are actually reaching us are like that
they are the ones that penetrate all of
this extraordinary celestial light so
what we know about the seen world is
incredibly small and yet the unseen
world we have no knowledge of now I want
to look other than what we've been told
and those are called the Summoner yet
what we're told now I want to look just
at the essaouira and this idea that his
vision did not deviate if you were
traveling through the unseen realm and
all of this unveiling was occurring you
were seeing all of this extraordinary
unveiling why wouldn't your vision be
looking at all of that in other words
wouldn't you be distracted and that
again goes back to the heart of the
profits Eliza time who had only one
concern that night and that was to visit
his Lord he was on a journey to God and
he was not interested in the particular
because if you know God you know
everything like the poets at kilometer
hawawa mowjood and fee that ELA
everything you desire exist in God so if
you have God you have your heart's
desire and everybody else I mean
everything that human beings are running
around out there looking for is
ultimately that's what it is it's
nothing else everybody's looking for the
same thing they are looking for their
heart's desire and that is why Imam of
junaid once passed by a man who was
about to get his he was a thief a
brigand fought their buddy up he was
about to get his head chopped off and he
greeted him and one of the students with
him he said you know why would you greet
a man like that and he said any man that
will give his life for his desire I
respect in other words that sacrifice
that's somebody that's taking life very
seriously and that's why I actually in
some ways I have a soft spot in my heart
for atheists and I'll tell you why I've
never met an atheist that didn't take
God seriously and yet I've met so many
people in my life that are not atheists
that just don't take God seriously but
I've yet to meet an atheist that does
not take God very seriously they're
bothered by it
it's they're troubled by it they read
books about it it ends up being a topic
of discussion with them because that's
how serious they take it and one of the
seven deadly sins
in Christianity and they're certainly
deadly in Islam as well and it's to me
it's the most interesting one it's
called sloth a sadya in Latin and this
sin most people think of it as laziness
but it's not laziness in Catholic
tradition sloth was spiritual
lassitude it was that you did not take
your salvation seriously that you
literally squandered your time on earth
and did not take your life seriously and
that is why the vast majority of us are
in a slothful state even if we're
spending all of our time working if we
are not thinking deeply about where
we're going what happens then we're in a
slothful state we're spiritually lazy
and lazy people are uninspiring people
they're uninspired people and they're
held in contempt by even other lazy
people so if we look at this experience
of the asana and the mirage it's an
extraordinary experience because this is
direct witnessing but look at the
preparation that took place before that
that is not how Islam began is it it
began with gibreel it began with the
intermediary and then it was 13 years of
persecution and the thief is the
experience that precedes the Islam which
is the lowest point of the prophets life
on earth according to the prophet saw
him he said to Aisha the worst time I
had was at the hands of your people
the peeve that was the worst experience
that he'd had total state of humiliation
the children threw rocks at him salawatu
out he was sent him and then he was
offered this opportunity for revenge and
he didn't take it and his reason was the
children so he expressed not only his
ultimate humanity but just his
extraordinary magnanimity in a moment
when many many people would have in fact
most people and certainly most mail
would have wanted revenge and he did not
and so he's followed on the way back and
then the jinn is another element because
they become Muslim so introduction also
into this other world and then
ultimately the astronomer Raj when he
comes back from that experience the
prophet sallallaahu said him now is
ready to move to the next phase which is
to be in the world
because the world is no longer a threat
to him as a distraction he now sees
reality as it is and this is what his
prayer to Allah subhanAllah data was
show me things as they truly are show me
things as they are so he was given this
extraordinary gift of seeing things as
they truly are and when he comes back to
the world he is able to be in the world
in a way in which the world is no longer
going to be not only a distraction to
him between him and his Lord he will not
miss perceive the world and this is
called right understanding and this is
also in all of the world religions
there's an understanding or a first
principle that everything begins with
right understanding that we must
perceive the world correctly because our
lack of perception our misperception of
the world is what causes us pain I mean
this is very interesting and it's a
motif that's very dominant in the
Buddhist tradition is this idea of your
suffering comes from a lack of
understanding of the nature of the world
because suffering is related to desire
at what we call in in Arabic what the
Quran calls buggy and buggy which means
desire also means oppression which is so
to me that is so fascinating that the
word for desire and the word for
oppression are the same in Arabic so
freedom from desire
Budhia the freedom from desires when you
make your desire right desire in other
words you have a right understanding of
what you should want then the challenge
is to make what you should want what you
want because it's one thing to know what
you should want it's another thing to
want that thing because there are plenty
of people that are smoking that want
good
they know I should want to stop smoking
and they will also say I want to stop
smoking but really what they're saying
is I should want to stop smoking and
then they get to a point where they do
want to stop smoking and then the
struggle begins knowing what you should
want and knowing what you want are not
the same and most of us don't even know
what we should want and that is a big
problem once we know what we should want
then it's how do we get to wanting what
we should want and once you want that
thing and want comes from a word which
means to be impoverished which is
related to this idea of Iftikhar which
is the definition of humanity creation
in arabic is and wolfs Takuto in allah
it is the one that wants is in want of
our lawsuit on Owatonna that is the
definition of creation the definition of
the creator is the one free of want and
most of neon it cool free of want has no
want has no need and so this idea of
knowing what we should want and then
wanting that thing the prophet
sallallaahu saddam when he comes back he
goes to medina and then the experience
is translated into practice and this is
the next phase is how do we translate
our experience of the divine a direct
experience into the world and this is
how he becomes the model for Humanity
because he Halabi alakina he took on the
divine qualities of these ethical
qualities that God that Allah subhana WA
Ta'ala has described himself with so if
you look now just in terms of what
happens this experience happens and
there's a story of the devil was walking
with one of his disciples and there was
a man in front of him who stumbles on
something and he picks it up and
suddenly you see this illumination
around this person the disciple asked
the devil what what just happened he
said he just stumbled on to the truth
and he says why aren't you
and he says I'll get him to organize it
tomorrow so this is where we move now
into the realm of how do we organize the
experience how do we schema ties it how
do we put it into a Creed there is an
incredible danger in that and it's in a
sense it's the decline of religion and
yet at the same time there's an absolute
necessity for it and that's why our
scholars had to do it I think they
realized its danger and that's where you
get their great hesitation with this
process because I really believe and I
want to show you historically what
happens and why it came to this
extraordinary culmination that I don't
see in any other religious tradition
none I really don't I'm not an expert on
comparative religions or religion that
was my university major but I can't say
that I'm an expert by any means I don't
know the languages that are necessary
look at the primary sources but in the
overall presentations and and educated
summaries of the religions that that
I've looked at I've never seen anything
that comes close to this and that's why
I want to look at it when you look at
religion ultimately religion is
experience and then that experience
enters into propositions the experience
has become propositions I believe that
as you head to a la ilaha illa-llah one
of the beauties for me of our creedal
formula is that it is not just a
testimony because Shahada means to
testify
it also means witness and that's why I
believe that the beauty of islam is that
it has enabled the proposition to be
experienced also it will not be
experienced for everybody but we can say
their Shahada in two ways we can say
ashhadu a la ilaha illallah in other
words i see that there is no god but
allah subhan allah tala or we can say i
testify that that arabic word holds both
those meanings so it's not just
experience it experiences they
but there's also the creedal formula now
I personally believe that the Sahaba and
certainly The Messenger of Allah were in
that first understanding not all of them
that's what I believe I believe that
they were not saying I testified they
were saying I see I am witnessing I am
experiencing the truth of la la la la
and that is that is the difference
between them and the vast majority of
the rest of us and that is why they're
such an extraordinary community and I
think Abu Bakr is after the prophets
Allah isn't the greatest witness he has
the greatest experience of that and
that's why he never he never falters he
never wavers he never has any hesitation
because he was in a state of witnessing
and it had a hadith is probably another
excellent example of that
careful spot a spot that your husband
won't mean and haha he said how have you
woken up is a Hassan hadith how have you
woken up
he said I've woken up a true believer in
other words something happened to him in
which he went from am open to a Mortman
- he's qualifying his state of Iman that
there is a qualitative difference
between my state of Iman this morning
than other mornings and the prophets
Eliza time said think about what you're
saying because every reality has a proof
what is the proof of your reality and
then he gives the description that I am
experiencing Jenna as if it's right here
and I can hear people moaning from the
agony of Hell he was in a state of
experience and the prophets Eliza time
said our ofte fellows them you have
madatha you have true knowledge now so
hold tight to it because you can lose
that hold tight to it now if you look at
what happens one of the extraordinary
things about our tradition is always in
the time of greatest need you can see
providence the providential care
that has been in this religion and
Providence it comes from similar to
provide it's that God gives you what you
need when you need it that is Providence
and and we can see Providence in our
tradition if you look at it I'll give
you an example at the point in which it
was absolutely necessary to codify the
sacred law these four Imams emerge same
time the basic same time one didn't come
a hundred years after the others they
were students of each other with the
exception of Amida man Hongbin they were
benefiting from each other I'm at the
Mohammed is a student of Imam Shafi an
imam Shafter he takes from ahmed
obviously he then is a student of omaha
even Maddock through that because the
chain is is there so these men all
appear at this same time now the other
extraordinary period is the time of the
Credo formation and the time also of the
spiritual knowledge and I want to show
how all of these three come together in
a unique and extraordinary human being
and why that to me is one of the proofs
of Islam the three men who give us a
cradle understand and I'm not going to
go into and it's interesting it's
fascinating to go into a lot of the
historical the more tizzy light and what
happens with walls so they've been a
thaw and Nizam and all these different
and also the helada age I mean there's
some really interesting characters that
show up and cause a lot of trouble but
generally one of the most common
problems in religious tradition is what
is known as the reason tradition
dichotomy we call it upon 1 upon the
akan and knockin dichotomy that most
religious traditions in fact all of the
world traditions have a problem in
resolving this essential split which is
how do we get tradition to conform to
reason or reason to conform to - to
tradition now in Islam there's an early
which is the Mozilla who are the
rationalists they take this Hellenistic
tradition and this is essentially what
philosophy is because theology is
divided into two broad demarcations
natural theology which is the theology
of reason and revealed theology which is
the theology of tradition these are two
within systematized religion these are
the two ways of looking at the
philosophers are the people that are
interested in natural philosophy they're
not interested in revealed philosophy
now the first two early philosophers in
the third century are al-kindi and al
farabi and both of them attempted to
create a rational basis for tradition
and this is a deep-seated interest in
the West and something that the Muslims
abandoned largely with the exception of
the Shia tradition the Sunni Muslims
abandoned this pursuit the Christians
did not and it led to real problems
later on for Christians especially the
Catholic Church because of Saint Thomas
Aquinas when the Hellenistic ideas about
God and about the idea of the cosmos
being eternal coexistent with God and
that what God was was God was the
cybernetic force in the university was
the unifying factor he was on that
molded chaos so the Greeks had this idea
of cosmos and chaos that the high Allah
or the Haila was this eternal substance
and what happens is that there's a
unmoved mover that's affecting all of
this and these ideas came into Islam and
caused a lot of problems early on in the
third century
well they move on they have their own
strain and those are called Muslim
philosophers and they're an interesting
lot and they're brilliant and they have
a massive impact on the West they have a
much greater impact on the West than
they do on the Muslims I mean really
they alter the Western civilization
completely I mean Western civilization
takes a sharp turn as a result
particularly of arrow ease or even
Lucien who is ultimately a student of
even Cina
a student of an Farabi who's a student
of AK Indian thought so what you had
that strain those are the natural
theologians and the five proofs of the
existence of God that are so famous in
the west from st. Thomas Aquinas are and
I've seen edgar myers shows exactly
where he got them from al farabi and he
puts a side-by-side st. Thomas's Latin
version and the Arabic version and the
translation you can see that he's it's
literally a direct translation from out
of Farabi so you know the Christians
were using Muslim proofs now that strain
don't think that this idea of proving
the existence of God has anything to do
with doubt about God doubt about God is
a modern concept there are very few
ancients who had any doubts about God
and the people trying to prove the
existence of God were largely deeply
religious people they were deeply devout
people so why do you think they would
try to prove the existence of God
because they felt that faith should be
based in reason they felt that in order
for faith to be on firm foundation it
should have the foundation of reason and
that's why they attempted to the best of
their ability to create a rational
foundation for belief and this again
gets to reason and tradition this
problem so they were trying to
synthesize the essential problem of
oppan and knuckle how do we get nothing
to correspond with a phone or vice versa
and they made many many attempts at a
certain point because of massive
confusion that was beginning to reign in
the Islamic lands a group of people show
up one was in Egypt with Jaffa how he
and he dies in 321
which is 933 of the Christian era the
the second is from Basra and teaches in
buck Dada two cities that are in the
news a lot and in those days the wars
were with sandals in the mosques
throwing shoes at each other when they
disagreed
oh but hasn't a shoddy now they're using
them to hit
statues and things like that so
traditions hard to get rid of
oh but Hassan and uh shadi who dies in
324 and that's 935 and then Abu Mansour
and Matuidi who is from he's born in
Madrid and dies in summer pans in what's
called traditional Horus on the land
where the Sun rises hora Sun Sun Sun
hora so it's horizontal and where the
Sun comes up which is the East or Asia
we would call it now Central Asia and he
comes from that place now what's
interesting about Central Asia is he
came from a place that was a center of
Buddhist learning and I find this deeply
significant I actually wrote a paper
called how the Buddha saved Islam it's a
paper in which I tried and I've never
seen this anywhere but I really tried to
show that the paradoxical formulas that
are introduced by the Met to Dedes and
the Ashanti's were actually coming out
of Buddhist logic and the Buddhists had
a massive impact a lot of people don't
know this but they actually had a
massive impact the tolerance of the
Abbasid period I believe is largely due
to the influence of Buddhism because the
bar metkids who were the great ministers
of the abbasids were from Afghanistan
and that family was a famous Buddhist
priest family they're very tolerant
deeply tolerant people and they
introduced a lot of this extraordinary
tolerance during the Abbasid period into
the Islamic tradition and removed a lot
of the very harsh interpretations and
they textually justified it which is
what's so beautiful and that's why the
danger of religion is that it is open to
multiple textual interpretations and
it's which one are you going to choose
and in a sense that is revealing
something about your essential nature
what are you attracted to because you
can find harshness you can find cruelty
in all the religion and then you can
find all these other qualities and I
feel that the other qualities are the
dominant qualities it's almost like
those harsh and cruel aspects it's like
a shadow a union
shadow religion that exists alongside
the true religion to almost separate
people and to to reveal themselves
because hypocrisy is the worst type of
personality the one who's hiding his
true nature so these three men all our
existing I mean look at that 333 321 324
and 333 and this is their death dates so
these three men are all living at the
same time and they formulate these
Creed's that basically save Islam now
Imam of the Howey is more of a knuckle
he's not interested in Apple and he has
very few if any he has a few but he has
very few what is miss term speculative
theological formulas it's miss term that
I would say more rational the Albert
hasanat a shoddy is in a sense a bridge
between alkali knuckle but imam abu
jaafar
and Matuidi takes it to a much deeper
level the three in terms of this
fundamental problem and what's
interesting is the great creedal formula
of the muslims becomes the formula of
imam and Nyssa fee who was a Matuidi
with the commentary of taftazani who was
an ashati
and this is what was taught in our
mattresses for centuries I mean these
are the two great texts one is a
commentary by an a shoddy but the other
is a Creed by a Matuidi and these three
men represent what comes to be known as
Anna sooner well GEMA
they basically create Creed's they
produce Creed's and credo in Latin means
I believe so a Creed is what you believe
you say credo I believe and that's why
in the beginnings of these Creed's they
always say a Coulomb or a Tuppy then I
say believing so the Arpita is what
you're bound to it's what you have
conviction about you know it's a pet too
you know it's what you're not at its
what you've bound to it it's what you
believe and have conviction about and
this becomes the IP that this is the
word that's used in ours for the Creed
so they call it the al-qaeda and that's
via the arcade Howie the Arpita
like that and then each one of these
I mean of imam abu jaafar of howie and
imam and Matuidi are the two hanafis and
imam and ashati there's a debate the
matter Keys claim him as a matter key
and the Shaffers claim him as a chef
very so there and I think probably the
stronger argument is that he was a Shafi
but his greatest student by one there is
a meaty area between the the two his
greatest student is a bucket of belani
who was a Maliki scholar who develops
what's known as the atomic theory in
Islam and it's probably the most
sophisticated pre-modern theory and
there's a book called the history of the
atom and there is a chapter on the
Muslim atomic theory and they do admit
that the scientist that wrote that book
said that this is clearly the most
sophisticated pre modern atomic theory
that we have and he also says that he
doesn't really understand how they got
it the Muslims and so they they were
thinking very deeply about that now I
believe also there's a connection
between the Buddhist atomic theory and
abu-bakr Balinese theory because there's
a lot of similarities and that is
obviously deep speculation and there's
Muslims that did not like that at all
and that tended to be within the hum
body tradition you have a third a fourth
strain from these three men you have a
fourth strain which is the ham body
strain the ham bodies tended to be
although Albert Hasan had a shoddy wood
would use imam ahmed as his foundation
in a sense because imam ahmed was was
considered the imam of ala Sunnah wal
Jamaa it's his lock up because he had
such an important role to play in
protecting Islam from the merit is he
lights he was honored with that and so
in that sense now Imam of the four Imams
the three imams maja neva mattock and
Schaffer II have room for more room for
Apple and the most is of
honey feral Delano he is the most
rational he is a legal philosopher in a
way I mean Imam Shafi is also but Abu
Hanifa will use a Khan more than any of
the other Imams I'm at the Muhammad is
the least inclined to do that he will
prefer a weak hadith over analogical
reasoning and that is in hizmet which
gives total lie to this idiotic idea
that weak hadees have no place in Islam
I mean if I'm a demon ham but use his
weak had these before he uses PS in his
o soul I mean I think that exposes the
ignorance of people who claim that weak
Hadees are worthless
on the contrary they've been used for
centuries by our greatest scholars so of
those three of the four strains the ham
body strain will be the least inclined
to any type of rational approach to
creed and it will get to the point where
the anthropomorphise who are a problem
in all religions not just the Muslims
this phenomenon is a phenomenon within
religion are people that take things
literally
in other words believe in the literal
meaning of everything that is said and
that is absolutely impossible to do with
any text of Revelation because the
nature of language is that there is
always analogy and metaphor always you
cannot get out of it it's impossible it
is simply impossible and it leads to
very difficult even the literalists who
deal with the pot on they get into big
problems in interpreting certain verses
in the Quran and create very clever
rhetorical devices to deal with those
problematic verses for them like ask the
town for set up area you know ask the
town how do you ask a town I mean what's
a town what do you mean ask the town do
you mean ask the people of the town
you mean astley I mean if it's literally
the town town can I ask you a question
Chicago I'd like to ask you well I can
say that you know I want to hear what
Chicago has to think about all this now
obviously I mean you people here from
Chicago
well that's metaphor
and that's in language it's just the way
it is the White House announced today I
mean nobody saw these bricks that are
painted white saying something right
these far as I know announced things so
the discipline knuckle is is what
when Mansoura Matuidi is trying to bring
together this understand now the third
formulation is amongst the people who
deal with it son or the spiritual
science of Islam so the providential
care that we see in this community is
during the period we see at how death
and Mojave whose 243 Imam and Junaid who
is probably the great formulator of the
tradition in 297 and then a Shibley his
student 334 elbow thought of and Mickey
386 and then I would add Arabiya an idea
to that because she introduced the idea
she really is credited with the
introduction of the idea of love of God
being higher than the fear of God and
it's a very important introduction into
the Islamic tradition the Bekaa own who
were these men that literally became so
enveloped with fear of God that they
stopped eating that cry all the time
they were basically dysfunctional from
this immense fear and she introduces
this idea that love is such a higher
concept when dealing with the divine and
that becomes very strong within that
tradition now that Islam the four Imams
Iman these four traditions and then it
son
these four be moms and adding arabiya
as the fifth in that science they
basically formulate iman Islam and asan
it becomes a religion in the sense that
we can study it in an organized
schematized way that was not true in the
first community
it just wasn't because much of it was
experiential
you could ask the Sahaba they knew all
these things they had an immense
knowledge of all three subjects but they
did not have Babbitt will do or babbit
the heart or you know Bab Anika and
dividing niihka into different types and
having different types saw and facet or
the five formulation so here you have
the Philosopher's that are pure
rationalist you have the traditionalist
which were the mahadji foon who are pure
traditionalists they're not interested
in in alpha they're interested in
nothing and that's why the AHA say
the Mahadev is a pharmacist he's not a
doctor so never get a prescription from
a pharmacist all the pharmacists knows
is nothing see what the doctor has is
open he knows how to apply he knows how
to put things together he knows how to
we hope but that's what the physician he
learns how to discern between signs and
symptoms what if you have jaundice what
that means and and then what is the
prognosis where it's going all these
things so that's the and rarely do
you get the two together now the same is
true about Allah Subhan Allah to add as
these credo formulations you have the
Creed which is none but then you have to
have an understanding of it this is aqua
and so bringing these two together this
is what fucka daddy not Raji says is the
meaning of neuron Aden or that light
upon light is revelation on intellect
and the rock a Buddhist behind said
never be impressed with a person's Islam
until you've tested their intellect
because the most dangerous thing that
you can have is intellect without
religion or religion without intellect
it's a disaster both our disasters
intellect without religion leads to
concentration camps gas chambers you
know we've got a problem it's called the
Jewish problem and what's the most
efficient way to deal with this problem
I mean this really this is pure reason I
mean there's people that could argue
against that but ultimately this
is how they perceive the world this is
how Nazi Germany perceived the world
efficiency and we were the open immense
you know where the people beyond good
and evil we're not because in the
content moral argument for the existence
of God what Kant says is the
understanding of good and evil is the
greatest proof for the existence of God
because without God you could have no
understanding of good and evil and this
is what happens when revelation is
removed from internet because intellect
can be evil and this is what in the
golden mean intellect is a mean between
craftiness and between stupidity
so the intellect can be used for evil
and religion without intellect leads
also to gas chambers they might be
metaphorical ones but again we have a
problem
you know the Americans are our problem
well let's just kill them all I mean
it's a great solution because God said
kill them wherever you find them so
let's just do that I mean this is the
tie this what happens when you divorce
one from the other you you end up with
the same result which is brutality a
loss of your humanity it's really
extraordinary
and this is why bringing these two
together is so difficult and yet our
religion has been so brilliant at doing
it and the man that did it is called the
proof of this law which it's a lot
Hasani he is the man that brought it all
together
he brought the thing that will sold
he was a master he's one of the greatest
a Saudi scholars in history he brought
the a peda he brought the philosophical
tradition and he brought the spiritual
tradition and he synthesized it into
this extraordinary exposition of Islam
where he said don't fight each other
these are not mutually exclusive
meanings can't you see you're all
looking at things from a different
perspective and what you need to
recognize is this is a diamond that has
different facets and it is the divine
light that comes into that diamond that
refracts it into this extraordinary
rainbow of colors that you sort of know
13 Delight those who look at it this
session continues on the following CD