appreciate that
and and that was a wonderful um
clarification because
we're living in these times where
um you know i see it as a kind of
demonic
force that is creating this gender
race and um
class warfare which is an old trick of
the devil
and so i'm 100 with the answer that you
gave that
that that we are whether we're male or
female we are rational
uh creatures and certainly in academia
it's that's that's the the component
although i would say i mean i uh
i have recently been reading it stein's
um essays on women and i've found them
really fascinating so
it is a it is an interesting um
topic um so
if there are more similar verses in the
three semitic religions
and there is a big bond between them
then why do they act like
enemies in the world well that's the
million dollar question
right um because there's so much more
uh there's you know the their the
encounters between different religious
people the factors that go in the
historical the political the
sociological the familial
the geographic um there's so many
factors that go into religious conflict
and
and i i i will also say i'm persuaded
that
uh by like bill cavanaugh's work and
others that
uh what we deem often
wars of religion are actually um
politic the sort of political wars of
either the rise of the nation state or
there are some severe political factors
that come in that
make the sort of term wars of religion
realm this a real
misnomer
that makes sense um
so uh
here um this is a question to you how do
you perceive
feminism in the light of catholic faith
um i'm grateful for the
feminists who came before me like i've
said already uh who paved
the way for me uh i uh
am a catholic first so whatever feminist
literature i am going to read and absorb
i'm going to read and absorb it as
a an observant catholic um
so sort of my primary lens of who i am
is my religious faith and um
it's uh you know it's kind of an
interesting because right now in the
muslim community
historically i think there's there's
been somewhat of an immunity to some of
the negative
aspects of modern
feminism and so i think a lot of muslims
right now are grappling with
is there a space for uh
feminist thought within uh the
traditional islamic and and and i think
and i would i would recommend edith
stein is a good place to start because i
think
um she really does have a a type of
feminism that's
deeply rooted in tradition and uh
and and again back to the personhood
yeah you know that
yeah recognizing the imago dei
uh that transcends gender right
um that's embodied and yet
is fundamentally um
personhood is at the center not the
right gender
but not the gender right um
so dr moreland not having not read your
book is muhammad's prophecy
compatible with christian theology well
i've been a bad moderator if i didn't
get that
out of you yet but
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i think i think people have to read your
book because
it really is a subtle argument and and i
think you're
making a profound case for recognizing a
type of prophecy
but um so uh my book doesn't argue for
particular moments in the quran or
particular
it doesn't it doesn't go to that level
it really does a proprietary kind of
groundwork
for opening up uh the theoretical
possibility that muhammad is a
prophet for christians then there's a
whole
process of discernment that has to come
into play given particular moments of
revelation
so christians could never adopt the
quran wholesale for example
because it's incommensurate different
incommense or differences that
dr yousef already spoke to right
vis-a-vis christology and the trinity
however i do draw upon this
funky category in the catholic church
called private revelation
where the church itself understands that
post
post-closing of the canon namely
post-closing of the writing of the new
testament
god continues to speak to the human race
and so we've got this category called
private revelation that i think muhammad
theoretically could
fall into this category of god
continuing to speak
to god's beloved community
after the closing of the canon but yes
it is true that that is a
um in my book you really need to read
each chapter because
you need all of the pieces for the
argument yeah yeah
very much so it's not a book that some
some books you can read uh
the chapter independent of others but
yours is not one of them
yeah and and i think the uh you know the
conclusion
is is uh it's very interesting i mean i
i would for those of people that
that are well trained in islamic
theology i think it's a
it's a very interesting read because a
lot of muslims are not familiar
with the rich catholic tradition and i
was struck
with uh with uh your chapter on aquinas
on
uh on prophecy because there were so
many uh
aspects of of uh aquinas's understanding
of prophecy
that that are really found in
in our tradition as well um and the
prophetic voice
does not end i mean prophet we believe
prophets
ended with the prophet muhammad but the
prophetic voice
um there there's a uh
tradition in which the prophet elijah
said that the
the the scholars and and the ulama
really means not just an academic
scholar but somebody who's
deeply died in in a spiritual uh
tradition um
that they are the inheritors of prophets
and
and and so they have that portion of the
prophetic voice
and we also have a really interesting
tradition that says
that a true dream is is 146
of prophecy so it's actually it's a
portion of prophecy
and so in the chapter of uh joseph
the the king has a true dream and and
and and joseph interprets that dream so
that type of access to prophecy
continues
on somebody asked
why aren't the monotheistic religions
uniting against atheistic agenda to
demonize religion
and what do you think can be done to
foster more unity
i think we we did discuss that
and part of it is it is things like this
i mean i
uh have immense regard for your work and
and and what you're trying to do and i i
actually thought this book was a
courageous book because i know
i yeah i know how um
and i also understand why at vatican 2
they were
really walking on eggshells because
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this is a 2 000 year old tradition
that you know that that
has has held true to these truths for
2 000 years and for
you know to to kind of move into these
other realms that traditionally
were seen as um as so far
divorced is very difficult so i i think
in that way
i hope more people i hope a lot of
catholics read your book
um but i yeah i really do um
the uh yeah
this one is about um the abyssinian
church
became separated from the western
eastern catholic churches a century or
more after the nicean council
it had more cooperative relations with
islamic civilization it also touts
itself for not being outside of the
realm of the catholic church and
preserves
more books than the western eastern
catholic church biblical text
what would be a relationship there that
western catholics can learn from that
ancient relationship about islam
and what can muslims deduce or
understand about christianity from that
um that that church uh i don't know how
familiar with the abyssinian church at
the but it was more of a
it was a i mean i don't know if they
would call themselves monophysites but
the the
orthodox church called the monophysites
they tend to use i think a term
diaphysite
is the term that they prefer but they
were definitely a monophysite
uh tradition and uh they
the the prophets uh saladin his
companions
he said he sent them to the christian um
lands saying that they will not
persecute you
go there there's a just christian king
and he won't persecute you so there are
actually two migrations
uh to the church and and uh but it was a
church that i think the orthodox
tradition is seen as
it was kind of a uh heretical
uh branch but it is i think an example
of muslim christian
cooperation in the past
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this one are there any verses in the new
testament that allude to the coming of
the prophet muhammad
i mean muslims say there are and i think
to be fair
christians would would uh generally say
no they would interpret the
the famous in john about the the
paraclete or the
uh he's called the pharaoh in arabic
which in syriac was very close to the
name muhammad
that the word for and which is why a lot
of the syriac christians
ended up converting to islam because
it's it's like
which is for the paraclete so they kind
of saw that as a
as a yeah um does catechism
841 mean the catholic church teaches
that muslims will have salvation
on judgment day regard regardless of
believing in jesus as god's son
i don't know 841 but i don't know what
i'm referring to
yeah i think the question is is do does
the church still
hold to the doctrine of no salvation
outside of the church
no and i i actually francis sullivan
who's a jesuit wrote a great book on the
history of the development of that
doctrine
and maintains really that
understood appropriately the church
didn't has never really
maintained that particular position
um in its sort of degenerate form but
that's a great book i recommend it
no no real time to go in adhe into it
here but
god wills all of god's people to be
saved
there's a there's a one of my favorite
um
verses is acts 34
where peter peter says um that
that anyone who believes in god and acts
righteously uh from whatever land will
be acceptable
by god and and and i think that's a
that seems to be a very um
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generous but also seems to be compatible
with the mercy of god
so we have a tradition in uh one of our
great theologians
imam al-ghazali
and he made an argument which to me is
very compelling because
we tend to have the tradition of no
salvation outside of islam
i mean there are a lot of muslims that
believe that
but he made an argument that anyone who
sincerely
seeks the truth and and dies before
finding it
will be will be saved uh
with god because they're not rejecting
because the the word in the quran that's
used for
a disbeliever which actually means
an ingrate means somebody who's
ungrateful in its
in its fundamental meaning but it also
means somebody who rejects
or covers up the truth once they see
it so it's like they see the truth but
then they end up covering it up
so um dr anna thank you
uh they're deep analog for what you just
said in the catholic tradition for sure
yeah i i would agree um
thank you so much i know it's late for
you and uh i
but i really appreciate the time i do
hope your book
gets a wide readership which is thank
you why
why why i read it thank you and
yeah and and uh and i look forward to
the further collaboration with
amir stein because i think you're gonna
uh
be doing something for merstein on this
but um
thank you it's been wonderful to speak
with you this evening
yeah great and uh give my uh best
regards to because i you you seem like a
powerhouse
couple because i was looking at your
your husband's a very um i think
very accomplished uh legal scholar there
at villanova
yeah yeah so
my regards to him also thank you
i i hope we we get uh to collaborate
further in the future
but i would i would love it i would
invite it great
thanks for your time likewise yeah
thank you everybody for tuning in
um i would really request
that i want to thank really dr anna
moorland
i think she's uh she's really a powerful
um voice and um she gave a really
incredible talk
at uh at the dominican college that i
was
um honored to be there and i just
uh felt her sincerity
and i think this book really confirmed
for me that she's somebody that
uh is really uh one of the good people
out there that's doing good work
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she she uh she said to me um
you know that she wasn't when i said
i'll call you dr
boyle and she said no no i doctor i
don't
because i don't save bodies and i said
well but the theologians save souls
so it's it's a much it's much greater
uh to be a doctor of uh theology than a
doctor of physiology so anyway
i hope everybody continues to support
zaytuna and we have a 12 000 strong
program i really hope that you'll help
us
with that so on that note may you have a
blessed
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month of uh remembering our beloved
prophet elijah who was born in this
month
and i think uh we're certainly blessed
to uh accept the prophets elizabeth as
our prophets
uh prayers and peace be upon him and
upon all the prophets
and inshallah may allah protect all of
you in this time of tribulation keep
your
family safe keep your homes safe and uh
maybe continue to be able to spread uh
the light of knowledge
and the light of truth uh wherever we
are
and with whom ever we're with
thank you
thank you president hamza youssef and dr
anna moreland
and thank you to all the attendees who
have joined us for the rubio series
we look forward to your presence at our
future events which you can learn more
about
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if you would like to purchase any of the
books mentioned throughout the series
please visit the zatuna college
bookstore at bookstore.zatuna.edu
jazakallahu khairan assalamu