Adnan Rajeh – Facing Disbelief #3 – History – An Approach to Prophetic Traditions
AI: Summary ©
The speakers emphasize the importance of history and sources of evidence in search for the root of man in Allah's desire for universal life. They stress the need for faith and control in achieving success in life, and emphasize the importance of understanding the natural order of events and cultural context. They also discuss the use of "has" in religion and its relation to emotions, and stress the importance of understanding the cultural context of the situation and the need for a cultural understanding of the situation.
AI: Summary ©
You have to play with it a bit. This is the fourth session within the series that link started done.
Was it Wednesday, Wednesday,
facing this belief in a modern approach to Iman.
I've covered a number of topics so far. Today I'm going to talk about the third source of Eman, which is history, I'm going to go through a couple of arguments that are used commonly to oppose it. And some of the fallacies that are quite, quite well well known.
Before I do that, I'll make a few, just a few summary points from from the last for the last few sessions. So number one,
a very important concept is that just because we figure out the method, the mechanism is because we understand how things happen does not say that the cause doesn't exist anymore. Understanding the house does not delete the cause. That's very important. This is this is what this is the trick. This is the fallacy that is used quite often within science, that because now that we understand how things happen, then there's no need for driving cause or an initiating force, which has never been the case. It's like saying just because you saw the you knew that the cake was put in the oven, that note there is no chef that actually put together the recipe. I mean, that there's no sense there's
no sensibility in that. That's very important. Second point is that my what I was trying to talk about yesterday is the it's answering the question, Does believing, does believing in the theory of evolution lead to disbelieve in Allah subhanaw taala? And unequivocally the answer is no, it doesn't. I'm not trying to argue for it, or against it, I don't care about it. But what I do care about is that there is no religious reason for you to back out of any scientific process that is occurring in this world, you shouldn't back out of a scientific field, and you shouldn't have a problem with the scientific theory based on your faith. Because in our faith, there's nothing that
would cause that to be the case. And that's very important to kind of understand whether the theory is correct or not that is left for time to figure out and for the scientists to look into this and see if that pieces of the puzzle are actually going to fit it. My issue is that Muslims should not have a beef with this. This is not it's not a fight that you should be taking on. Because there's no reason for it. Islam is never going to contradict science. And there's no religious reason to walk away. The main reason being that the majority, if not all, the verses and Hadith that talk about creation are metaphorical, as I demonstrated for you over the last two days that you cannot, even
before science was this advanced. I'm talking 1200 and 1400 years ago, you could never you weren't allowed to understand a lot of these
verses in a hadith. Literally, if you did, then you were borderlining go forward. Because you're trying you're actually doing something called Did you see him or anthropomorphism, which we also talked about as well, there's not something acceptable Islamically. So I just wanted to take a moment and kind of point out some of those points, these ideas because they're very important. I don't want I do understand that this theory is used quite commonly to induce a concept of gopher, and a concept of atheism. Don't play into that game. Again, these are fallacies, these are just a trick. Okay, you know how so that you don't need to know who or why. And so you don't need religion
anymore. And that's how it's taught. That has not but it's not correct. Like, that's not the right way to do it. That's how they the fact that they're teaching it that way does not mean that we refuse it. Because now we're just playing into their hand. Like if so this is again, this is a more complex fallacy when I say something wrong, and hope that you respond to me in the wrong way. And if I know what wrong way, you're gonna respond to me in that I can, I'm ready, and I can just pounce on your mistake, your sounds bombed. And this is a very common way of going by things. I just, I say something that's not accurate, in hopes that you will respond to me in a way that's also not
accurate. And then I will pounce on your inaccuracy. And my inaccuracy gets forgotten in this whole argument, when really as Muslims, when someone says something inaccurate, before we respond, we should I should look into the statement that's being made, as he isn't accurate to begin with. And when it isn't that we don't need to respond with an inaccuracy, we just bond with accuracy with with preciseness in terms of precision of what of the issue that's being brought up. And that's my message from yesterday.
The two sources that we've talked about whether it may be the universe or life, the evidence that we have, and the overwhelming evidence is that there's a cause that there's a cause behind it, there's a driving force, life is driven. And the universe has needs a starting point. Those two are the main sources of emotion. And both arrows are pointing to the fact that there is there is someone who has put these things into motion, if you're going to accept evidence, and if you're going to actually accept logical arguments that makes sense and not, you look at something that no one would, would accept, such as a one in 700 quintillion chance of something happening along with a lot of other
Jonnie lottery winning tickets that you're required to have in a row for a very long time.
The third part and the thing is the beauty of these
Have these sources that when you put them all together, they even they make even more sense. So today, I'm gonna go through this in a continuum, we look at history history as a source of evidence as a source of evidence are essential for the man in Allah subhana wa Tada we look at history, we're looking at a number of different things, we're, we're gonna, we're gonna go through a number of different thoughts to kind of arrive at the different conclusions that inshallah we're going to going to arrive at. But let me give you an example of some something to think about. Imagine that you, you woke up in the middle of a factory, was filled with machinery, it was filled with
machinery.
And there was no catalog of what to do at all. Now, you know, by looking at the machinery that someone must have made this is there's someone who owns this factory, and you're there, you're inside of it. Now, you'll probably figure it out after a while how to run some of these machines. But for a long time, you'll be wondering, like, whoever made this? Why, why why why isn't there where's the where's the? Who did this? And what why am I not being told what to do here? And what is the purpose of all of this? And why am I here? These questions start to become actually very quite problematic for the person, you can figure out certain things. But you start wondering, why is it
even that sense? So when there's no communication, and we can't, we can't force God or expect him to communicate, but I'm giving you a base a simple basic problem that a dilemma that a cognitive mind will run into, if you're in the midst of a creation, that has a lot of elements to it. And there's no there's no communication in terms of what am I supposed to do with all this? Like, what is what there's no, there's no, there's no guidelines, I need some I need a catalog of some sort, like someone telling me something. Now you don't you can't force them. But it does make sense that that would be something we can't project what we want upon God. But one of the first things the human
mind will ask in a situation like that is who did this? What exactly did they want? And why is it that we're, you know, dealing with it. So let's go from believing in a creator, which is what the universe and life pushes you towards universal life direct you to the fact that there's a creator, someone who made something, but you have to go from believing into a creator to believing into a God, which is different. A creator is just the force that brought things into existence, that God has a message. me there's something that I mean, and by the way, most, most scientists are fine believing in a supreme power, as long as it's quiet.
As long as the supreme power won't say anything, like doesn't have any communication does not interfere with your life. But it's going from believing in a creator, to believing in a day into your green power that has a message that requires a little bit of a, again, of a continuum or a logical. So let's take a look at nature. What is nature tell us about the force that created it. Again, I'm not talking about society, less a panel generally. And you can mean not only talking about generosity, I'm not talking about the worm, these are things that will be taught from a different source altogether, I'm just going to look at what nature tells me, nature tells me that
whoever made this was one, because it all came from this big bang, like just a small condensed atom that exploded in every direction. And all the there's no discrepancy in the creation that we look at, it's all the same laws, everything is functioning exact same way, everything is basically rotating counterclockwise around the center, from the atom to the center of the galaxy, to everything that we can possibly see. So it's pretty simple, that it was more than one Creator, that you would have more than one law, basically, you'd have a set of laws that work in one place, and then a set of laws that work in another place. Or you would have some degree of struggle going on
within the universe, that that would make it clear that there's someone else who made all this. Now what we can tell from nature is that whoever made this is just one, it's just one source is not not multiple, that's the one number one. Number two, that whoever made this, it has the ability to as as very massive abilities. And as the ability to actually create means there's creativity, that is that is noticed and unknown. This you get when you look around, you see the enormity of what the world actually is the enormity of the universe, the diversity of the universe.
The conclusion is that whoever made this obviously has powers or abilities, let's not even go into abilities that go way beyond what we can comprehend as human beings, because we, we our ability to actually manipulate the environment or manipulate anything around is very limited. And it takes a very long time to develop. And in many senses, it's not really something that comes from us, personally, like it's not, it's not an innate ability that we end up having that we that we're born with. It's rather whatever we can build in terms of scientific methods and people working together, but we can and even then we only have a very limited ability to actually manipulate anything around
us. So whoever made this, it's obvious that they have extreme abilities. They're massive in what they can do. And there's a certain degree of creativity they have the ability of data because it's so diverse it's not all the same ever been to Netherlands before. So if you go to the Netherlands if you see the first kilometer of the Netherlands their lives you can just leave because everything else just copy paste it's all good looks exactly the same because extremely boring place in the world because it's all exactly the same. There's a there's a bit of water here and then a piece of land and it's just there's no ups and downs. There's nothing there's no there's no valleys, there's
no
mountains, just a very flat piece of a piece of Earth. So something like the Earth is not like that. And the universe is not like that it's extremely diverse. And it has things in it that we still till this day don't fully understand that we have not fully witnessed. But that's the second thing we figured out the first thing he figured out in just one. Number two is very capable and very creative. Number three,
he predates the universe itself. So he's been here for a long time. Again, we're not talking about the fact that Allah is beyond time and space, which is something that as most of you already except, like, we're just looking at you. I think nature is looking around us. What can we figure out about this God that created this or the creator? What can you figure out? Well, if the universe is now around 14 million billion years old, then whoever put this into motion has to predate that, meaning their presence. And their ability must predate that, which is a very, very long time, a number that for us as human beings, we don't really possess the ability to comprehend like I don't, and we can
barely understand the 100 years to comprehend 1000 to comprehend a million records and a billion years, this is now something that kind of goes beyond the ability of the human mind to fully process and even you spent a long time thinking about it, no matter how much you zoom out and zoom in. And I've tried this before you zoom out on the scale of existence, back and forth, 100 times trying to comprehend what the time actually looks like. It's just not something that our brains can be wrapped around Subhan Allah is very simple, but knowing that he is capable.
Number four,
he has some sort of plan. And what I mean by that meaning he's aware, and there's a plan somewhere there. I mean by that is, when you look at life, life is driven. There's some driving force to life exists, but it also has a goal. I'm not talking about the upper end higher level of goal, which is as a Muslim, a Khalifa, and I'm just talking about life itself being there to survive and recreate. This is the goal of life. Life wants to reproduce, and it wants to survive wants to live as long as possible, and have as many children as possible. Now, it doesn't have to be an amazing new goal. But it is a goal, it is driven. So whoever created this must have put that in it or else waiting to get
it from, you can't just pull that out of thin air, the concept of life being driven. So we know that then you'll get the six numbers, I really do think you should read the book. It's a very, very interesting, interesting book, The person who wrote it is not only a believer, but Subhanallah, he's doing more of a favor for us as Muslims, then probably a lot of other people reading books, because he talks about the six numbers that the deep forces that that control nature, it's amazing to see how fine tuned it is, like how small the deviation could have been, like, when you talk about the atomic forces within the atom, you're talking about something that is so small, like meaning the
force could be zero point, a couple of zeros, whatever, in terms of the power, just a small deviation would have not allowed the atoms to exist the way they do, and nothing would have been the way this forget about us existing the planets would look the same, the universe would not even function in the same way. So when you see this stuff, you know, figure out whoever did this, there was a plan, meaning for it to look in a certain way for it to come out in certain ways. The life is driven in a certain in a certain direction, knowing that there must be some again, I'm not saying none of these, we can't You can't extract from nature that he is merciful, or that he is generous.
No, that's not we extract from nature, from nature, extract the basics. One force is very capable, is quite creative. It's been there for a long time. It has the ability to grant purpose, meaning there's a plan in there because life itself is driven. And it high as a way of going by things like it's not just existing note that it has a goal, every living thing is trying to eat as much as possible to deny others from doing the same so that they can be stronger, and they want to recreate and reproduce as much as possible, within their within their existence. There's a fifth point that you can derive from nature that goes unnoticed quite a bit. So they think is important.
That he sends messages, whoever made this sends messages. And you wonder, well, how do we figure that out? Well, it's quite simple.
I'm assuming everyone here knows what DNA is.
DNA
is the building bricks is the coding behind life itself. Now, in order for us to exist, you need you need amino acids and amino acids have to get put together in a specific way to make proteins. And these proteins will make cells and the cells will make tissue and tissue will make a human being. So how do is it? How is it that we're going to get these amino acids all stacked up in the right way in the right sequence in the right amount and the right placement and moving and functioning the way they are? What's going to dictate that what's going to dictate that is a code that exists in in almost every cell that's alive aside from viruses, obviously, with a discrepancy there. That is not
there's not we're going to talk about. But aside from that every cell has DNA somewhere in the nucleus. That's what it does. And what DNA does is DNA says which amino acids are going to be made and how they're going to be clumped together. That's the Amino that's the job of the DNA. So when you look at it, every single living thing has a message inside of it and our DNA, the majority of it doesn't work. The majority of our DNA is actually just isn't there.
All injustice there. It's the history of all living things. The history of everything that ever lived is coded somewhere in our DNA, meaning we and that's why when you when you study the concept a little bit than the human genome, what you what you learn is that we share DNA, in high percentages with trees, and with plants and with other animals. And with chimpanzees to a very, very high degree, it's very, very similar. So a lot of the DNA that's there is not working, it's just a historical record of what life once was, and how life kind of move forward. And then the ones that do work which define us as human beings, it's what it's what defines how the pieces of Lego are
going to be put and described and, and presented later on within this world. So when you look at DNA, you know that whoever made this had the ability, at least to code,
at least to put a code in, to program something, and to leave evidence or leave a message human behind to actually figure out what happened before. The second thing you learn from nature. And this is what you learn specifically from us as human beings, is that when you look around you what other creature on the planet actually speaks or articulates, or has a language. So when you look at other animals, they communicate, they communicate with very primitive simple sounds. It's just some specific sounds that are made those sounds indicate something either I am hungry, I am scared, I am ready to meet, like one of these three things really doesn't really go or there is a threat, there's
very simple ways of communication, this communication does not happen. conversations don't occur, meaning long term conversations ability to organize,
discussing any disputes. And this doesn't, this only happened with the human being our ability to articulate our ability to communicate, if we can communicate, I mean, if we're able to sit here and talk and I'm speaking and you're able to understand what I'm saying and able to process it and be able to project back at me something, then whatever force put that into motion, must be able to do the exact same thing. Or else it doesn't make sense, you cannot imagine because the concept of creation is very simple. You can't create you don't creation means that the Creator is stronger and more capable than the creation. That's what the word creation means. Philosophically, it cannot be
understood in any other form, you can make something you can build something that's stronger than he was more capable. But creation, by definition means that so the fact that we communicate, that's their language means that he is capable of communication. Now, what form of communication? did he choose to use? Well, what is the form of communication that we have? It's language. So we got we got our communication via language, which is very simple. It's a very simple next step.
Didn't happen once or twice know what happened a very large number of times. Now, the question that sometimes comes across is, well, why Arabic? Well, first of all, there's two problems with that. Number one, it wasn't not all revelation was given in Arabic, for sure. Like, as we know, very clearly that many, many other revelations were not given in the Arabic language at all. The second one, because well, then why is the last one in Arabic? Well, that's not too difficult to actually explain.
So Arabic has within it 12 million different words. That's the vocabulary that Arabic actually carries. The closest second is like maybe 700,000.
The closest second is around 700,000. The difference is insane. It's a Semitic language, meaning it's based on roots, the medic that were based on a root, meaning three letters together, that you'll derive from all of these different other words. So Jana, you take, you take the word labor, and then you have law and law, and Mel rube, and all these other words that you can move, you can say I got a
colon a colon, you can start deriving all these things. So anything that any in Arabic, it's based on having a root and that's a Semitic language. And it's the only
it's the most ancient living or surviving language. There are languages that are more ancient than Arabic, but they don't survive. Like they're, they're not a dialect that is spoken. And even a dialect that is spoken is spoken under a million people, which is which is not considered a lively language, like in order for you to define language that is alive, you need a certain number of people that still speak it on the planet, or having a small number means Yeah, that is that is on his way. You could say well, well, Hebrew, Hebrew, Hebrew doesn't actually
qualify as that because it's only 8 million people who speak it in comparison to half a billion or more that speak the Arabic language within it with his different accents. And that's one thing. The other thing is that
since Allah subhanaw taala his last message is his last message, then it seems appropriate that it come within the language of the people will have the most control over their own dialect.
If this is going to be the last message, it's gonna be the last time that Allah subhanaw communicates with us via language, then it only makes sense that his communication comes through the group or with for the people will have the most control over their tongue and out of
At the time of the revelation of the Prophet lasers, and that's where the tongue of the Arab is actually a part of many Chinese Indian and European Proverbs, because the tongue of the Arab was known that the the command of their language was something that made them very, very specific and very special and unique. They had a command of their language. So the revelation that was going to come came in to a group of people who did not have a primitive language or language that was bastardized. And when I say bastardize, what I mean by there are languages that don't have a pure origin. They're flexible, like English, for example, is a very flexible language. Every year in the
dictionary, there'll be a bunch of new words that never existed before, no problem. And they don't have to have any origin that has to do with the language. They can just be saying things that people Yeah, Google Now is a word, right?
Google is a stupid word. If you think about it, if you go back like 100 years ago, the word Google would be a joke, it's as silly as a G double O G. But now it's a full word in the legal standard. And that grants these languages flexibility, which is why they they can work. On the other hand, you have language that are pure, meaning they don't have flexibility, but they have authenticity. And they're authentic, they go back very long time they come from roots of human history, Arabic is is a pure language that has a very high degree of flexibility, because of the number of words that you can actually derive within it, you're talking about a vocabulary of 12 million words, this is a this
is, this is something way beyond what we can actually comprehend. And Arabic has within it, the ability to actually come up with words that the autumn initially never used, but it's an appropriate word to use. How by the laws of derivative deriving so in Arabic, you're gonna say a verb, it's fine. If it's someone who did it to find someone who had it done to them as Mfold. If someone who really does it, well, fine, if it's someone who is described as fine, and then just have all these different derivatives that maybe 15 up to 20 derivatives for each word. So even if this derivative was never used, if it's appropriate, if this if this three letter root is appropriate as a meaning
to it, then you can derive something that was never used before. And that would be an Arabic word from the Arabic language, even though the I've never actually used it or, or
spoke with it.
So that's just an argument of why, why maybe specifically, the Arabic language was chosen for this final, with this final revelation to be offered. Now, here's a bunch of, of arguments that exists. And I may have to use my phone for this because I had, I had like, 25 arguments that I want to go through. And yesterday, we spent way too much time and I got really tired. So I'm just gonna go through maybe 12, that I think are worth are worth getting to be sharing with you. So number one, well, they say we don't need religion, because religion only existed for the early groups of people. And it was convenient. So it's very old. It's very, it was confused. That's the only reason that it
worked. It was convenient. It worked for people, people had no idea what was going on. So they needed something to comfort them. So they use religion. And we should probably get rid of everything that is old. This is the one of the arguments that they use. And it was convenient me it worked. Right now there's no convenience to having religion anymore. Because we have explanation for stuff again, that same fallacy of just because you understand the mechanism that you don't, then you don't need the the driving force, it's the same thing. And that's and the argument here is quite silly. But it does work quite a bit that this was, the older the community, the more religious they are.
And the more modernized the community, the more unreligious the art, and that is first of all untrue. That's just not a fact. You know, it's used that way. But it's not actually a fact. And anyway, I'll use this a couple of times today. Yeah, correlation does not imply causation. And a lot of these things, it's very important to kind of remind that they remember that. So just saying that it's old or that it's convenient, doesn't mean that it's wrong.
If anything, I use that as an argument for me. Yeah. So it's authentic. When you say old, I hear authentic, and you say convenient, icy works. And he was able to find out why is this a problem? Why what is wrong with it being convenient? I don't I don't I don't see the you know, the issue here. That's what the second argument that that exists there is that it?
It can make people lazy.
By getting them wishful thinking. This is one of the arguments of the have against religion. And I find that to be probably the silliest one of all, your religion does not make people lazy. If anything, religion makes it really hard to live, if you think about it, going against your basic instincts. Religion gives you all these rituals that you have to follow. It gives you all these acts of worship, all of these things that you can't do all of these things that you must do. So the argument of it maybe, is their wishful thinking somewhere there may be. But what is wishful thinking, really, if you don't take it too far, it's just hope or optimism, hope or optimism, if you
push it too far, and you stop being logical or rational, pragmatic, and your approach to religion has nothing to do with that that's more of a personal trait that you may have or may not have. If you push it too far. It becomes wishful thinking. If you're attracted a little bit back then it just gives you hope. And it gives you optimism to things that are actually very helpful and very powerful within the existence of the human race me definitely require these two things in order for us to just survive.
A third point
is they talk about profits, and they say well
profits, probably we're just gonna We're just sick. This was just an a just a disease with different profits out there, they didn't have disease. And one of the things, one of the theories you ever heard of temporal lobe epilepsy, they're gonna be called temporal lobe epilepsy. And it's, it's associated with the people being geniuses and people having visions and people seeing things in their dreams that are very vivid, and speaking to supreme powers. So they say, Well, maybe all of these prophets were just people who had this disease. Now, the problem with that is that we have nowhere in history, anywhere that any of the great leaders of humankind had anything similar to this
at all. There are a lot of people who had temporal lobe epilepsy. And yes, they were quite intelligent, but they were in the realm of artists. I mean, that's what this as far as they went, they were people who were either authors or artists, that you were not capable of actual leadership. And the problem with this argument of it being a disease is that actually people who had these types of diseases aren't quite debilitated. And they're not really capable of social interaction, or normal social interaction. And they're definitely not capable of organizing large groups of people and showing any form of leadership. And they actually show symptoms of disease in their in their
behaviors, meaning people define them as individuals who are a little bit ill.
When you look at profits, under human services, and all of them, none of them were defined as ill individuals or people who had problems with the way that they spoke, or the way that they dealt with others were that they were very weird or awkward or did not know how to deal with others socially at all. They were very capable. They were they were leaders in their community. So this argument is, in my opinion, one of the most silliest arguments out there, but it's, again, when you're looking for ways to kind of, you know, trash pressure of a complete way of thought, then that's, that's one of the ways you can do it. You can maybe call them sick. And the prophet Isaiah saw some was called
sick. He was called Miss, you know, and the word missional doesn't mean insane. It just means that you have a problem with your cognition means something's affecting whether you think that's actually the wording. The meaning in the Arabic language is that when you say in saying, because that's quicker for the intelligent man for translation purposes, but the actual word means that you get, you get moments of where you lose your mind, moments where you're not there anymore. And referring to the way that here, it is awesome. But But this, this argument didn't stand because the profit, I mean, people like that, again, they can't function fully within this role. Another point
is that, they say, well, there's 5000 gods, what makes you think yours is the one you need to actually worship? And that's just a, that's just plain wrong. There's no 5000 Guys, more like 20 There's more like 20, because the way they look at things is that they say, Okay, there's so many there's to go, God, that's the God of all the a god. So they take all the * that exists in all religions, and the Assign each one of God. So they count all the * that exists. And they say, though, the 5000 gods, which is not actually accurate data, if you take the Abrahamic faiths altogether, it's one god that they're actually referring to, and you take so altogether is maybe 20.
Gods, which is a number that's more more reasonable in terms of having a discussion is much more reasonable.
I mean, we can, we can argue that why there's more, there's 20 is obviously difficult to argue whether it's 5000 of them, but to argue 20 is much more reasonable. That's one thing. Another thing is that
the reason that for us as Muslims, it's not really a problem, it never will be. And by the way, Muslims don't. Very few Muslims get lost to other faiths. This is a point that I should have made maybe even earlier on. Very few Muslims get lost, or other faiths. It happens. Obviously, I'm not saying it doesn't, but it's very rare. Muslims, when they get lost in their faith, they get lost to agnosticism to say I don't know anymore. I don't know. I don't know. And they step back, but they don't go to other faiths because the version of Allah subhanaw taala of God that we have in our book is the only one that is in keeping with what the universe and life is telling us. Meaning as we went
through the logical thought process yesterday, before the day before we walked slowly, okay, what is it exactly that Jani we believe Allah subhanaw taala mean, what exactly is the universe suggesting what is exactly nature telling us? The it aligns very well. It's the problem with other versions of God that are, again, the anthropomorphism and the aspects of human behavior, and the lack of clarity on what the attributes of God actually are, is what causes people to kind of have a problem with the the biblical or Old Testament version of them.
So when we say that there's 5,001st of all that number is there is designed there as a fallacy to make you feel that there's no point it's way too way too many, the probability of mine being the right one is very, very low. When the real number is not even close to that. It's more like 20. And another thing is that your version of your understanding of God as a Muslim is very unique is very different. So when we talked about nature, saying that, it seems to be pointing towards the fact there's only one Creator, for us to argue there's more than one, it actually requires evidence. And this is where you have the burden of proof comes on. You need to prove that there's more than one
force here, because it all works in the same way. It came from one little item that exploded if we're going to go by that theory, which is the one that we have right now. And every other aspect of the Universe works in the
exact same way, same laws. So for you to say there's more than one Creator, here you have the burden of evidence and proof is going to be on you. Because right now what we can see it's one. So again, that's an aspect of, and then every other aspect that nature tells us is exactly aligned with what we see to be as Muslims in terms of our understanding of God Himself.
And the fact that Allah subhanaw taala is beyond the reach of a human being, which is again, it's not fun for us as humans, but it's definitely is definitely accurate.
point after that. They talked about, well, why so many faiths? Why so many of them, we have so many religions out there, what's the point of having all of these religions, and
actually having a lot of religions is not an argument against the existence of God or against the truth of religions, in general, it's actually the opposite. Actually having all of these religions all over the planet, from New Japan to South America, including Australia, North America, Europe, in all of Africa, that you had, in every civilization, there was some form of a faith, there was some temple that was found, and some inscripted words on a wall somewhere, that talked about some degree of divineness, or some form of accountability is actually impossible for us to argue that somehow, the human beings all these years ago, were able to communicate across continents within this very
specific period of time. Like, it's not possible. It's not possible for someone in the middle of Asia, and someone in the middle of the of the Amazon, to actually within that period of time, communicate, and end up saying, okay, and then copying from each other, the different aspects of their Pace, pace, yes, there are different differences within faiths. If you take Hinduism, for example, Buddhism and Islam, then you're gonna find a lot of differences. But are there lines of similarities to for sure, for sure, there's a lot of similarities between faiths, these similarities actually are taken, their Maxim's are taken for granted. So we don't even think about them. But the
fact that every faith talk somehow, some form
of accountability for human beings, meaning that there's some form of accountability, some form of punishment, and some form of reward, it may differ in terms of what it actually is. But the concept is there, the concept of punishment and reward and accountability is there, the concept of there being an a higher being a higher power that oversees you, and that you need somehow to communicate with these are, these are just parallel lines exist in all faith, they may differ on definition of God, and who he is, and what exactly the point of all of this is. But the fact that there is a higher being, and that you are in need of communication with the higher being is universal amongst
all of all of the all of the major faiths. Again, there are minor faiths that exist out there that maybe don't have these details. But these is as common parallels that exist within all faiths, they're there. And that doesn't say that religion is wrong, that tells you that the opposite, there was communication occurring over many, many, many years with the same basic ideas that ended up somehow, for some reason getting manipulated, or moved around or changed or, or deviated in a different direction. So the existence of a lot of faith, or a lot of religions, does not actually take away from the validity or authenticity of religion, and actually strengthens the argument.
Because if there was no religion, except in one part of the world, only Middle East, for example, it says only the Middle East that happened on your face, then he was started thinking, well, maybe there's a certain trait amongst these people, that allows them to believe in something. And maybe maybe this is just their game is what they're good at. And to say that, Well, God only cared about them didn't care, but anyone else is also, you know, a flawed argument of what God actually is. So it doesn't work that well. But when you find out that no faith or a common denominator all over the planet, for as long as human beings have been around, then you're stuck with, okay, there must be a
reason for that. And, and to say, another argument, I'd say, Oh, this is this was just a mechanism of organization. Again, another argument that using Israel, it was just it was just helpful to organize people. And that's why people came up with faith is a way to control people and organize them. Again, the same idea, same fallacy.
Just because it worked, doesn't mean it was wrong. Yes, it's a very good way of organizing communities, definitely for sure, for sure, or religion is a really good way to organize a community. So explain to me why that's a reason for us not to accept it as real. Like why is that an argument against his truthfulness? It's really not. Because we not but this is a common fallacy, that whenever something seems to be self serving, then it must be wrong. Subhan Allah is very funny. We believe in the knifes we believe that anything else wants for itself is usually not very good, because then it's never wants anything that's good. And it's very selfish and it's very
driven based on very primitive instincts.
So this actually exists in the minds of those who don't believe in religion, they believe anything that is self serving for the human race must come from within the human race as a self serving approach, or a self serving event. We're doing it for ourselves. When, what else would religion be?
Like what else? If the Creator Himself sent a message? What do you send a message that would be not in the best interest of the people that he's sending it to? And what I'm trying to get here, for us to even say, or for us to imagine or suggest that religion is not going to serve the community is actually quite bizarre, because well, that you're saying, what you're trying to say is that if there's a God, that he must send something that is going to mess everything up. No, he's gonna send Sunday, they're gonna organize everything. So you're telling me that religion organized people, like good, that did his job, and it worked went really well.
So there's just not really an argument to say that it's not righteous, or it's not truthful, it's not authentic. It's just, it's really, it's a really smart trick that that's used, because it's self serving that it must be wrong and well, not, not when it's actually serving large groups. Another argument, and I'm sorry, I think I think I've come to 12. But I have a few more to go through another argument as well. Well, it's, it's, it's been corrupt. Over the years, there's been a lot of corruption, and it's been manipulated. Why did Allah let that happen? Well, he didn't really let that happen, if that's what you're trying to suggest that he actually Subhana wa Taala
pointed out multiple times, that this shouldn't happen. All the prophets came and warn their people from manipulating what he's bringing them. A lot of prophets were murdered. A lot of the a lot of their messages were thrown into wills. A lot of them were they killed them, and they took their messages. And then they used it for their personal use. He says, How do you How did he feel and Kenema and Manuel de, they take the word and then they manipulate it. So it means something different than it was designed to mean. So it was self serve a clergy or self serve, or help a dynasty of some sort, continue to rule or to control people. So that's not something that we deny
happened in history. No, it definitely happened. But that's not a reason for us not to accept faith as a communication from God. It just points out that people manipulate good things when come to them when it doesn't serve their self interest. That's what it says. And we know that Allah subhanaw taala has pointed that out as something that is wrong that we should not be doing. But that does the fact that it happened does not argue against the fact that is valid. It just says that as human beings, we continue to have to focus on the fact that that's a problem. That's a threat to our deen in general, the corruption of clergy or politicians or whoever else wants to use this religion for
them for their own benefit?
Well, then they'll come and say, Well, if that's the case, well, the Quran is not decisive, and everything that it says the Quran is actually quite open ended. Like there's a lot of aspects in the Quran where it's talked about, in a way where you can understand you can you can potentially understand a lot of different things. There's a lot of different ways to interpret maybe the same verse, for example.
And they'll use that as an argument say, Well, that means it's up for for corruption, it's up for, for manipulation, just like everything else. Imago ojo is the word that they use in Arabic, and you can carry different meanings. Well, the problem with that argument is that you're arguing something that the Quran was designed to be cheap, this is not a flaw in the Quran, this is how the Quran was designed to be, this is one of the issues that I'm going to actually try and tackle. As a, you know, afterthought, or, like a sequel to this course, to talk about the divine design, I'm gonna explain to you something called the divine design, Allah subhanaw taala, designed the Quran and this to be
in a certain way, so that it may be interpreted in different methods, so that people will have the sign in the deen that they have. The reason that you need to understand this as a Muslim is that most Muslims don't understand this at all, and find that the differences that exist in the way we interpret text as a sign of a problem, which is why people and that goes back to the human term, I told you, there are certain ways of thought that can lead you to had the everything or nothing type of thought. Everything has to be perfectly defined all the time. If anything is left for interpretation, or there's more than one way to understand it, then we don't want it anymore, and it
will cause them a faith crisis. I have people who call me to demand that I speak to them within a very short period of time, because there is something called a faith crisis. There is no such thing as a faith crisis. That's not a thing. That's a mental health crisis disguised in a faith crisis. But it's not there's no such thing. Faith is something that you deal with over a long period of time. You develop your understandings of things with time you run into a question that you don't have a good answer for. You wait and you go and you ask and you you, you research and you discover and you analyze and you observe and then you go back again, this is a process that takes a long time
of your life. You don't allow one thing or
When problem to throw off everything that you have, and now you're in a crisis you're losing. No, that's, that's that's a that's a, that's a personality trait problem. And it requires actual. And I always try to explain to people this is not your huddle is not with me, like what you're looking for, it's not me, you need to go somewhere else to get help. And then once you have help, and you're more calm human being under cable, if you don't have these anxieties, then we can come up with a talk about faith.
It's not it's not a problem, which is why I want to I want to point this out to you. Very important to start your Eman from the right point. You don't start your iman, from trying to understand why it is that women can't pray during their height, or why it is men should have beards, or why we can't have tattoos, or why we you don't start you don't this is not an argument that's appropriate for building faith. This is a I don't even I don't entertain these things. If someone comes to me with a faith probably wants, and they start asking me these questions. I know we're not doing this. We go back to the origin. We go back to the universe, telling me based on looking at everything around
you. Is there a driving? Do you understand that there's a driving force behind it? Because it's not infinite? And it requires something to have started it off? Or not? Yes. Okay. That's the first arrow, now look at life, telling me why life is driven the way it is. But why is it that was it was inevitable that we came along? And this is the question I got yesterday, but I think it's important, again, to kind of clarify, when we talk about randomness within evolution, I'm not talking about the what they say unguided, unguided randomness, they're just using that phrase to kind of throw you off a little bit. Anything that's unguided, would not lead to this, we are inevitable, every creation
that's on the planet was inevitable. By design, it was inevitable. Yes, here's, here's, here's a mechanism where it will just have mutations continue to occur continuously for a very, very long time in a lot of different directions, which will inevitably lead to the existence of ourselves and everything else that's not unguided. That's not unguided. In the bigger picture, in the smaller one mean, just the specific mutation, sure, but in the bigger picture is not. And again, these are just policies and little tricks that are used to try to deviate people from their basic understanding of faith. And then you say, well, take a look at history tell me in history, the prophets told them are
going to be amenable soon. I didn't make this up, I didn't come with something that never happened before. Tell them I am just a part of a long series of messengers and prophets who have been sent throughout history with the same thing, oh, Abdullah, I'm gonna come and eat it later. Which is why when you go back to these old faith, you find the remnants of accountability of punishment of a reward of communication, you find the remnants of the faith there, yes, there are obviously a lot of clutter that's added on and a lot of them was Messiah, but there's something you can steal, if you just you take the little bell, and you throw in any move it around a bit, you can figure all that
the the basic points are still there, those basic points is what the prophets actually brought. And then once you have that belief in Allah subhanho, wa taala, in addition to your personal experiences, we will be the last thing we talked about in this series inshallah.
Then, your approach to the outcome, the rulings, the teachings, the words in the Quran will be different. Because now you're you based your iman on something very solid, then the universe will never change in this nature, the fact that it's finite, and it requires something to have started, life will never stop being driven in the fact that life cannot explain itself in that matter, it will never change the fact that this was what happened historically, for the these, these are solid, when you build your Eman on something emotional, or that you made that was accepted, we'll talk about that tomorrow. It's a very, it's you're standing on a marshmallow. And you build your faith on
a little stack of marshmallows. And it's very soon that someone's gonna push you over, you're gonna come fall and come falling down. If you build your faith on looking at these four sources. And you build and you see the uniformity of evidence that exists within within these sources of EMA and that are, that are the basics what was right before, so beautiful, so simple. Branches, just look, look at the stuff that are right there in front of you don't, you don't need to do anything, you don't need to look at us, we just look at the universe of the sun and the moon and the life itself. And you'll and the evidence will be very clear to you in which direction is going, then your faith is
not easily shook. So when you have something when you see here, something doesn't make sense to you. Alright, let's see what that means. And there's something and a Muslim is called the Muslim because you sell them, meaning you submit everything you're not understand everything, some things there'll be a little bit beyond your ability to comprehend which is going to be okay. Because you're basing your faith on a logical thought thought process that started from the beginning of time. From the beginning of it all you go, you went back to the universe itself, and this is something important to kind of comprehend. So going back to the Quran, it's by design is the divine design of Allah
subhanaw taala that the Quran was going to have different ways of interpretation. He intentionally said, well malapa to let our burstner Be unfussy in the Data Portal, he said Peru to that some people will understand it as a par As periods of purity and some of them will understand it as haibach as of impurity. So we would have more than one opinion on the matter so that people can follow different opinions. It will grant them the PSA and the Rama that they require for this Deen to actually be approved.
We get to reach people all over the planet. The argument that's being used against the Quran is the actual argument of why the Quran works. The kind of works for people all over the world throughout of all of time, because it's designed in that way, is designed with the sunnah to have that flexibility and that openness and that room for interpretation for that to be more than one way of looking at things, and I'm gonna run Inshallah, only a couple of there'll be maybe two or three sessions, where I explain to you what I mean by the divine design, what that actually requires, because this is not an open invitation for everyone to do their own little corner of jihad in the
world and to find a little place and put that EMA on and start telling people what it is that they think is right, there is a methodology of this being done. Again, a methodology that follows very simple, a very simple logical thought process. It's nothing, that nothing that doesn't require any a PhD in Philosophy just requires having the basic tools, understanding the basic getting teachings, but we'll do that in Charlotte, a different, different setting.
I'm going to end with that. I think that's enough. I think that's enough length I think I've gone through, but there's something else that I wanted to cover.
And I don't like using phones, but this is just too much to talk about and when in one setting.
Okay, there's one more, let's talk about this, because I think this is helpful. So
actually, there's two things
I'll do tomorrow that will stop.
So Karl Marx had a quote, I think, I don't know if you've heard the call the Dean a few in the show, I've heard that religion is the opioid of people.
And this, this, this wording is very, it gained a lot of a lot of momentum. And it became very, very popular all over the world for a very long time. Many
of them, but he left a horrible legacy with this with this term that he used. And, and the and the honesty or the truth about this issue is that there is some truth to that wording. But it's not a phrase that is accepted in its totality. Meaning, there is room and faith for it to become a morphine shot, there is Roman faith for three reasons for the existence of Allah, for the existence of powder, and for the existence of the hood. So you have three things in faith, the belief and hereafter, which if you misunderstand will mean that no matter what people do to you, they slap you around, you'll accept it, because on the Day of Judgment, they're going to be held accountable. So
you're you're good, or the content of today's meeting saying everything is predestined, and we're talking about that tomorrow, we'll go into other so I there's not there's no point in me doing anything. So the instead of doing nothing, or wishes, I said, this isn't which means you don't want dunya. So you let all the people who want dunya, take all of dunya, then you sit there Yanni, in rags, being controlled or being enslaved by others. So there is room and faith for the problem to actually exist. But there's also room and faith for these not to be any
anesthesia, but for them to be reasons of enlightenment. Imagine does not necessarily lead to this very negative and passive understanding, it actually leads to something very different. It leads to the feeling of accountability, of responsibility that if I don't get up, out my behind and go do what I'm here to do, I'm going to be held accountable. But the other is the same thing. But that can be a force as a force of nature, understanding that you're destined for something, you need that you and I there's something about us, which we will talk about. And the last Yani session, the personal is, there's something about us where we need to feel that there's more to us than just the basic
instincts that we've got, don't get me wrong, it's a lot of fun to indulge in those basic instincts. Just eating and having * all the time is actually very fun to do. People enjoy it for a certain period of time. But there's a part of you that actually feels that there's must be more to me than this. So the cuddle is not to tell you that you don't have to do anything God that is there to tell you that there's more to you than that is destined you for greatness, you just have to go and fulfill that destiny. So it's actually a very positive moving force. And then the concept of Ziltoid is not to say that you leave dunya it just means that you don't let it possess you, you go out and
you obtain it, and you control it and you take it by the horns, but then you don't allow it to own you. And that's what So, so the same ideas can be extremely, extremely helpful and positive and empowering or with the wrong person talking about them with the wrong culture, within ignorance, they can turn into something very passive. So yes, it could be or it could be something different. But then again, everything is like that.
Then again, everything in the world can be used in a very, very positive way or used in a very negative way. You can extract from the same thing something that can get from the same.
From the same fruit you can make a juice that is very nutritious or you can make a camera that will you know knock you off your socks. You can take you can you can do anything with anything. Once you're given in life. What you do with it is your choice, meaning there's the hand of man
is actually manipulate is involved and how there's going to be dealt with. So to say that religion is the opioid of of communities or societies. It's not It's certain narratives in it that are, I agree with that. I've witnessed that myself. I can pre war, I can take it to certain parts of Damascus and show you something. I can show you a group of people that they're not going anywhere. They're not contributing in any way. And they think this is the way to live. And it's definitely not. And this is definitely not the right way to go by life. And this passivity is the reason that we were not we're not able as an ummah to stand on our feet anymore. Because we've accepted this
passive concept of faith. Politicians love it. Politicians have no problem with Islam, as long as it stays in the masjid. As long as it doesn't go beyond couple of people dancing around. And as long as it's as simple as that. We don't talk about oppression, we don't talk about justice. We don't talk about reform. We don't talk about people actually getting their rights and standing up for what is correct and defending righteousness and the truth, as long as we don't bring that in. And as long as we have full BA, what do you remember, we just use those three words. And we definitely, and by the way, oh, Islamic schools of thought have indulged in this problem. They don't just say, Oh, this is
theirs, you know, all groups. There are groups that hate each other, to the Jonnie, the inner most dark part of of their existence within Islamic schools of thought they hate each other. But they all agree that they do whatever the politician tells them to do. They all agree I'm completely going with whatever the way it says. So they disagree on everything, but not on that one. Because that one is how you stay safe. And that's how you say lucrative. So, yes, really, it can't be used that way. But but it definitely it definitely should not. I think that's something any worth worth pointing out.
One more and then I'll let you go. There's just really nice on Eve, or last night, he said, this really cute thing they say is that the West succeeded because they left religion.
That is like a joke. That is so dumb, I'm Forgive me, I'm gonna use the word. That's one of the dumbest things ever said, because there's literally no evidence at all that that is the truth. There are no statistics, I O that support the fact that leaving faith not leaving Islam, leaving faith actually makes you more advanced as a human being absolutely no evidence to support this at all. But it comes down again, from the fact that well, the West after the Renaissance, and after the Industrial Revolution, so they they're not as adhering to faith as they used to be that you remove the Catholic Church from from controlling people. So and now they're very, they're very successful.
Again, correlation does not imply causation at all. And if you want to actually understand the history of the West, you need to understand you have to study someone called looser, you have to understand the process of movement, and you have to look at what they actually did Jonnie for, for the for the majority of Europe, and for the United States of America, if you want to take a look at the states, let's say the states in the last 50 years, right before maybe 2000, last 5050 years, was the prime power in the world is the majority of the people United States religious or non religious,
whopping ly religious, like by by a huge advantage, like beyond, it's not even like the number of people who identify as agnostic or atheist are very, very small there as loud as the as the voices are their religious. And let's say, let's say that's arguably okay, I'm wrong. And actually religion is yes, they are religion, font science, so they got rid of it so they could get up front that just for Islam enhances science. So there's us getting rid of it is not going to make the same effect. If your faith is holding you back from thinking logically, and looking at the world and extracting the proof and the evidence allows you to improve your lifestyle, then yes, you should get rid of it,
because that's gonna hold you back. But if you have a fade that does the exact opposite. Again, we go back the Pierce people who have been thought of the concept of the graduality of labor Muslim scholars, who understand that Jah Helton was a marked as at 50.
He's a Sunni is a group of Montecito at the time they were they existed more than he does today is Sunday prison. He's so funny. He sat in the masjid and he and he gave it to her. And he wrote the book life and he talked about
there was never I mean the number of Muslim scholars, if you go to the Muslim golden era that were both fuqaha either amalickiah or vahidi or Hannah, our Hanafi or Shafi or Hannah Bella, who, who invented certain things in astronomy, for example, in medicine, or in botany, which is the three, you know, basic sciences that the Muslims really took time and invested in and philosophy because philosophy was a big deal for them as well. You'll be surprised that actually the word to Ireland is not used to describe someone who only understands Islamic law. If someone only understands Islamic law, they're given a different word. He's almost said and will have this effect he will fully with
the kalam These are the words that are used to describe someone only as you said, I only met someone who actually understand certain things of the of the universe of a nature and yet he has studied nature in depth and he has a certain niche of understanding how certain things work. So that concept of that the thought of somehow the West became successful because it left religion is used a lot it is a completely used
This argument that I don't think is worth at the time of the day, I'm going to stop there because so I'm not to change the title because I didn't get to the other two things I wanted to talk about. But tomorrow, I'm going to talk a little bit about Oran, and the claim of scientific issues in it. And then the concept of scientific miracles in the Quran, and what that actually isn't what that did. And an approach to a hadith because this is going to be for us as Muslims is something actually has a lot of effect on how we look at things. And I'll give an introduction to the concept of of evil in the world. I usually like doing evil with Allah and fidelity. They all come like as a clump
together, but we're running out of time because only have maybe three more sessions left. So we'll try and maybe do a little bit of a joint session tomorrow and show what's on and I'll end with that. And if you have any questions in sha Allah to Allah regarding this session specifically you're welcome to ask if not then we'll end and please again you can you put up the survey again if that's okay. Please again if you if you don't mind for my own Yani feedback purposes, fill in the survey. Only fill in constructive feedback only put in something that you think could be make this better don't don't tell me if you'd like it I find that's great. You just got lucky if you don't like it,
it was just something's not working or something's not clear put it in there because I need that to help me kind of figure out what I want to do for the next steps and show us a backlog 100 Shalala and and just hoping to break was that Allah who was selling mobile kind of you know, Muhammad Ali's like, there's many if any questions put your hand up I'll give you the microphone. Otherwise I'll I'll call it a day
perfect. He's not gonna lie.
I
don't know maybe