Rihla 2013: Introduction to Logic

Transcript Details

Event Name: Rihla 2013: Introduction to Logic
Description: Introduction to Logic - Shaykh Hamza Yusuf 14 Episodes Based on the “Isagoge” of Imam Athir al-Din al-Abhari, this course will introduce students to the science of logic, a prerequisite before serious study of any of the other sciences. In this course students will be introduced to terms, concepts, the five predicables, definitions, propositions, opposition, conversion, syllogisms, and other basic aspects of correct thinking.
Transcription Date:Transcription Modified Date: 4/4/2019
Transcript Version: 1
Original Reference URL: Youtube Video


Transcript Text

fore you went into it it's

like seeing the force before the trees

which helps just to see the whole thing

before you go in and say okay that's a

oak and that's the elm tree and that's

an acacia tree and just to understand

what a forest is and so the subject is

is part of that and the name and it's

sources where it comes from it's also

its ranking one of the things that we

fail to do now in in Western education

we don't rank knowledge anymore so

nobody knows what's more important I

mean if you go if you look at the if you

go to any college most of you have been

to college some of you are in college

some of you are gonna be going to

college next year or something if you go

to college they have these catalogs they

begin with astronomy and they end with

zoology

this is A to Z there's no ranking they

don't tell you what you should take

what's important this is more important

than the other Muslims always rank their

sciences it's called the father who or

October two who shot off a whole what's

the virtue of the science and the shot

off is metallic but mold war it's what

it what a subject matter so if the

subject matter is God it's a very high

science if the subject matters dunya

it's the lower science if the subject

matter is language it's a very high

science because it's a it's a tool to

understand God so these are the rankings

hierarchical nature of science because

we believe in Marathi Marathi better

unum there are degrees of knowledge

Marathi Buju there are degrees of

existence we have four levels of

existence

you know there's degrees in our

tradition of existence then you have

metaphysical you have other realms as

well the morgue the medical the java

route so anyway questions answers

dumbfounded

any questions I've been teaching for

about 10 years and obviously before that

I was a student and I'm worried that

modern education has deconstructed our

reasoning skills and will if if it has

in your opinion do you think I'll need

13 years to reconstruct them all so yeah

I mean you know the modern world is it's

in a mess I think all of us are pretty

aware of that and that's not to say that

the pre-modern will wasn't either in

some ways there's a lot of good and and

in some ways this is one of the better

times that people have been living so

I'm not completely dismissive of the

modern world but there are there are

things about the educational system in

the past that were very problematic and

but there are things with the modern

system of Education that are also very

problematic there are still places where

you can get a reasonably good education

I would say but in terms of those basic

fundamental skills that are very

important to grasp and should really be

learned at a relatively early age in the

West they were grammar and logic and

rhetoric and then also the skills of

numbers so these are the two types of

literacy what we call literacy with

language and then numeracy or literacy

with numbers and these are the two ways

that human beings think we think

qualitatively which is linked

linguistically through language and then

we think think quantitatively through

number so and when we get into the

categories which are part of the

tradition of logic there are ten

categories and after substance you know

the two categories that immediately

follow that are quantity and quality

come and cave in Arabic and so we

there's a book by a French philosopher

the turn of the century that was written

the reign of quantity and a lot of

people noticed this about the modern

world that it was a world of quantity

and quality was being taken out of the

world not completely and not entirely

but quality is much less important to

the people today than it ever has been

the idea of mastery is is we have

mastery in a few things I think in music

there's still a commitment to mastery in

certain sports there's a commitment to

high levels of mastery but the idea of

mastering the mind the idea mastering

the soul the idea of mastering Arts and

Crafts becoming great craftsmen becoming

really masters of these things it's very

very unusual in the modern world to meet

people that are really committed to

mastery of anything and obviously the

highest thing is to master yourself and

that is very difficult I'm in Zurich

said it's easier to move a mountain with

your fingernails than it is to actually

transform your nature so it's but it is

possible an imam al-ghazali argued that

anybody who claims that you cannot

change nature is a liar and he said you

can you can take a dog and train a dog

and he's saying what you can't you can't

take a human being that has rational

nature and not transform it you can take

a dog that has you know all over the

place and teach it to do very relatively

sophisticated tricks and teach it to sit

and what you can't discipline the self

you can a dog you can discipline but

your own self you can't teach it to stop

don't do that it's not good for you you

know this is incontinence which is a

beautiful word in in in in the 19th

century in America and there was a moral

term it wasn't a medical term

and and countenance is is the idea of

restraint self-restraint incontinence is

a crazier or the lack of self-restraint

now it's been reduced to incontinent to

stool and urine this is this what's been

reduced to people that can't control

their most basic bodily functions are

called incontinent but in reality you

should be able to control your your

nature and and this takes time it takes

practice and it takes skill but the

modern world wants to strip that away so

certainly learning these skills are very

important in in the in the modern world

logic has been reduced to what's called

material logic and we'll get into that

in the third lecture we'll get into

material logic you have formal logic a

material logic material logic one aspect

of material logic is called the

fallacies which are called the sub sabha

or the Mahalo pot the Mohana thoughts

are fallacies of reasoning so the

content of your logic and and we were

very susceptible to them but politicians

are used them all the time and we're

very susceptible because the mind is

susceptible to hasty generalizations I'm

gonna give you an example if you look on

if you watched CNN before coming to

Turkey you probably would have canceled

your trip because they made it appear

that this whole country was in

revolution and when you got here in

Istanbul you're there and it's it's very

peaceful and it's so ludicrous for

people in New York don't go to Turkey

you know it's a dangerous place you know

they're all they've gone crazy you know

meanwhile there's people getting mugged

all over the place in Central Park right

I mean this is so much safe earth and

New York and but you know people are

afraid to come to Turkey because they

watch the news and the news is

constantly using fallacies and sometimes

it's just pure deceit but you know I

mean it they said for instance how many

people heard that they were gonna tear

down all the trees to build a mall how

many people heard that okay now look at

that that was a complete lie they

weren't going to tear down that they

were actually gonna remove some trees

around the edge of the park to restore

the fort that had been torn down

it was an ottoman military base and they

were gonna make a museum they were

building a mall right so it was this

kind of oh this massive you know this

insane liberal capitalism gone mad

turkeys on steroids they're gonna turn

everything into malls

no they were gonna preserve the trees

make a museum and the so-called mall was

actually cafes around the area for

people to enjoy the place but it's a

very very secular part of Istanbul and

some of the people there the majority of

pubs in Istanbul are in that area and

because they put a 10:00 p.m.

limit on sale of alcohol which is the

case in many states in America right

they have these laws and you have many

many cities in the United States where

you can't sell alcohol after so and then

you have dry days it wasn't that long

ago before we had dry States right so

this whole idea that you know oh that no

you can't do that if if they see fit to

if they if they're having problems with

with disorderly contact because of the

sale of alcohol then that's part of what

public order is you have to succumb to

the public order but if you looked at it

you know these these were these are

tactics people can't think clearly

anymore they showed a picture of a

million and a half people and CNN said

oh this was a protest again

the president no is actually a protest

for the president a demonstration for

the president and then CNN retracted

that a little later instead of whoops we

made a mistake that was actually a pro

presidential you know so the people

opposed to were a few hundred people

that they gave nine hours of

unprecedented live coverage on CNN

International I mean where were they

when Iceland was in a rebellion against

the the the Parliament because the banks

they weren't going to pay the banks

where were they how many people got to

see all the Greek rebellions and the

abuse that the Greek protesters took

from I mean you know you need the tools

of thinking in the modern world because

you're up against a massive propaganda

machine and it's it's a propaganda

machine that is is not so much a

conspiracy but it's just they all think

the same way they look at things the

same way and so Turkey because turkey is

a country that has a very very troubling

history for the West Turkey was once the

center of one of the most powerful

dynasties in human history and had an

empire that was unprecedented and lasted

for a very long time

and there are people that there there's

a little bit of schizophrenia in the

country they were deeply traumatized

I mean imagine imagine in United States

or in Canada

imagine Obama announces we have decided

that starting tomorrow all of English

will be written in the pinyin Chinese

script because we realize that China is

a rising power and we want to prepare

our young people early so that they'll

be able to read Chinese

so tomorrow all the textbooks are going

to be published in Chinese script it's

still English don't worry you're not

gonna be saying new-home ah you'll still

say how are you but it's gonna be

written

the Chinese write their script I mean

imagine the trauma that that would cause

in a nation and that's what was done

here

they went from there Arabic ottoman

script to Latin based script overnight

and then imagine the trauma to the Kurds

of prohibiting them from speaking their

language this is what happened to the

Native Americans they were prohibited to

speak their native languages in the

United States yes prohibited to speak

their native languages on the

reservations right imagine that and here

for the first time now they've they're

they're allowing them to teach their

language to teach this is what they've

done so this so-called fascist Turkish

government that's being presented to

Western people is is removing a lot of

the the darkness that had descended upon

the people from before but people are

very worried you know there's people

that are secular and they think oh these

are the Muslims taking over well they're

Muslim people but they're committed to a

secular state right and and and the idea

that Islam and secularity are mutually

exclusive is false because the vast

majority of Islamic history had

relatively secular states they they

weren't really Islamic states that the

whole concept of an Islamic state is a

fantasy in in the in the minds of a lot

of the modern Islamists but if you

actually study Muslim history that you

will find yes Islam was the state

religion but the states functioned just

like a secular state functions because

religion actually has very little to do

with the running of a state building

roads has nothing to do with what men

have you follow you know that's a Hanafy

road no that's a meth head right the

meth habit means road in Arabic but meth

head is a school is a metaphor taken

from the real meth head which is a road

you know a road is you can build it from

stone you can build it from asphalt you

can build it

concrete and that's just what you want

is honesty you want vetting you want

transparency those are secular ideals as

well right

a post office is not an Islamic concept

right the you don't need we need Islamic

stamps yeah you can have put okay put

the head of like Muslims behead lay like

a lot on their coins okay in America

they have kind of laid I had a lot to

work in out of law that's that's okay

I'm America's a secular state it still

has TOEIC in out of law right so that's

okay you can have in god we trust' it

smells you can be secular and still

trust in God it's okay municipalities

are not you know the the water doesn't I

need a henna fee you know they called

henna fiha in Arabic I need a Hennessy

anivia this is a monarchy henna via no

you don't need you just need a henna

fear you just need a water right tap

that works and that's municipalities and

all you want is some honest guy in there

if he's a secularist who's honest fine

if he's a Muslim who's honest fine as

long as the water gets there it's been

purified it's not gonna make you sick

right seriously think about it the vast

majority of government just does not

relate to religion it just relates to

common decency and that's why you can

live in I mean if Muslims were were

literally taken from like eighth century

Syria or Palestine and dropped into

Norway they would think that you know it

was like the caliphate of omar bin abdul

aziz like there's so much social justice

they would be amazed at how much social

justice are in these scandinavian

countries their secular countries so

this whole idea which in manoa you have

to have had punishment you know this is

what so islam is reduced to there's four

agreed upon had punishments 13 there's

debates

about you no sir even apostasy laws all

these things they're all debated

there's nothing fixed in stone and then

the the prophets lies centum he said it

throne who did mr. Patton avoid

implementing penal punishments as much

as you're able to maybe no we want let's

get these hands cut off you know I mean

if you had if you want some added had

punishment for theft you you couldn't

shake hands anymore you wouldn't be able

to shake hands everybody'd be like you

know nice to meet you

from from the from the president all the

way down to the street sweeper so you

know anyway that's a very long question

so would you recommend a book for

beginners to read on logic well that's

what we're doing it's a beginning book

on logic a Mary and Joseph book is very

good for and and it helps if English is

your first language it definitely helps

to study logic in in English before you

do it in Arabic my own personal

experience I read it in Arabic it was

very difficult for me initially and

after I studied in English I studied it

several years ago using Aristotle's tax

with my father and and after that it

when I went back to the Arabic it was

just very much easier to do so and

there's there's good but it's important

to note that this is traditional logic

it's not symbolic logic which is very

different symbolic logic is a type of

mathematical logic that it's useful for

certain things but for reasoning in

terms of language it's not very it's not

useful at all because of certain

problems that it has

so alhamdulillah subhana Columbia new

calendar in Atlanta southward to Hui

Lake I just want to also for the people

that are online just welcome you for

being part of this and everybody we I

really hope in shallow you have a

wonderful experience your time in Turkey

there they've been incredibly hospitable

it's a beautiful people they're good

people and there are all types of people

there's and the whole spectrum is here

in Turkey but there's still very decent

people whether they're secular is or

committed to Islam I think you'll oh by

and large find they're very very lot of

just human decency that's been my

experience I've been in Turkey now

several times and spent you know periods

close to a month a couple of those times

and that's been my experience with the

people from the top all the way down to

you know the simple people and they and

it's a great tradition they have a great

tradition here and and they're also I

think one of the things that I really

liked about Turkey is they still have an

aesthetic sense that a lot of Muslim

countries of law so they they tend to

really beauty is still very much part of

their culture and they have beautiful

parks they have beautiful a lot of

beautiful architecture still Istanbul is

arguably I think the most beautiful city

aesthetically outside of Medina because

I'm not going to say anything is more

beautiful than Medina I mean now Medina

is the mosque alone and it's a very

beautiful mosque it's the most beautiful

mosque in the world and so but after

Medina I would definitely say I mean I

was in Istanbul and I said to this

Turkish man he told me he'd studied in

San Francisco I said oh that's all

that's re-stamped that's already stem

bull and he was like

I said you know the bay it's got water

and hills and hey just no no yet no and

also make dua for the organizers they've

worked really hard dr. Asha and her team

really sincere group of people worked

very hard to make all this happen so

inshallah may Allah make it a blessed

time for you a kind of learning and

opening and my advice to you is you know

don't turn on the TV try to avoid you

know just unplug for a little while you

know you're all plugged in it's good to

unplug for a while and and just try to

focus on your studies as much as

possible

we didn't plan having a mall next to so

my advice don't go into the mall dr.

yang is coming tonight so we

traditionally we always had exercise

component in the retina and then Joseph

Alea Hama who who used to do the do

member Joseph yeah he in New Mexico and

things used to do the Tai Chi and the

Kung Fu and he died so after that we

just didn't do it but but we'd always

had that component because I you know I

think it's very important for people

Muslims tend to neglect their bodies a

lot and traditional societies there was

a lot of exercise just being in a

traditional society walking and

horseback riding and archery and

wrestling all the prophets like Sam was

a very active all the way through his

whole life he was physically very active

he did had no fat on him so low lightest

and him he he was described as having a

very flat stomach even when he was 63

years of age he was very muscular his

senior and very strong and all might

have been at hot Bob once saw a man who

was overweight in

mekka and he said that would be better

if it was on somebody else right so in

other words your extra caloric intake

you know might be better if you give

that to somebody else now don't judge

anybody because some people have you

never know about people so if you see

people that are overweight you know just

don't be judgmental about them or

arrogant or anything because some people

they really they don't eat a lot and in

fact imam banannie says that some of the

Odia are tried with fat like allah makes

them fat even though they don't eat

anything and and I've seen that with

some people you know that so you know

don't don't make any judgments about

people about that and I don't want

people to feel bad or anything like that

but it's good just to do exercise you

can be women should you know

traditionally they were you know I had

good weight and and so there's no

blemish in a woman who's got weight on

her it's actually healthier for a woman

to have fat you know really so this

these skinny women end up losing their

their periods they can't have children

and you know this happens like they do

too much exercise and they actually end

up losing their femininity and becoming

it different there's a new hybrid

species out there this

androgynous so but it's good insha'Allah

I hope people enjoy it he's a chi gong

master and Qi Gong is not a religious

exercise it there is relation to the

Taoist tradition and to Shaolin temples

and things like that so so there are

there is Association but it's um it's a

it's the exercise that went with martial

arts in China and it's very very

invigorating for people that do it on a

regular basis and practice it but he's

gonna be working with you so you can

pretty much learn how to do it during

the time and it's good to learn it from

somebody there's a lot on line and

things like that

but according to the New York Times the

longest living human being ever was a

chi gong teacher in China they

ascertained he claimed to be 235 years

of age but they did ascertain that he

was at least a hundred and seventy and

and he taught she going to the imperial

troops and the new york times sent a

team over to find out about him in 1932

I think so that was actually a goji

berries and drank green tea and Jen sang

so I mean I don't know if anybody really

wants to stick around here for 175 years

but the time we're here we should try to

be as healthy as possible you know

because it's it'll help you yeah my mom

was at the grocery store and you know

how they have those all those funny

national enquirer and all those and she

was my mom's 94 this year and she was

there was another old lady in the line

and she looked at my mother and then she

looked at the magazine and she said

aren't you glad we're on our way out

sit on my neck

 

Video 2

smile honey masala - Sarah - even o

Muhammad said him to steal him for a

dinner together enjoy a Libra Karim was

in there Elma hamdulillah D before we

get into the Mobilio Azshara the third

part we read the first two Hawaiian the

third part of Syria Musa rope is lifted

a faux fur happy better Waheeda in

cateura

dela al-abadi Iraqi Joomla Teja some

Hawaiian Roger re Austin why didn't the

man who you met amar Peterffy her

canotary Baro - and who he has to be met

for him I mean who would you murder to

require you appear to a data file city

he wear a tee vertically were hidden

Allah has to be Minardi here Inman or

ammidon or holla of the oken O'Hara

darica what if thirakkatha tasawwuf min

d'eryka cementum a local hospital you

name him Allah who we Avari ble a Yeti

he and Italia t he coul assassin all and

Managua dae-eun a Cebu Haruka Eden Roc

leader in Natasha Wolfe Ikeda

azshara and Amanda who nasi and Amanda

who knows even Minh City Ottawa - healer

who know Siva Mineta solve one Metazoa

Vakula

I hadn't sit puta what yo he he

of him

so he says that a difference of opinion

about one reality when you have

something that has one reality and then

you have all this extra difference about

it when that difference multiplies when

you have a lot of it it indicates the

depth of understanding or comprehending

the totality of that thing in other

words that thing is a deep or profound

thing so it's it's hard to grasp it in

any one articulation and then he says if

you go back to one source that contains

a summation of what's been said about it

then that articulation of that that

thing is based upon what was understood

from the original thing that you're

talking about all right

so he says the summation of all the

words that have been said and all the

details that have been said are based on

those saying it in accorded in

accordance with their knowledge their

action their States their tastes their

experience of it and other

considerations so the difference in

Sufism in Tessa Woolf is from that

perspective and for that reason at how

fallible night he was one of the greats

I mean he was actually considered he has

he's considered Shetty Sonam of his time

he was a half-filled which meant he

memorized over a hundred thousand hadith

and he he died in 430 and he wrote a

famous book called Helia - Dahlia and

what he wanted to prove that all the

early community were Sufis so he wanted

to show that that was really the

foundation of their spiritual tradition

is that they were all people of this

science of tossa Wolfe so he he when he

talks about

each one of them the heylia is their

adornment when he talks about each one

of them he he says that that and it said

that Sufism Orta Soloff is this and then

it's different from what the other said

but his point was all of those

expressions were expressions of that

person's state and so what he wanted to

show in this was that whatever portion

of their sincerity in their inner

directedness towards the divine whatever

that portion was that was their

proportion of hisself that's what they

had of Tessa Wolfe whatever however much

sincerity they had in their inner

directedness towards the divine that was

what they had and that that the tasawwuf

of every individual was his sincere

inner directedness towards the divine

that's that's what it was so that's the

third light now on to the subject the

the text that we're going to be using as

a foundation is called Issa goji and it

was written by a great scholar of what

what are called the automatic Lia and

Athiya Rodina Abadi is is the the one

who wrote the book and he called it Issa

goji which their understanding of it was

that it meant introduction because

there's a famous text that was written

by an earlier pre Islamic scholar that

was a commentary on Aristotle's

categories and he also called that the

Issa goji so that can't became a term in

the Islamic tradition for an

introduction to logic the Issa goji so

it's ISA goji is what they called it and

he wrote this this book as a primer in

logic and this was a book that was

studied after the student had studied

grammar historically you had a hierarchy

of knowledge and knowledge is built on

other knowledge is so you move from

what's known to what's unknown you need

building blocks so you need a ladder to

move up in those degrees and grammar is

basically learning how language

functions at the most basic level so we

learn how to read sentences how to

understand when we communicate we use a

lot of things IV obviously humans speak

naturally and we don't need to be

literate to communicate language many

Aboriginal peoples they speak without

any literacy and they have their

languages we now know their languages

are as sophisticated and and sometimes

more sophisticated

and modern languages so Aboriginal

languages are actually as complex as the

languages that we're speaking and

sometimes they actually have more words

to express things but Aboriginal

languages tend to be even though they

have abstraction x' because the nature

of language is abstraction you can't

have language without abstraction

they're not they tend not to be

philosophical languages they're not

languages that have the type of thinking

that develops in literate civilizations

so as a civilization becomes more

literate it it develops ways of

understanding because what what happens

is introspection and so as a people

develop intellectually they begin to

reflect on things in a way that

primitive people's or Aboriginal peoples

don't which is not to say that they

don't reflect they do they have deep

reflection they have religions they have

ways of looking at the world that are

profound and there's immense wisdom in

Aboriginal traditions and people who

have had the experience of being with

Aboriginal peoples will know that that

they're they're not it's a different way

of being then the way of settled peoples

and and peoples that that live in

complex societies because Aboriginal

peoples live in very simple societies so

logic is one of those sciences that

develops in a complex society grammar is

the analyses of language and then it's

the articulation of what's been analysed

so for instance all human beings speak

with nouns it doesn't matter what you

call a noun you can call it a noun you

can call it a SM like in Arabic you have

ism you have Lamia which is a type of

noun what we call a pronoun in English

all languages have these methods and

this is the analysis

of linguist when they go into to try to

understand language they look and there

there is a theory of Chomsky who's a

great linguist in in the United States

about this underlying grammar that

exists this universal grammar

that's actually a the early Muslim

grammarians were very much aware of that

and and they they discussed these issues

about the nature of language

you'll also find these discussions in

the Scholastic tradition but much of the

scholastic tradition was taken out of

the Muslim tradition because of the

influence of a Farabi of even Sina of

even druid of a Ghazali and others on

their discourse but they looked and they

attempted to understand the the very

nature of language what is the nature of

language and language is a right man and

abundance an right al Rahman a diamond

or an audience an alum oho

the ban that the merciful he he taught

the Quran he created the human being and

then gave the human being ban and ban is

the ability to you may you know my fee

enough see he to articulate what's in

his soul it's the ability to actually

speak what what is in your heart and

what is that does language precede

meaning or does meaning precede language

in other words do we need language to

express meaning or is language the

result of a pre-existent meaning and our

scholars argued on the side of meaning

that meaning precedes language and many

public Mabini

meanings precede the vehicles of meaning

and when you get into our peda there's

huge discussions about what is the

nature of Kalama law is it

meanings or is it the uncreated meanings

or is it the actual vehicle for those

meanings or is it both but from

different perspectives these these are

long debates in that tradition so the

the analysis of language is an analysis

that can can be done to any language in

the world

every language has grammar darisha has

grammar if you if you look at daddy

shell or Ebonics in the United States we

have a type of of a common language

amongst a minority community in the

United States that they speak and they

understand and it's it it moves it

evolves it changes but it has a grammar

and it can be analyzed Creole has a

grammar of pidgin languages have

grammars every language has a grammar

there are certain languages that are

profound civilizational languages and

and these languages because of the

nature of their traditions a certain

continuity takes place so Sanskrit is

one of those languages Chinese is one of

those languages the the the the Hebrew

language the Arabic language these are

ancient languages and in those languages

are embedded profound worldviews if you

if you study the Chinese language in the

ideograms there are literally

cosmologies that are articulated in

their ideograms so you can analyze them

if you look at Hebrew the same is true

there are there are cosmologies embedded

I'll give you one example if you look at

the word for human being in in Arabic

the the word that means human that

shared by male and females called in San

and many of the philologists argued that

there's not a plural some of them say

that

is a I mean a feminine form but most say

in San is like Minch it includes the

male and the female in San the the the

meaning of in san comes from Ernst which

is intimacy that the human is an

intimate creature it needs to have

intimacy to survive if it doesn't have

intimacy it dries up and dies as a

creature it needs to have Ernst and then

it's also the same word in San is the

word for pupil of the eye so the in san

the boo-boo the in san is the pupil of

the eye and one of the things that we

know that when people are experiencing

intimacy the pupil dilates it opens up

so there's an opening of the in sun that

humans when they're in experience

intimacy they open up they they they get

in Shara they expand and the highest

intimacy is intimacy with the divine

that the intimacy of at unspell a to

have intimacy with the divine and this

is the greatest expansion in sha that

occurs so another just to show you the

cosmology embedded in arabic another

word for i is i mean now i mean means

essence it means the source it's also

used for a spring anion is the

life-giving for the arabs the the the

ein of water is the life-giving source

and so there there's something embedded

in that that understanding that

indicates that the I the secret of the I

of seeing that it's related to the

essence of man that we were actually

created for masha hada were created for

witnessing like our existence is there

to witness the divine and that's why

that the essence of the human being is

Shahada

which means witnessing Shahada is

witnessing so i know in san the eye of

the human being and the essence of the

human being is for Shahada it's to

witness so this is the nature of that

you can get into that now when you study

grammar you find that there's basically

two concepts in grammar there's the

concept of substance and there's the

concept of time substance is articulated

through through quality and quantity

through adjectives through nouns adverbs

these all tell us the quality of

something

he ran swiftly so swiftly is telling us

something about the nature of the

running but running is time you are in

time so you have time and you have place

these and this is the human being has

two orientations or orientation to time

and place so when a physician wants to

to look at a student they ask them I

mean a patient they want to orient them

to time and place so they'll say who's

the president and then they'll say where

are you and then they know that they're

in their right mind because they have

that orientation that's language time

and place that's language and that's

what makes us human

now the other thing about language is

language is rational that when we speak

we have to follow an order table sky

reason may

blue elevate wonderful know when see if

I start talking like that those are all

words but there's no order to them they

were just coming off the top of my head

and you aren't understanding you each

one of those words can convey a

comprehension I know what sky is he said

sky I know what that is

but you don't know what I'm saying or

what I mean because there was no order

so there is a logic to language and that

logic is expressed through syntax I have

to have an order to my language and in

in our language for instance in English

there is a certain type of order we have

subject we have verb right we have

object right John

hit I'm gonna use the Arab because and

when we were kids we learned you know

Dixie's Jane like when I was a kid they

probably don't even do that nobody teach

grammar anymore but in the Arab world I

I told them that you're not gonna get

rid of violence in the Arab world until

you change the way you teach grammar

because they always teach thought of as

a Dona Mirana

they all that's how their every sentence

that the first sentence you learn in

Arabic grammar is Zaid hit ammo and

you're just one like what's up with that

you know like why is aid hitting him why

couldn't he do something else to him

like you know

Zaid you know you know he saw I mean but

they have the bottom they have to have

the bottom right so so that is language

has it follows a pattern and when you

learn a language one of the hard things

about learning a foreign language

is that it doesn't often have the same

patterns that you have and you can it

can be confusing so in Arabic if I said

Alcala Kusa Musa right did I mean the

the the courgette ate Moses or did I

mean Moses ate the

courgette i can't tell because it's it's

they're both max or right there they're

there they have the Edit max aura so i

don't know but if i know if and that's

why you should do that because it's

muhammad's and ambiguous you should

that's a time where you should put the

fire first right and then if it would be

he after in grammar so you should really

say I could have Musa Kusa but if if you

no reason it's not reasonable that the

courgette 8 Musa or but there's somebody

can be called there was a minister I

think from Lebanon is she acted your

mouth here didn't they have Minister

Musa Kusa he was in Libya Musa Kusa yeah

I mean that's a father with a sense of

humor so so anyway so language now the

nature of language is it's ambiguous

language is ambiguous because you you

can say things and they can be taken in

different ways right that we have what

are in English we call double entendres

right you can say something and you can

mean different things with it and even

our tone like there's certain languages

that tone is very important like Chinese

you have different tones in in English

we use tone to accent things yeah he's

smart isn't he you know that's very

different saying wow he's smart isn't he

a completely different statement even

though it's the same words but the tone

conveys something so the these are these

this is the nature of language but

language is also clear and the clearer

language is the better we understand it

so people can eat the people say that

he's very unclear and his thinking he's

muddled in his thinking I can't

understand him what's he talking about

and teachers will tell you that you need

more clarity in your writing things like

this so this is part of it now what what

logic does is it it helps you to

understand better what you

naturally do everybody is using logic

and that was the meaning of that story

when the student comes back after the

third time from the marketplace oh my

god was dad

it's unbelievable everybody's using

logic he finally got it and that's what

you see in the world and doesn't matter

where you go logic is not a Western

concept what Aristotle did and it's it's

interesting that we're in Turkey and

we're studying this because Aristotle

was from Turkey I mean it was part of

the you know Asia Minor and it was part

of the Greek but he was he lived on the

Asian side so he was he was actually you

know from and he died here but he what

he did I mean there's a different

there's a debate about what he did and I

will get to that when I do that my body

so my point is is that when you study

logic what you're studying is really

what you're what you do naturally in the

same way that when you use when you

study grammar you're studying what you

do naturally which is you speak

grammatically you might make grammatical

mistakes in your language I ain't gonna

go there or you know I have a friend

he's very educated but he uses double

negatives all the time right and he's

got a you know he's a PhD candidate and

I like I correct him because they just

want to hear a double negative it's it's

like ouch but you know yeah

people people a double negative is a

positive right so you're actually saying

the opposite of what you think you're

saying so ain't gonna not go there

so people use language and they can

misuse language and the same is true in

reasoning and that's why you learn

grammar to protect your tongue from

making mistakes you learn logic to guard

your reasoning so that your reasoning

skills are better but also so that you

can see the arguments of others and be

able to criticize them does that make

sense now one of the things about our

traditions it's very important because

we have morality better known we believe

in the degrees of knowledge in the same

way that you have in the same way that

you have Newtonian physics and quantum

physics they're very different right

Newtonian physics and quantum physics

are two completely different physics

quantum physics all of the Newtonian

laws break down in quantum mechanics but

quantum physics has been observed so

they know that underlying this Newtonian

world that we live in there's another

reality which is quantum and they don't

fully understand it and they're trying

to work out really what's going on but

the quantum world is very weird for

instance in the quantum world you can be

in two places at one time in in the

Newtonian world you can you can only be

in one place at one time

and in a quantum world you could really

you could walk through a wall in a

Newtonian world you can't so for those

of you who had the unfortunate

experience of seeing the matrix the

matrix was somebody who was learning to

work in a quantum world right I mean

that's really what was happening to him

was that he was learning to work in the

quantum world where the laws of physics

that are Newtonian don't apply so

bullets won't kill you in that world but

in a Newtonian world they will and so

one of the things that's important for

to understand is that this logic works

on one level of existence but there are

other levels of existence where this

logic completely breaks down and one of

the interesting things about the Western

tradition is that they've never been

able to really deal with these degrees

of knowledge and so they end up denying

certain types of realities because they

don't fit in to other types of realities

and they have a lot of problems in their

philosophy because of this whereas the

Muslims have always understood they

Shetty and how people are two very

important concepts in our tradition you

have a Sharia and you have a happy cow

if you look in the Mata beam Ematic

there's a hadith where Moses and Adam

have a debate and when Moses meets Adam

Musa and he said it meets on him he says

you're the one waitin s you you led us

astray right in other words it's your

fault that this whole mess has happened

and so he's talking that's that's the

the logic of Aristotle that's that's

where Moosa A&M; was working at that

level when he when he made that

statement it's like a judge in a court

case you broke the law and then there

were these repercussions right

Adam Adam his response was you know to

go from the Newtonian world into the

quantum world and he said your Moses

your Moussa you're the one that God

bestowed all this knowledge on and gave

you all this wisdom are you going to

blame me for something called arolea

cabinet and o'clock at ceremony you know

are you gonna blame me for something

that was decreed for me before I came

into existence and in another rewire

that's not an immortal the Prophet said

Adam defeated Moses

in the in the argument because he was

using another logic he wasn't using the

logic of the courtroom of the Sharia he

was using another logic and so that's

important for us when we go into this to

understand that this is the logic of the

Newtonian world it's not the logic of

the quantum world it's the logic of the

Newtonian world but it is the logic that

our Sharia is based on that every

rational system of law in the world is

based on when you go into a court of law

you are going into a court that relies

entirely on logical arguments and what

lawyers do is they argue now if the

judge or the jury is not trained in

logic then they're susceptible to

logical fallacies appeal to pity is a

type of soft supple appeal to pity so

they'll give a sob story that'll make

these people feel all this compassion

that's actually a logical fallacy to do

that now sometimes it's important but

that's not an argument to do that that's

not an argument that holds up against

these rigorous standards of

argumentation or they'll use other types

of fallacies poisoning the well is a

logical fallacy and if people aren't

trained to identify these arguments or

they'll say you know a therefore B but

it's a non sequitur it doesn't follow

but if somebody's not trained to see

that one of the great Crispus who was a

great early logician he said he noted

that even animals use logic because he

was walking once and he saw a rabbit

turn a corner and there was a three

roads and it went down a road and then a

hound was chasing it and it came around

and it couldn't see the rabbit any more

so it it sniffed the first road and then

went to the second sniffed a second and

without sniffing the third it just went

down the third so crucifix

derived from that that the dog was using

logic because it was either a B or C if

not a or B then C but it did it

intuitively and so this is the you know

this this is the study of logic it's why

it's important you cannot one of the the

the most important aspects of democracy

is that democracy is a type of

government that is saying that instead

of using might to impose our will we're

gonna use argument that we make cases so

you will have somebody will try to

legislate a law and he'll give arguments

and then those people listening to it

will either be convinced or not

convinced for instance if if they're

gonna go to war people will give

arguments if you remember in the United

States before the Iraqi war what did

they do they made all these arguments

for why they were gonna go to war why

because they're saying we have to use

reason but if people aren't trained in

analyzing arguments they can be

manipulated and fooled and tricked into

doing things that are dangerous and

harmful and destructive so that's why

it's very important to to know this so

that you can defend yourself against

those types of logical fallacies so now

we're going to go into the the ten

foundations in in our tradition and my

body and Ashura

are a member buddha in arabic is ism

makan it's it's a place where something

happens that muffin like muffin is

another form of it so you have like

masjid is a place of sujood Mata is a

place of Taba

it's the place

where you cook bah bahah means to cook

so whenever you see that pattern the

muffled pattern it's a place of

something it can also be time as well so

like most simmer mo lid the play mode it

could be the place or the time you were

born

so the molded in Mecca is where the

Prophet was born but the molded is also

the 12th of Rabi no.1 according to most

of the scholars so meba is the place

where you begin something the meb de but

that too I began Abdel Khun lo Imran

Reba

Lemieux Bobby B Smith laughs who were up

top every affair that is momentous or

weighty that does not begin with

bismillah is cut off of barakah so so we

begin things but that to the mugdha is a

starting place it also means the

principle now if you look at principle

it comes from a Latin word Principia

which means first right so it's also the

same idea the principles are those first

things the axioms the things that are

things are based upon predicated upon so

Sciences have our scholars identified 10

my body that students should always

begin their coursework and that for

those of you who have studied with me

over the years I've always tried to

begin my classes with my body and Ashura

and so this is a Mohammed Bernardo Seban

was great grammarian he's famous for a

commoner and the envy of even Malik he

versified there other ones Imam and

mockery also versified the tenma body

there are different versions of this but

this is a way of remembering them so in

them of adequately offend and Ashura the

Fen is an art it's what we call art the

art of logic pendulum on top innama body

could defend an Azshara I'll head to one

more guru from a samara so he's saying

that well I translate it down so I'll

just go through well father who when a

spittoon were well there

what is more esteemed a do

sharukh Massa Aaron well bar Doble

bardic tefa women Darryl jamia has a

shot of a-- so i versified this into

english each science contains these ten

elements the essence or definition

because definition is getting to the

essence of something the essence its

subject and benefits its virtue

relations and source its name once it

draws legal force add topics and all is

contained with mastery much honor is

gained

so that's stuff a doing most of so the

first is the definition a definition

comes in in in logic it comes from a

Tesla water you have to conceptualize

something in order to define it at AA so

water is to understand its form and when

we get into the formal call the causes

therefore causes so you have material

efficient formal and final these are the

four causes we'll get into this in

material logic the formal cause is the

surah in arabic it's called surah and 2

so water is to to get a the image of the

thing and in fact Aristotle called it

the phantasm the imago it's - it's to

get the image of a thing in your mind

and this is this is grasping you know

what we talked about

I haven't grasped it right grasp right

that the mind grasps things and and so

it's through the senses that we come to

know the world if anybody knows the

story of Helen Keller when when she was

a little girl she she became ill and she

was blind blinded she lost her sight she

lost her ability to hear and she lost

her ability to speak I completely cut

off from the world she became like a

animal in her

description by the time she was about

seven years old her father brought a

woman who was also blind brought her to

teacher Annie Sullivan and she couldn't

break through she couldn't get through

to her like - because she needed she

wanted to teach her language but she

needed to teach her symbols and the way

that she was doing it was with her hand

she would write things and then she

would take a thing and she would have

her feel it to grasp it cuz I mean

imagine you can't see you can't hear you

can't speak but she can feel she can

smell and she can taste so she doesn't

have all of her five senses two very

important ones which are the inroads of

knowledge in the summer what a boss

oughta work for ADA it's the ears and

the sight that allow users these are the

inroads of knowledge is how you come to

know things is through the eyes and the

ears she couldn't understand and she did

all these things to try to get her but

the breakthrough can't came with water

she was symbolizing in her hand a symbol

for water and she was pouring from the

pump she was pouring water in her hand

and if you read the description it's a

very powerful description of what

happens to her because she wrote her

autobiography and it's worth reading but

she's she's feeling the water and her

teacher is symbolizing in the hand and

then suddenly that the light went on she

understood that the symbol over here

that the what's called an artificial

sign in logic the the water right it's a

positive sign the this Delana Whataya

was the same as the the experience of

that cool liquid flowing on her hand she

got it and she understood that what's

interesting is she said suddenly her

entire interior changed she said a light

went off in her consciousness

what's interesting is that that night in

ends and Sullivan's Diaries she wrote I

saw a light coming to the face of Helen

today that's the light of consciousness

meaning penetrated her her intellect for

the first time she understood

abstraction she and that is what we do

we abstract this is this is the

incredible gift that God has given human

beings is the ability to symbolize too

abstract to understand abstraction signs

we are we are by our nature sign makers

and sign readers and this is why the

Quran calls it signs ayats in a fanatic

Allah ayats The Omen yet of a Quran

right this is this is what it's it's for

people that reflect on what things mean

what is the meaning of the sign and so

the HUD once you have a once you

comprehend something you have that

grasping you can then symbolize so she

had the water she grasped it okay I'm

getting that now she's got the symbol

for it right so that's the so she can

define now water water is that cool

liquid that is tasteless without smell

taste right doesn't have any or color so

we all know what water is we have a

simple apprehension of water how we

define it it's the basis of biological

life that's one definition

it's made of a hydrogen two hydrogen

atoms and one oxygen atom that's another

definition and that's coming from the

high love the definer because a chemist

will define it one way a biologist will

define it another way but they're

talking about the same thing based on

the perspective that they're looking

from so logic may be defined as quote

the art which directs the very act of

reason that which enables us to advance

with order ease and correctness in the

act of reason itself and that's from a

great Catholic logician Jacques Maritain

brilliant philosopher who died in 1973 a

little biographical note about him

that's kind of interesting when he was a

very young man he studied with Burks and

Bergson was a brilliant early twentieth

century philosopher but of that new

school of philosophy that was very

radical and abandoning traditional

philosophy and he was one of his

brilliant students and he he met a

Russian Jewish Russian lady Raisa they

were at the Sorbonne together and they

made it they fell in love and anyway

they made a pact that if they didn't

find the truth within a year that they'd

just commit suicide together a very

French thing to do but they discovered

st. Thomas Aquinas that year so he ended

up spending the rest of his life writing

commentaries on st. Thomas anyway

that's his definition of logic which is

not his but there are many but that's

his articulation of that and then as a

science this is from a Muslim text book

written in probably the 1840s 1850s by a

great scholar from fast as a science it

regulates the investigation of concepts

and proposition in ways that enable one

to arrive at a previously unknown

proposition another definition is the

science that enables us to conclude from

something that is known something that

was previously unknown so it's going

from what is known these are the first

two premises of the syllogism to the

conclusion which is what was unknown so

that's about it even at hazard feci and

then logic may be may be defined as the

science that directs our mental

operations and our mental operations are

three understanding judging and

reasoning these are the three acts of

the the mind when it's in a rational

state I mean there's obviously other

it's

but when we're communicating this is

this is what what we're doing so that

they proceed with order facility and

consistency toward the attainment of

truth the mental operations referred to

in this definition are the three basic

acts of the intellect namely conception

or simple apprehension judgment and

reasoning so that's from crach who's

another traditional logician the name is

the ISM so you give like you give

Sciences names and most schools today

what was formerly known as logic is now

called critical thinking critical

thinking is one branch of material logic

it's it's part of material logic but you

have formal logic and material logic

what they call the lesser or greater

logic the greater logic is material

logic lesser logic is formal logic

formal logic studies the formal rules of

reasoning and material logic looks at

the actual content of of what you're

reasoning about so critical thinking is

what logic has been reduced to in the

West in Arabic logic is known as montec

because it contains three meanings the

ability to speak the ability to

comprehend universals and we'll get into

that and the power of comprehension

itself Arabs chose this word month up

because logic strengthens the first the

ability to speak it makes your speaking

more orderly more clear more persuasive

enables the second in other words the

ability to comprehend universals because

you have to understand what a universal

is and we'll get into that and then to

the second to be more accurate and endow

spur fection on the third right so the

power of understanding imam al-ghazali

called it the touchstone of knowledge he

wrote five books on logic imam

al-ghazali he was a great logician he

said that he learned logic from from the

prophets because he studied the quranic

arguments and we'll get into that their

arguments but even tenia

wrote a book refuting the logicians or a

10-month Ophion and he said it down

Muhammad I know their anthem and Montauk

and yeah like in a note and I Muhammad

had been in Cena he said you know even

Tamia claimed he learned logic from the

prophets but the reality is he learned

it from even Xena

he called it neha kanava which means the

touchstone of knowledge and also the

criterion of knowledge she called it

Mary are a little more merrily in the

standard of knowledge it is also called

the key to knowledge mystical heirloom

it's also called the balance and muezzin

because the soundness of speech is

measured by it another name given to it

is the upright scale based on the

quranic verse imam al-ghazali actually

thought that this verse was revealed was

referring to using logic was Zeno Biswas

and Muslim so he called it a kiss toss

and Muslim it's the standard the upright

scales of knowledge aristotle refer to

it as analytics prior and posterior it's

also divided into major material logic

and minor formal logic depending upon

the subject matter formal logic covers

the validity or invalidity of the

syllogism forms syllogisms form and

structure while material logic covers

the actual content of the syllogism the

late 19th century witnessed the

emergence of symbolic or mathematical

logic for centuries until the 16th

century Francis Bacon introduced the the

new organ on which the organ on is the

six books of Aristotle that he wrote on

logic in our tradition even Sina wrote a

Shifa which basically was an Arab

ization

of the Hellenistic tradition because he

wanted to free Muslims from any

dependency on a foreign source so he

wrote the Shifa and and it's it's he

definitely added some things to

Aristotle's logic and he has his own

views about certain things but it's

essentially Aristotelian law

and then from that the metaphysical

components were removed largely by the

Sunni scholars and Imam al-ghazali

introduces it in the mostess part which

is his most important work on a solid

fill in the Mustafa he has a 40 page

introduction to the mostess foot which

is all logic so it's basically a primer

and he felt that the sudhi scholar a

jurist would have to have have some

knowledge of logic even tamiya argued

that the only form of logic that was

useful was analogical reasoning and he

did not he actually refutes deductive

reasoning in his book and argues that

inductive reasoning is really the only

type of logic that has any validity and

this is pretty much the argument of

Francis Bacon Aristotle does not deal a

lot with inductive reasoning he did not

consider it as important as deductive

reasoning and for a very simplistic

understanding of the two deductive

reasoning argues from universals to

particular Zand inductive goes from

particulars to universals so in in

inductive reasoning is scientific

reasoning it's looking at things out

there and then deriving conclusions from

looking at particulars deriving

Universal conclusions deductive

reasoning would be based on a type of

epistemology that is no longer deemed

important in the West but is the

foundation of Muslim Jewish and

Christian epistemology which is what

they call epistemological realism and

this is we believe in what's called

Motaba the correspondence theory of

truth that truth is what corresponds

with reality reality is something that's

intelligible which is metaphysical

realism

and you know just I'll say about this

Muslims today many Muslims around the

world are taught that philosophy is evil

and Muslims should never study

philosophy the reality of it is is that

we are all heavily influenced by

philosophy most of you who have gone to

Western schools have imbibed

a great deal of philosophy without

really understanding it or knowing how

it happened or why it happened and you'd

have to study the history of philosophy

to really understand how these these

ideas emerged as the dominant ideas but

if you do not philosophize somebody else

philosophizes for you it's as simple as

that and we are we are affected deeply

by philosophical constructs constantly

liberal capitalism free-market these are

all philosophical ideas there there are

economics has philosophy right

utilitarianism most of the ethics that

exist today in the West is and

increasingly in the Muslim world is

utilitarian ethics which is a

consequential it looks at the ends of

things Muslims never considered that a

basis for an ethical philosophy Muslims

always had virtue ethics at the heart of

their tradition virtue ethics looks at

the virtue of a thing and this is why

for instance abortion is a philosophical

problem and the if you read arguments

for or against abortion their

philosophical arguments if you read

arguments for or against same-sex

marriage their philosophical arguments

because law has philosophy the legal

philosophy of the Muslims is called a

solid fit it's legal philosophy it is

philosophy it's trying it's it's using

the intellect to think through problems

that's essentially what philosophy

is and so you're going to get it whether

you like it or not whatever you call it

it doesn't really matter it's it's it's

basically thinking and learning how to

think and that's why that this science

was the foundation of it and this idea

that Imam al-ghazali somehow killed this

from the Muslim tradition is a great

slander on him because he was a great

philosophical thinker even Tamiya was a

philosopher and if you read his his

books you'll see he's making

philosophical arguments so it's

important for educated Muslims to

understand that not everybody has to

study this and not everybody should

study it but it's important that people

in your society study it and in an

educated society it's important that

everybody has some degree of working

knowledge with this this should be

primary education traditionally in

Muslim societies this was taught at the

high school level it's not advanced it

wasn't considered Advanced Studies at

all if you read it in a show if a Nasser

uses logic based on ohm at Abilene which

was a text taught to 12 year olds 13

year olds and he's using syllogisms and

logic should not be introduced in the

pre logical period so a child really

should not be introduced to logic until

they reach about 12 or 13 that's

important so anyway that those are the

names mathematical or symbolic logic

emerges in 1913 a very important work

principia mathematica was published by

Lord Whit