Melbourne, 15_09_2019
Adnan Rashid – Muslim Response To Atheism
AI: Summary ©
The rise of digitalization and the emergence of digital meantime is discussed, including the history of the legal system in Pakistan and its influence on the writing of Islam. The speakers emphasize the need for men to hold money and eat, as well as learning about religion and social philosophy to improve one's life. They also emphasize the importance of belief in oneself, one's ability to achieve success, and the challenges of existence. The speaker also mentions a book about a woman who experiences transformation and a woman who takes on a new life.
AI: Summary ©
We will be talking about on the topic of Islam response to atheism shala. So, I'll put it on to him and he can get us that on the show. So I'm just gonna let Amanda Rahim al hamdu Lillah wa salatu salam ala rasulillah. about Allah will live from Illumina shaytani r rajim Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim wa salam not a lot of data a lot. I mean, Colorado law is a lower layer solemn
law you have to come up to akuna haba la he been worried he already even Nazi Germany. Oh, come on call Allah. Salatu Salam spektral brothers and sisters. Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.
I am honored to be here with you today. It is my pleasure, my honor, to be of service to this beautiful desecrate dishonorable Dean. And it is our privilege to be in the masjid. Allah has blessed us with Islam, the biggest blessing, the biggest Name of Allah subhanaw taala upon any of his creation. So we should thank Allah subhanaw taala for this blessing.
And
tonight I will be talking about in sha Allah, the concept of atheism, or the emergence, the emergence of atheism in our modern day, modern day and age. atheism, to simply put means belief in no God, whether it's gods or God, so absence of belief in any deity for that matter. So atheists, they believe in no God,
they reject the existence of God.
And there are a number of reasons why that is the case. But this is what it means and loosely translated in the Arabic language. It means it's hard,
basically, which means disbelief in God.
But there isn't the God of Abrahamic faiths over there is the God of the Hindus over there is the God of any other faiths, for that matter. They do not believe in any god. And this phenomenon has been on the rise recently, in the Western world in particular, in the Western world, religion has been on the decline, because Christianity
has not convinced
people living in this modern age.
Since last two centuries,
Christianity Christianity has been going down believe in Christianity, if you go to the Western world now, when I say the Western world, I mean, Europe, Americas, and
Australia, Australia is also part of the Western world. So if you speak to people, a lot of them and I say millions of them, they will say they have no religion. They have lost their faith in Christianity. And this process started in the 18th century. So in my opinion,
new
or new atheism, which has emerged in the 20th century, it is more aggressive, it is more assertive. And it is more confident. While in the 19th century and the 18th century, atheists and atheism was on the backfoot. Now, because Christianity has failed to defend itself intellectually,
atheists think that Islam is the same.
They feel that if they have defeated Christianity, in debates and dialogues, in intellectual discussions, they feel Islam is exactly the same. Islam has no virtue. Islam has no intellectual arguments on his side on his part, therefore, Islam is no different. So they assume this, but recently, there has been a surge of Muslim scholars and activists and Muslim speakers who have challenged atheistic scholars and speakers and the debaters and hamdulillah many successful debates have been conducted and some of the weakness of atheism has been shown in these discussions. And few of these points will be discussed in due course, tonight, inshallah. So what is the response of
Islam? To atheism? Firstly, we as Muslims, when we want to study something, we must indulge in
the history of an idea where does this idea come from in the first place?
are humans by nature atheists? No. Even scientific research has shown that if you were to leave humans on an island without any concept of God, they would end up they would end up believing in a Supreme Person or a supreme entity who is running the affairs of the heavens of the earth.
And this has been
shown by some research done by Oxford University scholars.
So if you were to leave children in fact, children have this intuition.
This intuition that they believe in a supreme power children, even from the birth, when they grow up, they end up believing in the supreme power. So atheism, by that reason, or by that virtue is an acquired position. It was instilled in people's minds.
People are conditioned to be atheists. It's not the other way around. As some atheists claim that you are born an atheist and you are made into a Muslim or a Christian or a Jew. No, it's actually the other way around. atheism is drilled into people's minds, whether it's by propaganda, whether it's by false reasoning, whether it's by intellectual argumentation, whatever it may be, atheism is an acquired position. And when did atheism arise in the first place? Where did it come from?
I believe atheism is a product of Western history. What happened in the West?
In the 18th century, in particular, of course, atheism, there were many people who didn't believe in God in the past, but they were, they were they were, they were on the margins. They were never the majority. They were not even seen in public, or hardly anyone in human history. Even if you go to Greek philosophers, the majority of them, most of them, actually, they were, they believed in a supreme deity. They believed in a supreme entity who made the heavens of the earth, even Aristotle, for example, if you talk about him, he believed in some sort of deity, so that Plato,
so atheism, was a product of
what happened in Christian Europe, in particular, the 18th century, this century was called The Age of Enlightenment.
So a lot of people when they started to study the history of Christianity, they studied the Bible, it didn't make sense to them, the doctrine of the Trinity in particular, did not make sense to them. They couldn't rationalize the doctrine of the Trinity, a lot of them had problems with it. So in the 18th century, in particular, there were three types of reactions to Christianity, three types of reactions to the irrational nature of Christianity or the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Okay. One reaction was outright apostasy, complete abandonment of organized religion, religion is manmade, God does not exist, this God cannot exist. When they read the Bible, there was a lot of there are a
lot of massacres, and you know, genocides in the Bible. So these guys, these people, they could not come around
to believe in a god like that. So they rejected the concept of God entirely. Then the second reaction was, people abandoned.
A belief in organized religion, they could not possibly due to the rationality and the research, and the observations of the universe, they could not possibly reject the existence of a supreme power, who has made all of this the universe, the heavens in the earth, they could not possibly reject that. So they became DS. deism is a position where people believe in a supreme entity, but this entity is created the heavens of the earth and left left the universe to run by itself.
He is like an absentee landlord.
He rents the property and he walks away, doesn't care about the renter, or the or the tenants. So this is what this came up with that Christianity doesn't make sense. God has to exist, because all of this rationally when the thought about it,
then what do we do? they abandon belief in organized religion, such as Christianity, and they became deist. So this was the second reaction. The third reaction was unitarianism. A lot of these Christian
scholars, philosophers, thinkers, intellectuals, they started to believe in the doctrine of the Unity so they became Unitarians, they rejected Trinity. There's a trinity doesn't make sense. It's not in the Bible. It's not a biblical doctrine. It cannot be supported from the Bible. Therefore, we have to reject this doctrine. It is a corruption within the religion of Christianity. The message of Jesus Christ was corrupted by earlier later Christians, therefore we have to revive. We have to review our doctrine all together in the light of the Bible, so they ended up with the doctrine of the Trinity, many
major intellectual figures
In the 18th century became Unitarians. And you'll be shocked to hear this. Some of them are will mentioned by name. Isaac Newton. Have you heard of him? Isaac Newton, right. Gravity is well is known for his physics and his work.
General work in science. He was also a theologian. He wrote on theology more than he did on science. Some of his manuscripts have recently found in private collections. He wrote over 3 million words on theology. And he wrote that the universe was made by a supreme entity.
And the supreme entity has to be one, it cannot be three, cut the long story short, he became a Unitarian, albeit in secret, but he was a Unitarian. This was revealed later on when his works are published posthumously after his death. And people realize, well, Ron Newton was a Unitarian. Then, john Locke, a very important figure in the British history, the founder of modern democratic principles, or the Unitarian, then a mathematician known as William Western, Unitarian. Then we had later on, the man who discovered discovered oxygen, his name was Joseph Priestley, a scientist par excellence. Right? He became a Unitarian. In fact, he wrote a book against the doctrine of the
Trinity, titled corruptions of Christianity, the corruptions of Christianity in two volumes. He published this work in 1782, in Birmingham, in Britain, and because he wrote this book, in the early 1790s, his house was burned down in Birmingham, so he had to run for his life. He ended up in Pennsylvania in the US, he migrated to Pennsylvania, and that's where he remained for the rest of his life.
Then we have people like
Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence,
the founding one of the founding fathers in America, and
john quincy adams, for example, or john adams, the President of the United States, in the early 19th century was also a Unitarian. So a lot of these intellectuals became Unitarians because they couldn't make but one of the reactions was outright apostasy and abandonment, of,
of belief in God or any God for that matter. But even in the 18th century, these people were a minority. One of them was David Hume, David Hume was a philosopher who had written extensively on, on,
on philosophy of science as well, in fact, is based upon a lot of his writings. And then there were others who were not outrightly, atheistic, but they came up with some of the ideas Emmanuel Kant, for example, the German philosopher, he was not an atheist, but he actually broke away from organized religion as he criticized Christianity extensively. Then we had Voltaire who also was a deist, not not an atheist. So atheism was a product of this intellectual exercise are many intellectual exercises within the 18th century. Now, why did these people not become Muslim? Or why did they not consider Islam? Unfortunately, the the view of Islam they had was, was heavily
distorted. And there are many books written on this topic, how the Europeans or the Westerners viewed Islam. throughout centuries, many books have been written on that topic. Okay. One of them is very important work, you must consult Islam and the West making of an image. And this work was authored by a man called Daniel
Norman Daniel. Okay, Norman Daniel, he has collected all the history of how the western people
viewed Islam throughout the Middle Ages, how Islam was viewed, and that view was passed on to
later generations during the Renaissance period. And then, during the Enlightenment period, people when they read about the prophet of Islam, they the presupposition, or the beginning point was that he's an imposter. He's a false prophet. So this is the lens they studied with the Prophet with so they couldn't see anything positive in the life of the progress of the salon. I had a debate tonight. Before I came to this Masjid, I had a debate. And I had a debate with this Christian apologist called Dr. Bernie powers and even he, during the debate,
she struggled to come up with anything positive about the progress or someone's life, hardly anything and
The things he did mentioned were mostly negative. Right? So this is how the Europeans have had a bias and a prejudice towards the province of Ontario for a very long time, and is a huge tradition to that effect.
So it's not something which is more than people think. misconceptions about the progress of asylum only happened because of ISIS, or only happened because of al Qaeda. All you haven't because of these recent wars and geopolitical events taking place around the world. No, this tradition is very old. It goes back all the way from the very beginning of Islam.
So when Christians were writing on the Prophet sallallahu sallam, they portrayed him as an imposter, as a false prophet. So they could never the Christian masses, when they were reading about the progress of Islam, they didn't have a sympathetic view. It only started in the 19th century, when some people realize Hold on. We're going too far. Now in criticizing this man. He was a noble man. He did great things he his people, his followers achieved a great civilization, so we can't be unjust like that. And to mention few names. George Bernard Shaw was one of them who wrote like this, and Thomas Carlyle, who was a was a man of literature, who also and there was a man called David
Devonport, he wrote an entire book,
you know, putting the record straight. And the book was titled an apology for Mohammed and the Quran, right? So many people, in fact, Edward Gibbon, who was an atheist, who was writing in the late 18th century, he wrote a huge history of the decline and the fall of the Roman Empire. Even he praised a lot of things about Islam. Right. Adam Smith, who was an economist, in the in the 18th century, again, who wrote positively about Islam, so many people who started to study Islam on its own terms, they started, but even then they didn't have the best sources available to them. Right. So Islam was not an option for them. Unfortunately, a lot of them would have been easily Muslim, I
believe Isaac Newton, if he was shown a true image of Islam, on its own terms, if Isaac Newton had access to
Sahil Bukhari for example, if he read the biography of the Prophet sallallahu Sallam from authentic Islamic sources, without spins put on Islamic sources from orientalist and some hostile Christian apologists at that time, then, many of these intellectuals I believe would have been Muslims. In fact, some of the people in the 19th century did become Muslim. One of them was Abdullah Quilliam, very famous person, one of the most prominent Muslim figures in the 19th century, many people and later on in the early 20th century when more sources became available, more people came to Islam, Marmaduke Pickthall a very famous English translation, you can find it in your machine. He was a man
of literature, again, studied the Quran and Islam and became a Muslim. Muhammad Asad was a was an Austrian Jew. His name was his name was Leopold ways, and he died in the 1990s. He became a Muslim, he spent time with the Arabs
during the early days of Saudi Arabia, and then he met many Muslim figures, including Muhammad Iqbal in India. And then Muhammad Iqbal advised him to stay here because we are about to create another state in the name of Islam, called Pakistan. And we will lead you and Hamas as being an Austrian Jew, represented Pakistan in the United Nations, not a lot of people know this. And Jenna had actually given him a task to write the Islamic constitution of Pakistan. Unfortunately, that task was never completed for some reason. And Pakistan remains
remains a predominantly secular state to this day. So
coming back to atheism, so atheism was adopted in the 19th century, more so than it was in
the 18th century. It was a reaction against rationality or Christianity. So it became fashion in the 19th century. So there there were many thinkers during the 19th century who started to call themselves rationalist, rational rationalists. They claim this because they thought rationality leads you to disbelieve in God, if Christianity is the only option, but Christianity was not the only option. Right?
So many philosophers then started to devise arguments against atheists, when atheism became prominent
in the 19th century, moreso than the 18th century, okay, many philosophers in the West they started to devise arguments against atheism to show why the position is absurd. You cannot possibly intellectually rationally refuse the existence of God you can't. It is impossible to do that if you are honest about the creation if you're honest about the the natural
phenomenon if you are honest about the universe, okay, so a lot of people started to devise arguments
but sapana law by the grace of Allah subhanaw taala. A lot of these arguments were put down already in the Quran, Allah subhanaw taala preempted all of this activity 14 centuries ago, Allah knew these people will come in the future and they will come up with all this. Because, you know, because there's an old word, which means gibberish rubbish, basically. Yeah, so a lot of so Allah subhanaw taala preempted a lot of these
philosophical arguments used by theistic philosophers and scholars against atheists. They had to go through a lot of struggle and pain to devise a lot of thinking to devise these arguments to show how absurd the atheistic position is, right. So what are these arguments? One of them is the cosmological argument, cosmological argument goes as follows it means anything that begins to exist must have a cause, okay, the universe began to exist therefore, the universe has a cause the universe cannot come about itself it cannot be a channel the evidence astrophysical evidence points to the point to the point to the reality that it is not a terminal it's taught it had a beginning if
it had a beginning nothing comes from nothing, okay, nothing comes from nothing, okay. You if you have nothing, then you cannot have anything coming from that nothing, right. So, for something to come, there has to be some cause some someone to drive this thing to start. And therefore, the universe had a beginning it had a cause this is the cosmological argument, put it in simple terms. And there was another argument very powerful, the fine tuning argument that the universe not only began to exist, it is finely tuned. And then they use the solar system like Isaac Newton, Isaac Newton was one of those people who use the solar system as an example, that it is like a clock, it
is mathematically placed and designed, it cannot just pop into existence by an accident, it cannot be an accident. Therefore, it is made it is designed and not only designed, it is fine tune it is fine tuned, for example, or something to work in a particular fashion. Okay, it has to work in a particular way. If I want to make a phone call to my mother from this mobile phone, right, it has to be put together in a particular way to do a particular job right? The solar system was put in a particular fashion, very finely tuned the need to define it. Therefore, there is a fine tuner. That fine tuner has to be supremely powerful, powerful, and they give examples why the sun is very big
for someone to drag the sun firstly to make the sun and then drag it into a position for you to have life on this little tiny planet called Planet Earth by the way, and your galaxy is a dot you are sitting on a dot right now you're sitting on a.is in Australia's Outback, the desert and we're talking about going to Perth as well as telling me it takes like five days or six days or a week to drive to Perth. Yes. Right. And you think this is big Australia's big Mashallah. It is big, no doubt it is big. Yes.
But in the grand scheme of things, Allah subhanaw taala
actually told us in the Quran that this is nothing, I'm into my shadow Kolkata, Miss sama Baja, do you think you are more difficult to create Allah subhanaw taala. This is a verse from the Quran reading your more difficult to create,
or the heavens, we made them. We made them You are nothing your little planet Earth this dot and the grand scheme of things is nothing. So the one who put the sun there
to facilitate life on this little dot. This is how Allah subhanaw taala shows the signs that Allah put that giant ball burning continuously. It is so big that you don't know how big it is. It is 93 million miles away.
And you can see it with the with the naked eye.
And it gives you the right amount of heat the right amount of light and the right amount of radiations exactly right you move the sun back from his axis or from his constant few 100 meters you will freeze to death. You move it forward few 100 meters from its constant where it is right now. You will burn to death.
So these philosophers, they knew Isaac Newton knew this, from his observation of the heavens, whatever little means they had available at the time to them, they knew. So they argued like this. They call it fine tuning of the universe. And they use the solar system as an example. Then they had this design argument that there is design in the heavens of the earth, right. It's like if you found a watch on
on a beach in the sand, you there would be two options. It came into being itself, the wind blew, and the sand came together and glass came together and the machine hasn't put the watch, or it was put there by someone who made it. Right. So this is the design argument, which is quite old. Actually, it was made famous by a man called William Paley, in the late 18th century and early 19th century,
is called the watchmaker argument. Then there is another argument for morality.
Some philosophers came up with morality, if God doesn't exist, and there is no morality, then you can do what you want. If God doesn't exist, you can do what you want.
The concept of good and bad comes from God. If not, then you are left to fend for yourself, then what you do is, people come together, and they decide what is right and what is wrong. And then they do what they want, right. So in that case, you will have major disasters like we have had in the 20th century, the 20th century was the worst century of human history.
It was the worst century of human history, the greatest catastrophes in the history of humanity took place in the 20th century.
The First
World War, the Second World War, and then all the other catastrophes and massacres later on, what happened in Cambodia, what happened in you know, other places around the world, I mean, I can give you that I want and genocide, and the list goes on. And it continues to this day. Why? Because this was a godless century, people divorced God from their political affairs, they started to decide for themselves. So Nazis came together and decided, hold on, the Jewish people are evil, they're trying to take over the world. So therefore, we will destroy them, we will kill them. This is what the Nazis came up with, right? To put it crudely. And they ended up with the Holocaust, which was an
unfortunate event and the Muslim history Allahu Akbar, how did the Muslims treat the Jewish people, the Muslims protected the Jewish people for over 1000 years? Do you know why Jewish people survived?
You know why Jewish people survived. They were facing extinction at the hands of the Christian world.
Jewish scholars confirm, such as Bernard Lewis, who's a Zionist, he's a Zionist, Jewish historian. He has written in his book, The Jews of Islam, that the Jews are treated far better in the Muslim lands, they were treated in the Christian world.
And there are other Jewish scholars who confirm that mark Cohen, also a Jewish historian, says the same thing. And the list goes on. Right. But once they ended up in the West, and Hitler didn't do it necessarily for Christianity, okay, he did it for his own reasons. He had his own theory, he wanted to create this pure Aryan race, okay. And he was trying to experiment on the Germans to do that. So got it, then what happened in communist Russia, okay, hundreds of millions of people were killed by the communists, because to them, the man is a machine.
Man is a machine, okay, man does not have any moral value.
So many other examples can be given for all these disasters that took place in the 20th century. So this was happening because people were ignoring God and His instructions.
So when we keep going, studying the history of
atheism, but come to realize that these arguments people were devising, they were very powerful, but many of them were already covered in the Quran. So these arguments I'm putting in front of you were devised by philosophers, thinkers who wanted to counter atheism. So more morality, argument for morality, that morality does not exist without God, the God does not exist, then morality becomes a relative topic. It means is relative, it may change from place to place, from time to time, what is *, a man may not be *, let's say, in America, what is murder? What is evil a might not be evil there. For that reason, now people are campaigning to have sexual relations with animals. In
Denmark and Germany, there are people who are campaigning that they want to have sexual relationship with sheep, and and, and donkeys and, and horses and goats and stuff like that. And you think I'm joking? Google? Just Google check Google, right? Go and put in Google beast reality in Europe, which reality or Zoo philia Zoo philia in Europe, and you will see all the articles coming up when people are campaigning. Would that be possible under
a religious establishment? No, that wouldn't be possible. Okay. So in the name of freedom, freedom first.
Freedom from what freedom from God, freedom from God. Right? And then what follows is complete freedom from any moral
convictions you may have. Right? So now morality is relative. Okay, now I like to sleep with dogs and cats, and I would like to have * with sheep. So it's okay, as long as there's no harm. So they follow some atheist actually follow a philosophy called consequentialism. So as long as you remove bad consequences from an action, or from an idea, then it's all good. This is the reason why Richard Dawkins, one of them, who is a prominent atheist in the world, actually is an agnostic, he's not an atheist. He tweeted that there's nothing wrong with eating dead bodies of humans.
Okay, I don't blame him because he's very consistent with his philosophy, the philosophy of life, the follow, there is nothing. Objectively moral. There's nothing there's no truth. There's no objective truth of God doesn't exist. Does that make sense? Am I making complicated points? Or do you understand the issue of morality? For example?
How do we know what's bad? How do we know who tells us? Do I tell you? Right? I may tell you something I like which is bad for the society. I know it's not bad, because I like it. Okay, but you may disagree. You may tell me no, this is bad for the society. So who tells us what's bad? God, Allah created you. Okay, who tells you what is good? Him? Allah subhanaw taala. Who created you? If you remove him, then there is no good and bad.
He is the one who tells you you cannot have relations with your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, your aunts. crannis tells you that's your morality, right? animals. You cannot have relations with animals. It's Haram. Right? But once God is removed, then mothers, daughters, sisters, animals, who cares? Who cares? I had some discussions with some atheists in Pakistan, some young boys going to university and you know, this, this phenomenon is rising in the Muslim world, not because Islam is not intellectually satisfying, not because Islam is false. Because these people don't know Islam. They don't know. They have no idea. They don't study Islam, they assume things
about Islam. And then what they get to the contrary is atheism from some of the professors. So he had a long discussion, they had a lot of students, and displays, and we had a q&a. And during the q&a, they asked questions, and I put a question to them. These guys, because they grew up in Pakistan, Pakistan is a very conservative Muslim society. People have this, you know, Islam in them, whether it's cultural or actual is a completely different matter. But they leave Islam culturally, Pakistani people are like that, right? Like other Muslim countries, for example. So I asked these guys, Would any of you have relations with your sister? No stuff at last of the atheists, atheists?
No, no, no, no. So why not? Better God, God doesn't exist. You believe the right God doesn't exist? No. So what's the problem? What's the problem? Why is it wrong? Tell me why they're wrong. And they have no answer. Right? But as you know, why you say no, no, no, no, because you have been conditioned in a Muslim society. You are conditioned, your morality is indirectly conditioned by a Muslim society. So that's why the idea is abhorrent. It is very, very, but if you be consistent with your belief that God doesn't exist, what's, what's the problem?
This this, this, this feeling, you have have discussed about the thought is because of Islam, because you lived in an Islamic Society, you have been conditioned. Otherwise, you wouldn't be thinking like that, if you go to Norway or something like that, people are already doing this, they have no problem with this, but it says your conditioning. So morality is a very, very powerful argument against atheism, very powerful argument. You know, you can actually shake the the foundations by using this particular argument with other arguments, then there is an argument from consciousness, okay. Okay. Consciousness, for example, human consciousness cannot just come from
accident. It is not accidental. Humans have cognition. they assess, and they decide and they implement their plan, they make things right, humans are intelligent, we have cognition. So this consciousness cannot just emerge all of a sudden out of the blue, no, or it cannot evolve. Okay, it was put there. This was planted in us.
And we were given disability by a supreme consciousness by a supreme power. Okay, so these are some of the arguments we have, but amazingly, the philosophers, they had to go through a long process of coming up with these arguments to make
Make them effective and watertight. But amazingly, Allah subhanaw taala put them 14 centuries ago in the Koran,
right, for example, cosmological argument, which is the beginning.
Anything that begins to exist has a cause. Yes, right. Allah subhanaw taala tells us in the Quran Surah Al Baqarah 160 117 verses
out of the way lemma chatango rajim Bismillah Alhamdulillah him but Dr Sommer what you will,
what is our Kala Imran
Khan, for your Khun? He is the word Allah used it is very specific Allahu Akbar. But there are some of it will urge the initiator, not Holocaust some of what you will our allies use that in other places, but here in this verse, but there are some a lot you will have the initiator, the one who started the one who pushed it. Just like the philosophers argue that the universe began to exist it was initiated by someone. So Allah subhanaw taala uses that very specific word in the Quran. But they are similar to our wydawca Omron find nama Yoku Khan, for yakun. When he wants something to be, he says Be and it becomes. So Allah subhanaw taala made the Universe by his power by simply saying
be and the universe started, what they call the Big Bang, the Big Bang, okay, even the Big Bang is not fully established. It has a number of different theories. The Big Bang has a number of different 22 models, right? Whichever, we don't need big bank to believe in the creation of the heavens and the earth. We don't need any of these scientific theories, because the lies telling us plainly the universe. We started it, I started it. And when I want something, I simply say be and it becomes Allah has that power, a love of Allah has that power. So now, coming to the design argument, for example, it's in the Quran.
The design argument, which the philosophers came up with, in the 19th, and in the 18th century, what is it that the universe and whatever is within the universe and in the planet Earth is designed? is designed? Okay?
So the Quran tells us exactly that. The Quran tells us in Surah NaVi the surah, which was read by the chef in the insula, what does it tell us? Allah subhanaw taala gives us an order, how the design of this universe and your solar system works. Okay. Allah says all the relationships on the regime alumna jahleel, origami hada wall Jeeva Oh, tada, waka, lacuna comas Raja Raja Allah Norma consolata Allah later libart Sahaja Ananda Masha, well, banana folk welcome Sabanci, da da da da da da da da middle masirah tema anta ga Lino hora de have been one about so Allah has made all of this for you.
So the first question is, I'm Maria de Lune. I didn't know by the way.
They asked you about the great news. The great event, okay.
Tell them tell them it is coming undeniable of him Allah de Haan fi telephone kalasa Allah moon they will come to know those who question they will come to know from McCullough Sailor Moon, how they will come to know again Allah says they will come to know for sure they will come to know how. Because Allah did all this.
Because Allah did all this, they will be a Day of Recompense. Because at the end, what are the losses in normal? Firstly, economy aquata that day is established, that day will come Why again go back because Allah did all this. So Allah is telling you in the beginning of the surah, the question, the great news, the day of judgment, okay, they will come to know definitely you know why? Because Allah did all of this. And then Allah gives the conclusion in normal first economy pata that day, which is appointed will come. Why? Because Allah put this burning lamp for you in the heavens.
From this burning lamp what comes
your water, in do measures your water, if there was no controller, if there was no system, it would rain so much that you would die.
If it rains too much, what happens to your planet? What happens? Sometimes Allah gives you a slap to wake you up to get you this could happen. This could happen but doesn't happen. You still exist. Why? tsunami Allah give you a slap tsunami wake up 2006 Yes, 13 countries. So a lot of this one of this can happen. But it doesn't happen to you. You still survive, because there is a controller. There is someone watching over this planet. Okay.
So if it rains heavily, what would happen? Finished, you're finished, you're gone.
But if it doesn't rain,
you're gone again.
So Allah says
Raja Raja Maha Joe ronzl, nominal Maserati, Ma.
Ma ga ga means do measure complete necessary water, something necessary for you enough for you, it will come in do measure, not more, not less, you will have enough rain for you to live on this planet. Okay, and then, once elemental mazzara demand lukari gb have been won about why does it come down so that you can have your food
so Ally's telling you the design, then Allah goes further. The fine tuning argument is there in the Quran, to fine tuning how Allah tells you I shampoo well kamaru because ban the sun and the moon have been put
according to a calculated system, so the sun has been Allahu Akbar the word hisab. What does it mean?
Counting calculated allies telling you the sun and the moon have been appointed or placed in a calculated way fine tuning now allows giving you a fine tuning argument. This is so fine tune your solar system and just your your universe. That
is it is mathematically placed. So the sun is 93 million miles away. And it's continuously burning. It's burning right now. There are explosions taking place on the surface of the Sun right now. When you see the sun when it's burning. It's not burning. There are these cosmic cosmic explosions. astronomical explosions taking place on the surface surface of the sun. One of those explosions one of those explosion what you know when the sun is burning, is exploding. The surface exploding is so big it's a giant ball. It's a very big planet is a star. The sun is a star. And one of those explosions when you when you see you see fire burning, what do you see the flare? You see the flare?
Yes, you can't hold it by it's a flare. One of those flares you see on the surface of the Sun is equivalent to 200 billion atomic bombs. How many according to astrophysicists according to some estimates, equivalent to 200 billion atomic bombs, okay, not 123 not 10 5020 100 not 1000 not 100,000 200 billion atomic bombs one one explosion one fair, okay. You do not have the ability to understand that power. You will never understand that power. You do not have the ability to use a human's right. And Allah has placed it there. Okay. And despite all that power, and that heat and that strength and those variations, you get enough, the right amount on this planet, even the sun
and the moon, the moon is necessary. The moon if you move the moon or disturb it, again, life would be disturbed on this planet. Even if you start to kill animals, the life on this planet will be endangered.
People are poaching animals, people are killing animals. You know, even wolves in the wild, even the lions, they have their role to play in the ecosystem. you disturb the planet, you disturb the system, your planet will start to show signs as it is already showing signs. Okay, so this is the fine tuning of the universe the sun and the moon have been placed because man, a najma was chateauroux Yes, dude on Okay. And then the last part and Allah continues giving, giving reasons as to why this universe is fine tuned. And then the morality. Allah subhanaw taala talks about morality of okmulgee Alia bone Are you going to turn to the ways of the past the ways of ignorance for the
believers for those who believe in Allah, his might and His Majesty for those What better.
Instructor What better teacher is there than Allah subhanaw taala that Allah is the one who gives you your morality, your living standard, your lifestyle, it comes from Allah, you ignore it, you will suffer you adopted, you will prosper. This is how the Muslims have prospered for over 1000 years in the past and Muslims suffering today is directly linked to the Quran. we abandon the Quran we do not take it seriously. We don't read it. We don't act upon it. We don't take it seriously in our lives. We are the way we are. Okay, so.
And finally, to make the final point, the Quran makes a very powerful point for those who contemplate and this is what happened to those people who couldn't abandon belief in God even in the 19th and 18th century in Europe. By the way, atheism was not a product of the Muslim world.
Because Muslims did not go through the same experience the Europeans did, right? There was a lot of suffering in Europe, there was a lot of persecution and oppression and cruelty in Europe. Okay, people were being burned at stake. They were being burned alive for having opinions throughout Europe, and this is history. But go and pick up books on on Inquisition, go and pick up pick up books on witch burnings, by their academic historians who have written on these topics. You must study history or Muslims, you must study history, you must understand what happened before you so that you can actually talk to people today and show them what happened before us. So let's not
repeat those mistakes. Right? So and you can show them how Islam was a great civilization how Islam didn't have these problems. atheism is not a product of Islam and Muslims. It has been exported to Muslim lands, from other places, it came with colonialism. It came with colonialism. Identity Crisis, which the Muslims are facing today in the Muslim world and elsewhere, is because of colonialism. Okay, when the colonial powers left, they left behind.
Intellectual enslavement for the Muslims, we need to free ourselves from that intellectual enslavement and pick up our own tradition, our own philosophers and thinkers and theologians and historians and you will see how powerful our civilization is, you have no idea. You have no idea how powerful our civilization is our powerful intellectuals and our points of philosophers or thinkers are a theologian or law scholars look back and start reading and studying, read them in the Arabic language, read them in the Persian language, read them in the oral language and other languages you may have. Because these three languages are mentioned, they have most most of the Islamic literature
is found in these three languages.
Read them and their languages, you really start reading poetry ultrabay, for example, or half is in the Persian language, or even Saudi, and other Persian poets, Nizami and kakani and start reading a cabal and these people then you will find out our intellectual tradition, how strong and powerful it is.
Right? So the point I'm making is this, this onslaught of atheism is working on our children is because they have no they have this identity crisis. We're not teaching them about our civilization, we're not showing them our intellectual tradition. So finally, the Quran tells us in a very powerful without the elimination regime, in focus, some of it will walk the walk the walk de la layli, one na har, la IR, a little BB of Allah.
Allah subhanaw taala tells us in this verse in the creation of the heavens of the earth, upon a law law of God, look how Allah, Allah clarifies Islam in the creation of the heavens of the earth, which is the universe the universe. What a lovely lady one haha. Then he narrows it down to the solar system, the XLR for lay of Leyland
the changing of the day and night is based upon what the solar system. So Allah talks about the universe and then he brings you down to the solar system something you can see the universe you cannot see you don't know what's out there. You have no idea there are billions of galaxies, immense space, unbelievable, unimaginable space. Right? But then it brings you down to something you can see the solar system. There are Signs for those who contemplate Will you not then have sense? Will you not then have intellect? Well, hello, Donna Anil. Hello. hamdu Lillahi Rabbil aalameen? Is Aqua locker? We're listening brothers sisters.
Do we have a q&a? Or should we?
Okay, if the brothers have any questions, please do ask them. I'll try my best to answer
in line with the public.
Appreciate your point on 18th century the sort of decline of Christianity which actually the kind of origin of the atheism I mean, to do the only missing part that we actually know is that Christianity because so much of
sort of,
sort of martyrs and you know, to be inverses and because the priest actually took over the Kings power and they did. So, I mean, is it necessary to actually for us to learn on that because that's how they destroyed the religion. I had to drop travel recently all over Europe and believe it around a lot of friends in Europe, Belgians and Germans are all of them are just, I couldn't find solutions at all. And this is exactly
happening all over UK as well, which is very painful because it said they're not opening charges anymore at all. Fortunately, Australia was a very good question than the 60s 80% charges were full. Now you're going to suddenly find five guys walking around and score, which is really very painful. But, of course, we still come to the house of God, we worship the same God, Jesus, God was God. But their decline is still frightening to us. Obviously, our philosophy is so strong and God if it didn't transpire to our children, the children are expected to hold on to Islam to the right, but their decline itself I mean,
complete loss because of this 200 years. History is very difficult for us to accept also, I mean, what can we do as far as such things not to happen because even Muslim countries are getting involved in similar they are giving no
religious reason. But we know for sure all these things that are happening is not really controlled by Islamic world is controlled by their side enemy. So I mean, it's very complicated, but do we need to have an expertise on this knowledge? Political geopolitical knowledge is really we like to separate Islam from political influence? Thank you very much for that question. I believe Absolutely. We have to learn about the history of the people who came before us because the Koran one of the most powerful arguments in the Quran is history.
These are Muslim
alum Tara Kane forefather of buka biard Ramadan, Ramadan, Latina McCulloch Miss la fille. bilad Okay. alum Tara cave of Allah rabuka vs. haberfield. So Allah subhanaw taala talks about
previous people but always right. Okay, so rokerites will have one was right, and the story one is right, and other people, so I'll make them an example. So to learn about the people of the past,
is absolutely crucial. In fact, it is Islamic, it is exactly Islamic, to learn the history of the past, so that we can actually tell the world what happened before us to avoid those mistakes and those errors, right. So history teaches you about the past so that you can avoid all the pitfalls. It prepares you for the present, and it makes you foresee your future. It makes you predict your future more accurately. So history is very important for that reason. And when we look at the Muslim world today, when we look at our youngsters, okay, because we haven't focused on our history. Forget about other histories. We don't even know our own history.
At best, if you speak to a normal Muslim in the masjid, any uncle or any youngster or anyone like that, for example, you speak to them they will know about the Prophet and the Cordova and then they will know about Ronaldo. They will know about the cricket team in
and the actors and the singers. They will know them after the Prophet and the Coronavirus. They will jump straight to these people and in between they have no idea what happened
for 1000 years throughout the Muslim civilization what happened to the modal war the Ottomans what happened to the UBS? What was a London close? What was Sicily? Okay, what influences the Muslims have over the Europeans? What did the Muslims do? What happened to Muslim libraries, Muslim scholars, intellectuals or law scholars? Okay, well, the scene who is going to study the signs of Hades, and the expertise. So today what happens in the Muslim world from Morocco to Bangladesh all the way when people study, when you speak to the parents, they want the children to be accountants, why? Because they're going to make money. They want them to be doctors. Why? Because they're going
to make money. They want them to be engineers. Why? Because they want to make money. They want them to be software engineers, aka why they want them to study programming, right? They want them to study, study, study all these things. For stomach for the for the for the for the gut, for the gut, not for the brain. Okay, so this is the basic reason of our decline.
We have left intellectual activities for others. We have completely ignored humanities, history, philosophy, literature, psychology, these subjects, we have completely ignored them. And we have picked up the screwdriver and the plier. This is what we are now we are a bunch of workers that's at best. What do we do? Pick up files, write files, fix cars, even jets, you might become an astronaut, you might become an astronaut, but that doesn't necessarily make you a thinker and intellectual, a social scientists, it doesn't make you that. Okay. These are the fields that really influence people. Right? These are the field who is making policies in the world today. Who's defining the
direction
of the world today who is the so called intellectuals? and Muslims are not to be seen anywhere because we are all worried about the gut. We're all worried about the stomach and the stomach about the stomach of Punjabi point who knows Punjabi here
who knows Punjabi, very few people are one of the Punjabi boys. I'll still say it and then I will translate it.
He said
can I speak Punjabi?
He said us manner they were they punchy? Wait, that's a key curtaining neiger. Their risk is Akira Nyah poco mardana case in a punk rock Mr. David Kenny banda Coronavirus cars Akira Banga Monday Papa camera, Danny. So he is saying when you see the birds flying in the heavens, have you ever seen them die hungry? They never hold money and food they don't. And yet they come back completely full. their stomachs are full. But it is men who hold money no and and food and it is men who die hungry.
It is men who die hungry. Right? Allah will feed you believe you meet when your mind is full. When you are a thinker. When you are an intellectual, I'm not saying don't master these fields. Don't get me wrong, it is halaal way to earn money. It is a bother. But don't make it the end make it the means your degree in engineering and accounting. In law. It is a means it is not the end people have made it the end. I got my degree hamdulillah I will enter general is a certificate agenda. Right? No, it's not. It is a means only three to four years of study and you think you have conquered the world? No. It's all it's going to bring food to your table. No problem with that Alhamdulillah. But
now begins your real education after you have
made enough arrangement for your stomach for your gut. So to have enough food on your table, after that, start to worry about your brains. start to worry about your mind read books, read books. Firstly, Islamic history, the Muslim history. What happened before you were born? Then once you have studied the Muslim history go into Roman history, the Greek history, the European history, what happened to these nations before and once you have studied all these things, study their sociology, their social philosophy, right? The Politics of today you have to know about it. You have to know what's going on around the world. Okay, you have to know that there's a train coming your way.
There's a train heading your way and you're walking on the on the track in the middle of the track munching popcorns Yeah, you're walking in the in the middle of the train and the train heading your way and you're eating popcorns
and when
it arrives, who Mashallah The train is there, and it kills you. Right? So you have to be very careful for others, you have to wake up you have to study what's happening in the world. You have to make yourself aware, a Muslim is aware, a Muslim is not someone who is sleeping, a Muslim is not just going waking up in the morning, go to work, come back home, eat Briony eat, pillow and all the Mashallah beautiful food we have, and then go to sleep and go back to work and come back and go to sleep. This is not a this is not where you're born for most of your lives. Look, I want you to think about something very quickly before I go. inshallah, hopefully this will change things. Our lives
are mostly maximum, maybe 70 years. After 70 years is a bonus. Believe me, it's a bonus. You're living on bonus, right? And out of the 70 years, how much youth do you have?
Up to 20 years still growing up to 20 You're still growing, you're still a child. You know, by the time you get to 20 you become a man from 20 to 40. You This is the peak of your youth. Right? After 40 is going downhill, you start to become white, you start to feel pain in your knees. Right? And your blood pressure and things like that start to pop up if you're not taking care of your health, right. That's what happened. And then it's slow. So
from from from the day you're born up to 20 like that. Yes.
And after 20 up to 14 like that. Yeah, after 40 is going down slowly. And then by the time you get 7065 possibly 75 It's time to pack your bags. Yeah, you start writing your wills you start telling your children if something happens to me do this do that, right? Yes. That happens in most cases. Some people are Mashallah they're blessed.
If they have good wives they live for until 80 or 90 years old.
You
wives can make a difference to your life. You know, by the way,
Socrates, you know one of the Greek philosophers, he said that if you have a good wife, you become happy in life. If you have a bad wife, you become a philosopher.
So, so the point is our life, the peak of our life is only 20 of brothers. Now, let me tell you something, let me shock you. Out of that 20 years half of it we sleep.
Half away we sleep at night. Yes. The other half is almost 10 years. Out of the 10 years, we spend time with our friends, our families going to work coming back tied for gym, birthday parties, wedding.
How much time of your life you have you actually spent worshipping Allah subhanaw taala.
Think about it out of your 60 years life, you can count the hours and the days and the years of your hand one hand, maybe maximum two years and ally so merciful. Based on that little worship out of our long lives, our love is still give us genma insha Allah tala as long as our worship is accepted.
Allah still promises to give us Jana you pray your Salah, you do your Siam you go for Hajj and Umrah Zakat, and do not harm others and keep your cells to yourselves and and be harmless people. Allah subhanaw taala will forgive you for that. Just for that.
how merciful Allah subhanaw taala is, so we need to maximize our commitment to Islam to worshiping Allah subhanaw taala because life is very short, our lives are already very short and even shorter when it comes to our worship. I wish he was very little. So a scar, scar when you sit in your standing when you're walking with God. Okay, at the same time,
try to worship Allah subhanaw taala reading a book is worshiping Allah, smiling at your parents is worshiping Allah. Okay, walking towards the machine does worshiping Allah work, you know, your business. If you do it, the hallway is worshipping Allah, all of this is worship. So fixture near everything you do in your life, do it for a lot and it becomes worship, it becomes worship. So then you maximize your worship of Allah subhanaw taala. This was a sight point I wanted to mention. So definitely we have to learn the histories and civilizations, we have to learn about them, and the political systems and the philosophies of people so that we can convey the message of Islam to them
more effectively. The more we will know about them, the more we will be able to relate to the reality and teach them about Islam and tell them why Islam is better. Why Islam is a solution, why is not a problem? I hope that answers the question. inshallah. That was another lecture. Sorry. Yeah. Well, one more question. And then we'll close it out that just because it's getting a little bland shall
and I have a flight to catch.
And coming to Australia, you know, by the time you get to Australia from Dubai, some of your hair become white. This is so long the flight
Solomonic lenses, like a lot paid for the beautiful speech. And my question is when I tried to discuss the
existence of creator, the atheist atheism and in contrast, what we say as a solution is there is a creator, right?
with my friends do not believe because I'm in a Western story before I forget very quickly, let me mention something in case I failed to mention. One of our brothers from IRA, that he is the CEO of IRA. Okay, he has written a book on atheism from the Muslim perspective. The book is titled The Divine reality. The author is Hamza and resources. Okay, he's a Greek convert to Islam. He is the CEO of this organization, myself and Abdullah working with, okay. And he has written a book titled The Divine reality, you can find it on Amazon. It's a very good treatment of atheism, and a lot of things I talked about you can be they can be found in this book continue, please. Yes. So the issue
is,
the person I'm talking to the underlying question that they have some time is that why do I need to believe in a creator, my life is going on? Absolutely. The weights going on without knowing it. For an example, we need to know the switch of the lights in this room because we need to light switch on the light. That's the necessity. But for someone who does not believe in a creator, for so long, and the light is going on, and why does he need to know? Well, what's the art? what's the what's the point? I mean? Okay, yeah, that's a that's a very good question. For a number of reasons. Everyone needs a creator of needs. Everyone needs to believe in the creator for a number of ways. Number one,
someone who doesn't believe in the Creator, his or her may life may be
going very well. But believe in creator drives you to help others. Because if you do not believe in a great creator,
you may become self centered. You may live your life nicely, but you may not be very useful for others, okay? You may not be able to help others because you don't feel the need. You don't need to you know, you don't you don't have to do it. Why? Why do I have to do it, my life is fine. My electricity is working, my money is there in the bank, and I have a good job, I have a good car, I enjoy my life, I can go surfing and all that, okay, I don't need to do that. But believe in the creator makes this planet a better place. Right? That's why believe in the Creator is not an individual thing is a collective thing. It helps people collectively. So when you start to believe
in a creator, you start to feel a sense of responsibility towards your parents, towards your children, towards your wives, towards your society, towards your neighbors, towards the world at large. Okay? This is what our belief in the creative brings with it. It removes selfishness from you. It doesn't make you self centered. You know, you're not you're not self centered anymore. You are,
You are completely in submission to your Creator. You follow His ways. And that brings happiness, amazingly, you need the creator also, because it makes you happier. So you may be, for example, satisfied with what you have in life. But you know, where you may not be happy, you know, the most prosperous nations in the world. What nations they are Scandinavian states, like Norway, Holland, Denmark, and they do a lot of things there. They have plenty of booze. They have plenty of freedom. They have plenty of material
prosperity, but what they don't have is happiness. Over half the population is on antidepressants. People feel very lonely. suicide rate is very high Japan. Japan is one of the richest countries in the world is one of the most organized countries in the world. It's one of the cleanest countries in the world. Right.
And people are killing themselves. The suicide rate the depression, the people are very lonely, because they are self centered. If you go to Japan, I haven't been there but those who have been they have told me themselves that people are very self centered, very, very self centered. They don't really they don't have a social life. They don't really because why go to work, make your money come home, but then it makes you depressed. loneliness. This is why Islam is a communal faith. Masjid, come to the masjid. When you hear the call, come to the masjid meet the Muslims meet, talk, converse with each other. It's a social faith. It's not lonely, you can't be lonely. And if there is
no one in the machine, someone is missing with a machine you go and find out what happened to this person. So there is a lot of wisdom behind believing in the Creator. Okay, when once you start to believe in the Creator, you see the result if you practice his instructions properly, if you're if you're being partial and following him, you know you follow half his instructions the other half you can't do Don't be comfortable when you leave it then it's not going to help you but you have to be in submission to the best of your ability. A lot tells you for taco lamassu total fear a lot of the best of your abilities fear him as much as you can. Okay, what you can't do a lot will not question
you about that anyway. Right? That's it This is why it is important to believe in the creator Okay, we'll leave it at that
anon will be here for a little bit longer. So, we might be able to have to give him some personal questions. I know he has to he has to get soon but um he will stay here for a little bit longer. Yes, it will. Yes. inshallah challenge
should be insha Allah
Subhana Allah will be in La La Land, not strong federal government overlay