Hamza Yusuf – The Jewels of the Qur’an #01
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of continuing education in the spiritual path, including the use of email and the book of Islam. They also discuss the history of the Shia's name, including his birthplace, father, mother, and sister. The importance of "immediate knowledge" and the concept of "immediate knowledge" is discussed, as well as the importance of mitigating risks and protecting Islam. The segment also touches on the controversial topic of the Marelly Fox and Zadie project, as well as the importance of morality and ethics in one's life.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah R Rahman Rahim Allah Allah Allah see the no Mohammed what an earlier Saturday we'll send him to steam and Kira Alhamdulillah salaam alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh who was Ramadan Mubarak to everyone out there Al Hamdulillah I'm going to start a short course on the great email metaphyseal is Jawahar Quran I have some preliminary
things that I want to cover before I actually go into the book itself but Alhamdulillah inshallah, it's going to be very interesting I hope and May Allah subhanho wa Taala give all of you tofik May Allah bless your Ramadan may inshallah Allah increase all of you give you lots of openings, this is the month of returning to the book of Allah subhanho wa Taala for those who have neglected it, for increasing our recitation of it for those who have been reciting it throughout the year, and for delving into deeper understandings of the book of Allah. So in essence that Ramadan is like a continuing education. If you're a physician, or a lawyer, or anybody that's in a vocational field, a
dentist, then you have to do what are called continuing education courses, so that you keep your skills upgraded, and you constantly honing your craft. Well, the spiritual path is actually far more serious than those aspects. And so it's really important for us to, to really re ignite reconnect to the book of Allah subhanho wa Taala, which is the foundation of our faith. And then following that, obviously, the sooner of our prophesized him and then not just his verbal or oral sooner, but actually as soon as practice what email notic called diamond. And so the reason I wanted to do do the job ahead of Quran I mentioned this last year because we looked at images here at Calvary and I
love even jL kalbi, it's one of my favorite tests. Here's the test CLA aroma Tenzin. It's a brilliant tafsir. It's short, concise, but it's one of those oceans where every time you dip into it, you realize that How could it be done that How did he get so much into so few pages? Well, Mr. Rosati is is the ocean, his own teacher in Malmo join he said that he was bound on Mahara, that he was an ocean that would drown you that once you go into him, he is an ocean. And it's really important to emphasize when we talk about email map, Azadi or the Allahu anhu is that he has been much maligned of late by our community. And unfortunately, it's one of the signs of the latter days
that the Prophet slicin told us that the people towards the end of the oma would curse or speak ill of the people at the outset of the oma. So, this has to be fulfilled, I suppose, but I feel sorry for those people that are the ones that are fulfilling that Hadith. So emammal of Azadi as you can see, I'm using the term the oceanic EMA and share the proof of Islam the wonder of his age and that comes from Mr. Medina Hubby, the great had dealt and historian who was a student, famously a student of even taymiyah, the
the fapy and the he was a polymath Shephard, Islam, even taymiyah but it's been 10 years. Mr. Rosati have a very interesting relationship I mean, obviously even 10 years after him but in many ways have been 10 years responding to email me because it so it's one of the dialectical conversations in our oma
so he mama daddy calls him at emammal Bihar
and Bihar in Arabic can mean different things. But here it clearly means ocean in the in the the outer facade of wilbury. What about her in the Quran that actually means in the bed amongst the battle and in the cities. So the bow to their means the the Cora and the modern, because often cities are built by rivers or by oceans, because of the trade the importance of trade coming to them. So the Baja can mean different things, but it's used for the meaning of ocean and interesting is related to the word hebat. In the derivate, the great derivation, so the the Jews are called a bar because the haver is also the bar is the bar of ink and the prophets Eliza them who is the great
ocean that we all are either marveling at on the shore or others have dived into his son and are drowning in the glories of His son that
The prophets Allah he said I'm
interacted with the the bar and when used to debate them, so they they the hippo is the person who spends a lot of ink in his occupation.
So even though I have because him and Mr. Melba her a share, her jittery Sadam, what are Juba to summon? He is the hedger of Islam, the proof of Islam and the wonder of the age. And this is important because of who
Mr. Medina hubby is. He's He's clearly one of the great scholars of Islam. And so when a great scholar of Islam acknowledges another scholar and gives him titles like that you have to take a very serious, another great scholar,
who is the polymath and the halfhill ibnu in a jar he actually says about about the Imam Can you imagine he can imagine but the FARC he said he remembered for kahal ibach.
And then he said that he was also the Rabbani of the oma or Bernie or Bernie or oma.
That's what he calls him. So even in a jar who was
in Baghdad, and he lives after him, I'm not that long after He manifests it, but he is one of the great imams of Baghdad and and he said that he was a an Imam in fifth element flip flop, and he was you know, and he and he had mastered it. So he said, He's the Imam and folk Aha, which means that he's really they're, they're the master puppy. And I'm going to go into that more. But so as we move in, I want to just begin by, before we get into Joanna Oren, I'm going to take you through two doors. The first door and which I'm going to look at inshallah today is the door of the Imam himself and looking at the Imam and why he's so important, and why he has to be restored to his position,
because some people have tried to knock him off his pedestal. And this is not the first time that it happened. It's happened in the past, but he is
the most important jurist after the first generation in the history of Islam. And he's also one of the most important theologians, and he is certainly probably the most important mystic of the Islamic tradition. So in that way, he is after that first generation, he is the Imam of of Eamon, the Imam of, of Islam, and the Imam of sn for the Sunni tradition. The Shia traditionally have had a difficult time with him because he did spend
the little time that he spent in reputation was in refuting the Shia. So unfortunately, because he's Iranian, one would think he would be one of the great treasures of Iran. He's not as appreciated, I think, as he should be, although the Shia did benefit from and not nazira. Dina Pelosi, who is a great Shia scholar did so he was born in Toulouse, which is in a area that was really called hot Asan. So today, you can have Afghanistan, you have Turkmenistan, and you have northern Iran. All of that was called hot assan. So the oven is really hot. Hassan is the turkey. Turkmenistan, the turkey. Turkmenistan is our hot assignees and the people of Northern Iran out of hora sand because
it's a Persian word that just means where this is so from the Sun is his his son. Is that right? Hot our son? It's Yeah, son so hora is where it rises. Zach, correct. Yeah. So he was born in this place in in, in foods in northern Iran. And his father was a simple Some say he was a gazelle, like a person who was a wolf Carter and that's why there's a debate about his name. Was he Mamata ghazali? Or is it vasarely with a soft Zay. But his his his father was a very simple man who loved the odema and he used to serve them and he would honor them and he would treat them and do whatever he could for them. And he made sincere due to Allah, that he had two sons, Ahmed and Mohammed. Mohammed is
Mohammed. Mohammed becomes a scholar and a great mystic, but his son of Mohammed really becomes projected Islam. And I think it's from the sincerity of his father but he was raised an orphan because his father dies in his early years. He left him to be taken care of by somebody when the money ran out. He put them in a
madrasa because he couldn't afford to keep them. And so they grew up in this madrasa in toes, which is where he learns the beginnings of his his knowledge. And he studied with any mom there were Arad. Kali is his name. And he's very interesting. And then he moves to Georgia and that should say Georgia and which is Gurgaon, which is near what they call it.
And he studies there are many great imams from this place. He momager Gianni was from there that both Giorgione's because there's two of them, but really, truly extraordinary place of knowledge. So he goes there, and he studies with herbal na solderless marylee. Some says of a person that is mad at this is around 465. He was born in 450. And so he's about 15 years of age. So he's literally on his journey now. And he spends he stays there with with this chef who was a formidable chef in,
in, in in film, and he basically he memorizes Quran. He did that earlier, he studied Arabic, but he studies with him shaffir effect and and he basically writes what's called the talica, which is essentially all of his notes of the lectures. Because this is a time when scholars did what is called a Mally, they just usually. So for instance, chef of dahlem veya, has a book called Amalia della lat, which is a very formal book, and also the fact all of it was from lecture. He did it without notes, simply lecturing off the top of his head, his students recorded it and then it was transcribed and then he edited it, but those were his family. Very few scholars can do that today. I
know one more tennis scholar who told me that he could write in this moment only Urbina. keytab and Dr. Marina ilma. He told me I could I could
dictate to you 40 books in 40 sciences. And he said, since I mastered those sciences, I've only been asked about three out of the out of the so 37 he was never even asked about. So he he basically writes on his after four years, close to five. After studying with this man, he's on his way back, and he tells this story where these brigands come,
and they and they basically rob the caravan is quite common in those days. And they rob the caravan. And so Mr. Rosati, I'm you can imagine, he's 19 years old. And he's just studied, and he's mastered all of this
knowledge that he's learned. But he hasn't memorized it. So he understands it, but he hasn't memorized it. So the thief takes his, his his bag of books. And the mom runs after him and begs him, please don't take my knowledge from me. And at that point, the thief laughs at him. And the thief says to him, what kind of knowledge is it? That a wretch like me could steal it from you? Can you can you really call that knowledge and our Hammond Aradhana and he says, I knew then on pako Allah, Allah, the unpacker color Shea, that Allah made him say that for me to know that that is not knowledge. If it can be stolen from you by a thief. It's not knowledge. And so he goes back to those
and spends the next three years memorizing everything he had learned by rote, so that nobody could ever take it from him again. And then at that stage, he sets out for what's called a sub or or niche niche Nisha por and this was another great center of learning in northern Iran today. It's called northern Iran. And he studies with the great Imam Omar Ali, Emmanuel Duany. He's also called Mr. haramain. He was probably the most brilliant scholar of his age in phip. He was a Shafi jurist, but he was also an soli, which means he studied legal philosophy. So the philosophy of law and what's more important is he's really, even though arguably Imam Shafi, Malik eema Matic and EMA about
Hannover, all are working in a metacity approach. That's undeniable if you if you look at their methodologies, but it hadn't really been articulated. The beginnings begin with Imam Shafi when he writes his famous rusada. But then it's a mammoth journey that really develops the Casa de school. So he comes up with the five universals that these are the acid of our religion, like protecting the religion itself, protecting life protecting intelligence reason itself, protecting family, and then protecting
the
property and then the sometimes data six which is dignity, but most of them include that in
family because honor and that all goes under your name because you carry your family name, so anybody that disparages it is disparaging, Your Honor. So they put heaven in heaven Nestle. So, Mr. Murali. Now you can imagine the trophy that Mr. Joining must have felt by having a student like Mr. Rosati because he actually has him teach in his madrasa very early. So he studies with him there for five years, he goes on when he's 23. In a joint he dies. But what's really important, this was a time when there was a lot of fitting him on the journey out of the law was actually there were assassination attempts on his life.
Because of the bothnia, he actually had to flee at a certain point he goes to he's called the Imam and how to mean because he goes to Mecca and Medina, he taught in Mecca and Medina. But he had the greatest student of the age.
And it's just extraordinary that Allah brought those two together. And that's very important to remember that, you know, they say, if you see a turtle on a fence, the one thing that you can deduce from that is that it didn't get there by himself. And there's a lot of truth
to the fact that wherever you are in the world, you did not get there on your own. And if you study, it's your teachers that are going to make you or break you. I mean, just it's it's the reality teachers will either turn you off of knowledge. And unfortunately many do that to young people, or they will ignite a fire in you that is in its it's just the kindling is there. It's all ready. But it's it's a great teacher that will ignite that fire in the student. And this is imamura has already already had that fire. But when he goes to Mr. joiny, amazing things happen. One of the first things that he does is he masters his book about Han Solo, and then he actually bridges it. So he brought a
bridges his teachers book, and then brings it to him and and shows him the book. So he's very impressed with it. Then he goes, after a mammoth join, he dies in
when the mom is 28. He actually goes to the court of neath almond milk and you have to understand that Mr. Rizzoli will be the first to admit that he was an incredibly ambitious person. And in fact, one of the things that the the people have of, you know, the spiritual masters of the religion say is that the last thing to leave the heart of sincere people is herb Berryessa, his love of leadership because his love of leadership that often it gets them there without that they won't have that drive to outstrip everybody else, because they have that thoroughbred nature. And so he goes to Nibbana and molk. Now, Nirvana and molk, who was a seljuk, Minister, Nirvana, Al mulk, was actually
a righteous minister. The government arguably was not a great government, like all governments, it had its problems. And there were a lot of there was a lot of dissent. But it even taymiyah One of the things that he points out is that the idea that you cannot work with governments unless they're perfectly angelic, is he said, It's insane, because it will lead to all of the aspects of the religion falling into disarray, because governments are the ones that established the mosque, in Muslim countries. They're the ones that have the mahakam, Sharia, the courts, they have the darnel, if the fatwa places, so if, if all the enema in their righteousness, say, I'm not going to have
anything to do with the government, then who runs the government. And I'll give you one example of this, there was a man named Mohammed Sharif, who was a Libyan and he worked in the
government under a Daffy and I actually visited him in 1978, in Libya, with one of my teachers. And he hosted us he's a beautiful man. He helped so many people, he helped Africans he helped.
And then but he stayed in the government for years never said anything. He was doing everything in spite of what what was happening. He hated the Daffy. He hated the government, but he was the he was a hidden man. He was like the moltmann amongst alief around the believer within Addy frown, and they actually wanted to try him after the, the, the rebellion and the death of a Daffy, but thankfully because of the intercession of some good people, particularly the Jordanians, he was able to go to Jordan. He has spent his life doing tax rate of America his work, he's he's one of the few people that did critical editions of his works. So that's an example of somebody at the time. They were
people that saw him his alum soap on he's just working with the government. EMA matter of Azadi went and and he said pty limited ultimately Haiti let Elmo inland Yukon Illa he said I learned knowledge for other than Allah, but knowledge refuse to be other than for Allah. And so even though he might have had his Nia was not always the best, his path because he was a sincere seeker. His path was his purification. And so he went through great tribulations. So he gets into the court, he completely floors, nice almond milk, who was an alum himself and was surrounded by Obama. And he sees him as somebody, this man is going to be very useful. And and because Nia, Obama and molk had a project at
the time they were cursing the Saudis on the mimbar, literally cursing them, the shadowy mythical among the theologians. There was a lot of fitna in the community, the Israelis, the bothnia. Were very strong the occultist, and I'll talk about that later. So there's all these problems, and he
it's just amazing what he does, because he comes in, and he can win every argument, he is just so formidable and so irrefutable, that the ultimate just, they can't they can't handle them. And so they a lot of envy, a lot of jealousy. But Neil almond milk sense him, he becomes a full professor in Baghdad at the NIV amiah. Now, you have to understand that at the, at the young age, I mean, he's in his early 30s. And he's a full professor at a place where most of these teachers are going to be in their 60s and 70s. Right. So it's quite saying, and but then he has a crisis. The crisis comes about the age of 38. He goes into what we would call an existential crisis. In the West, they
probably call it a midlife crisis, where he really begins to he goes through a period of radical skepticism and doubt, and just is wondering, and this is partly because of his own genius, and because he's he penetrates so deeply into things, but he really begins to question everything. And because of that, he actually loses the ability to talk he can't teach anymore. And this is a man who that alumni came to listen to even appeal the grades grammarian and, and, and scholar used to come and sit. I mean, this is a man who the great the onomah of Baghdad would come to sit in his lectures. That's That's how formidable he was. But he just can't talk. And the doctors basically
say, you need a psychologist, you know, we're physicians, we can't, we can't do this, you need some element knifes, because this is a, it's not a physiological problem. This is a psychological problem.
And so he basically decides to just really examine everything and he looks, he identifies four sources of knowledge. He calls them the theologians, the mazzucchelli, mon, and then the philosopher, the rationalist, and then the bothnia, the occultist, like people that seek knowledge through the occult, through hidden arcane knowledge, esoteric knowledge. And then finally, the mystics who at that time have called Sophia, which should not be confused with what a lot of people associate with so called Sofia, because there's a Mr. metaphyseal, he was one of the great critics of these so called su fees, and he was actually if you look at him, he is far more critical of
Sufism.
Then Then, then not in the area is constantly condemning a lot of practices, but he recognized intuition, that the the knowledge that that the the people have to solve, are talking about his intuitive knowledge. It's Kesh knowledge, and he realizes that this is essentially real knowledge, because there's a Berkeley Professor Paul furio ban who wrote a book called against method in which he argues is a very radical book, and I'm not I'm not recommending people read it. But I did read it many, many years ago. And one of the arguments he made which is very interesting in the book, is that he said that scientific method has never helped any major discoveries in science. All major
discoveries in science were intuitive. Scientific Method is what helps the dummies understand it. But but the actual breakthroughs came from great moments of insight. And you will find this many of the Nobel Prize winners, I mean, Linus Pauling, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, he had he saw the whole thing in a fever
like in his mind
One could argue all their study helps produce those moments. And that's very possible. But the point is, intuition is an under rated understanding of knowledge heads. Because all of knowledge is founded on the concept. And the concept is mystical in its essence, just the fact that we have consciousness, the fact that we can see things and perceive them and then take the one out of the many and abstract and all these things are coming out of an intuitive source that we don't understand. Some would call it the agent intellect. There's there's a lot of debates about where that knowledge comes from. But essentially, it is a mystical type of knowledge. That is the
foundation of all knowledge. And so he realized that that was the real true knowledge. But it's not easily acquired. And so
he goes into seclusion. This is a very early, I think this is the first picture of Damascus, if you see the minaret on the right. Apparently, that is the minaret where he actually resided for
over a year, some say 18 months. I mean, there's debates about this, even if his own book, there's some debates. I mean, some people have accused him of prevarication in the book, which I don't think is fair because, first of all,
people when he was in the state that he was in one wonders, just what was going on in his mind because he was in a very profound state of Hira aporia. So,
but he does spend time there. And this is where he begins to write the aroma Dean, this is part of his project, but not all of his project. And then he actually goes to Damascus, to Jerusalem. And he writes,
The, his risala are portsea. They're the what's called collider apart, which is really a fundamental book, in in cut out, which I'll get to, and then he goes, some say he visits visits Egypt, and there's debate about this, he was planning on visit visiting use of Tisha feen. Use a Tisha feen is a great Mahabharat leader who, who actually conquers Andrew sia, it was Mr. roselli, who wrote him a letter arguing to him that he must go and save Andrew see, because if he doesn't, it will fall to the Christians. And so some say that it's actually my mother causality that led to the Morabito going into the famous battle and zelicah, where they defeat the Christians. And then he restores the
the, the unity of nddc, after it had fallen into what are called maluka, very similar to what's happening today in the Muslim world. So and then he goes on, he makes his pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. And during this time, I mean, there's wonderful stories about him, but during this time, he was literally sweeping the mosque in the Umayyad mosque. This was the man who had been a dean at the the greatest University in Iraq, and, and he's just wants to be left alone. And he's just it, he wants to work on himself. And then he goes back to Baghdad, and spends a short time there. And at the, at this time, he's about 49 years old. So some say and there's debates about this and and, and
I'm going to take the Imam at his own word, there are debates about this, some say and the, the Persian letters indicate that he actually was gone less than that he was probably gone about two years, but for whatever time he was in seclusion, this was a time the great jurist aboubakar even an outer be visits him and other Boubacar who is really one of the masters of the Islamic tradition. He was up he was a brilliant exegete of the Quran. He was a great Maliki fucky. He actually went and visited and he's the last student in Iraq that Imam Al ghazali took, and he read with them that he takes back, Mr. Martinez and his teachings to Morocco, and then it becomes it begins to spread
Initially, the moreover tune rejected his book because of some of the qalam problems that they found in it. They were much more selfie and their orientation and by selfie, I mean, not majestic selfie, but the traditional selfie. Not anthropomorphise but the people that were dogmatic following like him on how he typed text very simple. They didn't like any elaborate dialectical theology. So he then basically goes
to Nice, nice support and support. And he teaches in the nearby me at this time he's teaching also, and other things but he's about 50 years of age. Then he goes back to tools
He opens up a Zambia what they would call a, I think they call the Hanukkah.
Yeah, Hanukkah. So he opens up a type of place where he's really doing character development and spiritual work and teaching. He most of the time was spent in recitation of Quran at this stage in his life. He was he was saying the Quran at least once a week. And so and and with great deliberation.
In 40 years, he wrote 72 books, some will argue, because the books are
like the here has 40 books, so you could look at is 40, as opposed to just one. So some say it's actually 400 bucks, if you look at it, but I think around is around 7072 bucks. Somebody worked out, given the amount of paper somebody worked out, he would have had to write for kasasa every day in his entire adult life at the time, he was about 18 until the end of his life, to actually write what he'd written, which is about 40 pages a day, he would have had to write so incredible output. So now I want to talk and this is really at the heart of what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about what is his project because EMA model has it has a project. It's It's the mysuru of ezeli.
It's the lasallian project, what is that project? First of all, and I use the term liberal arts, I mean, the traditionally, this is a Western term. I like it because it's understood in the West. But it really is the same concept as the term that was used in the, in the in the Muslim world as the illuma Allah, these are the instrumental arts, they're the arts that are studied to train the mind so that the mind can actually begin to understand reality. And and so this is part of his project. And from that he is really his whole focus is on reviving the sciences of Eman, Islam and Sn. And then that involved qalam in Eman, legal theory in Islam, and then the inner path inessa honest as a
side project, he has the reputation fundamentally of two groups that had huge impact. One of them was the peripatetic philosophers and the other were the occultist, the peripatetic philosophers, and it's important to remember when they say that he he destroyed philosophy, he was focusing on one school of philosophy, which is the peripatetic school.
And and he identifies 20 problems, three of which he considered to be really cool far and then 17, of which, to lesser and greater degrees, but the methodology of the philosophers he recognized as the best methodology, and this is why he was not opposed to philosophy, but he was opposed to the results of certain schools of philosophy This is really important to understand, even Haldane who wrote considerably against philosophy. In the mill Kadima says, despite the errors of the philosophers, their methodology is the best best methodology. So even even whodunnit admitted this email, Martha's alley is the one that introduces the methodology of the philosopher's into
qalam into OSU, and and arguably into Sn. So and for that reason,
even taymiyah. And in many ways, I think, really motivated it from a very pure.
He had a very pure intention, I think. But I don't think he recognized what the Imam was trying to do and why he was doing it. The Imam saw
the fragmentation of the oma Well, he saw what was happening. And he recognized that there were tools out there that we would need to protect this religion from the onslaught from outside. And it's not to say that the religion itself wasn't enough, it is enough. But the prophet SAW SM said al hikmah, toolbar lateral movement,
that wisdom is the lost property of the believer, like a lost writing beast of the believer, wherever he finds it. And now we're going to have what happens here, wherever he finds it, he is more worthy of it, because he will use it for the right reasons. So he really saw that there was great benefit in these tools in the same way that Obama hasn't had it recognize the same thing in his column project. Even even Sina, who is much maligned in our community, unfortunately, was an absolute genius that we should be incredibly proud that Allah made him from this oma because he is one of the
greatest thinkers in human history. And Peter Adamson actually argues that he's probably the single most influential philosopher in European history, not just in.
And he's an expert obviously on, on,
on even Siena, but avocent is is right now the quarantine this is this is even though the Prophet size and first articulate the quarantine II moment of his Ibn Sina was the one that said it should be for 40 days, he said people should wash their hands with vinegar. Because these diseases are spread by what he called edge said the, like harmful bodies.
Viruses aren't even living things. According to most scientists, there is a debate, but most of them say they're not living things. The viruses, they behave as if they were but they're actually not. They're just genetic material, just material that have codes in them that corrupt our cells. So so the project is a form of one. So in the liberal arts, he has two fundamental books that are really important. The first one is called Maryana Lin. And this is his theoretical book, he wrote it, it's a book of logic. And he wrote it, because he felt that
the human mind was so fallible, that it needed to be trained. So this book is literally the grammar of thought. Now.
Most people when they learn a language correctly, and I know there's debates about this, but I actually believe in prescriptive language somebody use the word correctly that there is incorrect usage of language him correct usage by grammatical terms. A lot of people don't like these terms anymore. But so be it. The
the grammar of thought, is to learn how the mind should work properly, when it reasons. That's what the grammar of thought is. So this is called month.
Even Timmy wrote a book called $1 month again, even though he was a logician. He wrote a book called reputation of the logicians.
Because he said, and this is very interesting statement, he said, logic
does not benefit stupid people. And it's superfluous for highly intelligent people. That is absolutely true. The problem is most of us fall in the bell curve
in that middle, and this is why the Sahaba didn't need month. Because the ones that were fuqaha, and we're reasoning were reasoning with their brilliance. And so people that are highly intelligent, generally don't need month, they still will benefit from this training, but they don't need it. So month up is to teach people of lesser capacity, how to avoid pitfalls, like hasty generalization. It's a logical fallacy in what's called material logic. Because we do that naturally. I had three
South Asian taxi drivers in New York, they all cheated me. So every South Asians a cheat. That's obviously a fallacy.
So that that, but that's how the mind works. So that's his first book. And it's a brilliant book, we're actually at hamdulillah. It's been translated, and it's being edited.
Now, and so we were actually this is going to be part of the zaytuna curriculum series. So Alhamdulillah, that book should be out hopefully, within the year. The second book he wrote, which is, I think one of the most extraordinary books in in ethics. And that is Ms. Anna Ahmed, which is so the Mary oral M is the standard of knowledge. Ms. Anna aman is the scales of action so that you could weigh every action and determine whether the action was worthwhile, or whether it wasn't. So it's a book of virtue ethics. It's a brilliant book. It's heavily influenced by the great polymath and person scholastic Robert is Fanny, who wrote one of my favorite books a video to era mccamish
area. So, now, just in a man, he wrote his two most important books, one is the abridged version, the others more extensive archive, aka an active side for active card. So, economy in belief, and the other one is the principles of the axioms of creeds of creed.
Now, so that so he has his project of introducing the approach, using logic in scholastic theology. Now, it's important to remember the last book that he wrote probably is called LGM an hour, an element cut out, not allowing common people to study theology. So he was not somebody that really
encouraged, but he recognized that a certain group of scholars must learn this, because it will enable them to refute the obfuscations and the attacks of the religion by people from outside. So for instance, right now we have all of these philosophers. We have deconstructionist, we have structuralist, we have post modernists, we have post colonialist. We have all these different we have critical race theorists, we have all of these. And then we have also the analytic school, we have people that are working within that school, not not just philosophers, theologians like Alvin plantinga, who I was fortunate enough to be part of the award ceremony, a brilliant scholar working
within a certain School of philosophy to defend faith.
So, he understood that you're always going to have these people out there who use their intellects and sophistry to confuse people. And if you don't have people trained to recognize it, to see it and to be able to refute it, you're going to get into trouble. And what will happen is you will be left to the argument of blood, that that that's when you can't defend your religion with intelligence. The people that are zealots that don't have the intelligence or the training to defend it will end up defending it through violence. And that's not a defense of religion. Blood has no argument. So that's a really important thing to remember. Now in Islam, he took the abridgement of EMA joini, the
EMA Dewayne he wrote a famous book called neuheiten mattevi deruyter method, in in the Shabbat itself is a very important book, but he he takes it and he writes a long abridgement of it a middle abridgement and a short abridgement at Basia
was SIOP and allergies. In fact, one of the house armor of another Aziz a prophecy. Early on only 10 years after the Imam died he died he said show you that men have a habit on acid, aloha Lhasa
fee, Basildon wa CNY, GS and wahoo Lhasa. So these are the four books in furuya that Mr. Malik has that he writes the people who are Shafi no this emammal, bizarrely, is the most important after him on his journey. I mean, obviously the EMR himself among Chevy, but all of the later books that come out, including him know we are all dependent on the books of the MA medica. Sadie. So these are foundational books in the method, this is in photo not in all sorts. So this is in the branches of jurisprudence, and not in the legal philosophy. Now in sn, he writes a beautiful short book called redacted he died, which is really to prepare a person for the spiritual path to get you to be doing
practices on a daily basis. But then he writes his magisterial, if you know, Medina, which is reviving the sciences of the religion, and I'm going to get into that. He then a bridges it in Persian in a book called kimia, sad, the alchemy of of happiness. And then, and this is the book inshallah I'm going to be talking about in a few days.
He writes a book called Jawaharlal Quran. He writes it quite late. He's referencing all his other books in it. This book is his theory of the Koran. And what you realize from this book, is his entire tradition revolves around the Quran. Everything that he mom was doing is really revolving around the Koran primarily and then the son of the Prophet secondarily. So he is a jurist of the first order and he brings his juristic worldview
into into the ironic world and into the prophetic world, but it also is working in his theological perspective and in his spiritual perspective. Now, the third book is very interesting is called keytab. An Autobiography also the dean, again, it's relatively late. So these three are the abridgement actually jodel Quran is three parts and the third part is the Kitab arbaeen. This is the third part. So he said in when he wrote jodo Quran, he said, If you want you can
use this as a separate book, because he wrote that it was later published as a separate book, but it's actually part of the of the Joe how to Oran, so he shows you what the Quran is calling us to. And and, and, and that is why his entire Opus is basically a commentary on the Koran and the prophetic life as we know is a commentary on
Koran. So it all goes back to the book of Allah. The Prophet sly Samson is an explanation of the Quran. Everything is from the Quran. It's all from the Quran. I'm not a parent. I'm 100% and keytab was Sunnah. But the Sunnah is an explanation of the Quran. And we should understand that you need the sooner you can understand the Quran without the sooner and I'll talk about that.
You mentioned the dialectical relationship between the mama kuzari and even Tamia Could you expand on the nature of that relationship and their respective ideologies.
Even Tamia is is a
undeniably he's a polymath.
He was a brilliant scholar, he was a homebody, he was a fapy.
He was also a
comparative religion. So he wrote books on the on the Old Testament, the New Testament, he has a six volume book is very important. It's I mean, it's a extremely important book, he also wrote a book on the out of the novel will occur a book on the the problems of Napoleon and reason, knuckle being what's transmitted. So revelation and reason
I think at the root of the difference is him. Even Tamia really wanted to
just keep it at the book and the sun, like he really want he did not want the type of edifice that was emerging out of the,
of the tradition of Islam.
And in some ways, you have to appreciate that because there's something very profound about the simplicity of teachings. And, and, in many ways, tradition becomes very cumbersome. And, and, and I think Kierkegaard has a very similar attitude towards what happens within Christianity.
So I appreciate him Tommy, I really do I appreciate what he's trying to do. But I really feel like you cannot deny
the, the human
creativity that comes out of that initial inspiration. And you can't deny the fact that the province I said was a syncretism in that he said seek knowledge. The Quran says seek knowledge, it says go out, explore the world under capability. Go look how creation began. That's that's that's a recommendation to go study geology.
The Quran has history. It says look at the people that went before you. The Quran certainly has metaphysics. So all of those are there and so the elaborations that come out of that initial inspiration, what you want to do is mitigate the the influences that are dangerous, and they're going to slip in, but you want to to prevent them and I think that was his project. I think and I have to say this and I'm not the first person that said this, but I think a mama has daddy's his his intellect is just so vast. And and and i think you Mama's Suki. See the Amazon rope and others said that even Tamia was more reliable in his knuckle than in his actual
the way that he looked at the knuckle. So I think
that's fundamentally at the heart of the differences. So like I said, I appreciate and I actually understand what even Tamia was trying to do, but I really think in the end, he's he's his his project was a critical project like he is criticizing a lot like a lot of his books are criticizing your mom and his dad. His project is a project he's building. Like he's really trying to,
to build a normative Islam that will withstand the onslaughts of materialism, of philosophy of,
of atheism, of all that's what he's trying to do. He wants to he wants to build a fortress around the book and the sooner he mama even taymiyah he wants. He feels like the book in the sunit doesn't need a fortress, email marketers. It says no, it needs a fortress, and I'm going to build it. And I think that's fundamentally the difference alone and but we respect both of them and, and
traditionally, there were far more critics that had been Tamia in our own
Then there were the mom, they both have critics far more are critical of instantaneous project than they are of environmental causalities. But people are going to differ on this and there's people that are going to
stay with Ibn taymiyyah. I don't think it's like you have to choose one or the other, but, but I think you have to recognize that one of them defines the tradition. And that you do need to recognize and arguably for for 1000 years, the oma considered it was legit it is now and it's interesting. He's called the proof of Islam. What do you use a proof for use a proof against people that are questioning you?
Whereas even Timmy is called sharechat Islam? He is one of many, but that is a lack of that he was given.
So why was he mama because it initially vilified by the scholars of Andrews and amacher? Well, I think I said that they were
I, you know, this is something that
Mauritanian friend of mine says that the morava Beltone, were like the poly van, which I don't think is totally fair. But they they were very,
in qalam, they were dogmatic. They did not like speculative theology. And many scholars did not even have the bar, who's one of my favorite scholars. He's one of the greatest scholars in the history of Islam. He attacks the Shakira terribly. I mean, he really, really just sees them as something really, really bad for a song like even 10 year, although even 10 year it, he's mixed because he sometimes he praises them and other times, he condemns him, but he does recognize that they did play a role in defending Islam. So he's not entirely antagonistic. So these these are debates amongst nomads, it's
you know, his books were burnt at one point in Morocco, although the men that burnt him had a dream, where the prophesized him came and had him flogged by email Monica's early, so he actually repented publicly for burning them. He burnt them in a in a, in a in a Masjid. And, and then he had that dream. And so he repented. That's a well known story. Are there English translations of these works? or other resources? Fortunately, he's he's been fortunate to have some good translators. There's, there's there was a translation done. It's an abridgment of the year that was done by mowlana.
He was a South Asian scholar mowlana.
For further
cutting, I think Yeah. And that was read, printed by the Malaysians. And they edit it a lot. Because he originally did not want it. He was actually a very formidable scholar. He, he did a commentary on the Mish catheter must not be translated there. Yeah. into Bengali. I think. So he that is is is good. Funds vi has done some I actually wrote the, the introduction to a couple of those books, including the book of knowledge. And then also
the Islamic tech society has done a good job.
I mean, Dr. Winter
of the hacking winter, is, I think, a really excellent, beautiful stylist in the English language and Mr. Zadie deserves a good translator because he is so eloquent in Arabic and it's a crime to translate him poorly. I was recently reading a translation of one of his I won't say who did it because he actually a good scholar, but it was so bad the English was so bad. And and I, I just, I felt sad for anybody who read that book and thought that that in any way reflected the style of the Mamata buzzetti. So and I know he's a great Persian style is I am not able to read him in Persian, but I, I know from people that do know Persian that he's a beautiful stylist and Persian. So he was
a very gifted orator, a gifted writer.
So I would say that those are good. Dr. Winter did the breaking his two desires was excellent book and I and I think he did one other.
Yeah, the remembrance of death. How can we pursue, pursue the spiritual path human was pursued today? Stay tuned.
Because that's essentially what I'm going to talk about really what his project is, because that is his project. And so in sha Allah, Allah gives us life. And maybe we meet again, did he mama has it reject the relationship between cause and effect? I'll get into that a little bit. He did not. And that's one of the big problems. The sharrah are accused of being occasional lists, which are people that don't really believe in cause and effect.
It's very important that it's a very sophisticated understanding, we cause an effect is the way Allah has created the world, it's the Son of God in the world to deny it is deny to deny reality. And so we do not deny cause and effect, but we have, I think, a very profound understanding of the Divine.
The divine nature of what's happening in the world. And, and, and, and, and that's where the imamura buzzetti
is a mystic. So I would look at it, you have Newtonian physics, and you have quantum physics shediac is Newtonian. haqiqa is quantum. Is this an analogy? I'm not saying don't say, Oh, he said that calam is quantum physics. I'm saying that, in the same way that the quantum laws do not work in the Newtonian world.
That's the same that's happening. So it's two different way we have something called Marotta, but you know, we live in a multiplex universe, that, in fact, it's not a universe, it's it's a multiverse. And Rabbul aalameen. He is the Lord of all the worlds so there are many worlds universes, this world it's one world, but there are many universes. And so
what what we know, if you look at a Persian carpet, the aunt knows nothing of the pattern of the Persian carpet, that is our intellect, before the glory of Allah's creation, and the Prophet indicated that in a hadith about the molk, in relation to the mallacoota was like a ring in the midst of a desert, a small ring. So he's, so this whole idea of Oh, people lost their faith, because they realize the universe is vast, our Prophet size and knew how vast things were, he didn't it increased his faith. You know, this is some of the material say, oh, why are there so many galaxies? Well, you can do the same thing, if you go inward. Like, if you magnify yourself, inwardly, you'll
see the same number of miraculous whether you go out or in, in fact, there's a Nobel Prize winner, Alexis Carroll, who showed basically that the largest things in the universe, if you take the largest things that we know of, and you take the smallest things we know of, and you divide them by two, add them together and divide them by two, you get the basic human proportion, he won the Nobel Prize. So we are the microcosm, like the cosmos is out there, but it's also in here, everything's in here. And in fact, it couldn't be out there if it wasn't in here. That's how we can see it and understand. So anyway, we'll get into that inshallah.
And then did he Mamata passatti only acknowledged virtue ethics in his works? How about other normative ethical theories such as consequentialism deontological ethics. I mean, these are terms that come later, Islam does have a kind of deontological approach. I mean, we do believe in duty bound ethics. And we also have consequentialist ethics because
there are situations where, like Kant said, you couldn't lie in any situation. Right? And that's his deontological approach. But
we know that lying is permitted to save somebody from a tyrant for instance. So that's a kind of looking at the consequences. So
I think vert the point of virtue ethics is the foundation of all ethics and and it has to be studied to understand
cultivation of virtues and why it's important. So I think, traditionally, virtue ethics has been the most important approach to ethics, in our tradition, can you please recommend an introductory book on the Quran that one can share with non Muslims?
The Quran, you know, I found it's very interesting. Koran.
I would not recommend a non Muslim reading the Quran, because it's such a difficult book in translation. First of all, it's a nonlinear book, but second of all,
there's a lot of lacunae in the Quran. And and I actually had a young Singaporean,
really wonderful Muslim lady that that worked with us with the rattler group when we were in Singapore. And she was very troubled. She had taken a course in university and the course made an argument that the Quran needed, you know, that it needed commentary. And she was like, why would God reveal a book that is not sufficient unto itself and
Initially, I didn't really have an answer for her. I didn't give her an answer. I just thought about it. But I actually realized in her they couldn't let go of the call, Mika. It's a reminder for you and for your people, you know, Monique said that is saying so and so on, so and so on, so on, so that Allah has made his book,
impossible to reach without
the intercession of scholars of the water fettered MDR so you cannot understand the Quran without the Prophet Sai Sam, and you cannot understand the province lies and without the scholars.
So you always need commentary. And that is because the meanings of the Koran are locked in the hearts of human beings. And it is men like and women sometimes but it's men like Mr. Medical Sally, who unlocked many of the mysteries of that book and that's what we're going to look at with you I had a parent but before we do that, I have a few more things I want to say about the Imam. So inshallah May Allah bless all of you may I hope you remember all of us at if bar remembers a tuna all the people that say tuna also support they tuna inshallah, we have some really, really big plans. But we need your help to do what we're doing. Now. bless all of you. And thank you so behenic
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