The Praised One (SAW) in World Scriptures by Hamza Yusuf

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preserve all of you in this time of tribulation these days of plague allah inshallah restore
health and well-being to our globe to our community to humanity at large our prophet sallallahu isaac
we only sent you as a mercy to all the world so our prophet sam was a mercy to all of the
different kingdoms to the animal kingdom the plant kingdom and certainly the mineral kingdom
even the rocks rejoiced the mountains of paran rejoiced with his coming so alhamdulillah
i want to first of all we had a wonderful event on the 12th of we actually had 12 000
uh people online according to our numbers which was pretty remarkable given that we were hoping
to promote the 12 000 campaign but i would like to really really thank the over 300 people
that joined us in that campaign so may allah bless you increase you elevate you
and allah subhan with inshallah multiply all of your gifts and charities uh manifold in
this world and in the next inshallah the prophet salallahu said that charity does not diminish
uh wealth so when you when you give out it doesn't diminish well so thank all of you and as you know
we're living in times of inflation our wealth just diminishes by holding on to it um the inflation
now is estimated to be over five percent but it's probably higher than many things that we we can see out there and for those of you who know about the economics the consumer price index is uh
is one thing but what they call the producers price index is another and it's it's uh it's very very high in many many areas so it's a good time to give charity while the monies has more value
than it will have next week or the week after so may allah bless all of you we're going to re-air
this program i don't think i could do it again there was a lot of blessing that night we all felt
it in the room so i would not try to replicate what uh what we all experienced um i i really felt
just um i i actually had some insights during the actual uh broadcast so i saw some things
that i hadn't seen before and you might notice in my in a kind of flash in my eyes at certain
points but i there's a few things that i would like to say and i'm deliberating about making
this available part of the problem that i have is that i give talks that are talks that each part
is a part of a whole and there's a lot of people that take talks and and segment them and then
put put titles that i would never use some of it's click bait what they call click bait but
some of it just doesn't apply to the talk at all and unfortunately some people are doing that i think with good intentions other people are monetizing and this is part of the
the time we're living in with the the internet as it is but i would really appreciate that people
not uh record this that they uh not segment it and put clips up
on the internet it's it's a long talk there are a lot of slides in it
it's it's an argument and i believe it's uh clear and convincing convincing evidence
and there's a segment on evidence and the nature of evidence but i really do feel like
people that are open-minded and fair-minded do this and i would i just want again to reiterate
that all of these world religions are great gifts to humanity they give our our our species great
solace but they also are double-edged swords they often unfortunately are misused abused and end up
creating a lot of suffering and so the best of religion is is something that should be honored in
every religion and the worst irrespective of the people practicing it it should be condemned for
what it is just bad and abusive religion and and i'll just conclude by i was once on a panel with
jonathan uh hate who is a very highly regarded um psychiatrist uh psychologist and he wrote a book
called the righteous mind uh about just the nature of um the way our intellects work and um he has
quite a bit on religion in the book but the things he talked about while living in india was seeing the you know how he could really see the the best aspects of religion the worst aspects of religion
and afterwards i i had a private conversation with him and i just mentioned to him that every
religious tradition has an ideal and what is really i think quite stunning about all of
these religious traditions is that their ideal is a human being that really has a type of universal
compassion so you have the in hinduism you have this sunnyasi in judaism you have the zadek in in
buddhism you have the bodhisattva in christianity you have the saint and in islam you have the saleh
or the wali and and and the hallmark of of all of these individuals from these different religions
is that they have a a compassion for humanity and so whenever religion whenever
compassion is absent from a religion i don't believe it's from god and that's why i think
we should all be as muslims really rejoice in the fact that our book begins bismillah
in the name of god the most merciful the most compassionate and that he sends as his final messenger to our species the mercy to all the worlds
so i hope you benefit from this and i hope you support the 12000k may allah reward all of you
obamacare
i hope everyone is well in these trying times on many many fronts but
today is a day of celebration we can't ever forget that while the world is filled with
suffering it's also filled with the overcoming of suffering and so it's really important for us
to celebrate despite the fact that there are so many people in tribulation and trials but
there are things to celebrate in this world and certainly for us as muslims the thing that we should celebrate more than any other is guidance and that guidance comes from
one source which is our lord but our lord chose to use as a means for that guidance his beloved
prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi so we're here to celebrate this prophet salallahu and so
i'd like to talk inshaallah about the praise one in world scriptures i think a lot of muslims uh are unaware that one of the unique aspects of our prophet sallallahu
is that he was actually mentioned according to the quran in the previous dispensations
we also are unique i think amongst the world religions in that we acknowledge
all the previous prophets the ones we know and the ones we don't know so this is something
that allah has given this ummah allah commanded his prophet to say amen
so this is an extraordinary verse saying that the prophets come and say i believe in allah
who and what he has revealed to us and what he revealed to abraham and to ismail ishmael and to
isaac and to jacob and to the children of israel and and what was given to moses and what was given
to jesus and the prophets from their lord so he mentions all those prophets but then he says that
we're told to believe also in these nebun these other prophets and and then not to differentiate
between them even though there are degrees amongst them all of them are from the same source
and so they're honored in the same way so for instance you have your father and your uncle your father is obviously privileged over your uncle but you still honor your uncle you don't separate
between them in that sense of honor towards them so these are all prophets from god and so this is
where we're going to inshallah begin and look at so i want to talk about
the fact that this aspect of the prophet is extraordinary
we were we only sent you we sent you only as a mercy to all the worlds so
this is in surat al-anbiya it's in the chapter of the prophets and this is what is
unique about our prophet sallallahu isaac he said i was given five things that no one was given
before me every prophet before me was sent to his people specifically and i was sent to he says
to every whites or red and black person so some say imam now he said the blacks are the arabs
and the and the the red are the non-arabs and some say it's it's the other way around but the important thing is it's i was sent to all peoples the arabs and the non-arabs
and then he said sallallahu alaihi that the whole earth is a a place of worship so the entire earth
is sacred in that he's been given the earth as a place of worship and its soil as a source of
purification this is extraordinary especially in light of the environmental age and then he said
absolutely that he was also given the shaffa so this is the intercession which
we'll get into later now in another verse allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says
that we took a covenant allah took a covenant with the with all the prophets this is all the prophets
that you were given a book and wisdom so there's always the book and then the wisdom with it
and then a messenger comes to you
that he is affirming what went before so our prophet affirmed all of the previous dispensations
that you will believe in him and you will give victory to him you will help him
and then allah asks do you accept this
do you are you bound to this so this is the covenant and they said we confirm it
and god said then bear witness and i am with you among the witnesses so any who turn backs after that are deviants so this is in in the the imran
opinion about what that covenant is but ibrahimovic said uh
was sent from adam until all the prophets except a covenant was taken
that he has to believe in him if any prophet reaches the prophet muhammad so this was but
it was also a covenant that they were told to tell their peoples that there will be a final
prophet so every group was told that there will be a final prophet there is no prophet that came to
this planet that did not tell them about the last prophet so the prophet is the only prophet who
was mentioned in all previous dispensations both written and oral this is unique to our prophet no
other this this is our belief and so it's really important because i want to say that this is not a
that we shouldn't in any arrogant sense we we should actually be humbled by this and and in
no way should we look at these other traditions with any denigration and i'll get to that later
but it's really important so i'm going to if there are there are people from other religions watching
this i am in no way advocating that muslims see this as some kind of triumphalist supremacist
approach no this is in order for us to understand what we have beginned as
believers like we believe this and i'll get into this deeper so allah subhanahu wa says
so this is what we're told do you want a religion other than the religion when everything in
the heavens and the earth has submitted to god willingly or unwillingly we're all in submission
like gerte said if living and dying and submission is islam then we all in islam live and die
the fact that we we the way we breathe we have to breathe the way we breathe the way we walk there are so many things that we are in submission to and we we don't think about
these things so so these are the the signs that allah has given and then allah tells us
we sent you as a herald a giver of good news and a warner because every prophet has to give good news but they also have to warn what happens if you don't follow the good news
and there's no ummah that has not been given a warner a prophet every ummah every people has been
given a prophet and then those who disbelieved they said to the prophet lester you weren't sent
those who scoff they say you are not an envoy you're not a messenger you're not sent god is sufficient witness between me and you and those who have knowledge of the book so here are
the shawahit these are called testimonies so allah is saying in this verse that he testifies
between the prophet is told to say to them god is my evidence and the previous book
so here's the evidence so just a quick summary of the types of evidence so you have what's called
a preponderance of evidence that's like a civil suit so some of the legal jurors say it is like 51
so these are in civil cases and then you have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt those are
in criminal cases so for instance just giving a quick example o.j simpson was found not guilty
in the murder of his wife and the other person that was with her that was in the criminal case
because it was they his trial lawyers who were very good they put reasonable doubt into their
minds but in the civil case o.j simpson lost for wrongful death so the family sued him for
wrongful death so they had the preponderance of evidence in the civil case so he actually had to pay damages to the family for the for the murder so it's basically saying we think you murdered
but there is a little bit of doubt so uh that's the example of the difference but there's a really
interesting third type of evidence which is clear and convincing evidence and this is the evidence
that is often in cases that involve wills and testimonies so this is a higher standard than
preponderance of evidence but a lower standard than beyond a reasonable and i am convinced that this is the evidence that god has given people for belief in him and for belief in his messengers
and his books it's not beyond a reasonable doubt because then there would be no meaning to faith and it's not a preponderance of evidence because it's just two but it's clear and
convincing evidence it's it should convince you and that's what that's where you get that that
feeling i believe this and i believe it's true but you just have to wait till the afterlife so
worship your lord until beyond a reasonable doubt comes to you which is your death so now just to look at the world religions the oldest religion is that we have and there are ancient
religions recently there was this amazing temple discovered in turkey so humans are homo religiosis
we are religious creatures by nature but the oldest religion that we have is hinduism and
it's more than 2 500 years old it is an ancient religion judaism is another ancient religion then
there's zoroastrianism buddhism is some say it was actually a hindu reformist movement so buddha was
in essence came out of hinduism and tried to reform hinduism he opposed the caste system
and tried to make changes within hinduism and then you have christianity and the
last and the youngest of the world's religions although muslims would argue
all of these previous dispensations were forms of islam because the religion with god is submission
to allah so the difference between these previous religions so if you look at hinduism
hinduism it's actually you're born into hinduism so you have the brahman and the kashiya and the
vaisya and then you have the and then you have the dalit people that are the untouchables so you're actually born into this there are converts to hinduism but it's really a religion this is
unfortunately what some fanatical people believe that india which is hind is only for the hindus
but muslims are also they're from india so and then you have judaism which is essentially
a tribal religion it's it's a religion of bani israel and and even though their that bani israel
was also taught to know hidak laws they they don't proselytize to other people and in fact
the rabbis traditionally were encouraged to to discourage people to become a jew
and then zoroastrian zoroastrianism is the religion that was found uh in what is now iran
and then buddhism arguably becomes a proselytizing religion like the last three religions are more
universal proselytizing religions um although it's arguable that christianity that christ himself
was only sent to the lost sheep of the tribe of israel if you take the ebionic the ebionites and
the other jewish christians who believe that you actually had to follow judaism to be a christian
so the first reason i want to look at is hinduism and the hindu hinduism i believe and and many of our scholars believe this that hinduism
is a revealed religion there are no great world religions that could not have come from god
because it's just not possible that by their fruits you shall know them it's not possible to see these incredible civilizations without seeing that
that god is behind them
sorry sorry just i'm just thinking about
these problems in india right now
kashmir
so these are the these are the the revealed books the shiroti and in their tradition the rig veda
the sama veda the ajurveda and atharveda these are the four uh great revealed books
el biruni the great muslim scholar he was a great chapter scholar he's a great historian he actually
learned sanskrit he sat with the hindu pendants he studied them and then he wrote one of the most
extraordinary books on comparative religion one of the things that he said in that book which is so
stunning is he said i shall not produce the arguments of our antagonists in order to refute them of such as i believe to be in the wrong my book is nothing but a simple historical
record of facts i shall place before the reader the theories of the hindus exactly as they are and i shall mention in connection with them similar theories of the greeks in order to show
the relation existing between them so he actually was saying i want to be completely objective
but what he sees he he differentiated between educated hindus and uneducated
hindus he said that educated hindus were clearly monotheists so this is really important for i think muslims to understand the yajur veda says god is imageless and pure
the rig veda the brahma sutra says akam brahma there's only one god truth is one
so is the prophet mentioned in the vedas the veda there's something in hinduism called the
avatar which is one sent down now currently most hindus believe the avatar is really an incarnation
of vishnu but they have a concept of the and team avatar which is the last one to come the last one
that will be sent and they come when things are going wrong so the last messenger is known uh
in in actually in the veronas as uh yeah in the vedas as narashansa
which is not as human so it means that he's not a diva he's not uh this uh demigod but
and then assange is praised so it's the praised human and then is the prophet mentioned in
puranas many muslim scholars actually who studied hinduism thought he was some
of them argued that he was the kalki avatar who comes in the kali yuga period which is the last
cycle it's the age of darkness and strife even though in hinduism they believe that these recur
but this age of darkness and strife is the age of fitnah and in the in the mahabharata it says the
rulers become unreasonable taxes levied unfairly they no longer promote spirituali