and they

don't care about them you know so all

these righteous cheese-and-cracker

people out there you know the

cheese-and-cracker crowd you know I mean

these people sit around and discuss

things over red wine how horrific and

barbaric that Muslims are when their own

civilization is filled with the most

horrific crimes against humanity so I

don't yeah I'm sorry I just don't buy it

yeah

humans are humans you know Islam deals

with the human beast as he or she is not

as we would like this idealized creature

angelic creature to be know there are

beasts out there and and they do beastly

things right so but the idea somehow

that this is acceptable in Islam I would

have been there I was a villian

mentorship on a regime

it's a demonic situation simple as that

it's poor Yazidi girls i mean they've

been living in that civilization for

centuries what Muslims never knew that

you know and they're not devil

worshippers you know they've they've got

some angel that's called chiffon or

something like that that's the same in

this culture Lucifer's the fallen angel

and you know

but Muslims left them alone you know

they really they left them alone

Muslims were very tolerant civilizations

just left people alone you know if you

don't step on people's toes they tend to

just reciprocate with civility you step

on their toes they get people get angry

so but yeah it's a bad situation Muslims

I mean this is a tough situation for

Islam I don't know if it's you know

there's probably periods that have been

close to but the real crises today is

the lack of scholars I mean that's

that's where the real crisis is and

there's so many Google's out there

there's so many Muftis of the internet

and its really creating immense

confusion in our community on top of

that you have an anti phobic industry

and you know

Islamophobic industry out there that is

heavily funded they have their own

scholars and if I wanted to write a book

painting as long as the darkest religion

in human history I could do it anybody

that has access to you know our library

the pre-modern library can pull out

things but they were never normative

Islam you have crazy opinions in every

religion they weren't normative I'm you

have you know opinions in the Jewish

tradition that a child can can be

married at the age of three and

penetrated but that's not normative

rabbinical Judaism but that opinion

exists so if you put that out say oh

look you know the Jews they permit

pedophile pedophilia and that's crazy

they don't they don't permit that but

you can find those opinions and

Christians that are anti-jewish they

pull out this stuff from the Talmud and

they say look how evil Judaism is right

you could do the same thing with Islam

and the truth be told you could do it

with Christianity as well because

there's a lot of crazy opinions in

Christianity as well but what is

normative Islam and then

when is normative Islam over ridden

because we have for instance it's an in

according to the monarchies and the

hanafis we have is Stetson we have

Masada and more so that we have a suti

tools that I'm going to talk about in

the the next lecture we have also D

tools that enable us to override things

that would be unjust if they were

implemented for instance brinda right

now you can't implement apostasy laws in

the Muslim world even though who mom the

great Shafi scholar said that when

ignorance is widespread you suspend the

HUD punishments altogether there's no

had punishments because people are

ignorant you have to educate people you

can't you can't cut off hands when you

have the type of poverty and injustice

on this planet that we have you can't

cut people's hands off for stealing so

you know Sharia is is is rational it's

merciful it's generous it's it's a land

of you through somehow and the Prophet I

said he was he was he was he was

forgiving and if you look at all this I

have I'm in I knew one example say no

Omar caught a thief and the thief said

he said it's the first time he said

you're a liar because Allah will always

veil you the first time and then he said

I saw dr. fuller

he said did you steal say no and this is

amirul mumineen omar bin al-khattab he

said did you steal say no and he said no

and he said get out of here in the

kavadi you're an intelligent that's VAR

AA Fatah alpha P you know the he

got him out of this you know he said did

you steal and then he said say no so

what does he do he didn't say yes I

stole and no he said no so he got the

point and so Omar what the what I will

look at who she said all Maher

understood that his intelligence would

prevent him from doing it a second time

this is leniency this is leniency in our

tradition and and that was the tradition

but you know women the Prophet said

Damon logic Ramona allah karim Wailea he

Nona in LaLanne

no one honors women except honorable men

and no one degrades them except

contemptible man and so what's being

done to these women is contemptible and

these are contemptible people they're

degrading these women you know these

women have their human dignity when did

you make them slaves when their mothers

gave them birth as free people yeah

anyway any other yes how are you oh yeah

okay so what was the second part I

understood the first two please

yeah I understood that what was that did

somebody hear the second part okay the

suit that first of all Sufi Sufi as a

term that needs to be defined because a

lot of people claim to be Sufis that

have nothing to do with Sufis one of the

Mauretania scholars said I should be her

own belated aja postulates Mumbai

giametta alidium charity said it was a

Tico heard you Omaha's one had it that

the the and he's talking about the Sufis

he said there was a people that lived

the best life the life of the Sufi but

afterwards they turned it into a

livelihood and you call the one they

used to call the one who goes down that

path a salak Sadek means you're on the

Sufi path he said but today that group

is his Mon Halleck

it's it's a it's a it's a sect that's

going to be destroyed or perish his

point is that Sufism like all the other

traditions in Islam became corrupted

even Husson adversity early on said

about the Sufis he said it was a name

with it was a reality without a name but

now it's a name without a reality so the

Sahaba were all Sufis without that name

Sufi and and that's if you define Sufi

to mean see demons are opium collide

that's all he said there are 2000

definite more than 2000 definitions of

the soul but all of them revolve around

the fundamental definition cyclical Joe

it'll law sincere inner directedness to

God so if you define to solve as sincere

inner directedness to God then it's a

good thing if you define it as something

else I don't know so when people talk

about the Sufis if you go to the Muslim

world there's people that call

themselves Sufis and later they

distinguish between silvia and with a so

we fo the mutasa we felt were people

that pretended to be Sufis the Sophia

and earlier on the Muslims had positive

things to say about Sufis they were a

group people the early ones were very

much into zuid which is detachment from

the world

they were called the Bukka or the

weepers because they cried all the time

Ravi and I we introduced love into the

scenario and it became more of a less of

a fear of God that and more of a love of

God so but even Asha who died in 1040 in

in the in the Islamic period in the 17th

century in in the in the Christian era

if an Asha who wrote the textbook of

north african west african islam

everybody in morocco that went to even a

Khattab just a basic

school learned Evan Asher by heart and

that was the basis of religion in and he

begins the book by C octet ashati with

diplomatic with a thought if it's a June

8th ascetic in in the Med hub of Imam

attic the al-qaeda Imam and a shoddy and

the path of Junaid is salic I mean that

was Islam to to North Africans West

Africans for since the beginning and

you'll find that is nad goes back all

three and so traditionally I mean

there's a lot of corruption in to solve

but overall this Olaf has been a central

and extremely important force in in

keeping Islam centered in Rama and love

and when you remove those principles

from Islam it becomes a harsh thing and

this is why the people that hate to so

of are noted for their harshness it's as

simple as that and I would rather be on

a boat with Sufi mocked India than with

these other group like if the ship sank

and there was a boat and I saw you know

this kind of selfie Wahhabi group and

then I saw a bunch of Sufi singing kasi

does I'd much rather get on the boat

with the Sufis because the Wahhabis will

end up throwing you over a board saying

you're op he does not sound or something

like that and there's only food for

enough of for a few of us you know the

Sufis they'll just like what happened

come on yeah it's all good so that's the

truth I'm sorry you know and I'm not

somebody that attacks groups I don't

like attacking groups and things like

that and people if you looked I mean

I've had a public career for many many

years you'll be hard-pressed to find me

speaking ill of any group and I'll

defend like I've defended well hobbies

about the terrorism because they have

been consistently against terrorism this

is a fact they thought was against it

chef Ben Baz was opposed to suicide

bombing you know with a main and they

had scholars you know and they're

they're they're part of a humbly

tradition under

you know but the hum buddies were noted

for harshness early on Samak Shetty's

famous poem about the hum buddies you

know if you say you're humbly they say

you're harsh hard-hearted you know

literalist so this is an old thing but

they're part of Islam and and and the

circle of Islam encompasses everybody

you can't even I mean you can't make

takfeer of of groups takfeer is is

something that is about individuals and

it's something a body or a Mufti does

it's not done by common people you can

say something is Cooper but you call

somebody a Kaffir is a very dangerous

thing to do very dangerous thing to do

so anyway uh over last question I guess

yeah I think I'm a Saddam my question is

Video 2

alhamdulillah so it's it's very

interesting

we're really blessed this year Abdullah

Cindy and together we had them at the

commencement and stay tuned and just

interesting all the things that they've

done and what they've seen in the Muslim

world

you know because doctor and also just to

give me an example back in the 70s they

organized a conference in Mecca and he

was a central part of it on on reforming

education in the Muslim world and I read

those books that they produce because

they were papers that were given and his

paper and staid enough people out boss

they were amazing but they didn't take

their advice so didn't what's that

what okay yeah yeah it's very sad

because a lot of the crises that we're

having now is all based on a lot of

their Diagnostics back and you had a

chemo terpene that in my life

bismillah ar-rahman rahim was sorta to a

cinema a deceive you know muhammad wa

ala and he was sadly was sediment esteem

and kathira when i hold our up or what

they in their had Andy in our mean that

handled middleman with that animal is

gonna stain on the stuff it'll who

would've been a man shorty I'm losing I

would say yes yeah I'm a Tina hundred

endeavour but a furthermore been there

for me for that idea

it's a little more I don't see the my

dad he was like you said him what I hold

on what L to what they never had a hobby

but I did that the the main purpose of

this book which is called a Maria della

lat

or medallion Estella that so it's to

explain the nature of what's what are

known as the delay lat and there are

there are over thirty that those early

scholars identified and and like I said

earlier they really they brought about a

set of Sciences that they felt were

necessary to master in order to properly

understand the the Sharia the Shetty

aloma differ they distinguished between

Shetty and Phil Sharia is from God thick

is the human understanding of the Sharia

so v is not Sharia in that way I mean we

call it Sharia orphan as our author if

it's a happy car or Thea

but the reality of it is is Sharia or

Sharia is from Allah the cool in Jannah

Sheraton women Hodja you know every

group was given a shower and a minute

in other words a Sharia and then a

methodology a way of implementing the

Sharia this is like the book and the

wisdom the hikmah right the Prophet SAW

I am throwing him at you exactly him who

you are anymore home and key Taba will

hikmah a Sharia and then how to

implement the Sharia so because the

nature of language is ambiguous the only

language that we have in the world that

is unambiguous is what now Arabic very

ambiguous no what's that mathematics

it's completely unambiguous which is why

you can't say anything important in

mathematics really you cannot say

anything about the meaning of life in

mathematics why we're here where we're

going you can use it to build bridges

you can use it to understand how the

Stars work you can do a lot with

mathematics it is the language of

quantity of matter it's the language of

this stuff that we're in we're in the

world of quantity but we're not

quantitative beings by nature we're

qualitative beings by Nature the

language of quality is what we speak so

human beings have this capacity to

understand the world they're living in

through the language of mathematics

which is unambiguous so we can measure

things things this the height of this

can be measured now obviously you have

what they call I think I know in Arabic

is called Nakhla migite it's like a dead

point in in engineering that you can't

ever get to the exact exact because it's

just going to get that infant assimil

point of exactitude but we can we can

measure things we can determine you know

these glasses apparently are identical

the more we examine them the closer we

get with microscopes we're going to find

differences in them obviously but that's

what physics

and mathematics enable us to understand

change and quantity how what's happening

in the world and and how it happens but

qualitative sciences are very different

they are not precise in the same way

because they're not precise problems

arise differences arise and when

differences arise there's two ways of

dealing with it one I mean there's

obviously more than but to simplify

things one is to get very frustrated and

and that can often lead to conflict and

people actually duking it out but

another one is to understand the the

nature of language and to understand

that language is not precise all the

time sometimes it can be very precise

but very often it isn't and in

understanding that it enables you to

accept that other people might

understand something differently from

you and come up with a different

conclusion about what something means

this is one of the the greatest

achievements of the Islamic civilization

was the inculturation of a civilization

of difference that Muslims literally

recognized that it is divine nature that

difference exists in the world Allah has

created a world of differences and Allah

loves differences he loves if t death

and this is why he gave us if T death

Alsina to come in our tongues there's

differences it's a sign of God the if t

Dafa value on the differences in our

skin tones these are things not to make

us frustrated or angry or sources of of

a sense of superiority or inferiority

there are things to marvel at to wonder

at this is what allah subhana wa

anna loves he loves this aspect but

there's another type of difference that

allah doesn't love and and and

historically the unum differentiated

although again in the order they're used

simultaneously as synonyms but he laughs

was a negative thing he laughs was a

negative thing generally so there's a

dues between ft laughs and the fee

laughs although they can be used as

synonyms as well so he laughs is where

you get dissension and you get conflict

arising out of differences so the

Muslims developed these sciences that

needed to be studied in order for them

to address the possibilities of

differences and what were the different

ways that we could interpret things in

our Islamic law and so Abdullah really

wrote this book to explain and there's a

great book that was written by shop will

he'll knock and lue

aliens off right which is about the

reasons for difference amongst the meth

labs this is a deeper book he goes first

of all it's a serious book of allah and

so he's explaining the science a little

sort of took but he's really letting you

understand in this book the differences

in the alfaab which are the the

articulations that that come through the

sharia and then the differences in how

we look at those evolved and he

identifies them and then also he goes

into the moccasin so i'm gonna look at

some of the passages here he says that

that this Sharia is Mubarak it's a

blessed Sharia it's a blessed Sharia

fabbi tattoos were Mutapa we return the

route as soon and inlets are an earthen

cone it on the one hand it is

it's fixed but on the other hand it's

changing it's fixed in the nature of the

Sunnah of Allah in his creation in other

words Allah has a Sunnah and you can't

you won't find to deal you won't find

alteration in the sunnah of god in his

creation but it's also changing in its

in the relationship between the human

being and the world around him so the

human being has a nature that nature is

fixed we have a human nature now you

have a movement transhumanist movement

was a very serious problem right now on

the planet because there are certain

people

i mean--if how many people came in to

the airport in toronto through there did

you notice those hsbc those bank at a

bank built how many people were troubled

by those huh they were all over a new

world is coming they had a picture of a

fly with cameras four eyes like who

wears democracy who's voting on whether

to give flies camera eyes or not i mean

the this is like Frankenstein

you know dr. Frankenstein is let loose

on the modern world so there and this is

funded by NASA is funded by Google it's

funded by billionaires who want to

download information and and it's it's

this move towards a hybrid human being

that where technology merges with

biology and they're working very

seriously on this I mean this is a

serious project artificial intelligence

is a serious project they want to get to

this singularity point so we're dealing

with situations that previous

generations did not deal with and

because there are things that change in

the world and our relationship to the

world changes also like the

desacralization of nature that's a

change prior to that the

ancients to the ancients many of the

ancient civilizations nature was infused

with spirit and you still have this in

animistic traditions the the

monotheistic Abrahamic faiths considered

nature to be a sign of God so it had a

sacred quality but it did not give it

that personification that a lot of the

previous peoples did but now in in the

modern world and dr. Nelson was just

talking about that one of the most

influential and and important

philosophers of the modern world is Sir

Francis Bacon who said we have to put

nature to the rat to the rack

in other words torture it until it

reveals its secrets to us Machiavelli

talked about cajoling nature but if she

did not go along with our demands then

we had to ravish her and actually use

the word rape and is interesting that

nature has always been offend eminent

quality in in in language so the earth

has a feminine form in Arabic and and

and so honoring women and dishonor like

the current culture that we have now in

the West which is degrades women

unbelievably and if you don't believe me

just go and look at the fraternities and

the sororities and see how degrading it

is to women and the type clothes that

they put women on I mean you don't see

men walking around in spandex right

unless they're riding bicycles with all

those ridiculous symbols on the shirts

right like Lance Armstrong there's all

these people that think they're at Lance

arms or whoever the guy that doesn't

cease not roided-out but I see them go

by me all the time and they've got all

these like they ride some of them are

overweight and but you still got all

those there the elements to our culture

that are so ridiculous it's been amazing

but so that you know that that is a

problem the change this attitude towards

nature changed and so the shittier has

to adapt to those changes

so he says machete after the tsunami and

let the tide you to throw a bit to her

so the the those aspects of the Sharia

that are fixed and firm and unchangeable

they never changed lakyn walk and in sin

and ADEA Tarawa who may not Dora

well Hodja what's our story for a fajita

who and what are you know but that

reality of the human being that goes

between necessities and needs and also

to what's out where they're there in

conditions that are expanded when

they're in luxury those things change

and so the Shetty has to have solutions

and new rulings categories for those

changes and sometimes that comes in

specific new shoes that we have that

enough is if the Quran the hadith those

things are there where we can take it

immediately but other times it comes out

of understanding the acid you have to

understand what are the masses of the

Sharia in other words what are the aims

and imports what are the ends of the

Sharia so the ends of the Sharia are is

human welfare is human good and so when

when situations that the Sharia in

normal conditions would say this is

acceptable the the commonweal is no

longer served by that then very often

the ruling changes and and this is what

the OU sudhi scholar has to do and so if

you look at the entire the maasen these

great

aims of the Sharia are can be reduced

down to two fundamental aims

one of them is butter on a facet which

is to avoid harm to ward off harm for a

society and the other is jellyband

Masonic now the other is to a

Kru benefit the commonweal accrue

benefit and this also happens in the

individual as well so it's collective

and individual as well if you look at a

civilization how many people know Karl

Popper okay a lot of people so what

what's he most famous for Karl Popper

okay that's one thing but he's actually

one of his most famous things is what

anybody he wrote a book about the open

society and its enemies so he was very

famous as an advocate for the open

society that it was very important that

we have freedom of speech that we have

freedom of assembly all these freedoms

that Western democratic society has come

to cherish and elevate to the status of

carved in stone in his last interview he

said that that he was wrong about

censorship and he felt that if

censorship was not implemented in terms

of violence and how violent the culture

had become that he felt it would be the

destruction of our civilization and I

would add to that because don't forget

the ancient Greeks in their mythology

who was married to Mars right yeah so

you had an eros right this the erotic

and the violence so pornography and

violence go together which is why people

that watch pornography very often play

violent video games and this is why

soldiers this is another aspect of the

modern Western armies and also in the

Muslim world too because it's a major

problem in the Muslim world but

pornography is rife in in army barracks

and even in the war zones Iraq you see

pictures they're all reading hustler

magazine

he's photographing mail or watching

videos or whatever they're doing but he

really felt that that we needed to

censor those things so this is something

that even the most liberal defender of

the open society at the end of his life

is arguing for and you can look at that

interview if you're interested so

there's an example of a sage somebody

who reaches an age and realized as I was

wrong and this is where we we we have to

recognize that that those things in our

Shetty ad that might not be according to

the light motif or the whatever the the

current fashion is out there right

because think things change and one of

the things about the West you see one of

the most fascinating things to me about

the West is that we are essentially an

incredibly arrogant culture Western

people by and large my experience is as

individuals you'll actually find a lot

of humility I you know I think a lot of

you have experiences a lot of professors

teachers that you have you'll find you

find arrogant people everywhere but

generally there's a lot of humility but

collectively there's a collective

arrogance that is very strange

and and that manifests in the idea that

whatever we have achieved wherever we

are that is the high point of human

evolution so when the West was Christian

it felt like it had a duty to

Christianize the world so it went out

everywhere with these missionaries to

Christianize the world because it has

abandoned largely especially Europe and

increasingly the America Canada I think

is closer to Europe but America is the

religion in my country as consumerism

it's not Christianity anymore and but

now that they no longer are Christian

they have to proselytize

consumerism quote-unquote liberal

democracy the their view of whatever

human rights means all of these things

are obviously we have the best version

of it and our proof is look at our

societies well look at our societies

right because nobody really pulls the

carpet to look what's under all of the

the aspects of society that seem to

function and all you have to do is look

at the statistics on rape the statistics

on depression the statistics on domestic

violence and on and on and on and this

is why transhumanism is terrifying

because their argument is exactly we are

of screwed up species and we need to to

use technology to to fix what's broken

this is the idea behind transhumanism so

the these two fundamental ideas in our

tradition of warding off harm and

accruing good are at the center of the

aims and imports of the Sharia and he

says that the Massud that what comes

forth from them are these adil lucubra

these great proofs that are like

constitutional laws and he says this is

half of the Sharia right this is half of

the Sharia and these these go back to

the Masada Puglia which are the

universal aims and imports of the Sharia

and then to what's known as the

mullennixes which is what is understood

from the Sharia what's understood from

the new Seuss that we've been given and

among them RPF which is analogical

reasoning which is the reasoning of the

folk

ha to make analogy so this you have

different types of PS in Arabic PS can

mean it can mean deductive reasoning

inductive reasoning or analogical

reasoning so these are the three types

of reasoning that the logicians look at

and analogical reasoning is a really

type of inductive reasoning but that's

that's how PS works in in the Sharia so

most of the Baha what they're working

with is analogical reasoning wine is

haram why what's the what's that in

what's what's the rationale between the

behind the prohibition of alcohol it

affects the intellect it harms the

intellect it puts you in a state where

you're when you're no longer rational oh

well cocaine does the same thing

therefore by analogy if wine is Haram

and there's a in America they share a

Allah they write that they both affect

the intellect so by analogy by pious

even though cocaine was never mentioned

in the Sharia it falls under the

prohibition of tithing why because of PS

analogical reasoning so that's my cumin

nose that's looking at the

intelligibility of the nose and then you

have masala and motor soda which is more

specific to the monarchy meth-head but

those are the things that there's a

muscle ah there's a common benefit in

the Sharia but the the the the Shetty I

did not speak of it per se so for

instance traffic lights or roundabouts

which are much preferable one of the few

things that I think the British really

benefited places where they put

roundabouts because they're much more

intelligent than those horrible traffic

lights was you have to sit there you

know people spend like two years who

live in cities they spend two years of

traffic lights right and they waste an

incredible amount of energy

they're spacing out you know people honk

you see that you know in some countries

they look in the mirror and they do this

thing you can watch them do but

generally generally they're they're

roundabouts are much better so there are

laws like I wants to ask one of my Saudi

friends about the roundabouts because

they have some roundabouts in Jeddah

who has the right away he says the Saudi

driving a Lexus and and then the Saudi

driving a Mercedes so but there are laws

you're supposed to if you're in there

right you're supposed to give deference

to the person inside the roundabout

these are the way it works those laws

can actually become legally binding on

the McKenith so if if for instance they

determined that it's the muscle aha it's

the commonweal to institute traffic laws

then it becomes sinful to break those

laws by Sharia so for instance speeding

and in danger I mean obviously the

ten-mile they give you 10 miles so if

it's 65 you can go 75 right we have to

get out of this somehow right but if you

get reckless driving is clearly Haram

because you're endangering other

people's lives and so that's from Muslim

or set up no and then you have

aesthetics on and there are different

types of this steps on but it's

basically it's it's it's a type of of

reasoning that will lead you to because

of a particular situation to abandon in

in one of its iterations I mean there's

there's like I said there are different

types but in one of them you would

abandon the universal for a particular

situation out of equity so to make

something equitable because if you

applied what would

normally applied the paradigm of perdida

in that situation it would lead to some

type of injustice malik and abu hanifa

agreed on a Stetson Imam Shafi did not

he said minister ah if you do is sign

you're really making up your own Sharia

so he did not but that's one of the ones

that there's it's more therapy and it's

there's different like I said there are

different types and then said the

varietal off pretexts so these are all

my opponent muscles cutting our pretext

is if something will lead to a haram in

certain situations then you stop it so

for instance Allah subhana WA Ta'ala

says that's a suitable edenia the true

naman do need that face of Allah add one

be radiant don't curse the idols there

it means the idols of those who call on

other than Allah because if you curse

their idols they will curse God out of

ignorance right they're just angry and

so you actually end up causing God to be

cursed the same the Prophet said let not

one of you curse his parents Sahaba said

how could we curse our parents taught us

or Allah he said by cursing somebody

else's parents and they in turn couriers

so that said the Brian

you something from happening you prevent

it from happening and and there are

aspects of that in the Shinya and then

you have a nominal bit of oda for a de

so you have custom what we call customs

and mores in sociology and Oh de nada

customs and mores so every culture has

customs that are not necessarily

practiced in other cultures the Shetty I

recognised the the the relative nature

of customs but it also honoured people's

customs so for instance in the Maliki

field you're supposed to take off your

your veil your face veil or when you

make a loaf the Tuareg are people were

the men wear the face veil and the women

don't veil and I actually visited Tuareg

and spent time with them in Mali and

Niger and it was very interesting

because the woman's there talking to you

and she's not veiled where there's a man

he's talks to you behind a veil and when

they eat they eat like the women eat

in the places where they wear face veil

the monarchy said this are all so

they're excused from the normal cam that

relate to having your face exposed when

you do pull off when you pray things

like that

it's very interesting they recognize

that Auto is part of people's culture

and if the order does not go against

Sharia principles then you should honor

people's customs and norms Imam matica

lovely lana was asked about a practice

where you throw they used to throw candy

out to the children when they got their

front teeth the eye teeth in and and

they asked him about it what how did he

feel about that and he said let out off

he he bets I don't see any harm in it

no but you Robbie him out of out of

shock the only thing he didn't like

about it was maybe it would encourage

greediness right and I'll give you an

example and this is where people don't

realize how we're absorbing cultures

that are so alien to our own there was a

pizza commercial that I saw in in Saudi

Arabia and I have several friends that

are in advertising in Saudi Arabia there

was a pizza commercial where they showed

all these Saudi youth in their dish - in

their hotel increasingly the young

people aren't wearing these anymore so

now you see all the baseball caps and

these ridiculous sports outfits that

people where they're supposed to wear

them when they're exercising but now

they wear them all the time so because

we've forgotten that we're actually a

Calif that we've forgotten who we are we

have spiritual Alzheimer's it's

spiritual Alzheimer's that's what

humanity is suffering from right now and

that's why every civilization had

adornment they dressed beautifully even

Egyptian peasants dressed beautifully

and nobly and if you say what about

Aboriginal peoples exactly there's there

there there no civilization there very

simple and and they live in

type of innocence they have very strict

taboos traditionally that enabled them

to live like that without breaking and

the original Sharia is that the so uh

was was the just the the genitalia and

the backside that was that was the

nakedness of the human being so they're

actually practicing an ancient form of

Sharia I mean one of the things that I

always wondered about for a long time

when I'd see these evolutionary stages

and they would they don't do this any

more interesting enough because they

realize there's a problem I think but in

the earlier ones they show the little

Astro whatever his name is Lucas or

something you know the little monkey and

and then the next one and the next one

next one it's moving up Neanderthal man

and then suddenly you see the Homo

Sapien bit but he's got a loincloth so

all the other ones don't have a

loincloth so what what happened like why

are you suddenly why are you suddenly

covering your nakedness what happened in

the consciousness in human consciousness

that because that's exactly what the

Quran and the Bible talk about becoming

aware of their nakedness and then they

covered it with leaves from paradise

what is that in human beings that that

happened so orphan adda are important

aspects of the Sharia and then you have

it's just hob things follow their

original whatever the original ruling

about things so we don't rulings if

something is permissible then it

maintains that permissibility and then

he said that ultimate about taking some

of these some of them they took and some

of them they didn't and every group had

their reasons for why they did or they

didn't take them so the law idea for

instance who took their name because

they based their meth head on the

outward meanings of these texts they

left some of these mah posted and I'm

using Mikasa here to these these greater

aims of the Sharia and they also the

results of this of the intellect

deriving from the them these meanings

and they took the looking at the rules

from the book and the Sunna

the Sharia for instance and they're the

closest to the Varia they added yes

analogical reasoning but they differed

about a lot of these others that the

Marquis and hanafis took that are more

rational as for the Mauna Kea they built

their meth head on Masada had more Sarah

in many many of the those aspects that

kiosk was not sufficient analogical

reasoning wasn't sufficient so they

looked at what was the muscle aha what's

the benefit and that's why mnemonic is

the only of the 40 months he's the only

one that really made the muscle AHA

central to his school and in that way

it's not so much monic but it's actually

his teachers in Medina and and and this

is how they understood the Sharia that

the Shetty I was there for to serve man

man was not there to serve the Sharia

the Shetty I was for the service of the

human being and the human being is for

the service of Allah right so and as

the Hana Buddha he says there with the

Mauna Kea in that they use said the

Varia

and and they also have a principle of

holding on to the other whenever they

could so imam ahmed would take what he

called a weak hadith which is probably

closer to what we now refer to as a

Hasan hadith he would take that over PS

he felt more comfortable with a hadith

that whose probability was not as strong

as a sound hadith he would prefer that

over analogical reasoning so these are

differences of these Imams which will

result in differences in the Sharia and

how they understood the Sharia so and

then what he goes into now is the

importance of the what are the Alpha the

muscles of the city on the actual

statements and how they differed on on

the understanding of these statements

that come from the Sharia and so he says

the relationship between the Arabic

language and thick is he said he humble

assessment session ent it again a Bela

moccasin it's the most important

foundation from the foundations of the

Sharia next to the mock offices so he

sees the Arabic language and the mikasa

to be the two most important foundations

of Islamic law these are the two most

important foundations understanding the

Arabic language and understanding the

mikasa and he says that the UNA MA if

you look at the differences amongst the

ulama then you will see that their

differences are often linguistic or

related to their differences in their

understanding of these different these

different tools and he says now we have

a new generation that are trying to

bypass these traditional mekin

that were meant to preserve and protect

the Sharia to jump over them to bypass

them and to get to an understanding of

Sharia without these tools or mechanisms

and this is causing an incredible amount

of problems and he said that he mum

shopped abhi who's the great for su Lee

su Lee scholar who really even though

that the mikasa come out of the shower

he may have the great imam of jus a knee

who it's a it's I think probably his

greatest blessing is that he had Imam

al-ghazali as his teacher and I'll say

something about people who speak ill of

a Ghazali because there's a lot of

idiots out there that speak ill of Abbas

Ali I mean really stupid people and

Hamas ah is is a reality in the world

stupidity is a reality in the world and

and all of us have elements I mean we do

stupid things as humans all of us

nobody's nobody's with the exception of

the prophets nobody is exempt from doing

something stupid but to be a monk that

is a great calamity and there's a

tradition that says that a scientist and

I'm said I could I could raise the dead

God enabled me to raise the dead he

enabled me to cure the leper to give

sight to the blind to give hearing to

the deaf but he did not enable me to

treat stupidity and stupidity has played

a huge role in human calamities huge

role wars have been started over

stupidity if you read about the Arab

Wars of jaliyah they're the stupidest

reasons for starting wars like a horse

race that started a war that lasted

forty years over a horse race if you if

you read the history of how World War

one started you'll just marvel at the

stupidity of these people absolute

stupidity one idiotic Serbian man kills

the heir to the Habs

burg dynasty and within a very short

period of time

Europe is thrown into a major war that

will radically alter Europe forever and

that leads to the Second World War

because you there is no world war two

without World War one

there's no Nazis without the Versailles

Treaty so one idiot shot a man in

Sarajevo and that led to tens of

millions of people being killed if

that's not stupidity and you look at

what's happened in the Muslim world of

late you look at what's happened how

stupid we have so many stupid Muslims I

mean I'm just gonna flat out say it we

have multiple lafoon we have idiots out

there that are doing things in the name

of Islam that nobody in the history of

Islam has done it's beyond belief so

it's a major problem and this is why you

have to educate people you have to

educate people so that the stupid people

are marginalized and and there's enough

intelligent people to recognize that

guy's an idiot but now we've got you

know people that are uneducated

listening to idiots and thinking that

they actually have something to say in

that they're making sense that is a

calamity that is a major calamity in our

own month and my proof all you have to

do because grammar is is so important

and grammar will make you smarter just

by learning grammar because I have noted

that all of the stupid comments on the

internet are written in poor grammar and

and and the intelligent comments always

have good syntax I've noticed that so I

have to conclude just from that

observation that people that don't know

grammar shouldn't be reading in the

first place they should learn grammar

that's why they used to call it grammar

school right that was like first grade

to sixth grade was grammar school so you

go to grammar school to learn how to

because you have to know grammar to

learn how to read

anybody can speak if you if you're a

human being and you grow up around

people speaking you'll learn how to

speak it might be it might not be

standard of whatever the language is but

you will learn how to speak but reading

is a skill that takes many years to

acquire and language is very complicated

it's very sophisticated if you can't

determine a subordinate clause from from

if you can't determine a dependent

clause from an independent clause right

or them what they call same same

terminology a major clause from a

supporting Clause if you can't determine

distinguish between those two don't

comment on what the person is saying

don't make any comments and people can't

do this anymore

and this is why chef Abdullah considers

the Arabic language to be so important

in in learning our religion that if you

have not learned this and it takes a

long time and like ship that doctorate

and also that was saying about elitism

people say oh that's elitism

no it's intelligence that's all it is if

you are uneducated you should not be

telling people what Islam means we

recently had somebody being accused of

blasphemy for giving a talk about Islam

and then and his what he said was I was

ignorant well when I mentioned that to

to Sheikh Mohammed that you know about

helping this person because it was a

crazy situation and he certainly

shouldn't have been condemned to death

or something like that I mean we

unfortunately this is another problem is

that we've got all these so-called

movies I mean everybody is a multi in

some places in the world and you get

this nineteen year old kid who went to

you know this school daughter Sydney's

ami and he comes out Mufti he's 19 years

old it's not that simple

a Mufti is a very high position in the

Sharia to be giving a legal opinion I

mean you have most mufti of just telling

you what what a med hub says about this

at or the other but to actually give a

legal opinion to a problem

that takes a lot of training and skill

and you certainly mo Matic was doing it

by the age of 17 as a shed your father

what are your paw so any but it's a

problem because we have highly mediocre

students now studying Sharia and the

best students go to these other colleges

and and Sharia is the most difficult of

all the sciences it's much more

difficult than medicine it's more

difficult than physics those those

things are not hard to learn they're

really not that hard to learn medicine

is not hard to learn and I know there's

some good doctors here but they have I

used to work in a hospital and there are

some really dumb doctors out there too

that will kill you if given a chance so

right what do they called the the the

graduate of medical school school school

who got d-minus is all throughout school

when he finishes they call a doctor

right and it's almost impossible to get

kicked out of medical school they make

it really hard to get into it but it's

almost impossible to get kicked out of

it so and that's not to say there's a

lot of good doctors but there's a lot of

bad doctors a lot of bad dentist there's

a lot of bad I mean the thing scares me

the most is the guys that are fixing the

airplanes

yes you know I have one of the most

intelligent person I know will not fly

airplanes in America anyway he's the

most intelligent American I know he

won't fly airplanes he's a professor at

Temple University he will not fly an

airplane I asked him why you know

I said think about it so the

relationship between the Arabic language

oh thank you

good good call Imam al-ghazali is

probably after Imam Shafi is probably

the most brilliant

Oh Saudi scholar in the history of Islam

he is more known amongst the Illuma for

his Oh school than is for his Tazawa and

his book and Mustafa is is probably the

most important book on us all the humbly

met hab and unfortunately some modern

ham bodies criticized Imam al-ghazali

their foundational text in there Oh

school arroba is an abridgment of imam

al-ghazali's book so even if Adama

abridged imam al-ghazali's book which is

the foundation of handily or soon so

imam al-ghazali is he is Raja to Islam

he's a proof of Islam he was a brilliant

theologian he was a brilliant

he wrote five books on logic he was a

brilliant logician he was a

metaphysician he was an ethicist he

wrote brilliant works on moral ethics on

philosophical ethics he was a

philosopher and doctor Akriti the great

Malaysian scholar of the Imam al-ghazali

wrote his dissertation proving that

unlike the mythology that exists in

Orientalism that somehow he was the one

that killed philosophy that's mythology

that's not true what he did was he based

took a sieve and he he removed what what

was dangerous from theology and retained

some really important things that he

learned from even seen and even seen as

another one that even Cena is is really

something that Muslims should be proud

of there's an even Cena was one of the

greatest intellects in human history I

mean he's in the top ten even by Western

standards and he is a product of Islamic

civilization so that doesn't mean that

there aren't things that were noticed by

scholars and some of them found Maharaj

for him and taught wheel at and

interpreted them she had a horsey who's

a great theologian alive today has a

beautiful explanation of some of the

problems that they found with eben Cena

but in vain' Cena had a huge impact on

Islamic civilization he had a huge

impact on Western civilization in in in

both logic metaphysics medicine so so

that that's important to remember about

Imam al-ghazali that he was he was an

sulie scholar of the first rate and

share abdullah bin bei who's one of the

few people I know that has mastered the

science of soon and literally read all

of the Omaha in oasl and the greatest

books of all sold and spent his life

doing that and then did incredible job

at a bridging the texts I asked him once

if it's a very Western question but if

you were on a desert island you can only

take one book of all soul with you which

one would you take and he said in

Mostafa without even thinking that

Mustapha of Imam al-ghazali so so for

instance in terms of the the Arabic

language you have

has a tree of the significations the

connotations that come out of the

language and so you have a normal soles

you have what's general you have what's

specific and then you have among the Oh

luli in you have the road yeah so you

have what's customer usage in language

you have majestic it abuses you have

what's clear what's ambiguous you have

what needs to be explained

you have the nuts which is the text and

then you have Baba hair which is the

understandings that that are apparent

from the text and then you have what's

Cuffy what's hidden you have the Mishkan

what's problematic mutashabiha you have

those things that are hazy in their

meaning the mush mal things again that

have a type of ambiguity

all of these are aspects that the

language brings in and so you have them

on bulk and them of whom you have what's

articulated and that's what what's

understood from that articulation you

have the MU Park and the mocha yet you

have what's absolute and what is is

constrained or limited in its meaning

and its implementation you have them oh

well what is interpreted right you have

the the what's mammalian what clarifies

the muj mal what's ambiguous and then

you have the Bob that ishara

will be lived ahead to the bay unit as

yeah so you have things like muhammad

mahadeva which is the opposite what's

understood implied the opposite meaning

which is implied if Allah says let

support yeah don't don't say to your

your parents don't say

oof then boom and Oh dah what is a

priori understood from that is certainly

don't hit them right and what's

understood the opposite is speak good to

them speak well to them so that's

understood from that so he says that

when the ulama when they when they begin

a subject they like to do what are

called that

my body and my body are asha and these

are the foundations the ten foundations

of the my body man Rama Inman fellow

padam a water inland bahut de amor

antara there's different variations that

this the one we teach at Zaytuna is from

imam a Seban who's a 18th century very

brilliant scholar that in nevada khalifa

nana Cheryl had one more Dorothy

Metamora so this is he uses a different

one from Imam and mockery but the point

is that there are ten things that that

you should know at the outset so what is

the definition a definition in our

tradition is taking the genus taking

what the genus and not genus in biology

genus in logic taking the genus of

something and then looking at what makes

that thing different and then what what

you get from those two is you get the

species so what it is you define it and

defining is very important and that's

why traditionally logic was so important

logic was taught for two thousand five

hundred years and it's only in the last

hundred years that they stopped teaching

logic and look at the last hundred years

and people say what about the previous

two thousand years

well we've killed more people in the

last hundred years than multiple times

over in the last two thousand years

yeah so I mean humans don't like to

think about how barbaric our

civilization has been in the last

hundred years but a logic is very

important so the had so if you look at

like the definition of a triangle

what's the genus of a triangle in other

words what are the common features that

it shares with other things it's a shape

good yeah what else

what's that yeah it's got angles so it's

it's it's what they call a polygon right

yeah so it's it's multi angled right so

what makes it different from say another

type of polygon the number of sides so

that's the difference all right so

that's how you define it so it's a

three-sided polygon so that's a

definition and then there are these are

called the predicate balls in logic and

then you have what's called the property

right and then the accident right so you

have you have two more to make five

those are called the five pedicle a

property of a triangle is is something

that doesn't define its essence but it

is unique to that thing so what would be

the property of a triangle good yeah it

all if you add all the angles it'll give

you 180 degrees so and that's the

scalene isosceles the equilateral all

the different triangles have that

quality and but that doesn't make it a

triangle it's not what gives it the

essence of a triangle it's a property

that is unique to it so and then you

have accidents so the triangle could be

big it could be large it could be

scathing it could be as isosceles those

are those are accidents in accidents in

a logical sense in other words things

that like the ball is red the ball in

order to be a ball has to have the

property of roundness right but the

redness is an accident all right so when

we define something we look at it the

genus and then what makes it different

so that's why historically the the

definition of our species and although

this is debatable because our our

essence is really a spiritual essence so

we're called the rational animal right

or the arrow

I thought did a better job at it than

than English because they called it an

Iowan and not that the speaking animal

that that's what made us different from

all the other animals is that we speak

now speaking is equality

it's a qualitative phenomenon it's not

quantitative it's quality it has

quantity but its nature is qualitative

and and and it comes out of what in

modern parlance would be termed

consciousness but what the ancients

would have called apon and the otha is

immaterial so language is a phenomenon

it appears from something that is

immaterial

which is which is often which is in

modern parlance we call this

consciousness but the ancients would

have called it outcome which is

intellect in Greek it was called news he

was doctor and also was talking about

noetic Sciences and Greek it was called

news because it's it's what the

intellect grasps by a light it's a light

that it was given this is the light of

the intellect and so when you want it

when you want to had that's what you

want to find and then you want to know

what the topic is what it's about and

you want to know who founded it and then

what its relation to other Sciences is

what it derives its sources from what

it's virtue is what its legal ruling is

and what you call it because sometimes

it has different names and then the

topics you have subject matter and topic

right the topics are the toe post those

are the the Messiah so you have the mold

or and you only have the Messiah so for

instance the mold or of grammar ISM is

isn't is loja right it's the subject is

language but the topics are things like

the model for at the months will bad the

Madrid or in English

things like the moves tenses so you have

indicative subjective optative different

type moves things like that those are

the topics but it's not the subject

matter

and those are ten and and so those those

those were how they begin so when you

look at all who live think he says it's

basically comes from two words one of

them is a fool and the other is fit

whole soul is what other things are

built upon so it's a root or or it's a

foundation the abyssal also labate right

assess so the foundation of the house

the the root of the house is the is the

foundation and then you have fit and fit

in Arabic means understanding its

feminine and Fofana so v is

understanding of tahoe Olaf cow I

understand her I don't understand in

Arabic the Fuffy in in in jolly arabic

was the the man that could see the

pregnant camel amongst the other camels

that was the ease in other words

they could see what others couldn't see

so thick is seeing what others can't

really see it's the ability to derive

things from things and so that those are

the two words and the Prophet Elisha

have said men unity they'll be here

Huayra you fulfilled in those who Allah

wants good for he will give them

knowledge of the religion now that means

understanding and that does not mean

knowledge of what we call v today that

is what's called a most fella it's a

technical term now if it has become

identified with jurisprudence which is a

solid fit really and and but law that's

what it's a claw sacred law whatever you

want to call it but his but v in the

poor on does not that's not what it

means

that's not what it means it's actually

closer to what dr. Nelson is talking

about it's it's really metaphysical

knowledge it's true knowledge of the of

the reality but

it's become a technical term for flipped

because that's what the owner used it

for which is fine

in the same way jihad now means martial

struggle but jihad did not mean that

historically in the Muslim world and

even Tamiya said any good act the

benefits is a is jihad that's even

Tamiya any good act that benefits is

jihad but it's it's it has a meaning of

defending or protecting the Islamic land

so in that way it becomes synonymous but

if you look in the marquee books and I

don't know about the other methods but

in the madaky books of fill in the

babble of jihad that's where they deal

with Ferrari over to Keith aya which are

the collective duties like engineering

and medicine those are all considered in

the in the book of jihad so learning

medicine if you're Nia is to serve your

society and not just to have a you know

a boat and you know a nice house and all

those other things that people do I mean

you can't do that medicine is not like

it used to be all right so as the young

doctors are finding out right now

they're all becoming dentists so those

are all aspects of jihad which are those

things that society needs and then you

have the jihad of the nufs which is the

the constant jihad and in that way it

was considered the greater jihad based

on a weak hadith so sooner tip then is

basically it is the means by which we

arrive at the Istanbul that I came from

the book and the Sunnah it's the way we

derive categories or legal rulings from

the book and the Sunnah or it could be

seen as adrenaline a dinner to is Maliha

the comprehensive proves right lethargy

vain and a tilde and then the means by

which we prefer some over others when

when there's problems with the

adela or ambiguities or it's the HD had

and its conditions how we do is jihad in

other words how we derive legal rulings

and CDF mazaru mentions that our OMA

went through three stages in its

development the first stage was what he

called authority of Chef OE which was

the the stage of listening or the oral

stage and this is the sahaba listening

and memorizing and then transmitting and

delivering and this lasted for one

generation and this generation is the

generation that compiled the Quran and

they split up the Sahaba

in different lands and each one of them

had knowledge with him like Malik said

but all the Elana when when the Calif

wanted him to make them WAPA the only

book of the Muslims he said no because

Sahaba dispersed throughout the land and

there might be things that I was unaware

of so he was recognizing the possibility

that there were differences and then and

also there are things that are NASA can

Mansu which is very important in our

religion because the the Christians

believe that Christianity abrogated the

Old Testament so the New Testament

that's why Jewish people don't the

Jewish religious Jews don't call the Old

Testament the Old Testament called the

Torah and and then their prophetic and

historical books but they don't see the

New Testament because they don't

recognize Jesus as a prophet they have

debates about what he was ranging from a

misguided rabbi to a magician to learn

magic in in Egypt so nanosecond man Seuk

are very important and then mop up and

mahalia there's things that could the

prophet saw him said them or he did

something the Prophet said

the Prophet did certain things that were

my crew in order to show the own mud

that they weren't hot on and when he did

them they weren't my crew they were

actually acts of devotion for him but he

would do things that were makrooh so if

you see a hadith where the prophet saw

him did something then there's other

Hadees where he might have prohibited

that thing then they know that the

prohibition

it's either NASA command sue or its Cara

he attends ehia not to Hedy Mia

something like that so these are the

problems that come that arise in in

navigating the hadith so that was the

first generation and then the second one

was the second one is what's called the

photo Gemma or forward or Chi Taba

so the first generation is the oral

generation the second one is writing it

down and Imam Matic is part of that

because he writes the the mawatha is

really the first book of hadith even

though there's less than two thousand

and only 800 of them are actually hadith

so he was collecting a lot of the

opinions he has some wisdoms in there he

has what are called beloved so and that

that was important and then the third

generation is called Fatih football and

this is where they began to develop

kawaii or sort of fit and this is why

Imam Shafi wrote his famous book

iris ala which is one of the most

important books in the history of Islam

because he's really showing what he's

doing is similar to what Aristotle did

with logic now the Arab and Persian

logicians in the Muslim tradition argue

and I don't know how valid this is but

they argued that Aristotle actually

didn't invent logic what he did was he

spilled the beans that he'd learned in a

secret esoteric knowledge that was only

taught to members of Plato's Academy and

that's why one of the remarkable things

about Aristotelian logic is how an

entire system of knowledge came about

without any development like if you

study chemistry chemistry takes

centuries to really arrive at a complete

understanding of the science of

chemistry

Aristotle pretty much dumped logic all

at once and it didn't change until an

air saw was not unaware of inductive

reasoning but his focus was on deductive

reasoning because he was an essentialist

and not a nominalist but when you get

into the later logicians William of

Ockham who introduces nominalism which

has a huge effect and then you get Sir

Francis Bacon who wrote the new organ on

which is the new logic where he focuses

on inductive as opposed to deductive

logic inductive is probable it's based

on working with particular Zand not

universals and that's the that's the

logic of science and that's become

modern logic so it's a it's inductive

and and they pretty much eliminate a

deductive logic they don't even really

believe in it anymore which is a major

problem because Muslims are essentialist

we believe in essences we don't believe

we believe that human nature has an

essence that we're not just a bundle of

desires and appetites

that we have an essential nature and

this is why you get into trends humanism

transgenderism all of these aspects of

the modern society where things are

becoming blurred and lines are becoming

blurred this is all a result of a

transition philosophically and that's

why some of you might not appreciate I

don't know I hope not but some of you

might not appreciate or what's the

relevance of philosophy and why are we

talking about these things the relevance

of philosophy is the whole world that

you're living in was created by

philosophy all of these ideas came from

philosophers the modern world was

created by philosophers the rejection of

religion the rise of atheism came out of

philosophy relativism came out of

philosophy all of these things that

you're learning at the universities

where you don't have answers to they

came out of philosophy so philosophy

matters and it's relevant and you can

become an Amish or an Orthodox Jew like

in Brooklyn or go to chamba in Istanbul

and retreat into the unclaimed of

parochialism and a type of provincialism

mental provincialism and fundamentalism

where you just say oh they're Kafar and

who cares they can all go to hell as far

as I'm concerned we're just holding on

to what we have you can do that that's

one approach to the modern world that

some religious communities have chosen

to do but for those of us who live in

these societies and aren't fleeing to

the hills and fleeing to the hills is an

option it really is the Prophet SAW I am

said the time is coming yushik one and

yo Kuna hi little man and Moltmann

right honeymoon yet Baja yet battle be

he the paramita looking for water with

his goats fish offal Javad in in the

mountain crevices in the prophecies him

said that and he said that towards the

end of time people will flee to the

mountains right so that is I'm not

saying that's not an option but for

those of us who are not opting out to do

that that are living that we have to

understand the time we're living in we

have to understand it and you guys are

going to universities and you're hearing

people are taking introductory to

philosophy courses and getting confused

and so these things are important and we

have to recognize their importance and

we need amongst us those who have to

learn first I would not suggest by any

stretch of the imagination learning

philosophy before you learn the Islamic

tradition I would not recommend that I

think it's quite dangerous but there are

people amongst us that have to delve

into these things and because about the

shubo hats as part of Islam refuting

obfuscation is refuting those hazy

things so this third generation was the

generation of understanding where they

really delved into a lunatic and and

from that you were created madad Asst

school

of thick one of them was the Hanafi and

it's a madrasa of fokaha and it's it's

cool are based on photo and fill on the

branches of Phil and the Hanna via wrote

their own food at the end of the third

century and in the fourth century and

but they're all come out of our derive

from their food one so you have a Thule

which are would be akin to what we would

call in the West constitutional law for

lawyers in here

constitutional law jurisprudence

theoretical law the philosophy of how

laws are derived that's all sold and

then you have for what which is akin to

common law statute law it's it's what

comes out of either statutes that are

made like codes you have codes like

vehicle codes you have codes we there's

certain things you can't do because of

these statute laws that are on the books

and then you also have legal judges that

make legal judges so and then you have

the madrasah of the motorcade limine and

and this is Imam Shafi'i Maliki and

humbly are closer to the madrasah of the

of the motorcade I mean the theologians

and all of these methods have books that

they rely upon like the mop edema even a

sore in the Maliki met hem and the most

important books are the the books of

imam musa rainy and his student abu

hamid al-ghazali and his books are the

mustafa the man who'll and she fellow

Khalil he wrote three major books in a

solid fill him America's ally so those

those are really the most important

books and then you have a Rossi who

wrote and Massoud and then an a MIDI who

wrote it can feel so like an and then

you have a palpable Road at them he'd

and then you get the great always half a

shot me and they're all great but

he added a dimension that had not been

there before in his famous book and more

faqad and he says fatica wrought

colossal ephedra Hanabi aha was Tasha

Raja Dora hammock noona well Liliha and

mas una hi to also learn Mikasa papaya -

I read well apple juice Burcu Lee moon

ki Larry never attempted tesam of the

Somali World War he praises him highly

for what he did bringing out the pearls

that were hidden well al well and mas

una de yeah it's a type of pearl

yeah because Dora Dora is also so it's

it's a pearl but it's a type of pearl

huh look look look Dora

yeah it's the plural and then the

esteemed a double fulfill is a la cámara

de Menil kid have a sooner so it's it's

those that come that come in the book in

the Sunnah and then the second source is

the Arabic language itself the third

source source is logic and this is

something Imam al-ghazali and the

Mustapha the first forty pages are an

introduction to the science of logic

because he felt it was absolutely

necessary for the Oh luli scholar to

study logic and logic is a maligned

subject in modern Islam and if you read

John Wall bridges book you will

understand how central logic was to the

Islamic civilization it's absolutely

central and it was studied in all of the

universities of Islam and it's a great

tragedy that it's no longer studied it

is a truly great tragedy so month up is

very important knowing what's called

Tazawa because month up has three main

branches understanding judgment and then

reasoning and

and understanding is is is how we drive

concepts and from concepts come terms

which are based on definitions and and

then from those terms

we either negate or affirm something

about two terms which is what's called a

judgment so all men are created equal

that's a proposition it's a judgement so

we're affirming that all men right

unrestricted all men are created equal

so there there's your subject and your

predicate in in that the mold one and

the mammal and then and then you reason

from that so you make reasoning and

these are premises so these these were

studied and it's a very important

science and then the fourth one is

fickle sahaba

and there Fudd was because the sahaba

were mujtahid hoon and they had fit and

then as for its how come the legal

ruling it's a failure so any

questions

huh yeah the Mostafa and the manhole and

then the shifa shifa a lavaliere and

mustafa and manhole and she fell Khalil

so now I'm sure you mentioned if they

laugh and you gave us some of the merits

for it

uh-huh I was just wondering for a fact

history tells us that most major

civilizations have existed successfully

due to some sort of unification um how

would you reconcile the idea of if they

laugh with unification

for that matter as I it's my personal

opinion that I do feel that that's what

we need to make things better in general

well see you unification is not

uniformity and the only way that you can

unify human beings is by accepting

differences and that's real unity so

uniformity is fascism and fascism

doesn't work it's getting everybody to

wear the exact same clothes it's getting

everybody to pray exactly the same way

the you know all those things they don't

work so if T laugh is in his diversity

you know - know what right Allah loves

diversity and he's won and yet his

attributes are diverse he's right man

but he's also studies AB quick - reckon

he's moon toughen he's the Avenger of

wrongs right those seem like apparent

contradictions but they're not because

his nature he will - those who showed

mercy he will show mercy to those who

showed no mercy he will avenge the

wrongs that they committed so Allah

Himself has declared that that he has

diversity in his his own names so I'm I

don't think we're in disagreement here

oh go ahead

yeah uh-huh go ahead I think he's gonna

go and then you're up - yeah go ahead

ceremony Alec was see the I have two

questions if possible the first one is

about when you talked about any the

photo of Abdullah baby when he said

about marrying someone no he didn't say

marry not marry they were already

married yeah yeah now it is something

kind of similar the hookman

regimen I found that there is one of the

imams is a Buddha Hara I think 40 years

ago he made a fatwa that or not a fatwa

he said regimen even though it is it

seems like would tougher for something

cooperate so good but he said it is not

covering um I think now I don't know

like it's kind of well I mean that's

modernism because that's not even though

he was I don't know I haven't seen that

in him I've read his book on all

scholarship but that it's muta Watteau I

mean there it's much Maile that that yes

but but but there was no example of

rajim that wasn't from it all and and

that's very important and one of the

things about you know they say about the

Ottomans I don't know if this is true

but they say about the Ottomans that

they they never stoned anybody in in

their 800 years now that might be

hyperbole but there have been more

people stoned in the Muslim world in the

last 20 years than probably in the

entire history of Islam and that's the

truth so it's just people aren't well

right now

and all of these oh dude you know they

need to be suspended it's as simple as

that because people there's widespread

ignorance

we're having a pasta see you know people

are leaving Islam because they lie

dr. Nasir said the big questions aren't

being answered anymore you know people

are confused and you can't it's also

time of Hara I mean our Prophet SAW is

have told us that towards the end of

time people will become really confused

people will wake up believers and go to

sleep disbelievers and may Allah protect

our Amen well lie we have to preserve

our Iman because these are trying times

not just for Muslims for all people

they're trying times and it's very

important that we protect our Iman but

if you read the books of fit I mean the

Muslims created so many legal fictions

to avoid rajim it's just amazing I mean

the Maliki books they say you know ask

asked the woman if did she go into a

bathhouse after men she use a towel that

Amanda used was she in a pool that a man

had been in before they even allowed

pregnancy up to four years anything new

this is not not gonna happen but they

like so if a husband of a woman got

divorced and three years later she got

pregnant like she could say then it was

it's from my husband who divorced me

three years ago okay you're allowed up

to four years and then the other thing

is in the Muslim world solve a lie we

shouldn't be making light of Zeena's is

a grave sin but in the Muslim world it

was very similar to this world we're not

when I was a kid

it's a woman got frightened and I know

Colleen's here dr. Collins feared so

because she remembers this too but when

we were kids if a girl got pregnant she

disappeared

nobody said she got pregnant and then

you know nine months later she came back

and and and the parents you know had

adopted a new child or had a new baby

they didn't really they used to bail

people and the Sharia is you don't want

it to go to the state if somebody steals

something you can forgive them I mean

there's a famous story Aziz that was

Tommy who was

one of the great zoo had and and the

heavy praises him and said he was a

hippo and he's noted to be amongst the

Sufis but he was actually considered a

very upright righteous man of

scholarship as well but there's a story

I mean whether it's true or not is

irrelevant its meaning is true and it

certainly reflects the spirit of those

people he was in a in a hammam and

somebody stole his clothes and he with

his towel he ran out after this man and

the man was running as fast as he could

and he said no no stop stop

well my he at the Abu lek McAfee and I

just wanted to tell you can have the

clothes you know I want to put you in

the hollow to get you out of the harm

the Prophet slicin Imam and be happy

relates up widowed and very happy and

and bizarre I mean you're really

supposed to go this is something modern

you know one of the signs that you know

somebody if they studied with real

scholars one of the things that they

will do if you mention a hadith you

always mention malik first if it's in

our Bukhari Muslim and you'll see this

in the older books they always do that

unless it's more sin so sometimes you'll

see like for instance show Connie will

quote Malik but he'll have al bukhari

before Malik because in BO Hadees it's

it's Mosul but in WAPA it's more cell

but generally Matic is always quoted by

the Mahadi tune out of Edom before any

other of the mahadji Thune and then a

Behati and then Muslim and if Schaffer

is there he's quoted before also because

a man is quoted before Albahari even

though he's weaker than a Bihari

Armen has many weak Adisa in his

collection but he collected almost over

thirty thousand Hadees Imam Abu Hadi has

just over seven thousand so always they

were the more hadith hoon if they relate

a hadith that's in a medina Buhari

they'll always put Ackman's name first

in modern books you no longer see this

because they don't have adept with the

enema anymore but this is something all

the early books have so

what was I gonna say it's late what was

I gonna say about the mapa something

about Maddock about the lon

oh that hadith in in a hadith of Abu

Daoud because he's over imam and be

happy and a bazaar imam abu dawud

relates a hadith that the Prophet SAW

licen him said yeah ah geez ooh I had to

come and yo Kuna Abby Oh Bom Bom is one

of you incapable of being like a bull

dumb bomb and and the Sahaba said Yaris

little ma manobo Bom Bom o Messenger of

Allah who doubled humble and he said he

was a man who every morning when he went

out he would say o Allah at Assad vocal

vlv one Fc I give as siddhappa my

dignity and my nafs to people who and he

said faithfulness dementia tomorrow what

a melvin and varma ho what a mob the rim

and our Abajo he did not curse those who

cursed him he did not oppress those who

oppressed him and he didn't strike back

if somebody hit him

that's amazing hadith you know people I

was there the other day we had a event

and and I was talking about Abood canal

boys dad I would Kannamma said how many

people know him in here Hubble collab

not very many people which is really sad

I will canal I think he's one of the

most extraordinary figures of the 20th

century and Gandhi said about him he was

literally Gandhi's closest friend it's

closer than Nehru and and the other

people in the Congress and and he should

be really as known as Gandhi people

don't Ghani is a hero of the 20th

century people don't realize it was the

Muslims that brought Gandhi to South

Africa

it was the Muslims that funded him in

South Africa and supported him to act

against the apartheid right

unfortunately they were working on

Indian issues and not on the Zulu and

the other oppressed groups there but

when Gandhi went to India it was Muslims

that supported Gandhi really I mean it's

quite amazing but Albert Kahn was very

close to him Abul Kalam was born in

his mother was from Modena she was in

Arab so he's half Arab people think he's

an Indian he was half Arab his father

was a Bengali scholar and a sheikh who

taught in the harem he memorized the

Quran at a very early age he spoke over

10 languages fluently he was one of the

great orators of Ordo in the 20th

century and he was he was at the head of

the nonviolent movement and did not see

it inconsistent with his Islam and like

Martin Luther King said even if I wasn't

for non-violence on principle I would

still be it for it in our condition

pragmatically which is a very

intelligent statement so even though he

was principally committed to

non-violence he recognized also that

there's times when non-violence is just

a more pragmatic approach if your enemy

has nuclear power and you don't

nonviolent resistance makes more sense

if they're going to use nuclear weapons

against you but most somebody said oh

you're being romantic about non-violence

or something and I just you know I

people are romantic about violence and

it's only people that have never been

around real violence that you know the

chickenhawks all these people that have

never seen war you know go to Syria and

tell them about you know how successful

violence has been you know really go to

Iraq ask them how the wars going how the

great jihad is going you know there's so

much human suffering people used to vote

on battlefields they would fight like

you know dignified human beings I mean

Fighting's bad enough but at least they

did it in ways the prophesize and they

went out in battlefields a hood bud

though they left the city they went out

they fought they didn't kill women and

children now it's so many women and

children have been killed in this battle

all these traumatized children we've got

generations of trauma here this isn't

going to go away in one generation

generations of trauma five million

refugees just from the Syrian event so

this whole idea about I mean with the

the

according to Mahmoud about who is in his

Tufts ear and he mentions Sahaba proving

this and the students have given our

best the original Sharia the very first

Shetty had given to human beings was

nonviolent and that's why when when it

was granted permission it was said

Athena Athena Athena right Linda Dena it

was granted you patted ona those who are

being fought it's good they're given

permission the unknowable anymore

because they have been oppressed right

they were given permission right Athena

and that that's isn't so people forget

that you know and there was many Hadees

of about towards the end of time

breaking weapons and you know if islands

will you know if there's if there's an

end in sight and we believe in just war

I'm not against I'm not a pacifist by

any means but I am a pragmatist about

that so there are times when I really

feel that non-violence is a much more

intelligent approach to dealing with the

problems of oppression anyway it's my

own opinion yeah it's the nice thing

about at least we can be civil about

differing but there's so many Muslims

that if you differ with them and

disagree with them they'll just smash

you over the head and that's their

approach even tamiya enjoyable sake says

you know Christians asked us and he's

talking about Syria because Syria

you know Syria never like they didn't

get to 50% Muslim until the 5th century

of this long Egypt it took 300 years and

the ricean never achieved 50% people

think everybody just became Muslim those

people were devout Christians is not

easy to leave a religion now it's easier

but in the pre-modern period no it was

very difficult to leave a religion but

even Tamiya said in that book which he

talks about the Bible it's a it's an

important book

six-volume book on the Bible and he was

a great scholar of comparative religion

but he he says that we have people

Christians come and ask us questions and

the Muslim say then I think a rudderless

safe

the only response you're gonna get from

us is the sword and he said like kind of

answer is that

he said that is affirming the very thing

they believe about our religion that

it's spread by violence you know so what

what's up with all this violence you

know cuz it's really strange

all these youngsters that want to revive

you know killing and they think it's

some kind of fashionable thing or

something it's gonna be mad yeah young

Ben you know you got your little

Kalashnikov and they're dropping bombs

on you you know so the solution is okay

let's get bombs too then we can drop

bombs on them great great solution

escalate the whole thing cuz that ends

in nuclear that's the whole modern

madness you know and don't think I mean

Americans use nuclear weapons twice on

human beings twice Hiroshima and

Nagasaki the two largest Christian

communities in Japan so they weren't

averse to killing yellow Christians so

don't think they'll have a hard time

killing Brown Muslims right you know and

and that idiot

and I mean I you know I I really you

know I shouldn't say that get in trouble

a lot about Hanukkah long ago said one

day better than to stuff it affordably

Video 3

him along started in a hikmah to ensure

I did not a particular Jedi leave

electron Allah whom Allah in Malayalam

tonight I came along that aluminum man

you know when fat anything that I limped

on was in there Alima Horeb is in here

in my body

when I hold her and I'll be hungry so I

think we're really fortunate to have

those three classes with dr. Nassif he

people don't

when you see somebody at that age and

know the life that they've led he

actually taught Matic Shabazz for two

weeks in Beirut giving him lessons on

Islam when he first was transitioning

from the nation to send me Aslam spent

two weeks with him so it's just so much

history there and if you read man in

nature I mean he really is the first

person to identify the environmental

crises as a crises of metaphysics before

anybody was talking about the

environment they didn't really start

talking about environment until the late

60s although there's some earlier some

Germans that were aware of the problems

and I think Lewis Mumford is very

important also in the Pentagon of power

and other books but people don't realize

how central and important philosophy is

and certainly metaphysics you know

historically being the supreme science

and the loss of that in our Ummah and

what that means for the OMA because his

point about the inability to

intellectually address the

the most pressing issues confronting us

and also the loss of intellectuals

because when you don't have a strong

metaphysical foundation for your faith

you lose the intellectuals because

they're not finding answers to their

problems and religion and there's no

doubt that the majority of people in

Paradise are simple people and that's a

hadith and it's a blessing that simple

people's Iman is often much stronger

than people that are gifted with

intellect where they become confused if

they don't have those answers but you

need within the OMA you need a group

what old enough are I mean khuda

forgotten ba if it's a Papa who 15 there

has to be always a group that

understands the religion so that they

can refute the obfuscation z' that

people make and you can see in the west

christianity has really suffered and so

what remains now in amongst all though

there are still some Christian

intellectuals but by and large the

majority of the people that now

represent that faith do not have the

intellectual training or abilities to

defend the faith and atheism begins to

thrive and religion that diminishes and

this has happened so it's it's and and

the idea I mean if you just look like

why is the vine motif so common in

Islamic architecture what he was talking

about how art reflects the metaphysical

understanding of the religion the vine

if you go to all of our great massage

around the world you'll see this motif

even in Medina if you look in the

Ottoman which is quite late and it's

already influenced it's a little bit

Baroque and it's influenced by European

architecture which is interesting also

because there was a fire in the 1830s

and I'm done Majeed the first

funded the rebuilding of the prophet's

mosque and so they were already being

influenced by European architects so

you'll see some European motifs in in

the mosque of the Prophet but it's a lot

e of center but one of the things that

you'll see is the vine motif it's very

common and the reason for that is

because of the three kingdoms the

metaphysical tradition had the kingdoms

the vegetable mineral and then the

animal the the vine represented will

because the vine has a type of yada that

other plants don't have it moves and it

can and it can its it has an inner

directedness and one of the Arabic words

for vine is the a shuck which is the

issue of the vine I ship a couple is to

intertwine and so this intense love that

we call H in Arabic is related to the

vine when it wraps around and so you'll

see the vine is on prayer rugs you'll

see this vine and it's in the massage it

because it represents metaphysically in

the vegetable world it represents the

highest vegetative state which is this

inner directedness and and gold is the

highest of the mineral kingdom because

it's incorruptible and man is the

highest of the animal kingdom because

he's the Calif so you'll see these

things all throughout our tradition and

they're being lost I mean Muslims

unfortunately today are blowing up these

these great the the mosque of of Yunus

Haile Saddam has been around for a

thousand years in Mosul they just blew

it up it's just madness

complete insanity so back to took

we'll still in fact come down to the

earth now the so we went yesterday we

were looking at his introduction on

assorted filth and in the in the next

section he talks about the importance of

the Arabic language well before that

let's see if yeah then a feel bottle so

in the field ah he is like then the

field that is it's a it's a group that

goes out it's called the vanguard it's

like Bali ah so he's got this chapter

which he calls Anna feel ba which is

like the vanguard and the question that

he asks is how our rulings derived in

our tradition and the most ahead is is

is called a mutasarrif

yet a sorrowful fill a tilde so tasarov

is is this ability to - he says you

shall live another is to look deeply

into matters and and so to sorrow fees

Taha lobe a lot of behin Wattana talks

about two three aria

the movement of the winds is one of the

things you saw her for RIA Allah subhana

WA Ta'ala moves the winds and so this

movement this inner intellectual

movement with the light of the intellect

to arrive at some understanding and to

bring out and draw out the the meanings

of the new souls of these texts of the

book and the sooner the the Quran talks

about allodynia stumble upon a whole min

home those who make is Tim Bob and nabob

is the first water that comes out of the

of the spring and so your stumble toe is

to draw out those meanings from

from the Quran and that's what the

he or the mujtahid does is Istanbul -

hadn't money and so he says that that

you have the the nuke right which is the

the the actual statement itself the

notebook it's the logos it's the it's

it's what's expressed it's what's

articulate but then you have them of

whom and these this is what the puppy is

dealing with he's dealing with the Nook

which is the the utterance itself and

then what is understood from that and

that's where all the problems arrive it

arrives in them of whom not in the

montauk so we have the montauk which is

what's spoken so what lost Mohammed Atta

speaks in language and speaks to us

through the prophets in language but

language has problems because it's not

precise it's ambiguous and so there

they're different so in terms of the

what's called delayed at a level FEMA

Helen not you have five different

connotations or different delay that

these significations what they mean so

you have what's what's called the nuts

which is just the outward and then it's

it's it's it's the actual text itself

and then the VAR what's the most

apparent meaning and then you have de

latitude equity law so when you deal

with with Tesla rods which is how you

conceptualize things a conceptualization

of something implies also other things

so for instance if you understand what

fire is the the if you BA

yep oddly a knob the what's understood

from fire from smoke is fire even though

the this fire is not in the smoke but

you you you derive from that so this is

a type of signification is seeing that

and then you have the latter two Azshara

which which

is a more subtle understanding it's it's

something that that comes out are you

filming this because I don't want it

filmed oh okay

Oh masha'Allah you have it isn't is it

online so behind Allah I didn't know it

was online okay because you were holding

it up I was like yeah I believe you I

believe you I just don't like people I

believe you yeah I should have thought a

personal button you know I should have

thought of course you're reading the

book from the iPad but I didn't you know

some of them they say you know well

huzzah that I need a session you Jade

Oklahoma meaner karate llamado house no

one and Balaji from Erbil a bad

homo agenda been a little a net there's

two qualities that are above every other

quality good opinion of God and a good

opinion of the servants of God right and

so he said so follow those and don't be

obstinate

you know don't say I'm not there but one

of the later scholars he said personal

Bonnie Phil a yam among a certain

verdona Sharon will come in Halawa

jelly-like having good opinion these

days is not advisable think the worst

and then beware that's like you know he

who hesitates is lost

right but but you know look before you

leap because these these these proverbs

that have opposite meanings they're

there because they're contextualized and

this is what the ah do they do to

people mengapa

which is to understand when you apply

the proper so there's times when he who

hesitates is lost is the appropriate as

you're seeing the tsunami coming

you don't say hmm you know what should I

no you run like the animals all the

animals got out of there right peep the

the aboriginals they saw the animals all

heading for the hills so they went for

the hills right because if the animals

are going and something is up that and

then

you know everybody else all these stupid

tourists right I mean you don't really

need the adjective all you need is

tourists and that should tell you but

the stupid tourists they saw the the

waves receding and they all went out oh

let's go look at the coral and the

animals are saying it's time to add for

the hills because the animals are in

FIFRA

but the people are not in cetera the

Aboriginal people knew it because they

had traditions their ancestors told them

if you see that water receding head for

the hills and some of the elephants put

children on their backs they didn't put

adults because they know it's the adults

that caused the tsunami right and the

children didn't do it they're innocent

right people don't they don't want it

they don't want to relate natural

disasters to to human behavior this is

the modern world they want to pretend

that natural disasters are just not

that's all they are

it's just natural disaster it has

nothing to do with what we're doing but

we affect the world our physical aspects

affect the way we know that as we

pollute the oceans get polluted the

acidity of the oceans is is is rising

every year well the acidity in our blood

is rising with that the acidosis is one

of the the major epidemics on the planet

now because diabetes is one of the

fastest growing illnesses so there's a

relationship between our blood which is

very similar in its constituents to

ocean water right there's a relationship

to our blood and to the oceans and

there's also when he said that nothing's

gonna remain except the mice and the

lice that's that's some metaphysical

reality because if you look at the

animals that are disappearing in the

world they are not the mice and the lice

they're not the cockroaches they're

flourishing it's the high exalted

animals that people used to name their

children after like soccer the Falcons

are disappearing the Tigers are

disappearing

the gazelles are disappearing the whales

are disappearing the ocean is actually

the jellyfish are flourishing spineless

mindless consumers they're flourishing

but the whales there they're not there

so there's a relationship between what's

happening to us in the microcosmic world

and what's happening out there and if we

want to change the real environmental

crises is here it's not out there that

is only a reflection of what's happening

in here it's the pollution of our souls

that is manifesting in the physical

world the apparent the phenomenon what

is appearing so that's all that's

happening and and these are metaphysical

realities which people have lost but the

ancients knew them the heart facade ofit

buttery wood body Vemma cassava to Aiden

s corruption pollution deterioration

degradation all these meanings of facade

have manifested in on the land and in

the seas because of what people's hands

have been doing what they've been

earning that's why it's happening so

back to and then delayed earth will

email these are the five significations

of the nook or the Montauk but then when

you go into them of whom it has to move

home and Moapa and muffle manmohan otha

right so and the hanafis have certain

different variations so Muhammad

Mahadeva and Mohan and mohaka relate to

the a priori understanding something

that precedes the actual it's something

you understand before the thing itself

so like I said if Allah says don't curse

your parents then what we would

understand and I'm using a priority

incorrect and loosely but here but it's

something that you would understand

before you understood it in other words

if Allah says do not speak ill to them

then them of whom and Allah is would be

don't don't hit them or don't do

anything and so so then he goes into the

need of the the FUP e for arabic and i

just want to read this because it's very

beautiful section how many people know

arabic in here oh good a lot so this

you'll appreciate this he says hada an

wanna Nocturna who'd eat ambient amoeba

steam bar Academy mini Tiki Tavi

vicinity well motto sovereign a little

Kaabah evil fatwa well asserted a tell

Jamie adds in a Hannity its cannon

overturn our beauty its Fanny must ilaha

hadeeth rasul allah mohamet hellooo who

were a Obon a habit hoon will para

battered Virasat Islamia t Julieta

Shariati al-ladhina padilla you know

below home analog eternal arrabiata he a

tional arab could be at a lower

tolerability oka little add up one who

he will be Allah Iike Leopoldo Hotel

arabiya terminal annuity

matters to help over here shorten

assertion Oh mr. Humberto rien lisicki a

guava Shariati is Badou Nomura Fatiha

sell Teddy's for at a huge a hotel to EB

him a Subin

were your zoo Navi Riley Marceline we

have the only airing masculine the under

quran al-karim nazarov edition and are

bein Mubeen Loretta other in Houla tan 0

rabbil alameen necessarily roohul ameen

and a pelvic elite akuna minal Monday in

Paris on an RBM Mubeen radha telugu

kannada kareena alayka for an and

Arabiya

Loretta in Naju or an inaudible and

welcome to Oakland with Lady data

community agility to Shiro

Arabic Quran whether a Corolla row but

Ruby Tahu from Quran or a banal media

and Amitabh milk orator ro ma arsalnaka

illa capital de nasi Beshear on when

Adira when I said that were tuned well

is adequate and the aqua

an aqua way ladies a man and Anza man

par anubius a la la re wa salaam we can

interview you bathra Oh mija so what is

to eat acutally tomorrow is wet so he's

he's saying in a very beautiful Arabic

that it's necessary to revive really so

he's he's really saying that we have to

prepare these students in the Islamic

studies and in the Sharia colleges to be

grounded in the Arabic language and he's

saying that don't think that Arabic is a

matter that concerns the Arabic language

colleges or Arabic literature he said

that he's encouraging these people to

really give the Arabic language the type

of focus and the type of concern that's

net that it deserves because it is a

foundational condition and it is the

necessary key to open the doors of the

Sharia the doors are closed

if you don't know Arabic it's as simple

as that Arabic is a key and and and that

will let you into the house and then

there are other skills that you need to

know to be able to navigate the house to

know where the kitchen is to know where

the dining room is and then to know the

ED above the house because the house has

edit if you're a guest in the house this

is the the house that God has given us

and then he mentions if they do that

they're going to like a surgeon they

will cut in the wrong place or they'll

flee to the wrong place they want to

have a place of protection they'll go to

the wrong place that the the roads will

become confused they'll become crooked

they'll know that they'll lose the

straight path and so he says that on the

allah said this

pour on down in a clear Arabic tongue

and then he quotes the ayahs of the

Quran this is a revelation from the Lord

of the Worlds that has come from the the

trustworthy spirit the holy spirit on

your heart in order that you might be a

Warner in a clear Arabic tongue and also

we have revealed this in Arabic and we

made this a piranha an Arabic Quran in

order that you might use your alkyl use

this intellect of yours that you might

understand it in in in in the proper way

and then the Prophet Allah I am he says

this indicates out of ether Quran and

then he says and I'm not saying a little

better who so the Quran is Arabic but

it's not Arab right so that he's

distinguishing between Arabiya and/or

OVA arroba is related to a specific

ethnic group of people that are called

out up and but the outer via is a tongue

that anybody can learn and in that way

they they they become Arabic because the

Prophet SAW ycm removed arroba from the

Arabic nature of the tongue and he said

men to kill a man out of beautiful

Jarabe whoever speaks Arabic is Arabic

right so ethnically you're not an Arab

but linguistically you are an Arab and

and in that way the Arabic becomes our

lingua franca write this is a term

French used to be the language of

diplomats it for a few centuries because

the French were very powerful and so

diplomats all learned French

now the diplomatic language is English

because they're the most powerful the

Americans the English and then the

Americans became the most powerful and

so but in in in the in the Muslim

civilization Arabic was the lingua

franca and to a certain degree Persian

undeniably in the Eastern Arabic

tradition Persian became extremely

important Indians learned Persian every

educated in

Muslim learned Persian or Dew which is a

hybrid language of Arabic a little bit

of Turkish a large percentage of Persian

and Sanskrit all of these educated

people in what is now Pakistan what used

to be part of India or Hindi they knew

Persian so it was part of the

civilization many great books were

written in Persian the Sunni scholars

many of them Ghazali wrote in Persian he

was a great stylist in Persian and

Arabic so they mastered and they were

multilingual so Muslims traditionally

were poly lingual in many places they

knew more than one night which is very

important to learn more than one

language the prophets a licen could

could speak with people he's but he knew

what he knew just in the Arabic language

is not possible humanly possible it's

not and in fact the Arab the the great

grammarians have a pada in Arabic they

say layer you're fearful but out of

beauty Eleni Buena no one can know all

of Arabic except a prophet because it's

too vast as a language and I would for

any Arab just go online and look at the

Senate out of by even month or and just

look at at the the word out about the

routine or ball just just look at the

pages of meaning that come out of that

one root and then marvel at how one

human being could know that much about

the Arabic language even Man Thor but he

was a specialist and and so that's quite

rare so mastery of the Arabic language

was very important in the Islamic

civilization and this is why in the

early portion of the Islamic

civilization Muslims learned Arabic in

the same way that educated Europeans

knew Latin during the medieval period

and and in in in the later period they

learned French French was the language

that all educated Europeans knew and and

today it's English so you have Germans

they all speak English Danish

all speak English because it's the

language now that has become the

language historically all educated

Muslims knew Arabic this was part of

education and even the ones that had

very minimal education knew how to read

Arabic and most of our our vernaculars

the the provincial tongues that muslim

spoke with were written in Arabic so if

you look at how the land for instance

the the the the Nigerians there now

Nigerians but if you look at the Fulani

the Hausa demand inc the pla the the

these great clans of west africa they

all their their language it was arabic

and this is why we have arabic

manuscripts from slaves that came to

america they didn't write in they

weren't writing in in in any of their

local dialects they were writing in

arabic and we have proof and evidence of

that and these were not people whose

first language was arabic they were

educated west africans who were captured

unjustly and brought to the Americas as

slaves and in the Bahia revolt in Brazil

in the 1830s they had they were their

court their language of Correspondence

was Arabic and and this made it very

difficult for the Portuguese because

they didn't know Arabic so these slaves

that were revolting against their unjust

captivity they were their code language

was Arabic so and then if you look at

the berber peoples of North Africa the

burghers became bilingual and this is

why even today the Berbers who speaks

aloha they also speak Arabic the Tuareg

when I went to the Tuareg lands I met

many many Tuareg they all spoke Arabic

even though Thomas Scheck is their

language but they all spoke Arabic

because wherever Islam went Arabic went

with it this was our lingua franca and

we have to revive Arabic as a language

that binds us were bound now by English

this is the dominant language because

the dominant culture speaks English it's

a hegemonic culture its media has had

massive influence you now meet I've met

many

from Gulf states who speak much better

English than they speak Arabic and this

is a crises and I would argue that

Arabic is going to be a dead language if

things continue as they're going it will

become like Latin because it's a very

difficult language to master and one of

the interesting things about modern

Arabs and I really believe that a lot of

the problems in the Arab world is

because of the data because the data is

like Ebonics

Ebonics is is a very rich cultural

language of African Americans but

Ebonics will limit people's abilities

it's as simple as that and that's why a

culture that wants to keep a people

oppressed will leave them in their

provincial languages they won't educate

them out of those languages they will

keep them oppressed and so it's very

important and that's why you find

educated African Americans that came out

of inner cities are bilingual they speak

the language of the the inner city where

they grow up and then they speak what

they call the job interview language

right which is how to speak in in in

good English but if you look at at

Malcolm Malcolm spoke beautiful English

and he learned the first thing even was

diction which is proper word choice

which diction is almost a lost art now

because people don't know the meanings

and the subtle differences what's called

fit Aloha in the Arabic language the

subtle differences between words and why

we would choose one word over another

word to mean something very specific

because precision if we want to

communicate it demands that we be as

precise as possible and in order for the

ambiguities to be removed in logic when

when we use terms the first and most

important thing about terms is that

they're they're clear and unambiguous in

other words that we define our terms so

that when we speak of I say democracy I

know the genus is government right and I

know that the difference is

of for and by the people right so

there's a definition that's a working

definition of democracy there are other

definitions if I say monarchy then it's

a form of government and what

distinguishes it is that the head of the

government is a hereditary line a family

line

that's a monarchy and then a dictator

the genus is government the form is an

individual who has absolute power so the

these are when we went when I'm talking

about democracy we cannot call for

instance a lot of the governments today

that are called democracies are not up

for and by the people they're up for and

by the corporations so this this becomes

important in terms of understanding when

we speak the words that we're using and

what they're communicating it's very

important so diction was traditionally

taught and that's why the first major

discipline of the human being is the

acquisition of words they're correct

meanings knowing one two three and four

because words have different meanings in

context I'll give you an example I read

a commentary I read a translation of an

Arabic book in which the person

translated in every sentence that the

word kiosk was used he translated as

syllogism and it was a completely

inaccurate translation because kiosk

means syllogism but it also means it

means reasoning it means it can mean

analogical reasoning there's different

types of PS distant as istikhara Timothy

these are different types of PS and

you'll only notice by the context of the

sentences and this is where domain

knowledge becomes incredibly important

and very difficult for people because

domain knowledge takes a long time to

acquire one of the things that my sister

was criticized for was having books of

Greek and Roman mythology in her

curriculum for children if you want to

understand Western literature you have

to know Greek and Roman mythology at

some

point or another you will have to know

Greek and Roman mythology because it's

very very important a lot of metaphors a

lot of words are taken out of these I

mean people don't know cereal comes from

Sarris which was the god of grain in the

Romans so the word cereal is is honoring

the god of grain saris right so this is

this is part if you don't know Mars Mars

is the God of War you want to understand

all these references that you'll find if

you want to read Shakespeare there are

there are a lot of things you have to

understand about Elizabethan worldview

or you what you'll totally miss

Shakespeare because he was living in a

transitional phase between the

pre-modern world and the modern world

and the the greatest statement of that

is his play Hamlet now you can say all

this is irrelevant for me as a Muslim

that's fine and you can you can relegate

your tradition and say I'm not

interested in the Western tradition

that's fine but you're living in Western

civilization you're living here in this

world and if you want to understand this

world better then you have to understand

what informs the people that have the

most power and influence in this world

and what informs them are these

foundational texts that they have this

is what informs their culture the Iliad

is is still an informative text about

this civilization it's the Iliad and if

you read somebody like Kagan or

Victor Davis Hanson is a good example

who had he was at one of the

intellectual lightning rods of the

neoconservative movement during the

whole war on Iraq and Afghanistan he's a

classicist Robert Kagan these people are

drawing from classical literature

they're drawing from Herodotus they're

drawing from through Citadis the the

history of the Peloponnesian War it's a

very important text in in Western

civilization this is where they get

their ideas from we have our own

civilization but those amongst us who

are called to to

to be engaging we have to be bilingual

in two civilizations and it's not easy

to do that it takes a great deal of work

to get the domain knowledge the domain

knowledge to understand the average

Islamic text written in the pre-modern

world is immense if you want to read a

late 19th century book on Edmund Kadam

like imam ed by Judy imam advisory

assumes in his book on his shot of Johar

at the Tajin he assumed that you studied

Montek that you've studied narrow and

saw that you studied Bulava that you've

studied out all he makes an assumption

that you studied out old because he'll

explain to you in certain couplets in in

the poem he'll explain to you why he's

not repeating himself or this that or

the other so it's a multidisciplinary

tradition interdisciplinary the

interdisciplinary and tradition that's

emerged recently in the West is

ridiculous this idea that somehow it's a

new thing all of the pre-modern writers

whether they were European or African or

Middle Eastern or Turkish

or Indian all of them were

multi-disciplinarian they were polymath

and and this was our tradition so it

takes it's it's hard work but Arabic is

fundamental to our tradition you know I

actually just I'm working on a course

that I want to teach in one of the

prisons in in California so I'm working

within the Imams he's an imam in the

prison on teaching grammar to largely

african-american Muslims in in the

prison because one of the things that

prevents people from succeeding in in in

in just this incredibly mad world that

that we've inherited and are now

participating in it's perpetual or

perpetuity is is grammar

that that because grammar empowers

people it's an empowering subject and

this is why now and software so

important in the Islamic tradition and

this is why almost immediately if you

know Arabic you can determine a person's

level of education after a few sentences

in the Arabic world and you will see

that the people that have the most

influence in in putting forward their

opinions are the people that are the

most articulate this is a simple fact

now you do have a phenomenon where an

amount would move in and out of post

high and Daddy Jie

Imam shout Rani Xiao Tao he is a good

example of that the mph SEO from Egypt

but he he knew that there were I'm not

in in the audience where force how was

not as accessible to them and so he

would dip into the daddy Jie and that

that is a tradition but what we should

be working on is getting people out of

debt Isha into proper Arabic and it

takes a long time and this is one of

Chef Abdullah's you know he considers it

very important and so when you look at

them Mel fool he said that the Sharia is

taken from three sources is taken from a

loan so all of our thick that is derived

is taken from three sources obviously we

have the book and the Sunna but how are

we working with it it's taken from his

own what the Prophet said and that's

always over what he did or what he

agreed on that's over the highest source

is the Quran and the hadith and then the

hadith Oh obviously has many categories

the highest being motivator and then

sake that that is in the six books sake

and Bukhari and Muslim definitely and

then so on and so forth and then you

have the film which is the prophets

actions what he did and then you have to

determine why he did them are hit are

they just natural acts that he did that

the Arabs did so they're part of his

culture so he did them for instance he

ate with with with his hand

which was part of the tradition of his

people but he didn't eat with the whole

hand he ate only with the three the two

fingers and the thumb and so if you're

going to eat with your hands then you

should eat that way not with the whole

hand that's the Sunnah but that does not

mean that you can't eat with a spoon

wooden spoons are better than metal

spoons and traditionally wouldn't wooden

spoon to what we're used in fact if you

want the Shifa of honey you should

always give it in a wooden spoon and not

in a metal spoon and we know metal we

don't know how much metal is affecting

us the anions that would come off of

metal but we know that people benefit

for instance from cooking with with with

copper right and do they get iron so we

know that metal is coming into our

bodies and we there's a lot of metal now

out there that's very harmful for people

we you know we know mercury lead paint

all these things there's also the ninki

nanka poop theory of the decline and

fall of Roman civilization that argues

that it was the lead pipes that they

started using for their plumbing which

gave them plum plumbum right plumbum

right is led in in in on the chemical

table or the table of elements

so plumbing used to be it was lead pipes

so they were drinking water from lead

the lead was getting in the water and

lad will make you stupid and so that's

the nincompoop theory of how they

literally ended up declining and falling

so the most important one is the word

and then the fan what the prophet saw I

sent him did and then he did things

because they were why him he did things

because they were men do sometimes he

did things because they were simply moba

he always his neo was always would

elevate it to man doob or Wojcik and

then he did things that were makrooh in

order to show roba Marilyn McCoo

rahimova you know

tanzie he sometimes he will do something

that's my crew to show that it's for 10z

that it's simply it's not haram like

urinating standing up for men he did

that on rare occasion to show the men

that it was permissible because there

might be times where it's difficult not

to do that so that's like just making it

easier for people because my crew is not

sinful but you wrote you're rewarded if

you don't do it but he never did

anything how long ever it's a lot

incident so those are the five

categories and now this is very

important

the Shetty are all of it goes back to

canal and all of this Kalam this speech

is in the Arabic tongue whether it is

expressed by the prophets Eliza damned

or it's a story that was told of

something he did or something he agreed

to or saw it done and consented to it so

what he consents to as part of the the

comes out the Sunnah can come out of

that or he says be at the bar and aha in

another way of expressing this that led

you tomorrow man knows who's a Sharia t

least a garage Allah cam with the Creole

Messiah

say in Omaha Allah assassin let Herot

allahumma this is really important in

other words we engage the new Souls the

the text of this Sharia in order to

derive rulings from it and to to come to

some determinations about new issues

there are two foundations one of them is

the no souls and the other is the

opposite so this is the whole foundation

of Sharia what the letter of the law and

the spirit of the law the letter of the

law is in the new Souls the spirit of

the law is in the musasat and these are

the two things that the FUP e is working

with the letter of the law which

sometimes does kill it right

to put it in the words of the New

Testament write the letter killeth and

the spirit giveth life in other words if

you don't understand them Abbasid the

and this gets back to metaphysics if you

don't understand the metaphysics which

is really what the pauses are about this

that then you kill the literalism will

kill you it will kill the religion it

will kill it and this is what's

happening why so many Muslims hearts are

dying because they've lost them opposite

they've lost a real deep understanding

of what this Sharia is for what it is

about it's not about punishing people

and humiliating people it's about Toba

it's about bringing people back to what

lawsuit behind without it's about making

people love allah subhanho wa to ana not

hate god the fear of God is in awe of

God in the same way that the child fears

the parent it doesn't fear the parent

out of out of an idea that the parent

hates it or wants to punish it no it

fears the parent and it doesn't want to

disappoint the parent out of love so the

fear of the parent is actually really

love of the parent and and so the fear

of Allah is it should be from from love

of God not because God is some horrible

tyrant you know I wouldn't be laughs

some petulant you know tribal deity that

needs sacrifices to be appeased it's not

our Lord our Lord is Allah dude he's a

German

he's dhul Jalali wal Ikram he is

majestic Azza WA Jalla he is but he's

his Halim he's Karim

he's sabor his moment these are the

calls and that's why he has beautiful

names that that they're all his asthma

are husana all of them are beautiful

even though some of them have majestic -

juliette' manifestations but all of his

names are beautiful because allah is

Jameel you Benjamin so this is really

important now the MA acid do not need

language to be understood the no fools

they're only understood through language

the Mikasa is our intellectual

conception

lies Asians they're articulated through

language but they're understood

intellectually in other words they're

its wisdom its hikmah and this is the

highest of the intellectual virtues you

have the aqil you have the inn and then

you have hikmah the apple is the the

foundation of the intellect it's it's

the intuitive intellect the news it's

what understands things it has immediate

comprehension therein is what is learned

or and acquired and then hikmah is is is

the it's when the Aqualand there in are

working together then hikmah arises it's

it's it's the art and the science right

it's the art and the science its

prudence is the practical aspect of of

hikmah in Western tradition the Arabs

did not differentiate between

intellectual wisdom intellectual in the

pre-modern sense of that word not the

modern sense and and prudence they

didn't distinguish between those two but

in the West they did they made a

distinction between prudence and and

wisdom although it's the only in in in

the Western classification and in the

Muslim classification it's the only

virtue that is both moral and

intellectual it's the only one that

shares in the moral virtues and those

are the virtues of will of behavior and

in the intellectual virtues the virtues

of understanding so prudence is in in

both hikmah and so the this is what's

needed and this is jellybean Masada

without a facet so mal Korea tennis

right the hikmah of the Tichina is

what's called mockery and knows why

what's the intelligibility of the the

Nos

what do we understand from it you have

my cool enough right and and then

there's certain things that Allah has

hidden the wisdom from us but we know

that it's my pool it's just allah has

hidden that from us and this is done to

abuddin this is done out of devotion

there are certain things like we do not

know why there are three rockets for

Margaret but there's a reason we don't

know why there's two for fudger but

there's a reason we don't know why

there's four for Thor and for four

awesome we don't know why those times

specifically but there's reasons part of

it might be that it's it's really

important to get up at dawn when when

you know there's certain hormones in the

brain that are peaking you know your

cortisol levels peak at about that time

we don't know that might be part of it

because there are health benefits to the

practices that we do there are health

benefits to prayer physically there are

health benefits to to to or to

doing meditation but that's not the the

highest wisdom in these things the

highest wisdom is all that inner

directedness towards a lot to get us

closer to Allah subhana WA Ta'ala and so

this is really important now so all of

it goes back to jellybean masada without

anima fasten this is the essence of the

mikasa to to accrue benefit for human

beings and to ward off harm and warding

off harm is is always put before

accruing benefit warding off harm is

always you HUD them not a facet and a

gentleman Missoni

so whenever something's harmful you

override other things and in our Shetty

is beautiful I'll give you an example in

the Shetty app if you're in the mosque

praying and somebody is stealing your

shoes I mean if you have a personal one

you might think that they just

mistakenly but if it looks like a thief

right you're in the prayer it is

permitted to leave the prayer and go and

stop that thief now why why would I'll

not permit that because normally Deen in

the six universals Deen is over

preservation of property preservation of

religion is over preservation of

property because port there's poor

people that though

shoes are everything to them there's

people that he might have just saved up

months to get a brand-new pair of good

shoes and they're important to him and

so Allah lets him preserve his property

by leaving the Huq of Allah for the heck

of that this is Rama somebody who's

wealthy Allah like Kabara they might not

even who cares and you can have the

shoes maybe he needs them more than I do

it's a sub topple like a BA Bom Bom you

just give me a tapa I'll be as either

bastami so and then he said these are

this these are the the foundations of is

t hat and there are many proofs for this

so you go into PS s tents at the variety

and Masada and let's eat in many island

maja said all of these are based on the

Mikasa and and their three the borough

yacht the Haji at and the taxi nyet so

this is the triage of the O sudhi

scholar they look at the necessities

they look at the needs of humans and

they look at the embellishments of life

those things that make life enjoyable

because Allah wants us also to enjoy our

lives he created us Manzana karana

liquidity spa we didn't reveal this Iran

so you'd be miserable muffle Manmohan

otha lit Assad we revealed it for you to

be happy so the the Farhana will be that

occur fairly a Franco who had an image

Marilyn let them rejoice in this it's

better than all that those trappings out

there right and and and Allah says don't

prohibit those those embellishments of

the world that Allah brought forth for

his servants right Cluedo watcher Abu

eat and drink

muy Baha eat and drink I mean they're

obviously you have to do it to preserve

your life that's an obligation but you

can also eat and drink to enjoy you know

ice cream has no benefit

really I mean very little the more harm

than benefit but it's not how Tom to eat

a lot where you're harming your health

that's but every once in a while

buckle OA right yeah this I mean Allah

put these things in the world but the

problem is when they become the

overriding purpose Socrates once

somebody asked him how did how did you

become so wise and everybody else so

foolish he said I don't know about that

but I know one difference between you

and me is that I eat to live and you

live to eat and there's a lot of people

out there digging their graves with

their teeth really there are a lot of

people out there digging their goods and

obesity is a major problem on the planet

there's so much overeating you only need

1,600 to 2,000 I mean rarely you get

these you know people that might need

more than that but that's basically what

you need we know how much food you need

anything that's excess of that is going

to become harmful and cumbersome it's

going to weigh you down and make you

sick so the dodo rot are the necessities

and the necessities are actually very

few you need for instance food and drink

this is Maslow's hierarchy of needs

which are profits lights him perfectly

articulated long before Maslow in in in

the hadith his first hope but in Medina

right where he said up I'm open you know

feed food right up Shuster Nam wallop

I'm open

well so Lupin se will a well so doable

ad when a Sunni answered Khalil

generative asana he said create security

spread peace that's security that's the

base in Maslow's needs security up I'm

open feed people next one

yep Ted so you have security food and

then Self Realization

right pray yeah your purpose in life

which is to worship Allah that's the

fundamental purpose of life so find

purpose and

so and and this is again in fede I'll go

to Robin and let the upon movement you

are in were armament help the worship

your Lord the Lord of this house who fed

you and give you security once you have

the baseline of food and security

devotion you have to have devotion so

that those are the bottle rods right

though that's the basic security we have

security needs and then we have our

basic food clothing shelter those times

and they're very minimal I lived with

Bedouins so I know how little and and

and you know Zaytuna are our campuses

next to one of the largest homeless

communities in America which is People's

Park in Berkeley and when I was

interviewed by CNN they said why did you

choose this I said well we've got the

largest homeless community next to us so

nobody can say when the Muslims moved in

there goes the neighborhood so you know

homeless people do find without all

these right the accrued amounts of of

life the embellishments but Hajji at our

the next the Hajj yet are those things

that they're not necessary but they're

important some of the Oh sooty scholars

use the house as the house is necessary

but windows are hijacked you know you

have to have a you have to have windows

like I mean the door is necessary to get

in and out of the house but windows are

you need them to keep the house bring

light into the house

Oh bring fresh air into the house all

those things so that's a Hodja and then

the tech mediate are the embellishments

that's the furniture in the house you

don't need furniture it's not a need and

it's not a necessity you can sleep on

the floor you don't need a bed you can

sleep on the floor right the earth is a

Faraj you know the earth Allah made the

earth our bed so people sleep on the

earth

but those are and that's why if you look

for instance in Sharia preservation of

life is about all

Video 4

furniture in the house you don't need

furniture it's not a need and it's not a

necessity you can sleep on the floor you

don't need a bed you can sleep on the

floor right the earth is a Faraj you

know the earth Allah made the earth our

bed so the people sleep on the earth but

those are and that's why if you look for

instance in Shetty on preservation of

life is about aura so if you go to the

doctor and and and and so you've got

your you've got pain to remove that pain

as a Hodja right I mean it might not be

a doddle right it might be the doctor

needs to determine that because it could

be something you could live with right

but it could be something that will harm

you so a woman the the hijab is from the

taxi niet it's not from the Dora or the

Hajj yet and this is very interesting

because people don't realize this in

assault the the hijab the covering our

nakedness is considered from the testing

yet and Aboriginal peoples walk around

almost naked so it's neither a necessity

or a need but it's it's an embellishment

it's wedge it I'm not going to say it's

not logic but the old foodie scholars

put it in the text in yet and this is

why for a need you can remove that the

job to the doctor because in the triage

of things the need overrides the

embellishment so if you have a need if

you've got something and the doctor

needs to see your nakedness or check the

woman's breasts to see if there's lumps

or something like that that's

permissible

why because of this triaging so this is

how the Oh Saudi scholars look look at

these things now I want to two points

that he that he brings out that I think

are very important I mean all these

points are important but these are very

interesting

even though yeah ich mentions in his

shot of the mufasal' that the all

madhavan at hop up when he was the

kailath he got a letter from

abu musa al-ashari and abu musa was a

pave in Kufa al Kufa is a place in Iraq

city in Iraq it's great city of

knowledge and the the the letter he got

from him was written by a scribe and the

scribe wrote min Abu Musa ela amir al

mu'minin from abu musa to the amirul

mumineen but he didn't write min Evie

Musa

he wrote min Abu Musa now men in Arabic

scald half jar it's a preposition so

anything that follows it is an object of

the preposition and therefore it's

considered my drawer and then Abu is

from the Asthma al hamsa or citta if you

add a pin malik adds a 6 so you have

like Ibuka right a hookah yeah these

these Fuuka du mal and these when you

when you put a half jar there then they

have to have a casa to indicate that

they're much raw so it should have said

min ABI Musa not min Abu Musa but he

wrote min Abu Musa Allah Amir

al-mumineen

and he made the Albemarle for because

the Wow is the primary allama or sign of

the nominative case in in if you used

English grammar terms

well candidly IB Musa ketchup they are

sin Aloha he wasn't good at Arabic let

me Albania and Hamilton Alexander Moda

and Wow so he didn't put the the yeah as

a sign that it was in the genitive case

and so what did all Maher do he got

angry

Lavetta in tibet aha who had a Lanham so

this bad grammar caught his attention

and he got upset and he says well I know

Allah little our ability such a hip

would be had in Halawa

what made him upset or angry was the

effects that bad

we'll have it wasn't the actual it's a

minor mistake it's not a big deal but

he's looking down the road this is

called nother little mallet what are the

consequences if this becomes widespread

and so he wrote back and he said IRA

ABI Moussa and he commanded him to flog

his secretary once and to remove him

from his position people say wow it's

pretty hard for a grammatical mistake

now and that makes like the Hat this the

unhappy face on the when your teacher

gives you a little bad grammar and puts

a lot on a happy face on the side right

feel better about your teachers that was

a no model in the Pettibone Shadid one

yet Huck will be more lovin the unique

admit to who this is a harsh

disciplinary action that that he gave to

this employee and ended his employment

right well you must be the he basalt and

then he gave him the harshness of the

width I mean mm and Mela ad-dunya

Adalind this is from an imam who filled

the world with justice well better than

who cama Fabri he surpassed all these

who came in virtue heading tech in tech

at hermitage area to he cat hermitage

sharia Hatami Omar was the Sharia the

sanctity of the shady are so affected

that Omar gets angry in this way hell

had a third vid at 1:15 is this a bidet

that occurred in the religion hat alpha

assault that he would raise the assault

in a typical moneylender Konoha Everton

and Danny Amma in reality these are the

meanings that were not far from the mind

of Amma for a Nakata Shariati Bellotti

Ikeda tune because the relationship of

the Sharia attend language is absolute

what if tada cardamon I tell em to stop

him at Elsinore - what a plan and the

dad comes out all of the mistakes in the

history of Islam all of the mistakes

that these deviant sex made in the Quran

and the Sunnah most of them go back to

their lack of knowledge in Bulava

literally some of them to their lack of

knowledge in Arabic all of them

and so what amar saw was if this becomes

widespread will lose the foundation of

our religion which is language and this

is something the modern world it's very

troubling because we're losing the

ability to communicate private languages

are emerging we have a whole generation

of youth that speak in private languages

we can't understand them they speak in

acronyms they they use words that we

don't know what they mean they invert

words so bad becomes good right hot

becomes cool they law now another

example of that is from Omar from Abu

Bakr a Sudhir he was once my Ravi Raja

Muda ho Abu Ali Baba see hadith Obon he

had he was carrying a garment and Abu

Bakr was a garment merchant fatahna no

Sudhir part of the lowdown on who a

t-butyl hadith oh are you gonna sell

this robe and the man said Lera he

mccullaugh know may God have mercy on

you

what did Abu Bakr say but oh we met else

inna to come low to stock a moon had you

been morally upright your tongues would

have been grammatically correct it's a

very deep metaphysical statement this is

a very deep metaphysical statement had

you been morally upright your tongues

would have been grammatically correct in

other words the corruption

of the language only occurs with the

corruption with a metaphysical

corruption that precedes it

and that's why language is at the root

of the problem on the planet literally

it is at the root of the problem now why

did he say that well the reason for that

is in Arabic you have two types of

sentences you have what are called

hibari a' which is indicative and then

you have an inch at which there in

English we we divide them into several

categories but it's basically a

subjective sentence like an optic of an

interrogative sentence if you ask

somebody like where are you going or how

are you doing those are those are all

forms subjective senses whereas if you

have a hub Edea it's it's in it's

indicative it's a it's a categorical

statement it's raining that's Cabiria

Jim not huh buddy yeah right you can go

outside and see whether it's true or

false so when he said Tibby or Hannah

are you selling this that was a question

that's a in chat yeah but it demands a

hub area right so it's an interrogative

sentence that demands an indicative

response either yes or no or maybe when

he said no he followed it with a dua

aduana

is not a hub idiots in chat yeah but

it's when when we make dua in Arabic we

usually use the past tense which is hub

area that a haematoma

God has had mercy on you but the reason

we use the the the form of the Hibernia

is because it's out of hope that God has

already forgiven you so we use the past

tense because it's writing look a lot as

if it's already happened but what you're

really saying is may God forgive you so

when he said that

Hibernia indicative and then he said an

optic of sent statement but I McCallum

may God have mercy on you it's a wish so

he said may God have mercy on you

he didn't divide it with a fossil he

didn't put any staff there he didn't put

a Wow which would indicate that they're

separate he put them together and that

could make you think that he's saying

may God not have mercy on you so Abu

Bakr was correcting his grammar

now what to che bella say about this he

says this indicates that the Calif

should be concerned about the grammar of

his population the most the whoever the

ruler is he should be concerned about

the grammar of his population and this

is something that Muslims were obsessed

with really there are so many books on

grammar and language and no community in

the human history ever served language

like the Muslims did the dictionaries we

have are by far the best dictionaries in

human history

Muslims were writing dictionaries long

before any other civilization wrote

scientific dictionaries the Europeans

didn't start in English we don't have a

dictionary from Shakespeare's period

there's no dictionary from Elizabethan

English there's no diction I mean

Johnson's dictionary is the first

dictionary 18th century in English it's

the first dictionary and it's it's an

interesting dictionary but it's not

anywhere near as sophisticated as the

early most objection our first

dictionary was incredibly sophisticated

and I mean it's amazing Italian it's

amazing dictionary and then if you look

at the Senate out of beyond belief

Sajid ah who's amazing there's something

that al baqarah drazi dozen is more

thought of see how because there's a

famous dictionary called C ha and then

most thought of see how which is the one

I used when I was a student all the time

I would look up a word and he'd say my

room like everybody knows that that was

his definition in other words listen

dummy if you're having to look up this

word you're not ready for this dish

[Laughter]

yeah so and using words is important

right my father told me a story about

Van Doren who was his teacher

Mark Van Dorn at the University of

Columbia and my father read with him Don

Quixote it was a literature course and

you know he was 19 or 20 and he met him

in the hall and he said dr. Van Doren I

I think I understand what Don Quixote is

doing in that book and he said really

well what do you think he's doing and he

said I think he's it's a satire of the

knee of the New Testament and Van Doren

looked at me he said do you mean parody

and my dad just said that shut me up for

the next year

like he just you know in other words

it's a great gift to be shown your

ignorance and to recognize it if you're

gonna use a word at least know what it

means because there was a difference

between satire and parody and my father

did not know that distinction at the

time so if you want to judge a book you

better have the tools to judge it you

know Chesterton who they called the

English Socrates GK Chesterton

Chesterton was probably one of the most

brilliant Europeans of the 20th century

but he was a devout Catholic or maybe

high Anglican anyway he was a devout

Orthodox Christian CS Lewis who had a

huge impact on Christianity CS Lewis

what when he first met him it was

Chesterton that restored Lewis's faith

and the reason for that is because he

said if a man this intelligent can

believe in God because he was an atheist

at the time Lewis not Chesterton he said

if a man this intelligent could believe

in God I must be missing something I

need to look more deeply into this like

the man who said you know his neighbor

they were gardening and

they got to know each other and he has

some what he did he said he was a

theologian and his neighbor said this is

a true story that an English Muslim told

me he said that oh you're an atheist

have you read have you read I use

Christian so here's how you read st. st.

Gregory he said no he said have you read

a Gustin he said no he said have you

read Aquinas on unbelief he said no he

said sir you're not an atheist you are

an ignoramus so and that gets back to

you know Chesterton really when

brilliant people believe in God

it should strengthen your Eman because a

lot of these so-called atheist today

want to say that only stupid people

believe in God right but the most

brilliant people in human history of

believed in God Newton wrote a

commentary on the Bible that he

considered more important than than all

the works he did in science so it's it's

anyway

Chesterton when he first met Lewis Lewis

said they were meeting in Surrey and he

said I didn't expect the the flora here

to be so wild and and Chesterton looked

at me he said what do you mean by wild

sir yeah and then he said and why

wouldn't you expect it to be that and

Lewis was taken aback by it and and then

he said the Assumption here is that

you've read something about the

geography of Surrey that would lead you

to conclude that it shouldn't be so wild

you know he said I don't know anything

about Surrey and he said then why would

you expect it to be anything

yeah you know we should all just shut up

really really we should all just shut up

that's the truth yeah that's what vit

consigned it at the end of his life and

you know I was once in moody Tanny the

true story and there were these two

little girls and one of them just talked

all the time the other one never said

anything and I remarked to one of my

teachers at the time he was actually

younger than me but he became a great

scholar and and I said to him I said

Pamela I had the oculata you know she's

so intelligent

he said not happy de and and I said I

mean her her language skills are amazing

at that age he said italia and with the

kidney were talking about the one

talking I did I said yeah he said I

thought you meant the silent one yeah

and then he said he said he's gonna sue

cooter I know it said that guy he said

that silence is a sign of intelligence

in our culture yeah it was really

interesting to see that so let me finish

up here and then I think now what's

interesting is imam ali founded grammar

not fascinating imam ali because of us

where the doily came to him he was with

his daughter and they were looking at

the the stars and she said madison a

Samana Madison a Somali yeah baba and

she made it my drawer right and it

should have been Madison a semi because

she what she wanted was to amazement

right so and and he said a new zoom like

cuz he she asked it like what's the most

beautiful thing in heaven she didn't she

meant to say oh how beautiful the

heavens are but she said it like what's

the most beautiful thing in heaven my

accent was so Matty

yeah Baba and he realized that she made

a grammatical most

he got distressed by it so he went to

his teacher said 'no ali all delano and

told him and said 'no ali said you

should know one a la rubia and he said

in and out of its in and out of ietter I

said ass now Arabic has three things

it's moon or VeriFone fan who had a now

he said it's it's it's nouns or what we

would call because in traditional

grammar even in English that they they

they they adjectives were were put with

attributive and substantives were put

together so adjectives used to be one

part of speech adjectives and nouns

because they're descriptive of a

substance and so they were put together

so the ISM in Arabic is massif as an

adjective so it's it's put together with

the nouns even though we distinguish it

in the eight parts of speech in English

but he said language is three things

substantives right and then the the

verbs fit alone so that so you have the

substantive which is either an accident

a property or it's the thing itself or

it's an action or it's a word that

facilitates meaning of those other two

what we would call like prepositions

adverbs all those type things so that

began and he said so follow this path

and who had a now and that's where we

get the word natural from from this

story so that was how important he

considered it to be

so let me just do the I would have liked

to I you know this is such an

interesting book and I would have liked

to have gone into some other things but

time waits for no man

[Music]

and he goes into moon out of here

Tusheti are the differences between Imam

mattock and Chevy and humbly and Imam

Abu Hanifa because they differed on that

about is the Sharia Arabic or is it not

and mahadji's inclined towards that it

wasn't that the Arabic was that the

Arabic was the vehicle it could be

transmitted through other vehicles and

the other three mom said no it's

actually the vehicle that it's

transmitted through is Arabic and it

really can't be transmitted through

other vehicles and they both have merit

and then he goes into is language from

God or is it conventional and and this

is a very important debate that and then

does can Arabic be established by by

means of of analogical reasoning or not

that's another debate and then he goes

into dela that alpha which are all of

these different ways of interpreting of

interpreting the the meanings the Motaba

codicil dominant exam which what things

correspond to what's included in their

meaning and then what they indicate and

then he goes into Montauk and whom he

goes into the Hakata I talked about

those the the the or Thea the Sharia and

the world idea and the Magi as we talked

about that yesterday and then he goes

into the the nas the the mahkum right of

the Montauk which is the the nas de la

da de da de da de chartres ability

and then the demo foam which is the

Moapa and the mahadeva and then he goes

into the the problems of you have of the

MoBay in the mode what's what's

clarifying what's needs to be

interpreted the Haas the arm what's

specific what's general the Millea the

mukluks what's what's absolute and what

is constrained at Amida when a he the

commands and the prohibitions the Cooley

and the jewsí the universal and the

particular right the Mojave and the

machete kick the one that corresponds in

the one that puts doubt the most Derrick

and the motive things that have shared

meaning and then things that are

synonymous so these are all the D that

that have to be learned by the scholar

before they can really navigate the the

texts and this takes it takes work it's

hard work but it's certainly possible so

I think they're gonna show you the film

and then I'll just make a a plea so go

ahead if you want to show that we're

living at a time where people associate

Boko Haram with Islam we're living at a

time when people don't think of Imam

al-ghazali or fucka being or Ozzy

or all of these great giants of went

before us they think of ignorant people

and they and many too many people

believe that this is Islam and that's

why we're here that's what this is about

this is about restoring the centrality

of knowledge to our religion the

centrality of knowledge to our religion

[Music]

education doesn't just educate the

intellect no education czar much more

dynamic and holistic integrity thing

it's an integrative process that helps

to integrate the various parts so if an

education does not have anything to do

with the spirit of the human being it

has nothing to do with the psyche of the

human being then it's not according to

Mark Van Doren really education this

course is to help them map the next four

years of their education and to think

really deeply about that I've never

really been able to tap into this course

and that this school has allowed

daddy come weapon well and why don't you

leave say Toretto phil heartman that can

have a body and ability in a shot

attack me too Marton an astronut early

civil eyetality hunting the essence

right the this hold the foundation the

basis of the divine decree is God's

secret within creation this is all my

secret you know how is it that I can

choose on my own accord but that's in

perfect harmony and alignment with a

pre-eternal decision God's preached own

decision it's a secret it's a la secret

and we cannot we're not privy to it we

do not have access to that but the mind

has limits and this is well beyond the

limits of the human intellect you have

to do such that with the putter does

that make sense the mind has to make a

such duck after taking theology 1 and

theology - it makes complete sense fly

compare religions it's the third thing

that you take because you get there you

get yours you want the others - to gain

a strong grounding your own beliefs and

then taking not taking that and running

with it and then setting but Hinduism

and Confucianism

you really realize how similar a lot of

them are but how unique your own

tradition is I can look at the other

traditions I can take whatever wisdom I

mean but at the same time be strong in

my own in my own faith and it's an

angelic being so let's say managing a

job would be when you would say no what

is it no is it no no it isn't yes it is

well obviously you're not gonna solve

that you're not gonna resolve that are

you there on the street but you will say

okay no human being is an angelic

creature so what are you doing you're

saying absolutely no member of the

species man is an angelic creature so

you're separating actually separating

the predicate angelic creature from the

concept man this whole idea of being a

better person or a better individual or

we're finding our souls it's not just in

Islam it's in so many other traditions

that came before and I think we cut like

we just don't you know we're not exposed

to it and so I think it's amazing cuz

that's where you get your philosophy

classes are in philosophy class comes in

that's where your body class comes in

all the Western tradition is so

important because it's there it's

similar to our tradition

I think that's saying a lot is that you

don't just reject things and don't know

because you don't know what could be in

that that it's good for you so many

questions I have about certain things

you know Western philosophy doesn't have

the answers to but if you understand I

Lena if you underst

Islamic scholarly tradition of theology

and you want to share those arguments

then all of a sudden some of those

questions that were so perplexing before

now you have a clear answer and it's not

like it's a dogmatic answer it actually

makes sense rationally the most

important and difficult thing is to

continue to preserve the authenticity of

Islamic rules

I would not mean only by that the daily

prayers that's very very important of

course I do not mean by that on the

Islamic ethics that's also very very

important but I mean awed by that also

to preserve a mental ambience which is

Islamic in which the reality that Islam

can be breathed if we don't have

committed knowledgeable and fearless

Muslim youth we don't have Islam we have

some perversion of Islam so this is the

torchbearer

here say tuna let there rise among you

right a group rejoining good and

forbidding wrong let them start here

they start here in say tuna and then

they spread so that's the to me the

ultimate benefit of say tuna is that it

it is the vehicle for sustaining the

life of the human spirit

[Music]

so miss Meena we that have indeed uh we

started this college really with a lot

of trust and we did it in many ways in

the reverse way in which colleges are

started because colleges usually start

with a endowment and they build from

that endowment we did not start with an

endowment so we're trying to build an

endowment but one of the issues that we

face on a constant basis is budgetary

restrictions and crises so that's the

mode and inshallah were very close to

accreditation we had a glowing WASC

report that's going to be put up on the

online because we have the site visit

they have 39 criteria that you have to

fulfill to get accreditation what

accreditation means if we get it and

shala we're hoping to get it this year

or next year or on the verge of 2015 but

it means that we can take Canadian

students we that they can get the visas

that they need to study student visas we

can take foreign students even from the

Muslim world because we've had many

people from Turkey even from the Middle

East that have wanted to study there so

we we're expanding and we need a lot of

help to build this but this has to be

seen as you know it's it's it's it's a

it's a project that concerns the OMA

because we do not have an academic

address in the West Muslims do not have

an academic dress in the West

so it's accredited because one of the

things that we get when we're credit is

is an edu we get an actual academic

address for the Muslims which is to get

the edu org which is an educational

email that Harvard has so if you get a

letter from a Harvard professor it's

usually on

you dot org right at Harvard so that

that is a major step I think for our

community that we need to fulfill but we

need your help we have a program which

is 12,000 strong taken from the hadith

that prophet said 12,000 people with

working with one heart won't be defeated

for lack of numbers if the if they're if

they don't succeed it's for other

reasons but it won't be for lack of

numbers so we're asking for 12,000

people we've probably got about 1200

some of you already how many people in

here already doing that so hum do that

there's some people but a lot more is

needed and we're really hoping that

people will step up we're asking for a

dollar a day give us a couple years

commitment four or five years whatever

you can do if you're able to but it's

literally you know it's less than a

latte you know people go everyday spend

four dollars on a latte or something

like that it's you know we're asking for

a little bit of sacrifice or help from

our community it's not much that's

really all we're asking for is dollar a

day if you want to give more that's fine

but we're asking for a like a $30 a

month commitment to you know do every

month so that that's the hope that

people will do that there's a booth at

the bazaar if you want to sign up but I

really hope that you do that I I think

it's a it's an excellent project that we

hope to develop more I mean I literally

just had a major Foundation come to me

they asked for a meeting with me the

major foundation and these are people

they're not Muslims and they said we

want to help say tuna you know it's

amazing so they're reaching out to me

from a major foundation they said what

you're doing is really important there's

a lot of ignorance about Islam you know

we're in a multicultural civilization

and people have to have a better

understanding so we'd really like to

find ways that we could work we'd like

you to write grants you know if we can

help with certain things now this is a

foundation that that has it's a

multi-billion dollar foundation

philanthropist did and they had they

have to give out a certain amount of

money every year so they actually

sometimes they'll all have to give it

out and if they don't get enough grants

they go looking for people to give but

it's very ironic for me that people

outside of our faith come to ask if they

can help us and it's like we've got

billionaires in the Muslim community

like where are they

it's a very strange time and it's really

sad but I'm not counting on the

billionaires I'm counting on the

thousand Aires series I think there's a

lot more Baraka and just getting a lot

of small donations from people that work

hard for their money and the money is

halal you know I had which is a true

story I had somebody who was in

derivatives and a hedge fund that came

they wanted to help as a Muslim I didn't

want the money didn't take the money cuz

I I don't want money from you Zuri from

armaments from alcohol pornography I

don't want I don't want that money in

the lot by even whatever loved by you

but allows pure and he only accepts

what's pure so I'd much rather have

small donations from a lot of sincere

Muslims that want to see the succeed for

for the Ummah really I think you know

it's a it's a lighthouse for people give

them some hope and some pretty dark

times the Muslims you know they're

gutted all over the world Muslims are

really gutted you know they just okay

what's next so anyway whatever you can

do to help Jews are coming off pattern

somebody said I felt a wave of joy

mingled with sadness when you mentioned

that chef I'm Bella van Bayer got his

PhD in Tunisia

I'm Tunisian I find it heartbreaking

that we don't learn about our legacy

what were his advisers you know I don't

know they drives back in the early 60s I

would also like time in another crisis

changing accept of our kids I you know

if you smile at kids they don't smile

back you know if they're little they're

very often shy which is a good thing so

that they're just shy that's a normal

thing for children over friendly little

children to strangers is not

healthy time when you have so much

stranger danger and so but children by

their nature are sanguine you know if

you know about the humoral theory their

children are happy by nature it's the

world that will make you sad the world

that we've created not that allow

created but in terms of Tunisia Tunisia

has one of the greatest legacies of

scholarship in Islamic history I'm in

the same to know we named between after

this a tune of of Tunisia I mean it's

taken from the piranha that's where they

named they got from Ottoman Shahada to

maracas it's from a blessed tree neither

of the East or the west in other words

of both according to one tough seal so

and I had some of my teachers were

Tunisian she said that a knife was a

great man great malachy scholar a really

true truly great one of the last

great scholars of Tunisia she demanded

how a MIDI beautiful scholar that I knew

I actually met also the Imam of the

Halloween Shihab Rahman clave another

amazing man

so yeah

Tunisia may Allah restore Zaytuna and

bring it back to greatness in the lie

ahead out of the bottom ot huh Allah can

bring a dead earth back to life so you

know solid fill Israel and v not as

important as tip itself to inculcate the

octave personality we need for the next

generation of intelligent

odama is it time to change the model of

how we teach and actually train the next

generation of scholars to meet the

challenges of the likes of the

transhumanists shouldn't we teach a fool

you know food is very important and you

should always learn food what before

also so it's it would seem in some ways

it's putting the cart before the horse

because the O's tool is really the horse

but it's it's not in that food what is

is what we practice it's very important

to trust the scholars we don't need any

new med hubs what we need is is she had

from within the Med hubs there's there's

nothing new that is needed we don't need

this renewal of all swollen v to rewrite

all sorted fit we couldn't do it first

of all I mean these people had

intellects that God bestowed upon them

in that early period that are beyond

comprehension in some ways and they came

all at the same time so we don't need ro

food is very rich our traditions

extremely rich and everything's in there

but it has to be it has to be accessed

and that access means training and that

training takes a long time unfortunately

it's hard work and it does take a long

time in and learning Arabic mastering

Arabic is is one of the major keys and

that in it of itself takes a long time

dr. Nelson yesterday chided me for not

learning Persian and and God knows I

have actually tried to learn Persian on

several occasions trade image entities

here and he can tell me he can tell you

that that's true I actually had a great

Persian scholar who offered to give me

lessons and everything but I told dr.

and all sort of that my problem is I got

dove into the sea of Arabic because you

have the Arabian Sea and the Persian see

there's kind of a debate about what it's

called is that I don't in to the Arabian

Sea and I've been drowning ever since so

it's just I haven't been able to get out

because I always think when I'm trying

to learn something gals I could be

learning more Arabic because Arabic

doesn't end it's just it's just does not

end and the subtleties of air that go on

and on

but it's Arabic takes a long time to

learn sort of is very difficult now is

actually reasonably easy it's it's a

it's pretty logical and it's it's

actually the irregularities of naku are

not that many it's it's it's very

logical and and you can learn it there's

not that many concepts in now but sort

of is a whole issue pop and sort of this

that's a whole other and then also fit

Aloha learning the meanings of words and

the meanings of words in context I mean

if you just look at all that you're

audible has so many meanings it just has

so many meanings in Arabic and and they

mean very different ways on you know

face has many meanings it's used for

many different meanings

it can mean aspect it can mean you know

equality lots of things and then they

have a lot of idioms that take a long

time to learn like mad watch you know

the water of the face which is you know

it doesn't make any sense on the face of

it no pun intended

but you know mad you know of Habana I

would watch hehehe you know the Arabs

say he he dissipated the water of his

face which is something that happens to

people when they live bad lives they

lose a type of clarity in their faces

the the reflection that water enables to

happen something bad happens to their

faces and so that's an idiom of Arabic

that they use you know that America

shadow and up here you know and you'll

see these come up in in books so that

takes a long time but I would say you

know the Arabs the Arabs the more

Italians they say aha moment for a homo

ha Eden tomorrow one too so often were

added to be a shorter one the most

important in in knowledge is that peda

that's the most important and I Peter

has a lot of metaphysical foundations

like if you study in the Quran you will

find a lot of metaphysics

and when you get into sophisticated

theology there's a great deal of

metaphysics and all of our great

theologians were masters of metaphysics

all of them tough touzani though see I

mean truly great metaphysicians and when

you get into their books we have many

people at the level of Aquinas in in the

West we have several with the kidney

moon that are at the level of Aquinas

and my father who knows Aquinas very

well when when when I did a film on

Ghazali and he watched the film he got

intrigued and he wanted to read some

books he said is he translate I said yes

he said could you get me some of his

book so I got him several of Gasol's

books and he read through them and then

he said to me the West never produced a

Ghazali and and I know his knowledge of

the Western canon is very very strong so

that statement to me holds a lot of

weight but that's what he said he said

that the West never produced a ghazali

and and it's sad that now people

disparage imam al-ghazali's name it's

just tragic

it's the ignorance of the time and the

prophets said the end of time won't come

until the later part of this community

curses the first part of it so that's

one of the signs at the end of time is

that people will curse the earlier

people so so you have to learn a Kyi's

and then you have to learn for 1/5

before o Sole also it is not it's a 45

but for what is for dying and then you

have to learn tasawwuf means Allah I

mean there's two types of two souls

there's a metaphysical to solve which is

very complicated and and it's it's like

it's like quantum mechanics you're

entering into a realm that just it to be

able to read those books and understand

them takes a long long time but the the

tussle that we need is that the soul of

a holic and our ethics is generally in

the books of the self

I mean that's where the ethical

tradition ended up in us

so you learn to have even apps how to

rectify the fault of the self I think

she thought her mother always been

talking about these things from the icon

and and and these think this is really

that a lot of of Islam is in the books

of tussle wolf and and and nobody

disagreed about that even Tamiya even a

bit of a hob all the people that they

use to bash to solve all of them except

that that aspect of to solve what they

were against was metaphysical Sufism so

Inman Tamiya was against metaphysical

Sufism even Umberto Wahab was against

met if that's true but they were not

against ethical to solve that that's

absolute fact so that's the soul of

Allah and the soul of an earth walk

those are the two types of tussle

you know the experiential tasawwuf which

is about States and stations of the

heart and the other one is about

refining your character so nobody

disagrees about that and even a layman

josiya wrote a famous book on to sew

wolf which is his commentary of Abdullah

on Saudi khawaja abdullah onslaught his

famous book amenaza de set 18 right

madad is just a tea keen so the this is

well known even akadama did a motifs are

of imam al-ghazali's yeah yeah is mostly

he says you have no Kashyap and Mohammed

ah those are the two types of azov mocha

Java Inman mocha Java and aluminum arm

but he said I'm not this book is not

about element of mocha Java

it's about Edmond Muhammad ah so what he

was saying is the idea is not about

spiritual states it's about a clock and

refining the soul the he's got the the

key tab and I bet that right sheet a bit

more I'm a dad and then he's got the

monocot and the moons yet it's four

sections forty books right and at the

heart of it is what book twenty the lap

of the prophets a lot isn't that's the

heart of the area so the architecture is

very impressive

he begins it with the book of knowledge

not the book about Peter the book of

knowledge defining what knowledge is and

defining who the knowledgeable who the

true anima are differentiating them from

recall the motorists amoun the formalist

and then showing you what false ottoman

do one of the things that false Illuma

do is they they attack other Annamma and

belittle them in order to gain followers

that's a sign of false aroma because

true allama work at the level of ideas

and they don't attack people like that

they look at ideas and and they write

and and do that but they don't get up

and slander Muslims and things like that

so so that and then he says add a toombi

hot shoe or a tool that you need to

start with and that's the Arabic

language so that's this tool that you

need to start and that doesn't mean that

you cannot you can learn Islam and

become a very educated Muslim in English

you can learn Islam then come a very

educated Muslim in order do you can

learn Islam become a very educated

Muslim in Turkish or any of these

languages that's absolutely true and

there are many many very learned Muslims

that don't know Arabic but to to to

enter into really the the realm of

defending Islam and moving into that

realm it's to have access to those

primary texts important but the Hanafy

position is you don't need Arabic to

understand Islam and and as an ad you

mean you know Alba Hani who was a Janee

I think to me that's that's the truth

that but the vehicle of Arabic is

extremely important that's the position

of the other three Imams because the

meanings that are embedded in Arabic the

semantic fields that are created by

Arabic the deep dimensions of the

language are extremely important and

there's a reason why Allah chose Arabic

to be the language that he spoke to his

creation through and so that's very

important so but a solid fifth is really

important in order to understand this

religion and I think it's good to have

what we did was just a very basic

introduction to all soon and flip which

is useful to have some idea

of how sophisticated our scholarship is

in that I think there was one other and

with that you know I also want to say to

everybody somebody asked me what course

do I teach I teach ethics that's a tuna

I've taught logic

I've taught astronomy I've taught the

Freshman Seminar and I've taught

prophetic biography but right now I'm

teaching ethics so we have to break but

I want to say I was I'm really very

happy with a dev of this group and it's

really been impressive and I you know we

have to get to a point where we can just

benefit from our people and not you know

and so I was I was just really pleased

with how everybody because I know people

there's people that could you know with

dr. Nelson could have brought up things

that you know just for me would there

there's no point in bringing them up and

and I was really happy that nobody did

that you know because he's somebody that

I feel has just been such an

intellectual powerhouse for our

community and he comes from a different

tradition than I do but he's he's not

and he's not on Rothfeld Lee by any

stretch of the word you know he's not

somebody that speaks ill of Sahaba or

anything like that so it's you know it's

important that that we respect and I not

and in our early period imam niye tabu

Hadi has people from the Shia community

in his Senate there are Shia in soluble

Hadi and this was the early period it

was much more fluid than a lot of what's

happened now with the divisive miss the

Muslim world right now between the

Sunnis and the Shia's and undeniably

there have been atrocities on both sides

so in Iraq there have been Shia death

squads that have gone we've gone out and

and and killed but we're not those this

is not what we're about we're about

intelligence and honoring people and

honoring differences and respecting

different positions so he's somebody

that respects the own amount

irrespective of where they came from or

who they are and that's something that

we really need to inculcate in our youth

just a respect for intelligence and for

intellect and and for achievement in any

field or endeavor and for goodness

people that have a floppin character so

I just want to thank everybody for being

so respectful and and just really

wonderful group of people young people

that it's you know you give me

personally give me hope to see so many

good faces and in our youth and I'll a

bless all of you it's nothing enough

Interpreting Language in Islamic Legal Theory

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