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