Qurrat al-Absar - Discerning the Eyes Delight

people now one of the problems
that we have today is information has flooded the world so
there is no there's there's no sifting through a lot
of information you can find websites for instance on the internet that are anti-islamic and
they use only islamic sources and if you read those and you don't know
the tradition you'll there's people that could lose their faith
literally because they'll just think how this is the religion is this really in
this in ibnis haqq the prophet isaiah did that no it
it might not necessarily be true and then some things are true and the prophet saw i said i'm
one of the difficulties of his life is that he has two personalities
he has a meccan phase and a medany phase and they're very different now the way
the the non-muslims look at this is they tend to say he was so nice in mecca
what happened in medina this is what they say they say he was like jesus in mecca he
was turning the other cheek he was doing that's absolutely true and then he goes to medina and they say and suddenly
he's having people killed he's doing and and and they they interpret it from
their sickness that the power went to him that he became vengeful
these these are the type words you'll find when you read some of the orientalist literature about the prophet the reality of it is
is that he is like asa in he is like jesus in mecca but he's like moses in medina
because the prophet saws is the perfect and complete prophet jesus is a prophet without power if you
look at jesus he has no power the entire mission he's without power he has no political power
moses is a prophet with power they're very different the prophecies
him in medina can no longer turn the other cheek because he's a judge
if you go to a judge and you want a legal ruling if for instance somebody steals your car
and you take them to court and the judge says to the thief you're
forgiven what are you going to say you're going to say
what do you mean he's forgiven he stole my car the judge doesn't have any right to do
that because he's not there to show mercy he's there to show justice
and justice and mercy are the two great paradoxes of human existence
how we how we grapple with these two
forces in the world the force of justice and the force of mercy it's very difficult if you look at les
miserables which is a a a famous french novel it's about justice and mercy
and and the idea is that they they the two can't live together this is the idea because at the end the
the police officer who represents justice right what was his name
jacques what was that it was jean valjean and and what was the policeman's name
oh come on there must be some littered
somebody said the actor anyway but he in the end he commits
suicide because he can't show mercy to them and he has to kill himself
to show mercy that's the idea because he's pursuing this man he wants
to the man was forgiven by the christian for stealing
you know he was in that horrible devil's island and for stealing a loaf of bread
but the point is is that in in the christian frame of mind it's very difficult to
deal with justice and mercy [Music] and and that's why you get very
complicated situations in christianity because on the one hand jesus appears to
be all mercy but on the other hand at the end of time he comes back as a judge
and if if if his experience in the temple is any indication of what he would be like as a judge it's
it's pretty frightening but but that jesus is not really
looked at by a lot of of christians and that's why they have a difficult time with the prophet sallallahu isaac and
because the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam is a prophet of power
the prophet saw isaiah is not a powerless prophet like jesus he is a prophet of power and i'm talking about
worldly power jesus has his power but he did not have worldly power he was com he was in a situation he was in an
occupied land the romans occupied his land um the jews were very split there were different sects amongst the jews
and they did not even the jews didn't recognize his rabbinical authority because in the jewish
tradition you had to study with a rabbi to have any authority so they asked jesus who who was your
teacher you know what's your chain your is snag
well he's a prophet from god so there's a problem
but they weren't recognizing that so the prophet saw i said in studying
his seerah you have to be very careful i was told by dr lings that there were
many things that he kept out of his seerah because he said they were inappropriate
for the for the people of our time they just they couldn't grasp them
and that's a wisdom it's not hiding it's actually the prophet isaiah said
to speak to people according to the level of their understanding ali heard a man once trying to explain
the qatar to a man and he said do you want people to deny the prophet
of god he was making it too complicated for people
so it's very important to to understand that about the syrian when you go into the seerah
there are there are like payambar who how many people have read payambar that was the first sera i ever read the
shadowless prophet yeah what does that mean in urdu
huh what's it how do you say it
well my my edition said paymbar so that's what i thought it was
no but it was it was from urdu it was translated from urdu it was a nice sierra like it was that was my first
experience with the syria it was all light and beauty and it was amazing when i started
reading after i learned arabic and started reading in these other syrah i really
had some shocks because suddenly it was like what does that mean what does that mean
yeah imam zaid says when you go into islamic literature you have to take iman vitamins
do you know because there are things that you just don't understand now some of those things are simply
because those they're they're just they're put in the books they're not there's not
necessarily a senate and even if there's a senate sometimes it doesn't necessarily mean that it's sound
so it's very important to understand that but the single most important thing that you always have to remember
is [Music] that he was only sent as a mercy that's
the essence of his being and therefore anything that that does not reflect that essence you have to question
you have to question it if it doesn't reflect the essence of his being is mercy and that is the testimony of the quran
but sometimes mercy the the surgeon cuts off the gangrene in the in the in
in the body out of mercy so sometimes something that looks like it's a cruel
act is in fact an act of mercy so that's important to understand also
that that when you look at the prophecies and his actions you have to recognize that sometimes
the apparent harshness of the act is in fact in reality emanating from his
mercy and it's very clear from his his uh his life anybody that reads his life deeply
and contemplates it has to come to those conclusions now the the thing that they tend to start with
which is where i'll start is about the arabs who are the arabs the arabs are a very ancient people
they they have basically three there are three types of arabs
the lines that i learned many many years ago in algeria uh woman
which means we are from the sulawes was a jorah might
he taught ismael the arabic and he said so whoever denies us will
only be humiliated and then peace be upon
peace like the flowers on the hilltops upon every pure
arab who is noble upon the arabs who are ariba these are one
type of arab and then upon those who passed before the the ba'ida the arabs that
have gone they're no longer with us and also those who became arab
imitating the arabs in their tongue in both understanding and eloquence so those are the three arabs the
the the arab are the arabs that are they're gone like ad and the mood in the quran
these these arabs were arabs who were destroyed or disappeared
for some reason or another and there are people that tribes disappear we had tribes in in america native american
tribes that are no longer with us ishii for some people that know about
ishii was from he was the last of a native a californian tribe that they found
living out in the in in the mountains in
california so peoples disappear and that and that's the arab and then
the arab are the pure arab and those are called
is either hud or the son of hud so these are the yemeni arabs
and they are sons of a prophet so the yemenite arabs who are called
himyar also and kahlan these are the two sons of
and from them branch all of the arabs one of the interesting things
about modern arabs and you'll understand why i'm going through this when we get
to somewhere so don't think this is just strange lineage and things like that
one of the interesting things about the arabs is that they know whether they're adnani or kahatani
because all of the arabs go back to these two fathers adnan who are the ish ishmaelites
they're from ismail adnan between adam and abraham ibrahim there's
they're said to be 40 grandfathers 40. from adnan to the prophet there's 21.
so there there is the lineage of the arab and mustard
these are the arabs that learned arabic and that's who ismail is from so you have the yemeni arabs
and then you have the the ishmaelite arabs the ishmaelite
arabs are considered most they're they're they're they're not pure arab they learned
arabic they're semitic people that came from palestine and originally from iraq
probably or or one of these city-states that was in iraq this is
where abraham came from so they are not pure arab the
but when abraham comes to mecca with hajjar and leaves her there
she raises ismail there when they discover the well of zem-zam the jarahima come because there wasn't a
well there and then they saw the birds so they knew there was water so they started going there they saw that there
was good water so the arabs from yemen these are the jarahima the johamites
they actually create a colony there and ismail marries from the
jorah might so here's the joining of the two arabs and ya rob
who is the the son of jor he's the one that teaches ismail arabic now
ismail was speaking a semitic language so all these semitic
languages are very similar in their root systems but he learned arabic from yeah
now the the yemenis
early on and this is pre-christian the yemenis go through different stages
and they have wars amongst them and so the kahalan yemeni
they start moving north and and that's where you get the assassinates and the lachmites
you get the the the nabataean culture which is in petra
which is still there i mean this is all there it's amazing history you also get the arabs moving into iraq
so there's yemenite arabs and some of the adnanis move there too and they become patrons of the persians the
the clients of the persians rather so you have this movement
now the arabs the arabs the ishmaelites are in mecca because ismail's in mecca
and ismail has 12 children 12 sons they disperse
around there all of their ties are broken except two nabit and kedar
nabbits has his children and kedar has his children nabbit
what what's what's very interesting is that k dot is mentioned in the bible
kedar you can read it in genesis and it is ibrahim is told
that from ishmael will come a great nation this is the bible this isn't the quran
from ishmael will come a great nation so allah promises
abraham that his firstborn will be the progenitor of a great nation and
greatness with god has to be religious it has to be spiritual
because everything else is meaningless so there will be a spiritual nation from the loins of isma'il which is promised
in the bible and also that kedar was blessed that qaidar was blessed
we know also and there was a book written about mecca that proves that the jews
the israelites were making pilgrimage to mecca for centuries and darubal ambiya which
sheikh abdullah al-khadi has done incredible research on and can be identified the caravan paths
are identified according to the tradition over 3 000
prophets had taken that road from syria to mecca 3
000 prophets making pilgrimage to mecca so this city is an ancient city
and the house in that city is an ancient house that was rebuilt by ibrahim with his son
ismail and it was a place that the bible calls becca
the valley of becca now they don't tell you this when when when you study if any of you
had a christian background this isn't really it's just nobody where's becca where is becca
where's this well this is all in in genesis so where is the well in in and where's
the valley of becca well becca is a word for mecca why because
in arabic the the meme and the baa are called shefawiyah they're labials
labials because the makhraj is the same are often interchangeable in the arabic
language they call them
so often if you take the meme and replace it with a ba you get the same meaning so you have
which is what in arabic
it's a ship right yeah so what's bachira a boat so makhara and bahira
it's ba and meme mecca and becca now some say becca is
is the city and mecca is the place where the kaaba is some say the opposite that mecca is the city becca
is the place where the kaaba is but basically mecca and becca are the same it's the same
meaning so this is an ancient city that even the israelites were making pilgrimage to
and knew about because it was a house that abraham had built ibrahim built the
kaaba in mecca and it was a shrine it's also the house of god in other words the
shrine of mecca is actually baital law now every masjid in essence is bethel
but this is unique in that you don't pray inside it
you pray outside of it do you see i mean that's the essence you can pray
inside of it you can go in the prophet sam did that and there's a place also to pray that isma'il is considered inside
the kaaba but the essential worship is outside so the kaaba is a qibla it's a center that we
face towards because the house of allah subhanahu wa no other house do we face all the
masajid we don't face them we only face the ka'ba it's the only house of allah that we
face so the allah
sent ibrahim ali salam there to build this house now the arabs the the the qurayshi
if you if you look at their history they split out jose who's one of the
ancestors of the prophet saw israel he actually goes to sham and then he lost his father early
he comes back to mecca he marries a jorah might woman there
he marries a woman from which are also yemeni arabs so
she is this the daughter of the leader of this place
halil when he dies posse basically
purchases the rights to look after the kaaba from from this hosai
for a bottle of wine now this really upsets the huzaits i
mean they feel like we've been ripped off so they want to fight with jose
so he brings he calls on kinana which is they're very close and you'll see kinana
is one of the ancestors and so there's a relationship and they drive out
they drive them out of mecca before that the jeromites were driven out by huzzah
the jerhamites were the ones that were there when isma'il came and lived with ismael they honored ismael they end up going back to yemen
because kicks them out and they take over so say is the one that reestablishes
the ishmaeli sovereignty of mecca he's re-establishing the ishmaelite
authority in mecca because this is the shrine of his grandfather and he re-established that
that's why jose is very important and mentioned in the seerah
for that reason that he's the one that re-establishes it now when the jerhamides fled
from the hosa when the khuzzah took over they were coming and the johannites knew they couldn't win they fled but what they did before they fled
was they took zem zam and they took all of the gold because they couldn't carry it with them there were heavy gold there was a
gazelles and these gold things that were kept inside the kaaba and they put them in
the well and then they buried the well and they put a stone over the well and
then put sand over it and dirt so that they couldn't tell where the well was because they knew where the well was so
when huzzah came they didn't have access to the well so the well of zamzam was gone there
were other wells in mecca but the well of zimzam was gone they didn't have access to it so this now this is going on
in yemen what's happening in yemen yemen around the 6th mid 6th century
this is like 550 there's a yemeni king named lunas dunwas
was a jewish king and the reason the yemenites many yemenites converted to
judaism and there's a long story about that the the two jewish rabbis that basically
defeat the idols and but there were jewish yemenites and even to this day there's
there's jews in in israel that trace their lineage back to the jews in yemen
so the what what what happens with dunawas is he begins to persecute the christians
the christians ask for help from the byzantines
the byzantines the byzantine king sends a message to the ethiopians that he
wants because they were christians also to go and help these christians well dunawas basically uh digs a huge ditch
puts according to the reway i mean allah they say always that massacres are exaggerated
always it's it's a kaida in history whenever you have a med baha it's
the the numbers are overblown why because the people that commit the atrocities
never admit to the atrocities and the people that are victims of the atrocities are the ones that are telling
us about the atrocities and people that are victims of atrocities tend to exaggerate
their their uh that it's it's just a historical uh but the treasure says
about twenty thousand so it's a lot it's a significant number and this is al-shabab
in the quran these are the al-shabab that were thrown into this ditch and killed
and uh and and stuck to their faith which is interesting because allah calls
them believers then and and and says that the only
reason the only sin that they had was clinging to their faith because he wanted to force them into judaism
which is interesting because they were not the ebionic christians of of uh
kind of the unitarian submitted christianity but the quran anyway recognizes them
as righteous people well because of that an army this army comes from ethiopia
and this army that comes from ethiopia that basically takes over yemen yemen
was very weak at that time and there was a yemeni
anyway the uh the army comes over and this ariat is the leader and he has
a general called abraha well ariat wants to get rid of abraha because he's
a problem and he and he actually tries to kill him abraham ends up killing him and taking over well abraham
basically sends to the ethiopian king that he's going to build him a cathedral
that there's no likeness of it on the earth and he's going to
take the the the hajjaj that go to mecca
and bring them to yemen this is his idea so he builds this cathedral well
one of the meccans hears about this and gets very upset and he was actually at what they
call a nasty which are the the calendrical people the people that made the calendars for the arabs
moving haram days the arabs the arabs the arabs basically and we tend to
forget that the pre-modern world was a world of famine because there was
not a lot of food and food was susceptible to droughts
so agriculture was susceptible to droughts you had a bad year and people began to starve it was very
common and so the arabs survived based
on raids all the arabs tribes did this as a
practice and they're actually quite ethical in the raiding practices they did certain things that
they the women would all flee to one tent and that tent was considered maharama they could they couldn't go
into the if the woman couldn't get to the tent before they could take her so there were certain legitimate rules
in the game but basically if she got into the tent it was like a sanctuary you couldn't um
uh take her and so the arabs that that was their practice but so they created these day these months
called the haram and we're in one now rajab the reason it's called rajab the
singular rajab or the unique raja is because the other three are together whereas rajab is separate
as a haram month so rajab the the the haramans are very interesting
because what what the arabs they respected these months they recognized the sanctity of the month so
it was really preparing the arabs for the idea of inviolability
it was preparing them psychologically to understand the nature of haram that there are
things you couldn't do so but because it was difficult to have three months in a row
without raiding the arabs when muharram came
they somebody would get up in in mecca and say to the nusat these people that
would do the finagling the calendar they would say
ansa you know fix this thing so maharam comes later so they would
basically do that and give them space to raid so this was a type of and that's why allah an asiya to see
adatum fer kufri is in the khutbatarwada that to manipulate the calendar is a
type of kuffar it's it's an addendum to kuffar that
manipulation of time results from not respecting allah's order
so that this man when he heard that abraham had the audacity
and you have to understand that the arabs were not christians there were very few christians amongst
the arabs even the few that were christian um i mean there were definitely
christians and the rasasina many of them were christian the tenure banu
they were christian but the the arabs were not christian there was a group called hunafa which
were the hanif people they they were inclined towards
a unitarianism but the heirs were not christian and they did not like the idea of abraha creating a cathedral
to bring them away from the house mecca which they they remember
the arabs are ishmaelites so they have a connection to
abraham remember ishmael his mother was a jeromite so even the yemeni
arabs are related they they all share this this
connection to ishmael and to ibrahim all the arabs it's quite an extraordinary thing that all the arabs
share this connection also the the the himalayas
are sons and daughters of a prophet hood an arab prophet so this
this arab goes to this cathedral and he defecates in it
you know it's that's a pretty intense thing to do if you really want to upset somebody you
know go desecrate their their sacred space you know it really upsets people so
abraham when he sees that who did this in one of the arabs you know the
from from mecca well that's it so he decides he's going to go and
destroy their house and that's a very important thing because one of the principles in islam is called sadavaraya
which is to cut off pretexts if you give people excuses to do
dastardly deeds you are partly responsible for the dastardly deed
we tend to forget that people don't like to think about that that when you do something to somebody
that really upsets them and angers them and then they do something back to you and it's a vicious cycle i mean this is
one of the things that you know a lot of people after 9 11 just did not want to hear
this idea that well you know what have we been doing around
the world to upset people around the world that they would want to do something like that that that just
wasn't because people don't like to think about that but also the muslims have to think
about that as well you can't see the muslims just say oh well think about what you're doing well most of them need to think about what they're
doing too that's the thing nobody likes to do they like to do it for the other but nobody likes to do it for themselves
and that's why when the prophet saw i saw him said don't curse your parents
would one of us curse his parents because the arabs didn't do that he said yes he said how he said by
cursing another's parents and then they curse your parents in
other words you caused it you don't like to think about that but if you burn somebody's flag
and then they burn your flag who who caused it
so that's a very strong principle and this is what basically what this arab does is he incites abraham
and he goes out to destroy the house now abraham takes an army he's got elephants
and he he actually comes here to tha if and when he gets here benue
who were here and this restaurant you know what it's called here
how as in because hawazan was the brother of takif and these were the tribes that were here beno hawazin
they're still here i mean don't think these people have gone away there are thakafis here right now in this city and they know
that they're from benit there are hawazan here
all these tribes are still here the anazah the the mudar split you know that the two uh
tribes of ismail are rabia and modar these are the two dominant
tribes of ismail the the kahatan is our hinyara and kahlan and the adnan is
are the western arabs rabia are the eastern arabs anazah which is one of the great tribes
of all of the rulers this was an aristocratic tribe all of the rulers of the east are from
this tribe the al-saud the
al-thani they're they're related al-fani and al-saud are from tamim tamim
is is from rabia so they're adnanis they're not
but they know this and these are all tribes that were here at the time of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi salaam so the when abraham gets here benue who worship
the let go out and they say oh no you don't want us you want the guys down the road
because they had a little temple here for latin but they go out you know not very nice they they even
give them a guide to take them down to mecca right well the guide goes down there
and he gets to muramas and dies and he was buried there and the arrows were stoning him up until islam
his his grave down there they were stone so that shows you when when you side with the
wrong side people remember you it's like benedict arnold you know had he had the british won the
war he'd be a hero today he bet on the wrong side and that's what this guy did
he thought abraham is a big army looks good i might get something out of this he goes down there
and he is he dies there down in mohammed so he gets there with these
his army is a massive army for the arabs is the biggest army ever amassed at that point other than
some invasions that occurred um in the the romans invaded yemen and
one of the interesting things you know the romans called arabia and particularly this this side the
southern side of arabia anybody arabia felix
do you know what felix means in latin huh felicitous arabia
you know the happy arabia and uh
it's very interesting also alexander the great one of his last
his last expedition was to come to arabia and he died
so nobody ever conquered arabia they conquered the apraf
the persians had client states on the east eastern shores the byzantines client
states on the northern extreme and then the romans and the
ethiopians then to a certain degree the persians also on that side but allah protected
this peninsula from invasion it's never been conquered even
even during the worst period of islam when the colonialists took over the entire muslim world they did not take
over uh the the peninsula here the hijaz and
thenesh they didn't take it over so the when abraham gets
down there he he basically [Music] his army camps there in muhammad and
mahmoud who is the lead elephant was told by ibrahim who was one of the
arabs there whispered in his ear that this is the haram of allah
when he was when he was told that the elephant went down and he just stopped well they got these metal
staffs and started hit beating this elephant to get him up and he wouldn't get up and so
finally they they turned him to another face facing another direction and he got up and started running towards that
direction but when they tried to turn him towards becca he wouldn't do it and so each direction they turned he would run to except for mecca he would
just go down and so at that point abraha sets his
camp and one one of the the sores of these
ethiopians gets 200 camels from abdul who who had a lot of camels
and at that time abdul muttalib was said of quraysh the quraysh
the arabs had two systems of government they had the kings and those were like
the the hemia rights had a king the assassina and the lachmites had kings
but there were only three groups of arabs that had these kings mainly from the yemen the yemeni arabs
but if you look at the adnani arabs they had a more egalitarian they were actually quite democratic
but they did have asyad like which are like senators and then there
would be like a president they called it president is is like the head right they had a
raise the the the head of the kabir sheikh
it had to do with wealth with lineage with also even just height and good looks had something to
do with it and that's why in the books of when they put in kamal the conditions
of perfection or the completion the conditions of completion for leadership they put a good face
like a leader should have a good face and even in the tartib of the imam that
one of the levels is the best looking should lead the prayer and and and if you study
psychology now and see what good faces people that have good faces make more
money they get jobs before other people so this is something that allah it's a fitra that allah
has put into people and that aspect of islam is an acknowledgement of that it's an
acknowledgement one of the things that ja health who was noted to be extremely ugly
jah has said that from the great great justice of god he rarely gives
somebody great beauty and great brains at the same time and he rarely gives somebody great
ugliness and and without giving him immense intellect as
a recompense and and he said that he was actually quite pleased with the deal
like he would rather he would rather have the intelligence than the beauty
um he he was very self-deprecating uh interestingly he was very dark and he had big bulging eyes which is what ja
health means um but he uh they they say once he was in the he says
that he was in the marketplace once and a woman uh grabbed him and said could you come here and drags him over to a
a jeweler and she said hakada and then she left and jail said to the jeweler what was
that about and he said she came to me she said i want a picture of shaytan
and i and i told her i have no idea what he looks like and so she brought you and she said just
like this
it's not nice is it yeah you know but he took it quite well i mean that's yeah
so but it was incredibly beautiful and he was stunningly beautiful man like
really handsome and they arranged a meeting with
him and abraham and when he came in you know he really considered his face
beautiful and ageloho like he because of the way that the man looked
he wanted to honor him right and this is this is social
psychology now i mean we really these are real things so he he comes in and abraham actually
got off because he the ethiopian would not allow somebody to sit equal with the the ruler
but he actually got off of his sarir and went down and sat at the level of
now when abdul muttalib he says to him you know what do you want
and he said i want my camels and then abraham says and this is
through a translator because he speaks amharak and and he has a translator he says to
uh you know when you came in here i was very impressed with you
but now that you've opened your mouth i've really lost my respect and he says
why and he said i've come to destroy the house of your religion
that you of the god that you worship and you don't seem to be concerned about
it and you know all you're asking for is your camels and abdul muttalib said an amazing thing
he said as for the house it has a lord william he'll defend it
as for me i'm the lord of the camels and that's what i'm responsible for
and then he gives him his camels back he goes and he tells the quraish because
they were thinking can we fight them he says no and so in his wisdom he tells them to
leave the city and go into the mountains which is what they did and then he prays and he asks allah subhanahu
wa'ta'ala to defend the house but he says in his prayer if it's in your wisdom to destroy your
house then i accept it so this is somebody who's really looking
with the the eye of taheed and the eye of acceptance and it's proof that the prophet's
ancestors were people of tahid because this is our but this is the dominant belief of the
sunnah is that his ancestors were all the all of his direct
ancestors were people of tawheed they were not people of shirk so this is what he says and then when
abraha sets out the birds come
the and they looked like bats they came and they pelted they had three stones that were
like chickpeas in the beak and in the the claws and they pelt the
army and none of them got hit by it except they died and so they all died there now what's interesting about this
lilace
when that verse was revealed there were people alive
who witnessed that so this is not this is mutawatar
it's it's a multiply transmitted his transmitted historical fact
the arabs witnessed this they saw this with their own eyes it was something all of them witnessed
and experienced and from that day forward the quraysh were known as allah
the people of god and the arabs became very frightened of them because they felt
that these people had some some power with god this is also very
important for the preparation of the arabs for the advent of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
and the the place that the quraish would have in the scheme of things so the the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam was born in that year that year is called which is probably 570 or 569
um but that was the year that the prophet was born and the arabs named momentous events according to
the year that they happened they would call it the year of the flood they still do this in muritania and so
that that year was called amilfield the year of the the elephant which is for mahmoud when the elephants came and
this this is the uh this is the beginning so you can see
the all of these um these different ingredients that were
coming together at the advent of the prophet isaiah are quite extraordinary the relationship of all the arabs the
fact that the quraysh are bound to these the adnan and the because
they're jo jo might and their uh their they're from mudar so they have
these two uh strains and that's why the prophet saws has relation
he's related to all of the arabs we'll also find out there was an arab ruler from the tubbat
the tababia where the the the rulers of yemen before
the ethiopians there was a ruler who actually his father's son
was killed uh cruelly by some some of the arabs in in yatrib in
medina and he actually sets out to and this is again uh about a hundred years before the
prophet saw isim's advent he sets out to medina which was then
yatrib to destroy the city as a vengeance for his his father's son his brother
being killed when he gets to the city um he he he he uh they they fight and
and the the austin who were called benokela and and ben okay are
uh our kahlan that the dominant opinion is that they're arabs they're not adnani although there
is some scholars say that they're actually from nabit not from
so they're actually ishmaelites that are from the other brother whose ancestors
survived uh they claimed that the assassina and the uh the mights and the else and the khazraj
but the dominant opinion is that they're from so they're yemenite arabs originally that lived there they
were from the the southern arabs that moved north some of them went all the way to syria now the prophet sallallahu salallahu
we know his his uh he has right
the the uh the maternal side of his family are related to the uh
so the prophet has he's related to them which is very interesting how the the interaction between all of these
forces but this anyway the king that goes there uh to um
to medina they he they would fight during the day because the arabs fought at the day they didn't fight at night
and at night time the benokela would send food to his troops
so he was very moved by that like he's fighting them and they're sending him food and
so he asked why and and they were told because they were told by these jews
that the last prophet would come to that city and so they always honored people that came to the
city no matter who they were or under what pretense they came they would honor them
out of fear that they might be that last prophet so he brought the two jewish rabbis came
and they said don't you don't want to mess with this town because if you do you'll get destroyed
and and and then they told him about the last prophet coming to that city so he actually
bought a a house in the city as a walk for that prophet
and that house is the house that abba yuba ansari lived in and that's why what did the
prophet sam say to the about the camel when they were trying to take the camel he said
leave the camel because the camel knows which house to stop at
so these are amazing and these are real things these things
happen we have so many eyewitnesses to these events
but they're really quite extraordinary events so the prophet saw a lot he said there was so much preparation for his
coming so much preparation and the the jews and the christians had
news of his advent which is why when and when we get into this later
which is why of of the the seven cities of revelation
in the book of revelation the seven cities of revelation which were the centers of christianity
all of them became muslim they're all muslim so all of the eastern christians
with small exception became muslim over this period of time
one of the reasons why the nestorian christians not so much the byzantine who were orthodox
but you had the nestorian and the jacobite malachite you had these different
they were more they weren't heretics they're actually called schismatics
i mean some people would put schismatics as a type of heresy but schismatics tend to
not be heretics in that they're they're still within the fold a heretic
is outside of the fold a schismatic is seen as within the fold like the great schism that happens in christianity
in the 11th century uh between the catholics and the orthodox christians the the the the uh they split the two
churches split but and for a period they kind of anathematized each other
but the catholics accept the communion of the orthodox and vice versa so
they they argue over the pope and a few other things there's some doctrinal differences but the uh these christian sects that
were in this area were were basically um they were
expecting a prophet i mean even if you look in the gospel with john the baptist
he was asked you know are you are you ilias and elijah
and and the most the jews have a belief like some muslims not all the muslims
but some of the muslims that elijah uh still walks the earth some actually equate elijah with
al-qaeda and some say that al-khadr is different but elijah still walks the earth
and that's why they said are you elijah and then he said no and he said are you the
messiah he said no and he said are you that prophet and he said no so he he mentions the
messiah and then he mentions another prophet that's different from the messiah now we know jesus was the
messiah so where's that prophet because john the baptist was
the prophet immediately before jesus and so there's another prophet mentioned
and john the baptist said no i'm not that prophet so who is that prophet and then if you look in
in john 16 where they jesus says he has to leave so that
the the paraclete can come and then he describes the paraclete he
says that the paraclete will come and he will abide with you
in other words his sharia is going to stay i mean the christians interpret it to be
the holy ghost but we know that john the baptist was baptizing with the holy ghost we know that jesus was supported by the
holy ghost so the idea that he had to leave so that the holy ghost could come does not really make sense if you look
at the idea that he's all the holy ghost is already with him
so and we believe in the holy ghost by the way because in arabic means holy ghost
ghost is ruach and kodus is holy and we
also believe that the whole you know how the christians say the spirit took him you know they say that we believe in that
the prophet saw he said when hasan had been used to recite poetry he the prophet would say allah
oh god strengthen him with the holy ghost so we believe in that that that force is
working in the world and that that it's a spiritual force that's real but this is this is what he says that he
he's going to come after me and i have to leave so that he can come now he calls him the paraclete
paracletos in the greek means an advocate or a shafiya in arabic that's what it means shafiyah
in arabic if you look it up in any greek dictionary parakletos means shafiyan now some of the muslims said if
you change the vowling of it and means the praised one so it's very
similar allahu anam but the word that jesus says when he tell he says that he is giving
news of a prophet uh
he doesn't say muhammad he says ahmed now ahmed is the prophet's name on
yomakiyama when he is the shafiyan he is ahmed shafir muhammad is his name
here so the prophet now the other thing is the word in aramaic for the paraclete if you look
at the earliest aramaic translation is muhammad
muhammad which is according to ibn hisham and our scholars is
syriac for muhammad now when these christian eastern christians
heard muhammad they looked in their book and it said
there's a there's somebody i have to leave so that muhammad could come so they just said
that's close enough and many of them became muslim
and also the aryans who were very widespread bishop aryan was a fourth century bishop that that
differed with bishop athanasius who was a staunch trinitarian aryan did not like
the idea of calling mary the mother of god theotakos
which is the bearer of god and believe that jesus was not uh you know that the human
the jesus in the world was not divine that was his his argument so but the
aryans where do they go the aryans are in north africa and in spain the visigoths were aryans
so if modern aryan theology has reemerged in jehovah's witness so if anybody knows
about jehovah's witness doctrine a lot of it's taken from aryan theology but the aryan christians also
became muslim so you had all these christians in north africa who were not
catholic or orthodox christians who become muslim and the visigothic christians
over a period of time although there's a strong argument that the andrusians never reached a majority
in islam they never got over 50 percent that's that there's a strong historical argument for that
it took egypt according to khadi blankenship who's one of the finest historians that i've ever met khadid blanchard told
me that egypt took 300 years to get to 50 i mean the muslims have this fantasy that the
sahaba arrived and everybody said rasulullah you know and that's why it
really bothers me like muslims in in in the in in the west you know how the kafir how do you know
he's kafir i called him to islam how long five minutes you know
you know the prophesies and abu sufyan fought him for almost 18 years and he's still
working on getting him to become muslim 18 years fighting him in all these battles and in the end he embraces him as a
brother in islam and that's the prophet's lies in him so
if you spent five minutes with somebody and didn't convince him you know give him another 20 years
is there any question anybody have any
all right that's in in john in the gospel of john
[Music] the long gone arabs
and some even called the him that they actually are not originally arab speakers
um can you comment on uh like the way to possibly like study like some of the christian texts
because obviously some applied to islam and you know it's hard to just like you know pick up a bible because we're not going
to have yeah i mean my you know i think earlier i would have i don't think it's good to
argue with christians or debate them like i'm very opposed to the kind of
some of the muslim polemics it's much more important to respect their religion i wouldn't even go into
the quran doesn't really you know it it the thing that we need to
do is teach people about islam tell them what islam don't tell them what their religion is or should be
or i mean i think it's important if you're explaining that we believe in the bible and then they say well why don't you believe jesus died for your sins
then you can explain well islam actually says that there were alterations in the
book and if they you know if people are open to that you can discuss that if you know what you're talking about
it's important to have knowledge or something like that um in a situation like that
so i mean i i would i would definitely get very strongly rooted in the islamic
tradition before i would go into in fact it's considered prohibited to do that by sharia
you have to learn islam and especially before you go into learning other creeds
we have some of the scholars even tamiya was a master of christianity
and wrote us it's been published in six volumes but it's not in the original six volumes but quite an
extensive text analyzing the the bible and and uh there are many books polemics against
the christians you know christianity islam and judaism it's there's a very
interesting relationship between these three religions because we're so similar
on the one hand we we believe in very similar things we believe in a
creator god we believe in the unity of god because even christians and and anybody who seriously studied
christian theology knows that christians believe in one god the personas which is what the trinity
is are masks for the godhead but in catholicism if you study saint thomas
aquinas he's very very clear that god does not have a body that god cannot be in
in place or time i mean you know the
they're not idiots you know but the trinity is a problem for us um and for the christians it's a mystery
that's that's how they state it it's a mystery incarnation is a problem for us the idea
of god coming into the world incarnating becoming flesh the the
christian argument is well you have in bibliation which is god becoming book because quran
is it's the uncreated word of quran the way
that our scholars dealt with that was by saying that the quran is not
the the quran is not the must-have it's not the quran in matlu it's not the
recited quran it is the eternal uh me the the the the hadith
is what is called like in your heart you have words and the tongue is the translator of what's in your
heart but what's in your heart is something that's beyond words really
even when you like if you say i love you
the words are translating a state and so all words are translating
experience even like when we say look at that tree if you look at each one of those words
look that's an experience at right just helps you get there and then
tree is an experience so language is really articulating meanings
and this is what i was talking about the other day the ibrah you know abbarah is to abra in arabic means to
to to cross something to like is a bridge so the ibara is the word
the ibara is the way that you cross from one thing to another from one meaning to it
to another so you take the form its form to meaning that's that's the
obor the form is is the the love like you say
shajara is the surah and that
it it takes you it enables you to cross from form to substance from form to
meaning that's the gift of language and so that that's how we say that now christians to be
fair to them would argue a very similar argument about jesus so it's a problem it's not easily resolved
but the quran is very clear don't say three the quran is very clear
also that god covers
that um although they don't say
you know the the the christians it's very complicated and it really is
it's not it's it's not an easy problem this is religion and theology and and and they're problematic so um
yeah there's like for instance there's a uh eclipse in the middle of the month which
has never happened and by physics it can't happen so it's it's either it i think it could
happen when the earth is doing its uh you know the uh uh
the revolution you you know like there's certain planets in our solar system like
mercury does it every 24 hours it's either mercury or venus it literally goes from
south pole to north pole so it flips the earth has done it we know that that
it's flipped because we know that there's been shifts in the magnetic polarization so we know that
einstein actually thought that it would happen again as the moon because the moon comes incrementally
closer to the earth and so at a certain point it's going to cause the earth to flip
that that's one believe i mean a lot of scientists don't uh adhere to that theory but that is a
theory that the earth now if it did that you could technically i think have an eclipse
at that midpoint
it would rise from the west yeah definitely but i don't know if people could survive it allah adam i mean i don't know
that i think the physics of it would create such global destructive destruction you know so allah adam but
it definitely that would happen the sun would ri rise in the opposite direction
um you mentioned studying islam before you look into other religions is really important but looking at islam reading islam in
isolation can cause problems because islam in effect superseded judaism and
in christianity so do you not think it's important to study other religions in particular
of the abrahamic traditions in conjunction or rather even before islam and to actually respect
them and see how islam grew out of or christianity and judaism
yeah that's a good question and also in in addition to that sorry which was my original question
you mentioned the holy ghost are there other um
things in christian theology or jewish theology which as muslims we should be aware of thank
you um yeah and the holy ghost we differ on the meaning of holy ghost because they they for for them the holy ghost is
uh a mediator between logos and and between you know the father and
so so we don't have the same concept but the word is identical to you know in translation
to to our understanding of jibril the um it's a good question i mean i
would say i think for us especially everybody here i mean i've read your bios everybody here is is is
educated by modern standards i mean i think all of us are a little disappointed with
our educations and if you're not i think you're deluded but that but that's okay
um but you know everybody is educated in ways that pre-modern peoples
would be astonished really i mean really astonished the amount of things that people know
today are just mind-boggling i mean if you take something like sheikh abdullah abdullah
it's you know i mean i've known him for 20 over 20 years i ca it's just
he's just he's an ocean like literally i mean he just he is an
ocean of knowledge he it just amazes me the things that he knows and i ask him things all the time just
because i want to hear him because i know that people don't ask him those questions you know
i asked him a question the other day and he just floodgates you know it's amazing
thing but but people if you look at what people know now he he's had the blessing of being
very focused um you i think people always say to me oh i have a terrible memory i i've never
met any human being unless they're imbecilic that doesn't have a phenomenal memory it's just we memorize the wrong things
you know people memorize amazing amounts of information and facts and figures and
i mean just if you look at your what you know in your own city like all the streets you know you
know to turn right there turn left there you know how to get it's just amazing what the mind i mean that the topoi was the way that
the ancients used to do memory was by when they wanted to memorize something
they would put the things in places that they knew in their town or something and that was a way that they
to do association associative memory so but and and because you're educated i
would argue that just to be a citizen in a globalized world it's essential to have some
working knowledge of the world's religions like i think a world religious course the reason i became muslim is
partly from houston smith's book [Music]
because i took that course that was my first year in college i took a course in comparative religion and that was the
book and that was that was one of my first exposures to islam and
so just knowing about religion i mean my degree at the university was in
religious studies and i learned a lot i mean i i benefited immensely from the other traditions my
appreciation for other traditions has increased over the years i think when i first became muslim i i adopted a
very arrogant attitude towards other faiths and par that was partly because
of some of the teachers that i had i don't want to blame them entirely but that you know when i came to the arab
world there are certain attitudes about other religions that are quite endemic
in the muslim world that that they're just nonsense well i i do not believe that i think that
the vast majority of these traditions have probably 85 maybe even higher
percent of what they're teaching is very positive and very congruent with islamic teaching
then there's things that are not but i also believe that even the animistic
traditions i i know that the arabs they used to go to these old women that
were were the rafa and the kahina even that's who he went when they asked him
who's going to settle the dispute over zem zam because they they they wanted zem zam he found zem zam
from a dream but they he said let's go the only one i want is the
kahina she'll decide and then they went on that journey when he was going to sacrifice abdullah who did they go to the kahina
in in medina what did she say she gave the advice the 10 she said how much is the dia they
said ten camels then she said then throw the the arrows that's what they used to do
is divination like i ching throw the arrows and and each time they