ISNA 2010 - Session 9A - Nurturing Compassionate Communities - Connecting Faith & Service

Transcript Details

Event Name: ISNA 2010 - Session 9A - Nurturing Compassionate Communities - Connecting Faith & Service
Transcription Date:Transcription Modified Date: 5/21/2019
Transcript Version: 1


Transcript Text

First of all I want to also acknowledge like Imam Suhaib Wedd, the mufti of Egypt Shaykh Ali Juma.  Who is really, I think, one of the most effective spokespeople for the Muslims alive and it's extremely

important that we recognize the role of

al-azhar university I think sometimes

our community forgets the importance of

having a normative tradition in other

words a tradition in which people have a

resource that they can go to for a sound

Islam and I want to point out something

very important about this the need for

accredited scholars who understand the

religion as it should be understood

religion is probably the most it is the

single most powerful force on the planet

religion is more powerful than any

temporal government governments come and

go nations come and go all nations have

curvilinear courses they rise and then

they fall but the power of religion

has been around since the very beginning

humans have always been religious this

is something our anthropologists are

historians anybody that looks at the

matter seems very clearly religion

because it's powerful it's also very

dangerous and one of the most dangerous

aspects of religion is revelation itself

when you have a book that those who

adhere to that book claim that it is

from God how that book is understood is

the single most important thing that any

large group of people that adhere to

that group have to be concerned with and

this is why the Muslims historically the

single most important endeavor in

Islamic history is the preservation of

the foreign and all of the ancillary

sciences that were necessary to preserve

the understanding of Islam and at center

to all of those was the Arabic language

without the arabic language preserved

the way it was preserved we would not

understand the Quran the way it should

be understood and so Allah Zod has

played that role in preserving the

Arabic language in preserving the

understanding of the Quran for centuries

it has one of the largest student

populations in the world it has massive

endowments it also has an international

body of students when we were just

recently in Allah saw I was wishing

abdullah bin veya we met with the shekel

us out there and I was overwhelmed by

the contingency that came from Central

Asia the contingency from Malaysia the

contingency from Turkey all of these

different groups studying in a las how

they will go back to their communities

to serve their communities we now have

Imam zohaib web and we should all

congratulate him on graduating

mazher university so that al-azhar's

knowledge is transferred to the United

States of America without its real

scholarship our religion is in danger of

being taken over by mad people and I

want to read quickly an example of this

from email poverty it's in his famous

book of Teddy and he talks about the

college when they took over a village

and I want to emphasize that the

Heritage were people that had prayer

marks on their heads most of them

memorized the Quran they prayed all

night they fasted during the daytime the

prophet saw the light is said him said

when you see them you'll be little your

own prayer in front of their prayer

you'll be little your own fasting when

you see how much they fast they were so

charismatic that many many thousands of

people join their groups and when they

took over the areas that they took over

what did they do bloodshed killing

people that disagreed with them I want

to just read this section he mentions

that when the hottest came to a village

and this was a village in Iraq they took

an old man and her daughter who were

Muslims that weren't following their

version of Islam and the woman the young

girl started crying and she said don't

kill my father he's an old man in the

abu musab that i talked to lou who don't

kill my father he's an old man and then

she said one avena managed area I'm just

a young girl while mahima I take two

thousand up well are they too jolly I

never harmed anybody I never did any

sinful thing and then they said

adamo hollyhock to doha they brought her

in front of them to kill her and when

she did that she sounded a father to

anadi matham be madam be what's my sin

what's my sin and then they killed her

and cut her up and then they killed her

father this is

our history is filled with mad people in

the name of religion who go about

killing other people this is going on in

the massage at of Afghanistan in the

massage at of Pakistan in the massage at

of Iraq we even find this type of

mentality in our own country here in the

United States and if we're not careful

when we see these people like this young

this this young man in New York really

who plans on blowing up Times Square

with innocent people walking around and

then on the stand he says that he's

proud of it and he would do it again

this is the type of problem that we're

dealing with in certain segments of our

community if we remain in denial about

this if we don't address the need for

sound scholarship for moderation in our

religion for the truthful teaching of

Islam and I know all of you are part of

this but we have to institutionalize

these things we have to bring this to

the forefront of our concern because our

religion is a beautiful religion and

it's being made ugly by the acts of

fools by the acts of the sofa ha I just

want to bring your attention to

something that when I found this out I

was so flabbergasted my own teacher

shahab elleven baya had a conference in

Marteen Marteen is a city in Turkey in

which Jews Muslims Christians all live

together there was a period of time when

it the Mongols had a Muslim ruler who

was just a titular head but he was

ruling under Mongol rule even tenia was

asked what he thought about a place

where they were not applying the rules

of Islam even though they were Muslims

and he wrote a famous photographer mr

dean in this that's why he said that

this dog is more aqaba it's a compounded

daughter it's an abode that's neither a

boat of Islam nor in a boat of war and

so he said something very interesting

according to the published editions that

are in Saudi Arabia today in

many Muslim countries according to the

published addition it says famously moon

you are a man una be master hapuna well

how did you wanna share EIT you are

totally famous temple that the believer

should be treated according to them

being believers and those who don't

apply the Sharia al-hadi joanna shariati

should be fought yukata to be mr. hippo

according to what they deserve chef

abdullah bin VII when this photo was

read in Mar Dean he said there's

something wrong with that fatwa and

people got very upset some of the ulama

that were in the gathering were upset

and they said naturally your fatwa

shaven Islam don't change the photo of

shaken Islam new knob they shall fetch

walk what else will he get on Fatah we

can discuss the footwork but don't

change the fatwa share Abdullah said the

wordings not right because he is an

ocean of the Arabic language and he knew

that the wording wasn't right based on

his knowledge of the Arabic language on

bulava on the idea of devout and

maqubela he knew that it wasn't right

when he got back to Jeddah and this is a

copy of the oldest manuscript of the

fatwa this fatwa which is in the LA area

in Damascus is the oldest manuscript of

scheffel aslam's photo of Martine and he

does not say you thought you to be my

hysterical he says you are mentally my

asst temple he should be treated in

accordance with what he deserves this

fetch were based on you Carter who was

used to kill Anwar Sadat this very

football was used to kill Anwar Sadat

the president of Egypt because if you

read the text that they this is the

photo that was quoted this is the fudge

wad that Osama bin Laden used in

justifying the attacks on

the United States this is the fat word

that they've used for opposing all of

the rulers in the Muslim lands because

they don't implement the Sharia and it's

all based on a misprint it's based on a

misprint this is an incredible tragedy

in our community that this is the level

of scholarship has fallen to such a

level that people are killed based on

Miss Prince in books and this is why we

need sound scholarship what what our

beloved president and sister dr. Matson

was talking about about this textbook

that she was teaching these textbooks

have now been printed in the tens of

thousands sometimes the hundreds of

thousands people are reading this books

and thinking that Islam is a religion of

hatred is a religion of violence is a

religion of bloodshed all of these

things are because of this

misunderstanding of a religious

tradition that has a vast spectrum of

opinion if you take books like sorry or

Bihari and I was in Oxford University a

few weeks ago and somebody told me that

they they have a problem with the hadith

and I said you're not the first person

even a what happened the greatest mahad

death of his time in Egypt had a problem

with

you