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

acce

Interpreting Language in Islamic Legal Theory

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