and I think the the poor white
people in
this culture are also
disenfranchised
from a type of normative or
conventional
language and I and I think it's
very
disempowering to do that
of course when I was at school
grammar
school I was I came from a poor
background right you know and
we were
our teachers as their first
instinct
when they found that you were
in some
way handicapped by your the the
language
that you'd learn from your
parents was
to take you in hand give you
the
advantage which were family had
not so
that you could catch up with
the others
right and I think that's that
idea of
teaching that you that you're
actually
lifting people up so as to be
able to
receive their inheritance that
idea has
gone to a great extent it's
much more
now that the teacher comes down
to the
level of the students exactly
and this
is and this big male Ian's a
good
example of that because because
Shaw in
Shaw's Pygmalion and and it
obviously
there's a lot of irony and
sarcasm in
that but the idea of the flower
girl who
speaks non-standard English
wanting to
speak like a lady to speak
proper as a
way of upward mobility yes and
and and
one of the things that Toynbee
points
out is that a civilization on
its way
out
inverts that so there's a
vulgar ization
of the patrician class where
they begin
to speak in vanities in
profanity and
and become unfortunately that
is so yeah
but yeah I think we mustn't be
too
pessimistic about everything
okay I mean
you all roll that
you are someone who's found in
Islam
something which gives him the
foundation
that he needs in order to
confront this
gradual degeneration of things
all
around and I respect that you
want if
one can find that foundation
one can
then start building again - to
recapture
those things which are
jeopardized by
the laxness of our of modern
society and
I think you've got to be
optimistic
about that you've got to think
that you
can recapture these things
otherwise you
know what what are you doing as
a
teacher you know that's yeah it
depends
on what day it is okay they
yeah the
Arabs have a famous story about
a king
who had a positive day and a
negative
day William what that so I mean
some
days I look out there and it's
so
overwhelming you know that
what's
happened I think you I mean
we're old
enough you're a little ahead of
me but
we're both old enough to know
how
different the world that we
grew up in
is today and it's quite
devastating in a
lot of ways my mother who was
96 when
she passed I said to her she
she when
she was born there was an
ottoman Calif
in 1921 right and and and I
asked her
and she was extremely liberal
and and I
was raised with with a lot of
liberal
sensibilities my father was
very
conservative but so I got both
sides and
it was very interesting to see
those
those two views and and how
powerful
each one is in its own way but
when I
asked her once just what what
do you
think is the worst thing about
what's
happening that she said manners
yes just
manners and and one of the
there's a
French I can't remember his
name but
there was a French ethicist who
wrote a
book on virtues about 15 years
ago is
that yeah yeah compt I think it
was
called the book of virtues
that's right
and the first virtue he had in
there was
courtesy yes and and one of the
foundational virtues of the
Islamic
civilization is EDA and
and which means comportment it
means
decorum
it means courtesy but it also
means
literature exactly so the idea
is is is
a the edebe is somebody who has
absorbed
the humanities yes well that
the habits
of proper dialogue and I mean
that
that's all that is very
interesting of
course you living here in Berkeley
you know only you only have to
look out
of the window to see how far
things can
be Klein you know I look out of
my
window onto the English
countryside
right and mostly horses whose
whose
manners remained constant from
generation to generation but go
ahead
yeah but you know Berkeley is
famous for
being the pioneer in degeneracy
but
whatever form and maybe one
should you
know the very fact that you can
plant
your institution here and still
not only
recruit people but also create
this kind
of atmosphere of of peace and
and
goodwill in the middle of all
this and
suggest that you know that that
Berkeley
style degeneracy is perhaps not
more
than skin-deep and yeah well
can I say
something in defense of
Berkeley yeah
yeah of being here
I found the the the people here
are
they're very welcoming people
in and and
there's there and this is where
I really
try to avoid and maybe it's my
mother
and my father's influence on me
have
just seen both sides I really
try to
avoid Manichean type of
worldviews and
and I think you know that this
Dionysian
impulse that that's clearly
there in us
as a species and the Apollonian
this
idea of order as opposed to
this kind of
chaotic ex ecstatic type of
being and I
think one of the things in our
tradition
in the Islamic tradition was
very
interesting to me is they have
this
concept of what they call the
mush dupes
Alec who's the the the the goal
you know
in the spiritual tradition of
Islam is
be inwardly in a state of
ecstasy but
outwardly in a state of
sobriety and so
there's this this very
interesting
Dionysian Apollonian balance
that's it
that's actually taking place
and I think
one of the things that happens
in a
culture that that loses the
ability to
experience internal ecstasy
like to you
know where this mean comes from
the soul
I mean I'll give you an example
there
there's a there's a a I
recently I've
been reading a book called
video
accuracy which is about viral
videos
online and and there was a
video that
went viral by this guy named
bear
Vasquez and it was him seeing a
double
rainbow outside of his house
and he's
just in a state of just awe and
then he
starts crying he breaks down
and just
starts crying and and he's
asking what
does this mean and and there's
something
very powerful about that is
such an
appropriate response to a
double rainbow
and I think whatever happened
it
resonated in a lot of people
what he was
seeing I think we our culture
no longer
gives people vehicles for the
experience
of joy now that's a really
important
point pleasure has driven out
joy
exactly yeah because Roy is
essentially
something comes in or deep
social nature
from your need for others and
you'll
need to give to others yes and
I think
that I've often you know the
problem is
we're agreeing about too much
but I see
this in the change in patterns
of
dancing the dancing that that I
love
like Scottish country dancing
and you
know formation dancing I had to
do Greek
dancing exactly that they are
full of
joy because they are ways of
relating to
others forgetting about your in
your
appetites just being with
whereas modern
you know head bashes it's some
of Cystic
its own sister narcissistic and
narcissism is joyless it
because it
concentrates only on what can
be
received and not often be good
well the
other thing was fascinating to
about
about
because I thought about
duplicate with
Lebanese dancing Syrian dancing
which is
very similar to Greek dancing
and one of
the things about that type of
dancing is
that there's a formalism that's
very
rigid but within that formalism
once you
master it you're allowed to
improvise
and do certain things there's a
freedom
that comes and there was
something that
my father used to always say
about the
liberal arts is that the
purpose was
this immense discipline that
set you
free that that through that
structure
and discipline you actually
become free
and I think we this conflation
of
freedom with licentiousness and
freedom
with do what thou will the the
kind of
the thelema you know the abbey
of
Thelema this idea that that we
can just
simply do what we we want and
that's how
we're gonna find happiness yeah
you're
absolutely right that there
there's a
false idea of freedom which
took over
the world in the sixties in a
way with
the baby boomers we don't know
quite why
but it this idea that freedom
means that
the absence of control yeah
rather Vader
would say it was a change sorry
the
absence of control rather than
rather
than an order in the soul right
you know
my ideal of freedom is
something like
box art of fugue in which every
note is
necessary but every note is
totally free
you know that that idea that
there is a
an order which reveals itself
through
free gestures that's really
what you are
saying about those old
Mediterranean
style of styles of dance yes I
think
it's also rhetoric was like
that I mean
Shakespeare
Miriam Joseph wrote a
dissertation
Shakespeare in the arts of
language
where she proved that he had
mastered
all of these rhetorical
treatises of of
his of his time and and knew
over 200
tropes and and and schemes it's
amazing
that and and often borrowing
from the
very text that he that he had
mastered
so the artifice which used to
be a kind
of positive term in
in in in the past this idea of
craft
yeah of a real craftsmanship
and I think
the two areas where we still
see it in
our culture to a certain degree
I mean
popular music is is is very
troubling
and in a lot of ways but I
think you
still see it in in music and
sports
athletics you see it in jazz
improvisation yes yes
which which doesn't make sense
at all
until you've mastered the chord
sequencing right and can hear
the hidden
melody in the improvisation yes
so in in
in in in sports people go to
these
stadiums or they watch on
television
what they're waiting for is
that magical
moment you know the triple play
in
baseball I don't know what they
have the
equivalent in cricket is I
think
pitching something for six but
but
there's a moment where and
people look
at each other as if they've
just
witnessed a miracle or
something but
that that can only happen
because of an
immense discipline that
occurred and and
and we've lost that we've lost
that in
so many other areas of being
human but
again we can get it back where
we got to
be we have got to be optimistic
about
this well we for us for in our
tradition
it's it's considered an
obligation to be
hopeful yes well of course
likewise for Christians faith
open
charity of every fundamental
values
meaning by charity love certain
kind of
love yes but that's another
problem that
that idea of love has become so
corrupted well it's you know
it's the
grease and that nice
distinction yeah
between agape and eros and all
the other
sorts of love to Arabs do that
as well
yeah Arabs have ten different
types of
love all right the highest been
cuddler
right the lowest being ish
which is well
actually it's yet desire yeah
euros yeah
but is still quite a good it's
a
beautiful thing yeah and it's
it's
related to this cognitive
another word
which is see
mmm that love is something that
is
nurtured and and Rose because
hub is
seed
yeah and hub is love right yeah
you know
one of the things that that
that the the
traditional world ICS Lewis
talks about
this but one of the things that
the
traditional world really
understood was
the wheel of fortune which has
really
been removed from from our
culture this
idea that that there is this
cycle yeah
and and you're talking about
optimism
when you're down at six o'clock
which in
the wheel was traditionally the
corresponding emotion was was
despair
yeah right so nine o'clock was
hope
right twelve o'clock joy and
then three
o'clock was fear yeah but that
you know
Bowie theus in that the
consolation of
philosophy that second chapter
where he
talks about this you know this
this
wheel of fortune and and our
culture is
you know it doesn't allow for
that that
recognize because it doesn't it
doesn't
allow for the idea that
ultimately we
must be reconciled to things
rather
because there's always going to
be it's
always going to be someone
else's fault
right if you're in trouble and
it's
always gonna be the case that
that
someone's going to step in and
give you
what you need I mean what what
brought
my attention to that was there
was hope
you know how does because the
in in in
the in the Islamic tradition
the way to
get out of the wheel was to get
into the
hub right yeah you know to to
get out of
the yes so you're not spinning
you're
not spinning anymore that
things around
you can can happen the still
pointing
turning world is to said it
says yeah
yeah well you know one of the
things in
in trying to revive a
civilization is
Islam
Toynbee talks about a
civilization with
its back up against the wall
and and he
says that there's different
responses to
that one of them is what he
called to
her
in response and and I think you
see that
in in places like Malaysia and
and other
Muslim cultures where Morocco
is a good
example of that of just
recognizing
we've lost sovereignty we have
to live
in the world and let's do our
best but
then he says there's the
zealots who
refused to accept it's kind of
the
Masada complex where where
where instead
of trying to grapple with
what's
happening they end up just
reacting
against it and and and and
fighting it
even to the death so it becomes
a kind
of knee allistic response to to
a crisis
of civilization but then he
talked about
the Pharisees the kind of
Benedict
option yeah which is to to try
to
preserve getting back to
conservation to
try to preserve the best of a
civilization I think what one
of the
things that I'm trying to do
and that
we're trying to do here at
Zaytuna we
have a an extraordinary
civilizational
tradition in in both the west
and in the
Muslim world and Muslims living
in the
West are very often unaware of
how
powerful Western civilization
and the
idea is that many of them I
mean I in a
lot of ways the modern world to
me as a
Christian heresy because many
of these
extraordinary ideas the rights
of man
you know the idea that
everybody should
be free you know the use of
byproducts
of the Christian life yeah and
and and
Locke and Hume all these people
they
were informed by Christianity
so their
ideas didn't simply come out of
some
kind of philosophical vacuum
that these
were people that were in
societies that
were deeply dyed-in-the-wool
Christian
societies but yeah one of the
questions
that people we in Europe in
particular
have is what happened to
Islamic
civilization in the Middle East
you know
we you know those of us who
study these
things to do recognized that there
was
an incredible and inheritance
of
philosophy law literature and
then
suddenly nothing yeah and now
you go to
the Middle East era of course
you meet
there
people there very very few and
far
between yin and the and nobody
seems to
be concerned to teach this and
when you
get the radical movements like
Isis it's
not the knowledge and beauty of
Islam
that appeals to them but rather
the the
ease with which it can justify
their
murderous rage sure you know
and that's
something which I feel not
enough is
said about this and in
particular we we
need Muslims to speak out about
this and
say look you guys Islam is not
about
justifying these primitive
emotions of
not belonging you have it's
about
something else it's about an
inheritance
I don't know whether you feel
the same
about that well I mean I would
say first
of all one at one of the things
that
stable Muslim societies despite
the the
the the political problems
despotism is
certainly a problem in many
parts of the
Muslim world but stable Muslim
societies
what struck me and I lived in
in several
Muslim countries for many years
I was
over ten years in the Muslim
world what
struck me actually was just the
incredible goodness of so many
Muslims I
mean I really I found the
generosity the
hospitality the incredible the
eccentric
worldview that informs them and
the
ability to withstand incredible
suffering I mean I'll give you
an
example when I when I was in
West Africa
I I was trained as a nurse so
when I
when I when I was in and I
lived in West
Africa when I was in West
Africa
I went with a physician and we
would see
patients and one of the things
that was
so amazing was people would
tell their
symptoms but they would they
would
always preface it by saying I'm
not
complaining hmm I'm just you
asked me
what I'm feeling so I just want
I want
you to know I'm not complaining
and then
they would just say ahem duty
let you
know praise be to God and
because they
really were afraid of
complaining just
the gratitude was so so
powerfully
embedded in a lot of these
traditional
cultures ice I literally saw
Morocco
when I first went to Morocco in
1977 on
more than one occasion if they
saw bread
they would pick it up and put
it on
their forehead and then put it
in a in a
high place you know and Ezra
Pound has a
wonderful statement he says
that I he
said I don't know what power
exploded in
the seventh century of Arabia
that
spread to the libraries of
cordoba but I
got a glimpse of it in the way
the more
walked in 1913 in Tangier and
and and to
me there's I loved so much
about the
Muslim world and there's so
many things
that I see in the Muslim world
that that
when I come back to the west I
I really
get a bit depressed yeah what
are you
you're talking about piety and
its
widest sense exactly a sense
that your
gestures your words your way of
being
towards others all fit into a
kind of a
pattern which is not just you
but also
is informed by courtesy as well
as
obedience and I just saw so
many
examples of that yeah I'll give
I'll
give you just one I was we were
on a
trip in the Sahara and our in
our car
got stuck and and we had to
seek refuge
in a in a Bedouin there was
some Bedouin
staying there and it was
incredibly
windy night and they literally
sacrificed a lamb for us they
cooked it
they fed us and and and these
are
incredibly poor people and and
then we
went to sleep and and because
there was
so much wind the man was
holding up the
the central pillar of the tent
so they
didn't collapse when we woke up
about
four hours later he was still
there
holding it and and and I was
with an
Englishman who just said to me
did he
stay up the whole night do it
and I said
yeah he did and and I just saw
so many
examples of that and that's of
course is
that that Bedouin hospitality
that the
sense that the stranger is more
important than you that is
something
which is it not only is Lama
his part of
the desert way of life
no I agree and I think many
traditional
I would say I would argue that
if you go
to Mexican villages you're very
similar
and it's something about
traditional
cultures right this breeze that
but I
think Islam definitely
inculcates that
in its followers when it's
practiced
properly now as to your
question what
happened I think the same could
be asked
about the West because I mean
if I look
at what's happened to family if
I look
at at the fact that pornography
is is
the main entertainment medium
now in in
the West I mean it's quite
incredible
the the industry of which you
and I are
very familiar with just from
that that
what we happened to be a part
of it the
Witherspoon but I think two
things
happened that that are tragic
in the
Islamic tradition one is
somebody like
Al Farabi who was ignored or
Aveiro is
is another example of that that
the the
the influence of a kind of
eastern
despotism which was actually
very alien
to the Arabs the Arabs were far
more
democratic so the prophets
Eliza damned
I mean there's a chapter in the
Quran
called Shora
chapter 42 which is mutual
consultation
and and and so the idea of
having a type
of parliamentarian government
would have
been very natural to the Arabs
because
that's the way they tended to
it was
more like a thei nian democracy
in a lot
of ways in fact when I took my
teacher
share Abdullah bin baya to the
Parliament in England he was
very struck
by the House of Lords he really
liked
the idea of having what in in
in the
Arabic version are called a
little
Hollywood happened the people
that can
unravel and and put back
together again
and these are like notables in
a culture
that have a lot of life
experience and
so they have a wisdom that they
can help
guide a society he was very
struck by
that but but he he and this is
something
you bring up I mean he felt
that a
parliamentarian government
would be
perfectly consonant with an
Islamic now
way of ruling that there isn't
really
any fixed type of Islamic rule
and I
think what happened in the
Muslim world
is despotism a kind of of an
Eastern
despotism became a model and
and I think
it really stifled a lot of the
incredible intellectual and
spiritual
growth that occurred in the
early part
of the song it was also the
collapse of
the Ottoman Empire wasn't it
the well I
mean that was a huge yeah yeah
which led
to the new kind of kind of
criminal
apparatus that advanced through
the bath
party and things like that take
out take
over this ripe fruit and but
yes I mean
politically obviously things
went
terribly wrong but what was
always
concerned me is the cultural
aspect
where where is that you know
what has
happened to the the great universities
and where do we find a proper
articulate
discussions in literary form
and all the
things that actually and the
Islamic
civilization really needs I
mean well
that's what we're trying to do
here yes
we and and I think there are
people
within the Muslim culture I
mean I have
friends in in Turkey that are
trying to
do the same thing and I and and
they're
there are attempts but again if
you if
you look at at the the Muslim
world has
been hard hit for several
hundred years
I mean there's been a continued
there's
an argument now among certain
Orientalist tradition about
that there
wasn't a kind of stagnation or
ossification which I think to
me is
absurd I mean I can clearly see
that
that the the incredible
interest in
science and technology in in in
early
Islam was amazing and and I
mean if
there was a Nobel Prize a
thousand years
ago it's been said every name
on the
list would have been Muslim so
so that's
something that I think we as a
as a
religious tradition and Ummah
that we
have to think deeply about and
and I think it's very important
I mean
we called our journal Renovatio
or tis
deed in Arabic which is to make
new
again to renovate the idea and
this is I
think a very conservative idea
the idea
that the house is there and
instead of
tearing it down and rebuilding
a house
if it's a beautiful house with
with with
a solid foundation we need to
renovate
it to make it new again
absolutely
well it's that's the same task
that we
have in the West but of course
there is
we have the freedom to do it
that's the
important thing that many
people worry
about about the Muslim world do
people
have the freedom to do what do
you want
to do well I think you're
certainly
doing your role in in promoting
the idea
of conserving the best of the
past my
last question to you one of the
things
that troubles me most about a
lot of
attacks on conservativism is
the idea
that the best of progressivism
like the
elimination of slavery the the
the the
idea of getting rid of racism
as you
know the this this idea of
somehow that
there can be ethnically Pirie
or 'ti of
one people over now I believe
that there
there are civilizational
aspects that
are certainly I think I would
much
rather have freedom in than
despotism
and this idea that we can
relativize
these type things is wrong but
the idea
that one group of people is
better than
another group is a very
audience idea I
think to anybody that has
thought deeply
about that problem but this
idea that
conservativism is conserving
the worst
of the past as opposed to the
best and
and is not also acknowledging
the idea
that there are things that have
to
change and then it becomes what
are the
strategies to bring about that
change
that that are going to go I
would say as
I understand it of course human
beings
are imperfect that's the whole
reason
why they need institutions in
order to
mediate between them and
overcome
conflict without violence you
know
but we have inherited those
sort of
institutions institutions that
enable us
to rectify problems and make
things
better we're never going to
make them
perfect but that's why we what
we should
be conserving there is
procedures the
things that that enable us to
relate to
each other in a humane and
civilized way
and that's that for me is what
it's all
about
all right well on that note I
want to
thank you just for coming out
and
gracing us with your
intelligence and
and and you've been supporting
our our
work with the journal the
Renovatio I
hope you're some of the people
that
enjoy reading yours will also
benefit
from from our journal I surely
will yeah
maybe you could give a little
plug yeah
I will definitely I think
cytuno is one
of the points of hope in the
world in
which we live now well thank
you all
right well god bless you and
and thank
you and I'm going to look
forward to a
continued discussion
[Music]
you
From
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iawSzFZg-vw>