INTRODUCTION
good morning it's a great pleasure to
introduce Sheikh Hamza Yusuf Sheikh
Hamza happens to be when the most
prominent Muslim scholars in the Bay
Area he's a teacher writer and scholar
and he's also the co-founder of Zaytuna
College the first Muslim liberal arts
college in the country established where
else here in Berkeley California he is
an advisor to Stanford University's
program in Islamic studies and the
Center for Islamic studies here at the
GTU he also serves as a member of the
Board of Advisors of George Russell's
One Nation a national philanthropic
initiative that promotes pluralism and
inclusion in America he also serves as
vice president for the global Center for
guidance and renewal recently Hamza
Yusuf was ranked as the Western world's
most influential Islamic scholar by the
500 most influential Muslims edited by
John Esposito and Ibrahim Killeen Shaikh
Homs has authored any number of
encyclopedia articles and research
papers and several books including
purification of the heart the content of
character the Creed of imam al Tahari
agenda to change our condition walking
on water and the prayer of the oppressed
and is forthcoming
the helpful guide and I just want to say
a little bit about sheikh hamza x' work
basically we can serve characterized in
three parts on the one hand the sheikh
hamza has been very influential in
reviving the authentic tradition of
Islamic scholarship which had suffered
all sorts of missed formations due to
colonialism as a tuna College is an
example of this of going back to the
roots of Islamic traditional education
and for that reason he has a great deal
of reputation credibility among you know
even non scholarly Muslims at the same
time he emphasizes that true
understanding of tradition goes beyond
the letter of the text to the spirit
that inspires the letter so he has
always emphasized in his research than
an understanding of the texts of Islamic
scholarship we
requires knowledge of the purification
of the heart of the ascetic and mystical
tradition of self-development which
enables one to understand the actual
text of the letter and then the third
part of its work is applying this to the
contemporary situation so Sheikh Hamza
has been an outspoken and passionate
critic of all kinds of social justice
and extremism whether it's the extremism
of global elites and militarism or the
counter extremism of pseudo Islamic
extremists Sheikh Hamza has been
credited for say persuading edge Hussain
to abandon extremism so Sheikh Hamza
working basically be described as a kind
of bridge building and connecting of
worlds connecting the worlds of
tradition and modernity and the worlds
of west and east which blends in
perfectly well with Graduate theological
unions in Pacific School of religions
mission and purpose so it's a my great
pleasure and honor to introduce Sheikh Hamza Yusuf
Main Speech (Shaykh Hamza Yusuf)
[Applause]
Thank you. okay we good all right thank you sorry about that it was a I guess that's my introduction
In the name of God the Most Merciful The Most Compassionate I appreciated that I
always take those things with a serious
grain of salt like being the most
influential Muslim scholar in the West
because I'm having a hard time
influencing my 16 year old right now so
we know about influence the the the also
the description of a bridge builder
I'd prefer rather to be described as
somebody who's just trying to show
bridges that are already there we don't
need to build bridges building bridges
is a lot of effort and work I think we
should use the ones that are already
there but oftentimes the fog of war and
other things cloud our vision when
there's a lot of fog in San Francisco
you can't even see the Golden Gate
Bridge this this is one of those things
I think that that relates to all of us
the that I was really happy and the
reason that I chose to do this was
because of the topic I I've been
actually not doing a lot of things like
the trying to get the things I already
have to do done so but the topic this
topic is one of the most fascinating
topics to me and it's fascinating for a
number of reasons that one of the most
important is the complete disconnection
that so many people have with wealth and
I want to give you an example how many
people know John Robbins not that many
I'm surprised I love John Robbins he's
wonderful guy his father was one of the
founders of Baskin and Robbins he he
wrote
he he wrote he wrote diet for a new
America that was his first revolutionary
book saying don't eat ice cream he he
also he he's an extraordinary human
being he as a young man idealistic went
to Vancouver built a log cabin with his
wife lived on an island in Vancouver and
without electricity raised his children
there his son this is kind of the 60s
people here can relate to this his son
named ocean is also doing things so he
was part of that idealistic generation
that listened to too many Bob Dylan
songs and and took this stuff seriously
and and dropped out what's interesting
is when he came back after several years
he began to advocate for a lot of things
related to social justice diet is one of
them because we don't realize the
connection between what we eat and
ethics which is very important not just
the Ethical Treatment of Animals which
is one aspect of it because the animals
today are no longer farm animals they
are literally commercial products they
have nothing to do with a traditional
idea Old MacDonald had a farm e-i-e-i-o
McDonald's now owns the farm and it's
not that you know the pig and the cow
having a good time anymore so but one of
the things that intrigued me I got his
book the new good life living better in
an age of less and he talks about this
crisis that we're in and how it's
actually an opportunity but what really
struck me was he admits and I think
courageously that he lost all of his
money in this crises because all of his
money was invested with Bernie Madoff
and so I think it's just so amazing that
somebody who I believe is a truly
ethical person but the fact that he was
living off stolen money because a Ponzi
scheme you're not living off your money
that was already spent you're living off
the money of other people that have now
invested into the Ponzi scheme and so
this to me illustrate SPRO found
this incredible disconnect that we have
in the United States between our wealth
how we invest it and what the wealth is
actually doing out there in the world
and this doesn't just mean investment
somebody who wrote best-selling books
has money to invest most people don't
but it also means the ethical choices
that you make every day when you buy
right we and and now the corporations
are wising up to this so now they're
putting like Fairtrade stamps and and a
lot of this stuff is unregulated so we
really don't know what's going on but
they recognize that there are people
that are deeply troubled by the type of
world that we're living in right now and
the imbalances that we have so I want to
look at a pre-modern person who dealt
with these things and one of the things
about Dante Dante is very troubling for
Muslims and I'll get to that later but
Dante is also somebody who and I think
the theses of his indebtedness to the
Islamic tradition is is airtight for
somebody that knows the tradition very
well and knows Dante reasonably well the
I think I've seen palacios who's the
Spanish Catholic priest who first put
forward this thesis that Dante had been
influenced by what's known as the
nocturnal or the Night Journey of the
Prophet Mohammed where he goes through
hell he's guided by Gabriel he and then
ascends to the heights and then into
paradise ultimately to experience the
beatific vision and to come back the the
similarities are so extraordinary and
many of the things that you find in
Dante are not from Christian tradition
and Christians know this that it's
usually seen as from the imagination of
Dante now to say that Dante stole like
they say mediocrity is to borrow
geniuses to steal there's nothing really
wrong with stealing Shakespeare was
constantly stealing things from most of
his plays our plots taken from other
playwrights but the genius is making it
your own this is a title lenders
leopards and lions he divides
into the sins of the Leopards the sins
of the Lions and the sins of the wolves
and then the violence of avarice because
we we don't really think of avarice as
being a violent crime or a violent sin
but in in this medieval tradition it was
so these are my musings from these these
trenches in Dante's hell the pre-modern
world view among Abrahamic people and
amongst all people the pre-modern world
was a metaphysical world people before
modernity lived in a world in which they
recognized that this was not the world
this was Maya it was one in the Arabic
tradition it was completely FNS it it
was trans it was something that was
transient by its nature would dissipate
before we knew it but it also was
symbolic and this is why Plato for
instance did not want image makers and
this is one of the things that Neil
postman argues in amusing ourselves to
death that in the second in the
Decalogue the second commandment not to
make any graven images unto God and not
to make any images whatsoever I mean if
you read the the original commandment
it's very specific about not making
images at all and Postman argues that if
a God who is a complete abstraction the
idea of God wanted human beings to
understand him or her or it however you
want to phrase it the the God would have
to be a god that was understood through
symbols through abstraction in the mind
not tangible and so the idea of idolatry
was such an anathema to the Abrahamic
traditions the iconoclast
influenced by the Muslims during the
Byzantine period actually destroy a lot
of the icons it's interesting that the
only icons that we have from that period
and in in the late 7th and early 8th
century are the ones that were
from the monasteries that were protected
by the Muslims so the Greeks went around
destroying all these icons so the the
pre-modern world was a world of
metaphysics and Plato felt that the
danger of images was that it would take
people they would be now twice removed
from reality so if you have a television
and you're watching reality TV you're
actually twice removed from reality
because the actual thing that's
happening that you're watching whether
it's recorded or live are images of
images and so he saw the danger of
having those images now one of the
aspects of the pre-modern world view was
morality was at the center of the human
condition the Ten Commandments are
universal Commandments you will find
these in many many traditions some form
of the Ten Commandments it's it's
actually quite extraordinary how
widespread they are if you look at the
core ethics of the Quran it's clearly
from the Ten Commandments the obstacles
to fulfilling the Ten Commandments are
the seven deadly sins according to st.
Gregory the Great a one of the great
Catholic leaders now in Dante's world
sin was something you struggled against
it was not something you indulged in it
was something something you actually
struggled against if you go to Las Vegas
as you enter into Las Vegas there's a
big banner in the airport that says
surrender to your desires and then what
what happens here stays here so one of
the things that advertising people have
learned is that the seven deadly sins
make great selling points so have the
Mercedes and you're gonna look better
than everybody else on the
you're gonna have respect you'll also
get the envy of other people luxurious
so these these these seven deadly sins
were central to that worldview but one
of the interesting things about the
Mount of Purgatorio was at the base was
pride and and don t doesn't really deal
did the whole Divine Comedy in the in
the inferno pride is constantly there
but it's not mentioned in the same way
that the other sins are mentioned
because it's just understood that is the
root problem greed and pride were the
root problems according to st. Thomas of
the human condition but what's
interesting about this mountain as as
you climb up the mountain it gets
lighter and easier so it's the opposite
of a worldly mountain the spiritual
mountain gets actually easier now one of
the things about Jesus which is
interesting I mean there are many things
interesting about him but one of the
things that's very interesting is that
when he was one of the teachers of law
came and heard them debating noticing
that Jesus had given them a good answer
he asked him of all the commandments
which is the most important now you
could look at this the 613 commandments
of the Torah or you could look at it as
the Ten Commandments the most important
one jesus answered is is this here o
Israel the shinai the Lord our God the
Lord is one love the Lord your God with
all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your mind and with all your
strength the second is this love your
neighbor as yourself
there is no commandment greater than
these what Jesus does in in this
incredibly sick synched manner is to sum
up the Ten Commandments because the
first three Commandments are about
loving God about honoring God believing
in God about honoring the Sabbath and
then it's loving the neighbor it's don't
kill don't steal those are acts of
hatred towards the neighbor honor your
parents those are the closest neighbors
that you have growing up and don't covet
your neighbor's Goods don't bear false
witness this is all loving the neighbor
so he reduces the Ten Commandments to
two Commandments now what's interesting
about that is he makes it a positive
most of the ten commands
our negatives but he makes it a positive
that love is a positive force in the
world and this is really Dante's vision
in the inferno because Dante sees that
love is at the root of all of this you
have and he ends his his Paradiso with
love so it's it's the last line in in
the in the entire poem he has loved
excessive love perverted and love
wanting these are the human problems now
Dante he finds himself the middle of his
life he was born in 1265 this takes
place in in 1300 and Dante is he's a
fascinating character for a number of
reasons one of them is that he is a
devout Catholic and yet he's deeply
influenced by rationalism he's
definitely a secularist he really wants
to see separation of church and state
he's also very anti-clerical he in fact
he's never been beatified I mean he's
you know he stuck half the Pope's in
hell so and he really he had a problem
with the church but like all great
Patriots their greatest act is to point
out what needs to be corrected you see
the jingoistic type of approach never
works those are the flatterers that tell
you there's nothing wrong it's the
people that point out what needs to
change and that's what he was really
involved in doing but he enters the
inferno and you know abandon hope all ye
who enter here
III had a an idea of doing a theme park
based on the inferno
because because we love theme parks
right I was actually on mr. Toad's Wild
Ride with my children and I realized at
Disneyland that mr. Toad's Wild Ride is
kind of a minion fare no because because
he actually goes to hell in that I don't
know if there is it's a terrible thing
to do to a five-year-old you know it's
just a trevally frightening thing but he
mr. toad actually he he goes to hell but
then suddenly it's like no you get a
second chance and and so you you're back
out all right it's start over but the he