bismillah
[Music]
sha Allah Sheikh Hamza Yusuf will be
speaking about a number of topics that
were online on those a tuna website that
the the the people got to vote on on
what topic they wanted to hear and there
was an overwhelming response on all of
the topics and people were interested in
all the topics so in Java Sheikh Hamza
will give a brief overview of all those
topics sha Allah without further ado she
comes to us a Mithila cd-rom the the
topics that were put out on the internet
and people were asked to vote on them I
thought all of them were good and so I
thought I'd just talk a little bit about
each one because I think it relates to
the conference itself what we're going
to be talking about these theological
fault lines and a lot of the problems
that we're dealing with the first one
was about two Hadees in relationship to
the current global situation of Muslims
which the first one is be kind to
neighbors whoever believes then along
the last day let him not forget about
his neighbor honor his neighbor and then
the other one was whoever believes in
along the last day let him speak well or
be silent the Leopold higher on LDLs
mode and we know in a hadith the Prophet
Salah I said him said that gibreel would
come to him and keep telling him to be
mindful of the neighbor to the point
where the prophets Elijah him said I
thought he was going to have the
neighbor be included in the inheritance
laws so that they would actually inherit
from the wealth of the person
what's interesting about the Muslim
understanding about neighbors is that
this was never understood in the history
of Islam to exclude neighbors that were
not of your faith it always included
Jews Christians and any other peoples
that were your neighbors because the
neighbor has a right over you in fact in
the waha reMed hub which was practiced
in Andalusia for some time originally
from Iranian jurist in the vehement have
they considered it prohibited to go to
bed without checking if 40 neighbors
from each direction in your hai went to
bed satiated in other words they took
literally the hadith he does not believe
in Allah and the last day who goes to
bed satiated and his neighbor is hungry
as if it negated your faith that you
could go to bed neglecting your
neighbors so what do we make now of this
interdependent world where people the
Muslims are no longer at the gates of
Vienna they're inside treating the
patients of Vienna in their hospitals
what do we make of this new situation in
some ways it's not new and that's
important to remember that the this idea
somehow of a pluralistic world and a
multicultural world is new it is new in
the West because in the Western
tradition any type of difference was
very often crushed with impunity
difference of religion was not tolerated
until really after the Protestant
revolutions and Reformation that led to
these horrible religious wars led to the
Enlightenment and then finally to
accepting other Christian sects and to a
certain degree the Jewish people
but now we see in America that people of
various faiths
living side by side we for instance our
school right now
even though we've got a campus that is
going to go through a renovation but
right now we're teaching our students in
a Baptist Seminary
so we're Muslims renting from a Baptist
Seminary now granted these are Baptists
in Berkeley California so they're
probably a little more open-minded about
having Muslims teaching their theology
in their seminary but that that is the
fact of modern American society we have
mosques where parking lots are shared
with synagogues and with churches and it
works out perfect because we show up on
Friday they show up on Saturday and the
other show up on Sunday so they have
their problems on different days but
this is a reality of American society
the ancient Muslim world was very
multicultural
it was very pluralistic there was
interaction with many different cultures
in fact it's arguable that the Muslims
were eventually conquered by the
European colonialists because they had
created a world in which the military
was becoming increasingly less important
there were so many good relations
between different countries that the
Muslims were trading with the Chinese
they were trading with the Hindus they
were trading with the Christians of
Central Asia this was the reality of the
Muslim world a highly multicultural
world and you can see it linguistically
and many of their statements but the
inculcation of love of the neighbor for
Belgium and this is one of the most
important commandments of Christianity
love your neighbor as yourself love God
with all of your heart and love your
neighbor as yourself this in reality
according to Martin Luther was a
reduction of the Ten Commandments to two
central
Commandments because if you look at the
Ten Commandments they can be summed up
in these two commandments love God with
all your heart so that would mean
honoring the Sabbath not taking his name
in vain do it and then love your
neighbor as yourself that would mean not
coveting his goods not coveting his wife
these things so that really sums up
Christianity Judaism can be summed up
according to Rabbi Gama one of the great
scholars again love your name love God
and then love your neighbor everything
else is just commentary Christian Islam
according to Fahad Dino Rossi can be
summed up in two statements are you bad
that a holic will hit metal Hulk
worshipping the creator and serving his
creation I'll help the first hadith that
is taught in the tradition of Maha
design is the muscle cell below alia in
which the prophets eliezer him said in
an unbroken chain that's taught to this
day as the first hadith given to a
haughty student Rahim Unni or Hama Hama
Rahman aha moments that are manfred arc
ER ham comb or your hammock own memphis
emma those who show mercy though on
those in the earth the merciful will
show mercy on those who show mercy on
those in the earth so the amount of
grace that you get from God is
commensurate with the amount of grace
that you show to allows creation that's
the first hadith based on the idea that
the Prophet was a rama a mercy to all
the worlds so that leads to the next
question which is how we deal with
extremists this was put on there and I
think a lot of people voted for this if
you look right now everything is being
brought up again the news is filled with
crazy Muslims the all the talking heads
of
Obama has just announced a major
outreach program to the Muslims the
Muslim community in the United States
hopefully not involving entrapment right
so a lot of Muslims when they hear these
things you know it's like the Native
Americans used to say white man speaks
with forked tongue now you can say I
don't know what we'd have to do now
because not just the whites are speaking
with forked tongues anymore fright
workout better just say that a lot of
people speak with forked tongues these
days so how do we deal with our
extremists first of all it's not on us
to deal with our extremists the vast
majority of Muslims are not obliged to
be dealing with extremists those who
deal with the extremists are to law
enforcement agencies if that extremism
involves violence whether it's in the
Muslim lands or and then or in the lands
of other than the Muslims although
according to one view anywhere where
Muslims are able to pray and fast and
practice their religion it's a land of
Islam and the Prophet said Jorun idiot
or do masti than what the hora the whole
world el árbol the whole world is a
place of worship for my community and he
said go where you want and wherever you
find good stay there so how do we deal
with the extremists the law enforcement
eel with those who are violent but not
through entrapment and other things we
we come from a system of law in the West
that does not believe in pre-emptive law
enforcement in the way that it has
become imagined today in fact Eisenhower
completely another mitai 's the idea of
pre-emptive war
and he actually said that this is a Nazi
idea it's it's not we don't have that in
our understanding of a just war the idea
of oh I'm a little worried about these
people and so let's go crush them before
they crush us and we have unfortunately
a best-selling author in the United
States New York Times bestseller that
argued for a pre-emptive nuclear strike
on Muslims and there was no uproar about
that if Muslims argued for a pre-emptive
nuclear strike on Europeans or Americans
what would people be saying about that
but we have somebody here who's arguing
for a preemptive strike that it might be
necessary that's at a certain point to
kill them before they kill us this is
the type of madness that we're doing
when I was asked to speak in in
Washington about extremism I said look
extremism as an as American as apple pie
this is one of the most extreme
societies on the planet I said no we're
in the Muslim world do you have water
drinking contests to see how much water
a person can drink they had a woman die
here in Southern California in a
water-drinking contest because you can
actually upset your your your
electrolyte balance and die but they
were let's see how many they had a
cockroach eating contest where a man
died after the cockroach eating contest
and the prize for the contest was a boa
constrictor and he ate the most and
somebody said he was the life of the
party
well he was the death of the after-party
because he literally died from eating so
many cockroaches we're in the Muslim
world are you gonna have a watermelon
eating contest where are you gonna have
a hot dog eating contest and yet you can
go on YouTube and I'm sure you'll find
hundreds of videos of people having hot
dog eating contest that is an extreme
form of behavior we have extreme sex in
this culture we have extreme music for
the first time you asked doctors
especially those who are in
nose and throat expertise about young
people losing their hearing because
they're listening to music at extreme
levels and then if you don't think we
have extreme violence just look at some
of the gun called culture the type of
gun power that people are obsessed with
they go out and shoot machine guns you
don't need a machine gun to kill a moose
people hunt fish they fish with with
dynamite just go drop the dynamite it
blows up and all the fishes come to the
surface
that's one way of that's not the kind of
relaxed you know I mean I mentioned last
week I saw a Chinese man flying a
Chinese kite in San Francisco in the
park you know we have a lot of Chinese
in San Francisco they go out and they do
Tai Chi publicly and they do and he was
flying his kite and it was he was like
he was doing Tai Chi and I was just
watching him and then this man came from
the indigenous culture not the ancient
indigenous culture but the indigenous
call it took me a while to work out when
because I would hear my Muslim immigrant
friends say oh he was American it took
me a while to work out that meant white
that's like a code word for white I
didn't know that you know I said what do
you mean you're American yeah
citizenship I mean white that finally
came out so anyway this was this guy was
an American he's got his supersonic kite
that made a noise that literally he
almost had to plug your ears it was like
a drone striker of kites and he was
flying this kite around yeah
yeah and making it and there's a Chinese
man just flying his kite like a Tai Chi
master and I was thinking what a
juxtaposition of two cultures one that
inculcates quietude and stillness and
harmony and the other that is obsessed
with adrenaline rushes and I know ER
doctors that go skydiving on the weekend
because nothing beats splitting open the
sternum and doing a cardiac massage like
the only thing that'll even come close
to adrenaline rush like that is
skydiving on the weekend skydiving is an
extreme sport in fact I would argue that
anybody that sky dives if they're not in
the military is a stark raving lunatic
I would never jump out of a plane unless
I absolutely had to and you'd probably
have to push me out stay even if I had
to that is a crazy thing to do Muslims
respect life they don't risk their lives
unless they have to Mauritania think
you're you're a lunatic to swim in the
ocean
Mauritania live on the ocean they never
go swimming they think people that swim
in the ocean are mad because they know
what's in the ocean that you can't see
right and in this country after when I
was a kid they had a film called Jaws
nobody swam for months after that film
because they realized what was in the
ocean so extremism is a human problem
but when you have extreme conditions a
certain type of extremism emerges when
you have the type of imbalance that we
have in the world today you cannot be
surprised at violent responses to those
incredible conditions that people are
suffering under and I would argue that
the African American situation in this
country led to the type of violent
responses even though again if you
studied Cohen tell history you'll know
that a lot of this was entrapment also
but the militancy that emerged in the
1960s
was a result of extreme conditions and I
heard Brazil Brazil insky who was in
Carter's administration I heard him give
us talk about dealing with Muslim
extremism and he said if you do not deal
with the genuine grievances like the
grievances of the african-american
community in the 1960s if you don't deal
with those grievances then you cannot
expect the type of violent response to
stop you have to look at what is being
said
McChrystal one of these generals who was
in charge of the special forces in Iraq
said we have to understand why they're
fighting we want to pretend like this
false narrative that oh they just don't
like us they don't like our freedoms
okay well why aren't they
bombing Sweden Sweden's a more open
society than the United States I mean
the site this mythology that has been
created around these scenarios is just
unacceptable people deserve a better
understanding of the problem and if we
don't give them a better understanding
they won't be able to address the real
issues here the real problems the
Palestinian problem has to be addressed
you're looking at over 60 years of
madness in Palestine 60 years and even
going back further into the 1920s when
you had the the British Mandate and
bringing in a lot of the Jewish
immigration and there were if you go
back and read that early period it's a
very interesting history and I was
surprised to know that the one of the
first Zionist questions I read a book by
a Zionist who argued that one of the
first questions was that they would
succeed or fail on based on how they
treated the Arabs so the original
settlers in Israel were concerned about
that problem but it just became a
response that we see the results of it
today one of my Syrian friends said to
me why isn't anything
anybody doing anything about Syria and I
said to him well welcome to the club
that's what the Palestinians have been
saying for the last 70 years this is the
human condition people are overwhelmed
but if you don't address the real
problems I'm talking about the root
problems if you look at what we have is
an emergency when we have things like
Boston and these are emergency
situations in a medical system you have
the emergency room but you also have the
intensive care unit you have the other
units that take care of people of lesser
extremes and then you also should have
in place a preventive system of medicine
where you educate the people about
exercise about staying well health care
needs to be addressed from all of the
issues the only way this country has
dealt with the extremism is like an
emergency room situation there's no
other addressing going on and this is a
major crises now in the Muslim world I
would argue again and I tent over 10
years ago on a hard talk I talked about
the type of pressure that Muslims were
under and that it was a miracle that
they hadn't blown up yet it was obvious
to me in fact the last trip that I made
to Egypt was right before the Revolution
and I said to somebody that I was with
this place is like a powder keg it's
just gonna go off because you could feel
the pressure you could feel the stress
people are living and then unfortunately
they don't make the connections that
there was a direct relationship between
the wall street collapse and the what
happened in the in the Arab world
because as the real estate collapse
suddenly everything goes into
commodities all of the basic food
commodities shot up Muslims suddenly who
were paying 20 to 30% of their salaries
on food were now paying 50 to 60 percent
and there's a tradition on Abu Dhabi
there's another in it some of the but
it's mentioned in many of the books Abu
Dharr said I'm amazed at a man
whoo-hoo the government is not providing
a situation where he can get his daily
livelihood that he doesn't pull his
sword out and go out and and and find it
st. Thomas Aquinas in the Catholic
tradition says that a man who's starving
to death is not sinful if he breaks the
window of the bakery and takes what he
needs to eat of the door ah da da ha ha
ha whoo ha people are stressed out what
do you think about the slave labor in
Bangladesh where these people are
working in these factories look at that
and some of us are wearing the clothes
that they sewed that ethically we're
participating in this incredible global
imbalance all you have to do is look at
the news I have a picture I saved it was
on the on each times it had on one side
of the front page it had the Prince of
Wales and his wife dancing and waving
wands at each other while they were
playing a game about from they were
visiting a Harry Potter Museum and there
they were dancing and waving the wands
right next to it was a Syrian man
covered in the rubble of a bomb blast
and I'm looking at these two pictures
thinking what is wrong with this picture
this is the world that we're in this is
the global situation and I and I am
everybody know people who know me
despite what these right-wing people say
but people who know me I have never
advocated never publicly or privately
people that know me privately and
publicly I have never advocated violence
I believe that modern warfare is
completely unethical I'm opposed to it
on ethical principles if the Muslims of
the past in pre-modern times when swords
and spears were their means of fighting
if they said going against the
government was prohibited because of the
great harm that it leads to in a society
what would they say today with modern
warfare with bombs with weapons of mass
destruction what would they say about
war today Muslims were not blood crazy
they did not this whole idea somehow
that it was
violent civilization no it was an ironic
civilization that loved peace and worked
hard for peace but they were living in a
war in a world in which war was the norm
today we're living in a world in which
war is is also the norm in some places
but in the majority of places it's not
we can travel all over the world for the
first time in in human history and be
relatively safe and the areas that that
are dangerous
you'll get warnings from your embassy
about visiting those places this is
unique in human history so I would argue
that extremism is not going to go away
it's not going to go away humans are
extremists and it's not going to go away
what we have to do is work out
strategies to mitigate extremism to
pacify it in a sense to give outlets for
extreme ideas that are not destructive
we have to be able to criticize we had a
lady code pink lady who interrupted
Obama the other day she goes and she
interrupted Jesus stop the drone strikes
there eight times there are eight times
more drone strikes since Obama has been
in office than Bush eight times more all
those severe we don't even know how many
sue it they say it's less than a
thousand but we don't even know there's
no real counting going on but there have
been many civilian deaths and the drone
strikes where is the accountability but
we had this lady interview in interrupts
President Obama in his address and then
when she was taken out by the Secret
Service she was interviewed afterwards
she said they they tell me it's rude to
interrupt the president I think it's
rude to drop bombs on civilians
I mean I'm sorry that's pretty solid
logic if you asked me that's pretty
solid we can't be you know the Nazis
were gentlemen they a lot of them they
were erudite Rama was a erudite man he
was a well educated man Hitler was a
vegetarian
he loved dogs he loved children there's
all those nice pictures of him with
children patting their heads Goebbels
was a PhD in in philosophy these were
people that listened to Vagner and
Strauss they were educated people
erudite people but they were barbarians
and and it's not progress if the
cannibals eating with forks he's still a
cannibal so it's important for us to
look at our own extremism as a nation
because it's the pot calling the kettle
black you know this guy that hacks some
guy to death in in England recently that
is a barbarian act but it's a barbarian
act where the barbarity is why it's
clear it's it's open for everybody to
see but dropping a cluster bomb from
30,000 feet is a barbarian act it just
it all of these institutions that we
have in this country and what we need to
do is ally with the good people and try
our best to mitigate the extremists in
every group wherever they are finally
about extremism as a Muslim community I
believe there's a good deal of denial in
our community I know dr. Sherman Jackson
has has highlighted this he's one of the
few scholars in our community that has
highlighted that fact I think there's a
lot of denial I got a letter a few years
back from a Somalian American who had
gone to Somalia and he wrote me a letter
and he said I used to think that this
whole argument about extremism was a
Western fabrication but I have seen
firsthand what extremist ideas do in my
own country of origin he said it's
devastating and he said please talk more
about this problem we have extremists in
many Muslim countries now and there and
there are people that getting our get
more extreme because the circumstances
are getting more extreme we have to have
serious concern about Syria they're not
allowing Syrian refugees into a lot of
the Western countries because they're
worried
so here's real people suffering and
traditional areas that would have given
them relief like Denmark and Sweden in
these places and the United States
they're worried and they've got pressure
from their right-wing groups to say
don't let them in because they're just
going to cause problems so we have to
realize the seriousness of this in our
community our Imams need to be much more
educated about these problems I'm
getting a message to conclude two more
points fit and the future of flip in
America v is not fiction tip is is
something that is a human attempt at
understanding what God meant one of the
great scholars of Islam even Ayman
josiya wrote a famous book a lemon moth
I mean the mortar is the one who signs
in the name of and what he said is a
Mufti is essentially acting in proxy for
the Lord of the world and so he has to
be scared he has to be careful at what
he does and what he says we have a
crisis in Fatah we have shift Google
giving fatwa Sheikh blink giving fatwa
all of these search engines now where
people get fed to us we have also too
simplistic statements being made and
public forums v is a very complicated
affair it's not something that can be
reduced to sound bytes the kalam of
Islam are subtle and they're also closer
to homeopathy than a lapa 'they that
there's not one answer for every person
homeopathy looks at the individual
Chinese medicine looks at the individual
you might have too much heat you might
have too much dampness so they'll give
you different herbs than they would give
another person like the man who asked
the mufti is it okay to smoke when I'm
praying he's he's you know making dua he
said no and then another man said is it
okay to make dua if I'm smoking he said
yeah
his student said you know what are you
doing he said well the one man he's in
dicker and he wants to go to Buffalo
so I said don't do it but the other man
he's in ruffler and he wants to go to
dicker so I said do it it's a different
understanding so it's important for us
to recognize that fit is a human project
it the Sharia is from God fit is the
human understanding of Sharia and the
Prophet we don't have a theocracy that
is an alien concept in Islam we do not
have a theocracy because humans will
always apply the rulings and the ruling
of God you never know what it is in a
certain defense in fik but it with the
ruling of God it's not the best thing to
do would be to forgive so you don't know
what the ruling of God is so you cannot
have a theocracy in Islam you can only
have a no mock recei which is a rule of
law and law is a human project we've
been given a constitution from God that
we call the Quran that the store and the
hadith these are the constitutional
principles of law and there are very few
things that are fixed in stone and say
no Omar he suspended had punishment we
know this in Amman Ramada and this is
called an Walker with toe up and this is
what sheikh abdullah bin baya says and
one of the most important things in 50
of Tankian men ought to - man ought to
freedom or not there's a process of
understanding when a ruling is
applicable and it's a no suley process
that needs trained people to do it but
one of the most important elements is
type and manat which is when a
understanding what a thing is what is
the Tozawa of a thing the situation and
then what is the appropriate ruling that
is for that situation that takes a lot
of time practice mentorship with skilled
people we've neglected our fit for too
long we have unfortunately in the Shetty
high schools throughout the Muslim world
the poorest students go to them this is
a fact and we have to deal with that
fact so we have people that do not have
the requisite skill sets to be studying
Shetty that are studying Shetty
they end up causing a lot of harm we
have a lot of problems in that so in the
United States of America we need a thick
I'm a traditionalist I'm committed to
the format tab and the fifth for the the
Jonathan school for this Nadia I'm
committed to tradition but I'm also very
aware of the necessity for two Freeland
Oh sold for actually implementing an Oh
luli understanding of the situation
understanding the Mikasa the collide the
the aims and imports of Sharia and how
we apply these principles in our given
circumstances and situations so this is
a very complicated thing and finally
last thing was how to raise children in
a digital age good luck I'm doing my
best
it's it's a real struggle it's a daily
struggle you know I dreamed of having
children that never saw a Disney film
hey hey hey how to you know but we're in
a new era and we don't fully understand
it there's a new book that just came out
called the new digital age I haven't
read it but he's addressing this issue
that we're in a new age and we don't
fully understand it I'm looking forward
to the discussions that are going to
take place today and I and I I'm really
grateful for the show I know that you
have very busy schedules and I know that
Los Angeles and the Greater Los Angeles
area has a lot of programs and so you've
honored us and coming out to listen to
us and hear what we have to say just
like I'm gonna fight on a poodle Cody
how to a stall fiddle bloody would have
come but he cited a missing
[Applause]
you