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>