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 t

Interpreting Language in Islamic Legal Theory

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