oh the Valenti min as shaytan al rajim
bismillah under him in the name of god
the most merciful the most gracious
welcome to mecca one right here on this
station 90.5 FM k SJ s hamdullah we have
two honored guests with us today we have
a share comes a user from the zaytuna
institute and we also have imam zaid
shakir also from the zaytuna institute
visiting scholar hamdullah hopefully
permanent inshallah and a Slama like
Americans for them as you know with that
title of the topic of discussion today
was Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him
mercy to humanity and if i could start
off with the first question i know
throughout the years of the state to an
institute there have been different
topics why this year on the prophet
muhammad saw us on this phenomena him
well i would say first of all that one
of the major problems that we're facing
here in this country as muslims is that
our religion is being portrayed in a
very dark light and and also our Prophet
peace be upon him has been disparaged
has been vilified in print and visual
media has been unjustly attacked and
slandered and libeled and and so in
essence what we are hoping to do is in
our own small contribution to offset
much of that negativity by actually
portraying our prophets peace be upon
him in the true light that we believe
that he is revealed in not simply by the
Muslims which is important to note but
also by enlightened Westerners who
recognized his exalted character and his
extraordinary rank amongst the great
luminaries of human civilization in fact
michael Hart the Jewish historian who
wrote a book called the 100 most
influential personalities in history
ranked him as number one in a very fair
assessment as the most single
influential human being another example
of that is George Bernard Shaw the
extraordinary Irish writer playwright
critic who recognized the Prophet
Muhammad peace be upon him as also an
extraordinary human being and said about
him that if the world's problems were
presented to him Muhammad would solve
them over a cup of tea and many many
other Western people so that's part of
what we're trying to do is really
present the Prophet in the true light
that we see him and understand him to be
as a mercy and and part of that is
Western people need to recognize the
immense influence and impact that his
his solitary life has had on the West in
a positive way much of what we believe
to be Western is in fact from Muslim
influence and Muslim origin and source
and so that's also part of what we'd
like to do is is to stress and and
highlight more the the positive
influences that islam and the teachings
of the Prophet Muhammad peace be on
earth have had on the West I think we
should be cognizant also of the fact
that the world in general is becoming a
place where we see less and less mercy
exemplified in our relations with each
other between various ethnic groups
national groups who members of various
religions a lot of people thought with
the end of the Cold War even before that
World War one was the war to end all
wars and the belief now that we've
gotten this out of our system will be
more merciful more compassionate we'll
build a great society and we had the
horrors of World War two culminating
with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki that led to the cold war with
the end of the Cold War
those great expectation will have the
peace dividend will have resources to
devote to peace towards constructing
again a more humane and merciful world
and in the aftermath of the Cold War we
had the genocide in Rwanda we had the
genocide in Bosnia we've had terrible
genocidal situations so as we move into
the 21st century and the means weapons
of mass destruction are becoming
increasingly powerful and deadly and are
beginning to proliferate and fall into
exactly fall into more and more hands
and not all of those hands are the hands
of governments we see increasingly
non-state actors getting their hands on
these things we need to look at and
explore every avenue that we possibly
can to introduce more merciful ideals
for Humanity otherwise inevitably we're
going to destroy each other would you
say that the concept of mercy is
something that we don't see anymore
these days well Mercy viswanadham rahim
mercy is is the foundation of our
existence none of us would be here if
there weren't merciful people to have
been our caretakers for the first few
years of our lives because humans unlike
many other species are incapable of
actually living independently from birth
and in fact really we need at least
seven years of serious care and
extraordinarily so there have been
actual individuals that were raised by
animals feral children wolf children and
dog children that were raised by animals
and that was actually the mercy of the
animals that helped them and one of the
things that in creation Darwin put
forward the idea of the survival of the
fittest but Kropotkin who was another
serious thinker at that time actually
had a alternative to Darwin's survival
of fittest in which he actually talked
about mutual cooperation in creation and
one of the things that dim myopathy says
in his famous book one of the Arab
scholars
about animals is that he actually saw a
cat that used to feed a bird that had a
broken wing and he actually saw this cat
feed the bird so you'll even see the
most extraordinary thing I personally
and I'm not making this up I personally
had a dog as a child my family that
nursed a kitten who'd lost its mother
and I saw that with my own eyes and
people assume that dogs and cats hate
each other so there's mercy permeating
the universe it's everywhere if we
didn't have the ozone layer there we
would just be ZACT we'd be wiped off the
face of the earth and if we didn't have
Van Allen's belts that are protecting us
from cosmic rays and solar bombardment
we just had solar flares erupt recently
if we didn't have this massive
protective barrier around our planet we
would be destroyed so there's mercy
everywhere I mean there's all the
negative things are out there as well
but I would say there's much more
positive out there happening than there
is negative but what happens the
negative people tend to focus on because
it's it's glaring it's dramatic it makes
news and people tend to forget about all
the extraordinary right now how many
women are breastfeeding their children
those are all acts of mercy and I would
challenge anybody to tell me that there
are more acts of harm or violence
towards people happening right now than
there are acts of mercy because I know
it's the opposite every time somebody
drives according to the law that they're
acting mercifully towards other people
because we know when people start Lane
weaving they're endangering the lives of
others so just acting according to the
law is showing compassion towards your
fellow human beings as well as
intelligently guarding your own life do
you want to add anything you wanted I
think that if we consider the fact that
most people and most nations are at
peace with each other
most of the time we can begin to see the
manifestations of mercy and our lives
and our individual lives and in our
national lives so the idea this happy
Zia notion of a war of all against all
this it's just it's not true and it's
not founded on actual human experience
so I think we have to be optimistic we
have to believe that yes people are
merciful as shaykh hamza pointed out the
mother to the child the teacher to the
student this is mercy also because a
human being to be successful not only
needs to grow physically but also needs
to grow intellectually and spiritually
and the fact that intellectual growth is
happening spiritual growth is happening
even in diminished terms in recent
history but it's still happening and it
can be increased and it can be magnified
and we have as people ordinary people we
have to believe that and believe that we
can make a difference in creating a more
merciful world so that's one of the
ideas we want to get across in this
program mohamed mursi for Humanity that
the potential is there would you guys
like to comment on why the Prophet
Muhammad peace be upon 0 is known as
mercy to humanity some of the key points
if you could point some things out to us
as to why that is well I this one out of
him I mean I would say that anybody who
examines his life his entire life we'll
see right from the beginning he told us
that there has been no profit except
that he took care of sheep because sheep
are the weakest of the mammalian
creatures and in taking care of sheep
one learns to be compassionate for weak
and animals of low intelligence in
relation to other animals so just from
the right from the start he had an
extraordinary sense of compassion in his
life he was known to be incredibly kind
to people he was beloved by anyone who
knew
and when he begins his mission the
extraordinary patience and forbearance
that he showed and and I'll give you an
example we had a the other day we had a
conference of sanctity of life and one
of the Buddhist teachers who came to
talk was speaking about compassion and
this this Buddhist man said that that in
his tradition in order to fully realize
one's humanity one even has to forgive
those who killed one's parents and I
thought that was really interesting that
he said that because it reminded me of
the fact that the Prophet Muhammad peace
be upon him actually forgave the woman
and the hired assassin who killed his
uncle Hamza and according to the Arabs
the uncle is the same as the father in
Arabian tradition the uncle has the same
status as the father and serves as a
surrogate father and the Prophet
Muhammad peace be upon him was an orphan
so he actually forgave a person who
killed his father and he did that as an
example for all of us so so the
extraordinary capacity for forgiveness
because is one thing to pardon somebody
there's a difference between pardon and
forgiveness pardoning is where you don't
take somebody to account you don't
redress that wrong through some justice
system but you can still hate that
person so you can pardon somebody but
still hate them and feel resentment or
anger whereas forgiveness does not
entail pardoning in other words you can
actually still have justice done if
somebody kills a family member of yours
they can serve their time or even be
executed but forgiveness is when you
actually forgive them in your heart and
that is that is from from recognizing
one that we're all human than any wrong
that you see in the world is ultimately
something that you as a human are
capable of doing yourself even though we
don't like to imagine that but given the
circumstances raja buddhist mahany said
one
the great theologians of the Muslim
world he was a Persian he said that
anytime you see some vileness in another
creature you should know that it's
either in you manifest or it is innate
in you like fire in Flint in other words
if you strike it if you give the same
circumstances as that individual had you
can actually do the same thing we've
we've got many examples of that
historically we're good people turn into
mad people Nazi Germany is an example of
that I mean the large numbers of that
population just went into a type of
social madness the same is true during
the Crusades I mean many examples and
even the Muslims unfortunately have
historical episodes where they too
perpetrated crimes that were totally
against their values and their their
self-interests and and their humanity so
the mercy of the prophet Elijah in his
ability his capacity and his example of
forgiveness is one of the things that
that that I'm always struck by and in
awe of in my own struggle to relieve
those who have wronged me or and and
hope that others who've i've wronged
forgive me as well I want to switch
gears a little bit with a little
personal question I have for both of you
well I noticed that your car was a stick
shift it had a I haven't seen one of
those in a long time so really yeah it's
all okay you can switch gears I use
automatic though oh so that's you you do
it more swiftly I'm just kidding okay I
wanted to ask what role do you feel the
Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him plays
in your own life in my own life right
well he plays the role of role model
that is that's the central I mean every
every day of my life I can honestly say
I don't think any day has gone by that
I haven't benefited and learned from his
wisdom since I became a Muslim and I
hope that's a true statement but I
believe that that is true and when I
have behaved in my best behavior it has
always been an emulation of him and
whenever I have fallen short it is from
being remiss about the example that he
gave me so i will give you one example
in just in terms of my parents you know
i think i was a reasonably good son
before I became Muslim but after I
became Muslim as my knowledge increased
my theory of what was used to be called
filial piety or my awareness of my my
obligations towards my parents increased
and I think my parents recognize that
and that came directly as a result of a
commitment to Islam and the the Prophet
peace be upon him his words every single
day I can honestly say I benefit from
his words or his sayings the day doesn't
go by that I don't read a hadith which
is one of his sayings or reflect on one
of his sayings so I can honestly say he
is central to my life he's not in any
way peripheral mama say I would ditto
everything that she comes i said i would
like to just add a similar example in
terms of my relationship with my own
father it was very strained we were
large family seven children and my
father basically wasn't in the picture
for most of our childhood so my mother
was struggling to raise us and as the
years went by I developed a deep
resentment towards my father even to the
point of I i can remember having a
physical altercation with him and many
of my brothers and sisters they just
assumed I hated my father they would say
you hate pops and in any case when I
became Muslim and studied the life of
the prophet salallahu with send them
peace and blessings of God be upon him
I sought out my father and reformed
relations with them and now we have a
wonderful relationship and I tribute
that to the guidance and teachings of
the prophets allah Lila will seldom so
that's just a small example and we could
spend this entire program and probably
the next three or four programs just on
answering this question so I'm going to
just leave it at that you know I just
like to add to that is one of the things
that this society suffers from I really
believe is and not just America I mean
this is a global problem is
relationships between children and their
parents I mean we if you go into any
self-help book store in America you'll
see shelves of books dealing with toxic
parents overcoming toxic parents you
know all these problems out there you
see that and one of the things in
Christianity there's a concept in
Catholicism known as Caritas which is
what we get our word for charity and
carry toss is a type of love that is
solely for the sake of God and the
reason that you love your parents even
if your parents were the worst parents
imaginable the reason you love your
parents is for the sake of God because
God made them the source of your
existence and and God knew we believe
that God knew what he was doing and so
when the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon
him teaches us to honor Revere and love
our parents he doesn't he's not assuming
that we had a good relationship with our
parents that is actually a commandment
from God and in doing that I guarantee
you anybody out there who's listening if
you're not a Muslim I guarantee you that
even in doing that you will find a
spiritual satisfaction from
reestablishing that relationship and
working to overcome those struggles and
unfortunately I mean there are some
insoluble problems out there i'm not
going to say that that i mean i really
do think that there are
or some where a parent has just become
so vile and wicked or a son or a
daughter has done the same that it
becomes a an intractable problem but but
i think that is rare that is not in any
way the norm i think most people out
there actually are yearning to
re-establish that connection and once
the parent dies the opportunity or the
child the opportunity goes and they'll
only be regret and remorse I often hear
about you know Jerry Springer or other
type shows how they come out sometimes
you know against the parent in a
horrific manner that I'm just stricken
with awe just watching that you really
feel that this is prevalent in our
culture that the parents have just been
degraded to that you love it Fighting's
me you know because honor thy parents is
that is a that is a universal yet that
your days may be long that is and that's
the same in Islamic tradition as well
one of the things that increases one's
lifespan is bitter at wadi dane or
filial piety towards penn but i really
feel that this is one of the greatest
problems on the planet today and it's a
two-way street and and i'm not saying
you know the the burden is solely on the
children is a two-way street i mean one
of the things interesting and
christianity is that Paul in Corinthians
mentioned he says children honor thy
parents and then immediately after that
he says parents do not give your
children excuse for dishonouring you and
so people forget that too and that's
also echoed in the Islamic tradition
when a man came to Amira meanie Nadia
that have you thought him and he said to
him who's the fourth caliph he said to
him my son is not showing me piety
dishonouring me and imam ali said how
did you treat him when he was young and
he said i didn't treat him well and then
he said then what are you expecting in
other words you know this is a perennial
problem but we should not allow
ourselves to fall into these patterns
with cycles can be broken and mercy you
know what what mercy really is
it's when that is interjected into any
situation to defuse that other energy
that is out there the the hatred the
contempt the animosity those things that
caused so much human suffering when
mercy is is introduced the power of
mercy is such that it often obliterates
these other emotions and the Quran
reminds us in fact bility heey accent
the levive an evolved an aha i dial tone
under who what do you know I mean that
we pay a wrong with a right and you will
see that the one between you and him is
filled with animosity suddenly he
becomes like a close friend a loving
friend well you and having a protecting
friend who's warm and impassioned toward
you and I have seen that many times that
Quranic verse can be tried and applied
in the real world I wanted to switch
gears again if you don't mind I wanted
to talk a little bit Bell higher or
lower new hondas I want to go in neutral
I wanted to switch gears and talk about
the border and just your thoughts on it
for those of us who are not familiar
with the clear in the club the Buddha
according to dr. Timothy winter of the
Hakim who's a professor at Cambridge
University he said that this is the
single most important poem in human
history and he's saying that as a
historian he teaches history and
theology at Cambridge he said if you if
you look you will find no other poem
that has had the impact in the world
that that poem has had and he's
including the iliad and odyssey in all
these poems millions of people in human
history have memorized it in its
entirety it is still sung to this day
all over the Muslim world read there are
literally hundreds of commentaries on it
and it had a central position in
devotional practices in the Muslim world
that was used as a devotional tool based
upon the the verse in the Quran yahan
no son lo la was sending me to cinema or
you believe invoke blessings and
salutations on the Prophet Muhammad
peace be upon him and so I cannot
underestimate in any way the importance
and the centrality that that poem has
had in Islamic history and part of why I
translated it and sand Allah published
it and we recorded the Fez singer
singing it that was really in order to
introduce it to the West because Muslims
in the West I think are not familiar
with a lot of the extraordinary
devotional traditions that have existed
in the Muslim world encouraged by our
greatest scholars and if you're
interested you can look on the sand
allah if you put SI and da la on the
website you'll come up with the the
website and those there was a very nice
Tom Chandler of Rasputin dot-org wrote a
very nice this was a non-muslim who
heard it and he actually called it an
antidepressant which I thought was
really interesting because traditionally
that's what it was known as was a
healing and it's also called at Borah
which means the Cure imam zaid any
comments on birthday I think what I
would like to add is just the importance
of devotional practice because people
are starving spiritually we overeat
physically and we say she ate our carnal
appetites but our spiritual appetites
are unmet and we're literally starving
in this country even in the Muslim
countries you can see a lot of the
traditional institutions a lot of the
traditional manifestations of a
religious Society of gone the cities
were designed in a way to soothe the
soul there were gardens at the center of
everything was the Great Mosque
everything was designed to
to soothe the soul the music we have
music that might sound like a heretical
concept for many Muslims in our day and
times but we had a very rich tradition
of spiritual and devotional music we had
gatherings where the spirit was allowed
to to freely exercise itself and a lot
of these practices are gone now so if
we're going to be victims of many of the
things that have afflicted many people
here in the West and speaking generally
not trying to indict anyone for anything
because as I'm saying in the Muslim
countries were suffering from the same
maladies but the alienation the enemy
and all of these modern psychological
conditions that are byproducts of an
environment that is not nurturing to the
spirit unless we're going to fall victim
to these things and we don't have the
sort of infrastructure to deal with the
the damage that results here you have a
network of psychiatric hospitals and
counselors and therapists but we don't
have that in the Muslim world so we're
going to really create a very dangerous
or we're in the process of creating a
very dangerous situation I think the
board is a good step towards effecting a
cure for a lot of those maladies and one
of the things I want to add a lot of
Muslims aren't aware in traditional
Greek philosophy there was something
nose etho Spirit came out of Pythagorean
thought the power of music that it had
and in fact play-doh in his Republic
bands music from the Republic and
artists and one of the reasons that is
given is that musicians do not
understand the power of music and the
effect that music has on the soul much
of what you're hearing over the radio
waves you're not really aware that its
vibration
and that you yourself or vibrations and
we know that when when in in in atomic
theory there are certain things that are
congruous and others that are in
congruence and and and chemical bonds
occur because of affinities that exists
between vibrations and resonances and
there are dark musical forces out there
and a lot of these musicians don't even
realize what they're doing I mean
they're actually really harming people
they're creating agitation in their
hearts they're creating agitations in
their souls and there's people that will
actually become violent or become
sexually aggressive because of what's
happening to their souls and they're not
even aware of it and that is not
everybody I'm not saying it's everybody
but there are people that have those
sensitivities to these types of
vibrations and that's that's what what
ends up happening and and one of the
interesting things about traditional
religious music it was entirely done
without what is known in in music as
harmony in other words there were no
thirds and fists that were used it was
done in octave so when you had any
differences you would actually move to
octopus what was traditionally in
Christianity known as Church plainsong
and moving into the octave had a
different effect on the soul so there's
actual science behind this what are
known as the mahkumat and the no bath
and the far back and this also relates
to humoral theory it's very profound and
so the music that was done traditionally
in the Muslim world known as some app
which actually means audition it's
hearing because ultimately what it is is
listening and so there are people that
can hear something I mean there's see
you can hear a song like Sinead O'Connor
nothing compares to you but that was a
popular song a lot of people heard that
now there's somebody that hears that and
all they can think about is leisa
committee shape nothing compares to you
to God I mean there's other people to
hear that may think of their lover or
they think of their you know
whoever they so there's people out there
that will hear something that is mundane
or profane and they will actually hear
the sacred and the celestial in it and
that is why traditionally the scholars
called it addition because it's actually
hearing it's what you are hearing and
and this is one of the powers of music
and this society unfortunately
manipulates people and I'll just give
you one example Steven Spielberg is a
master of musical manipulation and you
if you watch a Steven Spielberg film he
knows exactly how to get tears out of
you simply by the type of music that he
chooses at the most emotive points in
his film and that's why many people will
cry watching a Steven Spielberg film
which is actually a fiction and that's
what they call sentimentality and
sentimentality is a wretched human
quality I mean you're weeping for a
fictional character who's dying of
cancer and you're not visiting children
in a cancer ward in the hospital that's
right outside your door and and this is
what happens to our societies we end up
getting manipulated constantly our
emotions unmanipulated there's
commercials that use music to manipulate
you so you get jingles you know when
when I was growing up it was plop plop
fizz fizz oh what a relief it is and I
you know I'd like to find the character
that wrote that jingles I could punch
him in the face for actually implanting
and in my brain permanently you know one
thing that's interesting which I don't
recommend people to do and that is to
watch MTV with the mute on and if you
just watch the bat is my video they take
the sound off and look how crazy they
look like I'm lightning it is no it's
not like animals be fair to animals yeah
I don't like don't diss the animals do
not diss the animals I think that got a
lot of brothers out there calling each
other dog what's up dog right unless you
know the dogs out there Sam and these
cats are giving us dogs a bad name
because the dog has caused his loyalty
right right
his loyal man's best friend and these
human dogs aren't loyal to anyone they
treat women like a dog would never treat
so exactly so you know these cats are
giving the dogs the bad name so don't
don't respect the animals by comparing
this human this poor excuse for a human
being to an animal how do we get off on
that tangent i think i am going to come
out with a song we don't diss the dog
don't dis the dogs yeah after that we
only have like four minutes left for the
show I wanted to ask you what are your
long-term goals for zaytuna what do you
hope to see happening well I mean
ultimately zaytuna is an educational
institute we're committed to to trying
to help remove the ignorance out there I
mean we feel that that what is
confronting humanity everywhere is
ignorance and we want to remove
ignorance and embedded in the word
ignorance is the word ignore and when
you ignore things that are important
it's a display of your ignorance and
Islam is important one out of every five
people is Muslim just like i would
encourage muslims to learn about and to
have a greater respect for other
traditions that are out there I also
encourage non-muslims to actually find
out about Islam because even if you
don't become a Muslim in order to be an
educated person in the 21st century you
should know what one out of every five
people believe just like you should know
the basic principles and tenets of
Christianity and most people are not
afraid of Christianity and there are
certain types of Christianity that I'm
afraid of but the majority of Christians
I have no problem with whatsoever and I
have family members that are Christian
and they're good people and and that is
also true for Muslims the majority of
Muslims are good law-abiding people and
actually some of the best neighbors that
you could ever have and that and that
I'm not exaggerating that but
unfortunately there's also some
hot-headed there's some angry there
some resentful there's some impatient
and there's some deeply misguided
Muslims out there like any religion or
faith but they represent a very small
minority unfortunately very
statistically insignificant groups now
can have an immense impact and an
extravagant display of their rage that
ends up reflecting poorly on all of the
other adherence to that group but
intelligent people should never fall
into the fallacy of composition which is
a logical fallacy where you imply just
because one member has characteristics
you apply it to all members so if you
have a bad experience with a Jew
suddenly every Jew is bad or a bad
experience with a Hindu every Hindu is
bad or or a humanist or whoever's out
there or black person or a yellow person
or a red person or a white person so
we're about trying to eliminate remove
ignorance in our own selves because we
still have those those qualities and and
we don't just not some manichean
melodramatic worldview that we're
putting out there we recognize that we
we have work to do ourselves and that's
why we're committed to increasing our
knowledge practicing that knowledge and
also to spreading that knowledge to
those who are willing to give it an ear
and and eventually to also try to grow
and benefit from it okay that actually
concludes our show just like a la fair
for spending some time with us Jeff
comes a Yusuf an imam zaid checker well
you know thank you very much on there
and you know may you be blessed in all
your work here and and hopefully you
guys can be on soon inshallah alright
that's not like
Makka 10 archie that's www mgc CA Ong
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