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>