Moderator: And now i take great pleasure in introducing our beloved sheikh to speak on today's theme
[Applause]
peace be upon you interesting way that allah would give us to greet each other we sometimes wonder if the arabs have even forgotten what salaam means
i want to, before i start, just clarify something because i'm worried some of you might be here because of a poster that was put out on the website and it was very cleverly done it was
obviously a parody for me but unfortunately not a parody for other people because somebody, a well-known person, that i won't mention to you called and after reading this was askedto speak at a demonstration and they were going to demonstrate my talk because the uh instead of shifa presents an unmissable fundraising event for the shifa school, "islam in the west" delivered by hamza yusuf hansen, personal imam to
george bush.
And i'm going to talk about the following
topics islam in the west
relations between islam and the west are
possibly at their lowest ebb in decades
i mean that's indicates to me that
lois ebb i mean you have to grant some
sophistication here
you know because people that can use
metaphors
tend to be a little more clever than
people that can't use metaphors
so this is primarily due to radicals who
wish to distort the true nature
of the west islam in the west is an epic
lecture i mean
it's kind of an interesting adjective
epic
lecture never heard that before
have to remember that
aiming to demonstrate how the west
embodies
true islam in all of its facets
from government and society through to
its foreign and defense policy
like urinating on people this lecture is
particularly pertinent
for the muslim community as our
salvation lies not in what the
extremists call
quran and sunnah but following and
emulating
the leading countries of the west
britain and the united states of america
so that's not to be missed
well there's a few things i want to say
i don't know who did this
i don't necessarily have to assume it
was a muslim i can assume it was just
somebody that
who knows i don't know i allah knows the
hearts of people
and i don't you know i don't know i mean
this is a traumatized person
might be a lecturer that
doesn't get very many people to show up
for their lectures or something and just
doesn't like people that do i don't know
but i think
it's interesting because what i just
would like to say about this is
i sometimes really worry that our
religion
has in essence become
really a book on a shelf and i think
it's interesting
that siddiy ibrahim hewitt
mentioned about where do i put islam
into this
where do i fit it into the curriculum
and i think that's really important
because
i have never since the day i became
muslim i have never understood
islam to be a subject
i haven't understood it to be something
that
you study i mean there are things that
within islam
that you study you study fich for
instance
you study
arabic i mean that's
very important you can study tafsir
hadith
there's plenty of things you can study
in a madrasa
or a university or wherever you go to
school
but i've never understood islam to be a
subject i've always understood islam or
i hope i have
i've always understood islam to be
actually a state
a state that you're actually in called
islam and it's it's a descriptive state
and and i find it very interesting that
the three qualities
that allah uses in the quran to describe
people who are of faith are
the first one is muslim the second one
is and the third one is
those are the three qualities that allah
uses to describe human beings
and i find it really interesting that
all three of them
are in the western tradition of arabic
because i'm supposed to talk about the
west and things
is number four it's a fourth uh on on
the
15 verb permutations
it's a fourth form and that goes under
the
the uh the paradigm of afada
af allah
that's how it goes if you ever studied
arabic and if you didn't you just
learned the fourth form
so if you look at that aslam ayushlimo
islam and for muslim
those are the the the categories
now what's really interesting is that
the fourth form
in arabic is used to create a transitive
situation for an intransitive first form
now if you this is supposed to be
talking about education so i'm assuming
all of you
are educated right because that's what
the topic's about it's about education
so i hope that you know the difference
between a transitive
and an intransitive verb but if you
don't i'll just give you a little lesson
in grammar to remind you because i'm
sure some of you didn't go to grammar
school
right because you didn't get good enough
grades or something like that and
in the other schools in england where
the the plebeians i think go to right is
the patrician class
that goes to the those grammar schools
right before they go to eaton
or wherever they go but if you were a
plebeian
then you probably didn't learn the
difference between a transitive or an
intransitive verb but nonetheless like
uh moliere's character who's amazed to
learn that he's been speaking
prose all of his life you've also been
using transitive and intransitive verbs
most of your life
so to clarify the meaning a transitive
verb
needs an object an intransitive verb
doesn't need an object in other words if
zade hits amar and the arabs love
using hit i mean that's always
invariably
the sentences that they use in their
grammar books to teach little children
about how language works it's always
zade hitting
ammo you know and i really with us
it was jane c's spot
i mean you can tell how old i am right
um now it's
you know uh uh hillary has
two mommies or something like that right
so but times are changing right so
the arabs are still using zayd hit ammo
right i mean that's always what they use
all right so so if you look at those
three
words let's look at them seluma right
saloma is the the first base or selima
yes
right beautiful word salim
what does that mean it means something
that is
whole something that is whole
now that's really interesting salam
is the one without any defects it's a
name of god
the one that has no defects it's there's
a wholeness
there's nowhere where you can point and
say that's out of place
salim is safe sound
right so aslama means so there you
understand
intransitive is a state you see it's a
state
i am salim
i don't need any object that that that
is a sentence
that doesn't have an object i'm the
subject
i am salim an assalam
which means i'm whole i'm safe i'm
integral
i'm together right that's what it means
now if you look at amuna right which is
another one or amina yatmanu
it means to be safe
and secure to be safe
and secure to be
in a situation of trust
you're not worried you feel
am in
and then you look at the third one
which means to be beautiful
and that's the third that's the highest
so the first one is
to be whole you're not a hypocrite right
because hypocrites are split
they're inside and they're outside or
different so they're not salim
there's no there's no salama there's no
wholeness to a hypocrite
right and then the
the the next stage is because you're
whole
right you're secure you feel secure you
know who you are
you're not trying to fool anybody you
feel secure
and then the next stage is when people
look at you
your hassan
you're actually something that is
pleasing
for others to experience now if you take
that to the
to make those all intransitive you go to
the fourth form
you could go to the second but the
fourth form
is actually a more interesting form for
the for this meaning than the second
this isn't a lecture in arabic grammar
so i won't explain the difference
between
but if you look at the this fourth form
aslama means to make whole
right to make whole it also means to
surrender
right why because things are at war so
when you surrender
there's no longer separation
right there's no longer antagonism
there's a state of
salama or salaam so it's entering into a
state of peace
so astama means that aslam means to give
up the ghost
to die aslam enough sahu right
so all of these are ways in which that
first form
is takes an object
he gave up his soul
right he entered into a state of
submission
right now if you look at the next one
amana if you just took that using the
system that's taught by the morphologist
that would mean to make safe to make
something
safe right amina and then when if you
use the preposition
ba then it means to actually make safe
yourself through a means so am an
ability
to make yourself safe through a means
but it's also obviously to believe in it
by extension that's one of the nuanced
meanings of it
and then you look at the the third and
the highest asana to make
beautiful
so those are all qualities of
the believer right i mean that's how
allah describes them they're in a state
so that's how i've
understood islam it's actually a state
that you're supposed to be in
now one of the things that's really
interesting is you very rarely meet
people that are in that state and so you
start to begin to wonder
well what is this then is this really i
mean
is there a religion out there called
islam
are there people out there called
muslims are there actually people that
believe in these things
because belief necessitates that you act
according to it
i mean that's the nature if it's not
it's called hypocrisy and hypocrisy is
never considered belief
in any religious tradition that i know
of except
hypocrisy right
i mean that's that's my understanding is
that hypocrisy
is not accepted it's not an acceptable
state to be in to be in a hypocritical
state
so the reason that i just said all that
was
really it just amazes me
the state that we find ourselves in
because you know i've said this before
but i really believe
all this clamoring for an islamic state
is a little tiresome it's just a little
tiresome because all these characters
that are clamoring for this islamic
state when i actually look at them
i don't see them in an islamic state
i don't see them in an islamic state
so if they are not sedoma i want to know
how they can bring about aslama
if if they're not i want to know how
they can bring
and if they're not hasouna i want to
know how they can bring about
asana i want to know how a transitive
state that's not there how you can take
that to an
intransitive state if you don't have
something how do you take it to
somewhere else
how do you take people from here to
there
if you weren't there in the first place
do you see i mean i'd really like
somebody to figure that out
because i know there's something in
miracles in the catholic tradition and
you'll even find it oddly enough in the
islamic tradition
called by location you know the ability
to be in two places at one time you can
look it up in an
encyclopedia of catholic theology by
location you know
so maybe they can do it it's just
miraculous
but if they could perform miracles
couldn't they just you know wave their
magic tuspy and say
islamic state be you know and it is
well it's not that easy is it and just
like that you know in islamic education
what is that
i mean i hate this adjective i think we
should just get rid of it
islamic because adjectives
qualify right they give a quality
to to a noun and i just i think we're
making a big mistake
in in using this adjective when you
can't see it anywhere
where's the quality where is it so i
think we should just talk about
education let's forget about islamic
education let's just talk about
education i mean what is that stop
making claims
let's stop calling these things islamic
schools and just
just call them schools i mean the
history of islam there's never been a
school
called the islamic school imam
al-ghazali never taught an
institute called the islamic school why
because they were in the state of islam
they didn't need adjectives
to describe something that was
self-evident to everybody you use
adjectives when there's some kind of
ambiguity
right you use adjectives when you want
to explain to people
something about the the substantive
but when they don't need to have that
explanation you don't need the adjective
right because words should be used
properly and they should be used in
their place and that's called adab
or adab in in the arabic tradition adab
is putting everything in its proper
place and the adib is the literary man
because he always puts words
in their proper place and it's the
highest form of
of adam right is to actually speak
properly to speak well to speak
appropriately
so having said that
i want to just clarify a few things and
then i'll talk a little bit about what
the
subject is one i've never been an imam
to george bush
i was invited after 9 11 it was actually
around september 15th i was invited
by somebody who was working in the white
house contact me was actually a muslim
and his father was very devout muslim
very well known
in america he was one of the founding
members of the muslim student
association
and his son was working there and and i
got a call
and my initial reaction was
the famous hadith
sultan of tutina whoever goes
into the places where rulers are
he'll have tribulations right that's a
hadith
and i proved it right again
but the counsel that i was given
by my teachers and the people i take
advice from they said
they felt it was very important and it
certainly is quranic i mean nobody could
deny that musa alayhi salem is a prophet
and he went
he was sent to faraon who claimed he was
god
not you know that his country was god
so uh if you go to
uh if a prophet can go to firaoun and
he's told to speak
kindly to him
speak gently to him you know i mean
that's quran if you don't like that ayah
you know you have to write your own
quran and start your own religion
right there's people that do that
you can start your own religion because
the quran says
you know
you believe in parts of the book and
then you don't believe in other parts
and i believe in the entire quran
there's nothing in there that i don't
believe in but i also believe that the
quran is a very sophisticated book
it's not uh there's no such thing as you
know the dummies guide to revelation
right the idiot's guide to guidance
right i mean we just that's not our
religion there's other religions out
there for people that are looking
for that right but that's not islam the
quran says that this is a book for
people that think
deeply the quran says don't they reflect
deeply on this book or are their hearts
sealed
and i actually believe that the quran
does have guidance for any situation it
has guidance
for people when there i mean there's a
verse in the quran that says
that whoever
takes allegiance
with people that are their enemies
woman to a woman to allah w