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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