Ali Ataie – Comparative Theology Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism & Buddhism
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss various topics related to religion, including deism, faith, and the holy spirit. They emphasize the importance of proper pages, witnessing, faith, and actions in religion, particularly in Christian and Jewish religion. They also discuss the history and significance of the Bible, including its use in Christian and Jewish religion, its use in Christian teaching, and its use in modern religion. They explore various theory and theory of suffering and suffering, including the concept of "will" and "will" in religion, and discuss the importance of suffering in achieving happiness and the influence of philosophy on one's behavior and the path to achieve happiness. They also discuss the history and theory of suffering and suffering, including the use of "will" and "will" in religion, and the importance of suffering in achieving happiness.
AI: Summary ©
So before we continue, I want to explain very quickly about a
hadith what is the Hadith? Basically, there's two types of
Hadith or Hadith that are acceptable. Maqbool and then
Hadith are not a dude that are rejected. Basically a hadith
describes the, the actions of the, or gives the speech or the tacit
approvals of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa ali was
selling them the alcohol the while and the takari or
so. So there's a difference now between Hadith and Sunnah, right?
Obviously, there's overlap we, we, we draw or extract the Sunnah from
the Hadith,
but they're not necessarily the same thing. There's a lot of
Hadith there's 1000s upon 1000s of Hadith, at different grades, and
we'll talk briefly about that anything that is attributed to the
Prophet Mohammed Salah body southern peace and blessings of
God be upon him is considered to be a hadith, but the Sunnah of the
Prophet, right? This is what has the sort of Prophet providential
protection, the protection of Allah subhana wa Tada.
This is the, the authoritative
or normative ethos.
The authenticated practice of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi
wa Salatu was setting them in the function of the Sunnah as the
scholars of Islam say Allah ma, as sunnah to to first Cyril Quran
that the Sunnah, really what it does is that it exegesis if you
will, or it explains the Quran, right? So the Quran itself says in
Surah, two Nahal surah number 16 Verse 44,
Allah Subhana Allah says that indeed, we sent down this vicar
upon you, this reminder upon you, speaking directly to the Prophet
Muhammad, peace be upon him, need to be gentle in nasty man Mozilla
delay him, in order for you to make by yawn in order for you to
make clear, right to explicate to elucidate to commentate upon what
was revealed to them to, to to interpret the Quran, the
revelation of God, this is one of the
one of the functions of prophecy.
So just because you read something in a hadith doesn't necessarily
mean it's true, even if it's considered to be in a sound book
of Hadith. There are a lot of problems with with Hadith that are
graded as sound, there's difference of opinion about them.
You might read something that is sound, and tried to implement it
but implemented incorrectly. For example, one of my teachers years
ago, he quoted a Hadith of the Prophet used to eat dates. But
what's the proper way of eating a date? What's the proper etiquette?
You pop it in your mouth and you spit out the seed? How did the
Prophet Muhammad salallahu Salam, how did he eat a date? Right, he
would put it into his mouth with his right hand. And then he would
extract the seed by turning his left hand over with these two
fingers and push the seed out with his tongue but no one actually saw
his tongue and then he discard or he would get rid of the seed. So
he did it in a way where there's there's a lot of honor. And there
wasn't there was no question about
having you know, bad a dub or having bad comportment while while
while eating.
How does a Muslim pray? I mean, the Quran tells us to pray, but
how do we pray? Can you pray any way you want to? Can you just kind
of follow what your neighbor is doing? Or what Christians and Jews
are doing? Is that how we pray?
So the sadhana becomes absolutely indispensable
in understanding the Quran, how do we send benedictions upon the
Prophet the Quran says, Yeah, you Allah Dina Armando sodwana, he was
sending moto Selena, Oh, you who believe right? Send benedictions
of peace upon the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. But how do we
do that? We have to look at the Sunnah. Or the authenticated
Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa
salam.
And it's a meticulous science. We don't have to go into it. Now.
It's a separate class. But basically for a hadith to be
sound. Right. There's a sunnah which is the chain of
transmission, it has to be more tussle, it has to be linked, there
has to be a link no missing, no gaps in the link of transmission.
The famous hadith of Mercy has 23 or 24
Links in its chain of transmission. This is the Hadith
of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him is reported to
have said and you'll find it in Mr. Ashman Rafi Mooney or hammer
hammer rough man era hammelmann Fill out your Henkelman this
summer or your your hammer command for summer? Oh, come on Carla, it
is Salatu was Salam that the most compassionate shows compassion to
those who show compassion show compassion to those on earth and
the one and heaven in no anthropomorphic sense, will show
you compassion this hadith is called how do you vote Rama?
There's like I said about two dozen or so links and his chain of
transmission.
In it is indisputable. The words of the Prophet Muhammad peace be
upon him and this is actually the first Hadith that Muslim children
in the traditional Muslim world are taught. This would sort of set
the foundation for their education about the prophet Mohamed Salah
Lottie said them
stressing the importance of compassion, the importance of of
mercy.
So the chain of transit transmission is tussle. There's no
gaps everyone in the chain has I doubt that there's there's they
have probity. They're known as being righteous people, they have
come up to that they have intelligence, they have good
memories, there's no hidden problems, no hidden Allah. Right.
Which could be anything from like bad grammar, because the Prophet
peace be upon him, did not use bad or incorrect grammar, he was the
most eloquent of speakers.
So so this is a very meticulous science that the science of Hadith
authentication, and this is different than Syrah, right, with
Syrah, you have to be careful. A lot of things get into Syrah that
have no chain of transmission. So it's up to the aroma to go through
and sort of sift through the Syrah and extract what is authentic to
what is not. Writers of Syrah tend to exaggerate certain things. And
it's interesting because the Syrah is something that is constantly
under attack. By, for example, Christian apologists, Christian
missionaries, they tend to attack stories and Syrah. And many of
these stories are exaggerations. Even according to Muslim scholars,
some of these stories have like I said, no chain of transmission,
and no Muslim really takes them seriously. But these are the
things that are brought up by missionaries, for example. So
basically tearing down a straw man. The example that I give, the
equivalent of that is, for example, if I said something like,
if I went to a Christian, and I said, you know, why did Jesus
murder one of his teachers? Now, of course, I don't believe this at
all. Jesus peace be upon him, is a great prophet of God in the
Islamic tradition, but just to make a point here,
and he says, What What are you talking about? So no, oh, it's,
it's what it says and, and in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas? Well, he
would say, well, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas is, is an
apocryphal gospel. We don't believe in that. That's what you
would say. Right? We believe in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Right. So exactly. We don't believe in that. So many of these
stories and Syrah
are just there, they're falsified stories. No Muslim takes them
seriously. There's no chain of transmission and they have nothing
to do with our faith.
But this hadith, Hadith, Gabriel Alright, this is considered to be
a sound Hadith, recorded by Imam Muslim.
It is a very famous Hadith as I said, so the Hadith begins and
armato radi Allah Tala angle, that the hadith is on the authority of
one of the greatest companions of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon
him, whose name was our model. And our model was the second Caleb F.
In Islam, following the first Caleb Abu Bakar, one of the most
beloved human beings, to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon
him
in generally, well, the the, the Sunni tradition of Islam,
praise and love.
All of the companions of the Prophet peace be upon him. They
weren't all perfect, but there's, there's a there's a there's a
respect there. And that's in contrast to the sheep
that don't respect a great number or a majority of the companions of
the Prophet. So these are the two sort of major divisions in our
tradition, Sunni Islam and Shiite Islam and the really the, I would
say the differences as far as theology goes are minor, they're
neg negligible. Some would disagree with that. But the vast
majority of scholars on both sides do not anathematize either side,
they don't make tuck for you. Right.
But the major difference is really in probably, political theory,
Political Theology.
But nonetheless, you
The hadith begins by saying
b&m, a national Jurusan and the Rasulullah sallallahu sallam said
Omar is saying that one day we were sitting with the messenger of
allah sallallahu alayhi Salatu was Salam, and the title of the
Prophet sallallahu Sallam here in Arabic or Rasul Allah construct
phrase The Messenger of God. Rasul is equivalent probably to the
Greek apostle, which literally means one who has sent forth. And
of course, the word for God and Arabic is Allah. And this is
the name of God in Arabic, but there but in all Semitic
languages, the word for God begins with the Alif in the lamb or olive
and Muhammad.
So in, in Hebrew, you have ello
as the singular and Elohim, which is the plural of majesty, which we
find many, many times in the Hebrew Bible, in Aramaic or Syriac
e of Allah. Right. So Jesus peace be upon him or ISA, at least, he
would have used Allah because he spoke Aramaic or Syriac. So for
example, in Mark 115,
behold, the kingdom of God, the Mallacoota, Allah is at hand. So
Jesus would have used this name for God, Allah.
So the Quran, Arabic uses that name as well. So he's saying we
were sitting with the messenger of God, peace be upon him that to
Yeoman one day, Eva Tala, Elena Raju, lo.
And behold, a man arose among us. Right, so the Arabic here suggests
that he sort of just
seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Shadi Dubai Yaga, Thiago, he was
wearing seemingly white clothes shudder you do so on the shower.
He had exceedingly black hair, law Euro Allah He has to suffer.
The traces of travel was not seeing on him. So you know, he
didn't have he wasn't dusty. He wasn't disheveled, anything like
that. He didn't look like a traveler didn't have, you know, a
bag or something with him? Well, that yeah, it for him in that I
had one. And none of us knew who he was, but none of us recognized
him. Right.
So this is obviously the Archangel Gabriel. Right Gibreel Alayhis
Salam Jibreel in Arabic, Godfrey al in Hebrew, which means the
power of God.
And Gabriel, what often incarnate that is to say, assume human flesh
in order to teach human beings right.
So this is one of the ways in which the prophets would would
interact with angels that the angels would take human form. It's
called incarnation. Muslims do not believe that God incarnates right.
So this is a major difference of opinion, between a major
difference in theology, let's say between Hinduism and Islam, or
Christianity, and Islam and Christianity and Hinduism, there
are countless incarnations of God
is, is Hinduism, essentially a monotheistic religion? That's an
interesting question that we can talk about later. In Christianity,
God did not incarnate except for once, and that was in the person
of Christ,
according to Christians, and we'll talk about that as well. So
oftentimes, Gabriel would incarnate and he would teach the
Prophet he's the teacher of the Prophet, although Muslims believe
that the Prophet Muhammad's rank is higher than Gabriel, his rank
is actually higher than his teacher, because the Prophet is
the best of creation, he's the beloved of God. Right? So it's not
it's not all about knowledge. Right?
You can have teachers that are, that are arrogant, you have
students that surpass their teachers over time, in piety and
even in knowledge. It's very, very common.
So, so Gabriel, would come to the Prophet he would teach him
the religion, or he would bring the prophet or on to bring the
Prophet revelation. Oftentimes, Gabriel in human form, would
simply tell the prophet to repeat after him, and the Prophet would
repeat, and that's called an exterior location. Other times the
angel would come to the prophet, but was not seen by him. And the
angel would dictate to the Prophet internally, the prophet would,
would perceive words, internally, sounds forming words or
vibrations, forming words. And he would perceive that and then he
would just repeat that and
It's called an interior location. So the Quran would come to the
Prophet in both ways. And on rare occasion the Quran would come to
the Prophet without any angelic mediation, right so interior
location without angelic mediation and our scholars like Mr. Masucci
and others,
scholars of aroma the Quran or the sciences, or using the word
science and sort of the pre 1800 Like disciplines of the Quran,
they would say that, for example, the last two is an Bacara were
revealed to the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, by Allah
Subhana Allah to Allah by God Glorified and Exalted is He
through interior location without angelic mediation?
And they mentioned others to well do how a Laylee either such sort
of 93 and the Sunnah that follows it. Alumna Shakalaka Sadat. Hola
Hola, Adam.
So here we have Gabrielle peace be upon him, the great Archangel.
He's taken on human form. He's wearing white clothes, very white
clothes, he has exceedingly black hair, and no one recognizes him.
So he comes and say the Armada continues. He says hi to jealous
Ilan nubby, so that he sits right in front of the Prophet peace be
upon him.
For us, nada rock parte de la Rocha T, to the point where he
sort of touches or links his knees against his, so he's sitting right
in front of the Prophet peace be upon him. Well, well, what the Art
Cafe, Allah fuckery they, and then Gabriel puts his hands on his
thighs, on his own thighs. And he's listening intently
to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. So here Gabriel appears
to be teaching us proper, sort of proper etiquette or comportment
with the Prophet. And this is very important
for Muslims, that we Show proper respect towards all the prophets
of God, right. And of course, the Quran mentions about 25 of them.
But the Hadith indicates that there are 1000s of prophets 25
mentioned in the Quran, and all of them are respected and loved by
Muslims. Right. So these include, even Adam, Adam, his son, Adam is
considered a prophet in Islam.
Noah is considered a prophet in Islam.
Moses, peace be upon him.
And
before that, Ibrahim Ali Salam, and or Abraham and Ishmael and
Isaac, both of them considered prophets, in the Islamic
tradition, both of them beloved, by Muslims, both of them
respected, both of them considered a legitimate prophets, and
righteous, even Jacob is considered a prophet in Islam. So
the stories that are mentioned about, for example, Jacob in the
book of Genesis, where he's really depicted
in a very negative way, right, basically as this kind of
trickster.
And that's a kind of common sort of
literary device or
literary character in ancient literature that there's this
trickster trickster figure, who is considered to be very clever and
gets his way by obviously,
tricking people and this is sort of traced in the book of Genesis
that God has this type of unconditional love for Jacob,
despite all of his faults, so things like that Muslims will not
confirm. So the dominant opinion and we'll talk more about this as
well, is that when the Quran speaks of the Torah that was
revealed to Moses peace be upon him, it's not talking about what
is today considered the Torah. Right, because clearly, there's
stories in the so called torah of today that are unacceptable from a
theological standpoint, from an Islamic theological standpoint.
There are many things in the Torah that we consider to be accurate
and even true.
But at the end of the day, Muslims don't rely on any other
scriptures. All of the scriptures from the perspective of the Quran
and Islam have been abrogated. Islam has its own scripture, it is
the Quran. Islam has its own sacred law, which is derived from
the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet, peace be upon him.
So anyway,
we were talking about proper comportment with the Prophet
Muhammad peace be upon him
The Imam of Medina in the second century, second half of the second
century,
or right in the middle of the second century after Hijra was
Imam Malik even uns
who died I believe 179 Hijiri. Students would come to him, and
they would study ship, they would study jurisprudence, and they
would study Hadith. And when they would study FIP, he would
immediately begin teaching that. But if they wanted to study
Hadith, he would prepare himself. Oftentimes he would go and he
would take a shower, he would wear white clothes, you tie his turban,
he would burn some incense. Right put on some musk, why would he do
that is because he's going to teach the words of the Master
Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. So out of respect for the
words of the Prophet Muhammad salallahu Salam
Ibnu. Mubarak mentioned something interesting. He mentions that one
time, Imam Malik of new Anna's, as we said, the Imam of Madina,
Munawwara he was teaching his famous Hadith book, and mulata.
And, as he was, as he was relating a hadith of the Messenger of God,
peace be upon him, they noticed that he would, he would cringe in
his Facebook turn pale. And this would happen over and over again
when he wouldn't stop the Hadith of the Prophet. So
after he was done with the Hadith, he told his students look between
my shirt and my back, and they saw that a scorpion had lashed him
something like 1415 or 16 times, but he didn't want to cut off the
speech of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. So he continued
with the Hadith.
So Gabriel, he sits in front of the Prophet peace be upon him sort
of locking his knees and listening intently. And then he says,
however, ya Mohammed, so he calls to the Prophet peace be upon him
by using his his first name, right? And this was something that
is prohibited to do that companions did not do that. Right,
they use the title of the Prophet even God in the Quran, does not
address the Prophet salallahu Salam directly, by using his first
name, he speaks about the profit by using his name
in the third person, right, how muddled also the law for example,
why man will have my daughter in law Rasool for example. But when
Allah Subhan Allah to Allah is speaking directly to the prophets
of Allah. He said, Allah, Allah subhana wa to either use as a
title. Yeah, you have Rasul? Yeah, you have never you Why does Allah
subhanaw taala do that? Is because Allah subhanho wa Taala is
teaching the ummah of the Prophet salallahu Salam, how to address
the Prophet. So here, however, Gabriel is saying, Yeah, Mohammad,
so the MSA here that Gabriel is posing as a better way to conceal
his identity. Because the better when we're a bit gruff, they were
a bit rough around the edges or the aroma say that this
prohibition is not for the angels, but only for the human believers
in the Prophet peace be upon him. So in that sense, then Gabrielle
is actually sort of suddenly revealing his identity.
Nonetheless, he says, Yeah, Mohammed, Bernie and Islam tell me
about Al Islam. Of course, this is the name of the religion, but in
this hadith, according to the scholars of Hadith, this seems to
be
a reference to the sort of exoteric or exterior aspects of
the religion, what sometimes philosophers of religion call the
sort of lateral or horizontal aspect of the religion.
Of course, it means submission submission unto God for color
Salahi salatu salam, and then the Prophet responded to Gabriel by
saying Al Islam mu, and TASH hada at La ilaha illAllah. Right. So
Islam is to witness or to testify that there is no ILA there is no
deity. There is no God. Except Allah.
Except Allah subhanahu wa taala.
So there's no ILA nothing deserves worship, other than Allah.
Nothing deserves worship. Nothing other than God has divine
attributes.
Nothing other than God has the intrinsic ability to help and or
harm you. So this is what is testified on the tongue. Right. So
this is the first pillar of Islam, Islam, and TASH had shahada to
testify in his done upon the tongue. La ilaha illAllah Muhammad
rasool Allah, this is when this is this is.
When a convert wants to become Muslim, a proselyte becomes
Muslim, they will utter that she had the shahada will say ash, how
do I witness I testify, and La ilaha illAllah. There's no ILA
there's no deity, there is no divinity. There is no other person
that has divine attributes that deserves or merits worship other
than Allah Subhana Allah, wa shadow under Muhammad Rasul Allah.
And I bear witness that there's another witness that the Prophet
Muhammad peace be upon him is the messenger of God. So the Prophet
himself, this is what he says here at Islam, number one and touch
adda at La ilaha illAllah. Wa and Muhammad Rasool Allah, is to
testify that there is no deity other than Allah subhanho wa
taala.
And that Muhammad salallahu Salam is the messenger of God. It's one
of my teachers, he said, here this is, this isn't something
interesting. Let you law ha. Right. That's atheism. There is no
god in law Allah except Allah Subhana wa.or accept God, capital
G. So we're moving from atheism into deism now that there is a God
and that this God is the sort of great architect of the universe,
the Creator of all things.
Why now Muhammad Rasul Allah, and now we move into theism. So for
atheism, to deism to theism, so deism, God is just impersonal,
right? That when we say Muhammad Rasul Allah, and Mohammed is a
messenger of God, this reveals the personal aspect of God. How does
it do that?
Well, it's, it shows or it is, it is evidence of God's loving
nature, that he sends human messengers for the guidance of
humanity. Right. So, through His prophets, Divine Eminence, is is
revealed this kind of closeness that God has to his creation. It
is through the prophets.
This is how God reveals His loving nature. So the Quran says, well,
not out of Sun NACA Illa. Rahmatullah Alameen. Right. I
always refer to this as sort of the equivalent of John 316. In the
Quran, this is 21 107 of the Quran, which the Prophet in which
Allah kind of what's added, speaking directly to the Prophet,
Muhammad, peace be upon him. And he says, we did not send you
except as a mercy to all the worlds, right? That the Prophet
peace be upon him, is the greatest manifestation of God's mercy
because the Prophet is the greatest messenger of God. He
brings us total guidance, guidance for all the world until the end of
time. And of course, all the prophets are, are manifestations
of God's mercy, want to use that term incarnations of God's mercy?
Right, not incarnations of God's person, that's a Christian belief.
Right.
That is intimated at least in the New Testament Gospels, especially
the Gospel of John, but that's a Christian belief. So the prophets
are are examples of God's mercy in the Islamic tradition, even Jesus
peace be upon him in the Quran is also called a mercy. Well, he
Nigella who I attend Warahmatullah Mina that we will make Jesus and a
sign of God a great sign and a mercy from Us.
Right, so we're moving from atheism. And of course, atheism.
Isn't is a position of belief. So there's a difference between a
position of knowledge and a position of belief. Right? There
are two positions of knowledge. There's Gnosticism, and
agnosticism. All right.
So most atheists, for example, the late Christopher Hitchens, famous
atheist, author of this book, God is not great.
Which has been definitively refuted, by the way by Berlinski,
his book, David Berlinski, which you should get. And John Lennox
also has an extraordinary book as well. Nonetheless, Hitchens always
used to refer to himself as an agnostic atheist, meaning that
that he is going to live his life under the assumption that there is
no god but He doesn't know for sure, cannot prove that there is
no God. So he's an agnostic, atheist, right. It's very rare to
get a gnostic atheist. In other words, an atheist who, who knows
with certitude that there is no God. And then of course, you
out agnostic believers and agnostic believers as well.
So then, that's the first pillar that right there is no God but
Allah, and the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him is a messenger
of God. What took him was salah, he says and to end to establish
the prayer. So this is the second pillar, right and the prayer a
Salah comes from a root word which means to connect. So, the prayer
is our connection to God with to Zika, and to give zakat to give
charity. And the word Zeca comes from a word meaning purification.
So this is a type of a spiritual purification. Let's assume out
Ramadan and to fast the month of Ramadan.
Right 123 This is the fourth pillar, Muslims that are able to
fast the month of Ramadan, the nine month of the Muslim calendar
as really a commemoration of the Quran which was which, whose
revelation commenced during the month of Ramadan.
What the Hogen bait and to make a pilgrimage in is the Tata isa
Villa if you're able to do so, and that's the final pillar of Islam
to make a pilgrimage to Mecca.
So this is the prophets answer for what is Islam. Right. And again,
in this context, seems to be referring to sort of the exterior
aspect of the religion it is to say upon the tongue, there is no
God but Allah, the prophets of Allah, they send a messenger of
God to establish the prayer to give the charity, faster Ramadan
and to make Hajj, if one is able to do so. And then Allah saw Dr.
Gabriel said you've answered correctly, or it confirms his
answer, and say, No, I'm not he said for IG Bundala. Who Yes, I
know who you said people who that was surprising to us that this
person is asking the Prophet a question. And then he confirms his
answer. Right. And this was, you know, you can call this sort of
the Socratic method, right? Where the, the teacher already knows the
answer. But the teacher wants to honor the student and have the
student
give the correct answer
on a building on an E mat.
Now the second question tell me about Allah Eman and which is
oftentimes translated as faith. Right? The man literally means to
cause safety
right safeguard your soul it's it's related to the Hebrew mo na.
Right so for example, the famous treatise of my Montes is called
the shadow shot, I shot it got a mo na, by the 13 principles of
Jewish faith. Right. And of course, the word I mean is related
to this as well, so to safeguard your soul, right, so this isn't,
you know, blind Eman doesn't mean that you just believe in something
blindly believe without evidence, you know, belief without evidence.
That's not what it is. It means to accept something
because the evidence points in that direction and by doing so,
you safeguard your soul in the afterlife.
So here in this context, so we have Islam it's being contrasted
with Islam, it seems to be referring to sort of the inward
aspect or vertical aspect of the religion. Right So the Prophet
peace be upon him.
He said in Hadith which is sound, Hadith, Muslim Ummah and Selim and
Muslim Munna melissani, he had to come up that the quintessential
Muslim, right submitter is the one that is Is he from whose hands and
feet sorry hands and tongue and hands and tongue, other Muslims
remain safe? In other words, the true Muslim is not harming he's
not violent, with other Muslims, and he's not slandering and
backbiting and being callous towards other Muslims. That's the
quintessential Muslim. And then the Prophet also said, I mean,
right, the quintessential believer, right? The
quintessential believer, man, Amina, who Natsu Isla de deny him
or unworthy him. Oh Kumbhakarna that the quintessential movement,
the lever, right, the one who internalizes
the faith is the one that humanity humanity trusts, with their
literally blood and possessions, lives and property lives and
possessions. Right? So the sort of field of compassion
Passion.
And love is expanded, begins with oneself. That's what it means to
be selfish. That's what the word idiot means. idios means self.
Right? The idiot only cares about himself and then it expands
obviously to the family and the community and, and then to the
Muslims and then to whole, the whole of humanity. Right, the
whole of humanity. In fact, the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon
him.
He said in a famous Hadith, which is in Bukhari and Muslim
rigorously authenticated law, you know, had to come Hatta you hit
valley as he might, you're able enough, see, oh, come up on it,
that that
none of you truly believe until he loves for his brother, what he
loves for himself.
Right? So he loves his brother, but he loves for himself. And
this, that hadith I just mentioned, is the source of the
Hadith, as I said, is Bukhari and Muslim imam. And now we also
included it as Hadith number 13. I believe in his autobiography, and
his famous collection of 40. Hadith. And in his commentaries,
he defines what does it mean? Who is your brother? Right? None of
you truly believe until you love until he loves where his brother
had to use the key? What does that mean? He goes on to say in his
commentary, that means your brother, Muslim, or Jew or
Christian, really your brother and Benny Adam, right in humanity.
Right? But he makes that point. And one of my teachers said that
there are some manuscripts of Imam not always
a commentary, where that sentence where where the Imam says Jews and
Christians is taken out
of, of his, of his, out of his commentary. He's apparently
there are some Muslims who don't want other Muslims to think of
Jews and Christians as being their brothers, which is unfortunate. So
you have this, this tampering with these with these commentaries. But
that's an authentic saying from the Imam.
And that sort of sound Hadith from the Prophet. So you continue. So
what is Al Imam? What is faith? Right? What does it mean to
safeguard your soul?
Allah The Prophet said, and took me a Billahi while Mala Ekati he
will go to be heroes, Li while your mill after.
It is to believe in God, right? Literally to safeguard yourself by
means of God.
Right? We can just say to believe in God, and it's not simply to
accept the rational proposition that there is a God.
Right? That's what that's what Satan did. Satan accepts
that there is a God. Right? You accept that full hearted
wholeheartedly. But what what is missing from Satan? Why does the
Quran call him a catheter, which means infidel, if you want as a
Catholic word, unbeliever, I reject her of faith is because
Satan does not have a Kaboul and Yvonne, right? He doesn't have
acceptance. He doesn't accept the guidance that comes from the
Prophets. He doesn't have submissiveness or humility towards
God. Right.
One of the books in the New Testament, which is very close to
Islamic teaching, is the Epistle of James. James, obviously, the
successor of Jesus, according to Christian history.
You probably didn't write this epistle, but it certainly sounds
like something that he would have written.
Seems like someone in his sort of school of thought, wrote this
epistle. But he says in there that, that even demons believe in
God. Right? Right. So it's not just about what one accepts
rationally, or just sort of, accepts in oneself but has no has
no
motivation to manifest that faith in action.
Right. So faith and action, very, very important. So to believe in
God that means not simply to accept things on reason, but to
but to show one's faith as it were, right, to perform righteous
actions,
believe in God and in his angels and in His books, His scriptures,
and in His messengers, and in the last day of the Day of Judgment,
yeomen after
this Day of Judgment, as it has different names in the pot on
Yama, the piano like the day of standing your Medina, the Day of
Judgment
And then after the final day, the last day,
etc.
So, the profit here then gives us the sort of six articles of faith.
Right? Believe in God believe in angels. And there are four major
Archangels Gabriel and Michael Jabri, Gibreel. And then Mikael or
mica yield, is Rafi which I believe is Sarah feel, and the
Bible or in Israelite tradition, and then is raw eel, is raw eel is
not Israel, that Israel, Israel is also the angel of death. And there
are other angels mentioned in the tradition as well. As far as the
scriptures go, Muslims believe
in four major scriptures, and many minor scriptures that are sort of
indicated as well. The four major scriptures are the Torah of Moses,
and the Psalms of David the suborder, the Injeel, the Gospel
given to Jesus peace be upon him. Is that the same as the Christian
gospel? Is it the same as the New Testament, the four Gospels? It's
not an easy question to answer.
The dominant opinion from Muslim scholars is that those books,
that what the Christians are calling the gospel
is not the pristine the gospel is not the actual revelation, given
that Jesus peace be upon him, although some of the sayings of
Jesus could certainly have been preserved in these four books. But
that these books, they contradict each other.
And they're written in Greek, which is a foreign language to
Jesus, this is sort of the dominant opinion of Muslim
scholars. And
they're written to late decades later. Of course, there are
different ways of looking at these things or counter arguments to
those to those points as well. But this is the dominant opinion.
All right.
So for example,
well, there are indications in the Quran that that
fabrications, textual fabrications, were committed by
Christian scribes and Jewish scribes.
And
it seems like there's evidence of this.
If you talk to textual critics of the New Testament, for example,
there are
there are manuscripts of the gospel of Mark that ended chapter
16, verse eight, right. And according to eminent textual
critics of the New Testament, that's actually the true ending of
Mark, the oldest and best Greek manuscripts. And at Mark 16,
eight, what does it say Mark 16, eight? Well, it says that on
Easter Sunday, a group of women three women, they go to the tomb
with a sub liqueur,
and they find that the stone has been moved away. And there's an
angel sitting inside the tomb. And the angel says to the women,
you're seeking Jesus, who has risen, he's gotten ahead of you to
Nazareth or to Galilee. Right? And then Mark says, whoever wrote this
gospel, he doesn't identify himself, but tradition calls him
Mark. Mark says that the women ran away and they were afraid, and
they said nothing to no one. And that's the end of the gospel.
Right. So what I what happened, it seems like a cliffhanger was Jesus
actually resurrected,
if he survived the crucifixion and flee the city because he's afraid
of authorities.
What happened?
And then,
a century or so later, a few decades later, lo and behold, you
have subsequent manuscripts of the gospel of Mark where there's now
a, a longer ending, as it's called, verses nine through 20,
where Jesus actually appears to the disciples to male disciples,
and He Commission's them to go into all the world, he tells them
that they can handle poisonous snakes and drink poison, and no
harm would come to them.
That's just one example.
So Muslims believe in God. And we'll talk next week we'll talk
about we'll give a little bit of a little lesson on theology. What do
Muslims actually believe about God? Theology fails and Lagace
right, means speech about God. What do Muslims say about God who
has got to do Muslims believe that God is one, a sort of
rigid type of Unitarian monotheism, you've got to believe
that there's a plurality if you will, in the quote, unquote.ad as
Christians do
Muslims believe that God has attributes, what are the
attributes, we'll go into a little bit of that again, we want to keep
it very basic belief in God, angels, the revelations given to
the Prophets and their original form.
And messengers of God, right?
Well Rasul Lee, according to Muslim tradition, there have been
about 124,000 or so prophets, although that number is disputed,
as I mentioned, 25 of them mentioned explicitly 25 or so
mentioned in the Quran and belief in the final day.
Alright, so belief in God,
angels, Revelations, messengers, Day of Judgment, what took me not
bill Kadri Fady he was shorter he and that's the sixth Article of
Faith.
Yeah, and that you believe in other and other
is difficult to translate divine decree. Right, some people,
sometimes translated as destiny,
like Divine Decree or divine apportionment. And notice here the
Prophet he repeats and taught me that that you believe he repeats
that verb.
Because
Potter is very hard to grasp. Right? It's a difficult thing to
grasp,
that you believe in the the Divine Decree, the good and evil of it.
Right, that everything is from
everything is from God. Right. So there's two terms in theology,
there's called God and there's called da. And some of the
scholars say that these terms are synonymous.
Other say that other is sort of the measuring out divine
apportionment, as we said, God determines all things. And then
the cabal is the playing out, if you will, of that, of that divine
decree in space time in the world, right. So.
So you had groups in the past that were known as the jabariya.
Absolute determinists who said things like, human beings have no
free will.
And so God cannot punish cannot possibly punish human beings,
because we have zero volition. Then you have the other extreme.
The Padania or the absolute libertarians, we're not talking
about political libertarianism, which believes that government
should not have a lot of intervention, if any, in our
lives. No, we're talking about philosophical or theological
libertarianism, which espoused that, that human beings have
absolute free will.
They create their own actions. In fact, God doesn't even know the
juice yet, or the
the particulars of of, of, of things, you only know sort of the
essences of things. So the truth is somewhere in the middle, as
they say, Now, as Muslims, we believe that everything is decreed
by God, God has perfect knowledge, right. But at the same time, human
beings are held accountable for their choices. Sometimes this is
called soft determinism, or compassion. compatibilism. Right?
That even though everything is determined by God, even though God
knows everything, and has the power to do whatever he wants,
if an action
is if an action originated within a person, themselves,
from that person's wants and desires, and there are moral
implications to that action, then that person is, is taken to
account for that action.
Ultimately, it's difficult to understand, ultimately, it's
impossible to understand, right? So that's why the Scholars say
here that, that the Prophet repeats the verb and took me not
that you believed because this is a difficult thing to believe.
And it's difficult to think in terms of
God's power and knowledge. Yet he allows us to do certain things and
then takes account for our actions. It's very difficult
thing to grasp.
But
it's, it's sort of like explaining,
you know, calculus to a toddler, or to like a fifth grader, right?
They'll get something, they'll get something from it. There's a very,
very limited understanding, but at the end of the day,
The intellect really has to make such depth because it has to make
a frustration to God. Because God's cause
his divine decree is beyond our ability to comprehend. Right?
If God didn't know what we were going to do, then he wouldn't be
God, that's not a solution to anything. Right?
But this is
this is something that we can discuss later as well. So it's,
it's akin to what philosophers would call like this, this type of
soft determinism, right, that you're still taken to account for
your choices, but your choices are indeed limited. Right.
Okay, so I think that's a good place to stop for tonight and
Charlotte will finish the Hadith next time. And then I'll give you
a little bit of theology as well, basic theology and the Islamic
tradition.
And that'll complete next week.
That'll complete our section on basic beliefs of Islam and then
we'll move in week three into Judaism inshallah. Also last year
Mohammed didn't want to add he was secular. So number hamdulillahi
rabbil Alameen. wa salam aleikum wa rahmatullah
wa salam ala Muhammad Anwar Ali, he was a Marine. So panna cotta
and Milena Ilana antenna in the animal animal Hakeem Hola, hola,
La Quwata illa biLlah Hill Ali La name As salam o Alaikum
Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh This is the second session
of our class entitled, The basics of the world religions, inshallah
to Allah. Today we're going to
talk about the religion of Islam. We're going to finish our
discussion on the religion of Islam Inshallah, to Allah. And
then we're going to move next week into Judaism in sha Allah Tada. So
last week, we began reading the famous Hadith Jibreel alayhis.
Salam, the tradition of Gabriel peace be upon him, and we covered
most of the Hadith. Just to give you a quick recap. We said that
Gabriel peace be upon him the archangel
incar, incarnated, basically,
became a man and came to the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi
wa sallam in the presence of the companions of some of the
companions, and sat in front of the Prophet salallahu Salam, and
asked him a series of questions, asked him about Islam, which of
course is the name of the religion itself, but we said that in the
context of this hadith, it seems to be a reference to the exterior
element of the religion, that which has to do with the body and
then the prophets of the body so the answer the question by by
explaining or listing the five pillars of Islam, and then you
build Ali Salam asked the Prophet salallahu Salam, a second question
about Al Eman. What is faith and the Prophet sallallahu Sallam he
described the six articles of faith. And that's where we left
off. Allah so doctor, then Jabril Ali Salam, he says to the Prophet
salallahu, salam, you have spoken the truth, a bit on the Anil, Anil
son. So now we continue the Hadith, famous Hadith.
And there's a third question that Gibreel Ali Salam asks the Prophet
salatu salam, what is Al Hassan? Right. And the root word here is
beauty. Yes, Sun is translated in a number of ways. Spiritual
excellence is one way of translating it. So we said that
Islam is a reference to sort of the horizontal aspect of the
religion while Eman is a reference to the vertical aspect of religion
or that which has to do with the body and the mind. And finally, we
have yes on the transcendental aspect of the religion or the
relational aspect, or you can say, the soul of the religion itself.
And your son, a technical term for Alia Hassan is to sow Wolf,
according to many of the aroma. They are. It's it's the same. It's
the same thing. They're they're synonymous, sometimes called
Sufism. When we talk about Sufism, we're talking about Sufism, in the
context of both Islam and Eman, right.
We're talking about spirituality.
With a cognizance that the true that a
True spirituality from the context of our religion is grounded in
Islam, as well as eemaan.
So to start with is just a technical term for your son,
right?
The aim, if you will, or the, the sort of, if we use Aristotelian
nomenclature, the, the, the final cause of the human being in the
Islamic tradition is to actualize we lie right or friendship with
Allah subhanho wa Taala in other words to make oneself beloved to
Allah subhana wa to Allah. And this is the aim of Alia son of
Islamic spirituality and different Muslim metaphysicians and
scholars, they describe the process Imana zali, for example,
who writes about to sell a family,
a practical Sufism, if you will. He recommends that Muslims must
sit with scholars they must sit with the spiritual masters and
take from their prescriptions take from their Epcot take from their
different litanies and eulogies and remembrance of Allah subhanho
wa taala. One of those, one of the great scholars Ahmed zoetrope, he
said that if you don't have a spiritual master, then take a
Salah Island Nabhi as your spiritual master, take the
benedictions upon the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam, as your spiritual master and ALLAH SubhanA wa, Allah will
guide you spiritually by means of the Salah and maybe because the
Prophet salallahu Salam was the greatest of spiritual masters.
So,
your Mama loves Allah He talks about, you know, this sort of
three step process of, of purging, if you will, the lower self the
knifes of vice, right? This is called a kenosis in Greek or
catharsis, via Perga Teva in the Catholic tradition,
to purge oneself to get rid of these vices, right, what are what
are some of these vices, what are the vices, these are diseases of
the heart? The UModel gloob the major ones are Kibito like
arrogance, and hasard envy, Ria, right ostentation.
So disciplining the lower self emptying the self of these of
these vices, but also then ornamenting the self
with virtue. This is so the first one he calls tattly. This one he
calls Talia right to ornament the self to take on a virtue. And of
course we know the cardinal virtues
of you know, I dalla and Shuja and hikma IFA, but you also have these
theological virtues Imam Al Ghazali,
enumerates 19 or 21 theological virtues like Toba like Saba, like
repentance, like like patience,
Raja hope, so on and so forth.
And then you find that you have something called Talia. Right this
is to sort of manifest the divine ethos at a human level, right.
This is when the abd becomes a woody if you will, a friend of
God, because he mirrors the divine attributes the divine names and
attributes at a level at the level of a human being. Right. So the
perfect mirror, if you will, at a human level of Gods names and
attributes was the prophet muhammad sallallahu Sallam and
Allah Subhana Allah to Allah in the Quran intimates this, when he
calls the prophet by to have his own names, like on the Jetta
kumara Solonian and physical as he's when I lay him out, I need to
hurry soon aliquam bill more meaning or for him. Rather the
Prophet sallallahu Sallam there has come on to you and Messenger
from among yourselves, a grieves him that you should perish deeply
concerned is he about you to the believers he is kind and merciful.
Right so Allah Subhana Allah to Allah is arose and r Rahim with
the definite article. Right in this sort of absolute sense and a
sense that is beyond human capability beyond human
comprehension.
But something of that attribute right is reflected in the
character. The beautiful character of Mohamed Salah Allahu Allah, he
it was seldom and he said in a hadith and there's weakness in the
Hadith, but it's true and its meaning to Haluk will be a halacha
Allah, that to adorn yourself with the character if you will of God.
Right. And the Prophet sallallaahu Salam is mentioned in the Quran,
Allah subhanho wa Taala speaks to him directly in the Quran.
What inocula Allah Who Lukin Alvine verily, verily, you
dominate right Isla hook Isla is usually used in grammar to denote
something physical like upon the desk, or upon the floor or
something like that upon the roof. But if there's an abstract noun
that follows Isla then this denotes a type of mastery or
Timucuan. So, indeed you have mastered hook alim, great
character magnificent character because he is a reflection of the
divine names and attributes
at the human level, right so Allah Subhana Allah says, speaking to
the prophet in the Quran, Rama Amara Mehta is run at Willa Qin
Allah ha Rama you did not throw when you through Allah through
right before the Battle of Budda, you know, the famous story, the
Prophet sallallahu sallam, he picks up some pebbles and he
throws them into the direction of the Mushrikeen. Allah Subhana
Allah says to him, You did not throw when you threw, right very
interesting, but Allah through what does this mean? Does this
mean that ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada incarnated into the Prophet
sallallahu sallam, and undertook this action that's not what it
means. It means that all of the actions of the Prophet salallahu
Salam, however mundane they might seem, all of them are guided by
Allah subhanho wa taala. Right, he's a sanctified agent of the
Divine. And this is the goal for all of us. Obviously, we cannot
attain the maklumat of the prophets, but we can attain we
cannot be prophets we cannot attain Naboo but we can attain
Wilaya right we can become from the Alia of Allah subhanahu wa to
Allah and the Prophet sallallahu Sallam he intimated this In
another Hadith, which is in Behati, which is Hadith number 41
of the Autobot ain, or by humans 40 But Imam another we include a
two more Hadith, right where Hadith number 41 where he reports
from the Prophet where the prophet salaallah alayhi salam is reported
to have said that you had to come Hatter Yeah. Hakuna Hawa, who Tada
and the magic to be
on if you truly believe until his howa is howa is his desires, his
Caprice his Hawa is in perfect accordance with what I have taught
and what did the Prophet sallallahu Sallam bring? He
brought the Quran and his ethos to sunnah. In other words, he brought
alHuda he brought the guidance from Allah subhanho wa taala.
Right, and that is perfect. That's perfect Eman. That's that's an
actualized type of of faith is that your desires and wants are
perfectly aligned with what Allah and His Messenger wants. This is a
definition, if you will, of Wilaya reminds me of something. Confucius
says and the Analects the loon you are he says, at 50 years old, I
understood the mandate of heaven. And at 70 years old.
He says, at seven years old I followed my heart's desire without
overstepping the line. Right? So he's describing this type of
Wilaya. And Confucius did believe in God. And there, the jury is out
whether I mean, he certainly could have been a prophet. There's a
good case to make I think.
Being Confucius Allahu Allah, just as there's a good case to be made,
for Siddhartha, Siddhartha Gautama or the Buddha, being a fiver
mentioned in the Quran, Allahu Allah.
So this is this is another words, this is mystical union, right?
When your desires align with the guidance of Allah Subhana. What's
added the term for that is mystical union.
And there's other Hadith that intimate this this phenomenon,
Hadith number 38, for example, in the onboarding, also from Behati,
where the Prophet sallallaahu Salam is reported to have said,
let me look at that really quickly here. So this hadith would see
this as a sacred Hadith where Allah subhana was Adam will speak
in the first person.
So Abby Herrera Radi Allahu Anhu is reported from Abu Huraira may
Allah be pleased with him called out us with Allah he's Allah buddy
Salam in Allah to Allah Allah, that Allah subhanho wa Taala said
monad when men idly while en facut advanta who will Harbor that Allah
says whoever antagonizes or shows enmity towards my wali towards my
friend, right? Again we lie is the final cause of the human being,
according to
the philosophy of Islam, if you will, or the psychology of Islam,
the one who antagonizes this friend of God, and I have
announced to him war from me Allah subhanho wa Taala
declares war on the person
who antagonizes the Friends of God is interesting you have a you know
a plethora of, of Christian and Christians and atheists who are
basically working full time on the internet, trying to discredit and
denounce the Prophet sallallaahu Salam. Basically it's it's a it's
an every day, verbal assault you have YouTube channels with 1000s
upon 1000s of, of prescribers. This is something that ALLAH
SubhanA wa Tala or subscribers. This is something that Allah
subhanho wa Taala
tells us about in the Quran, this is what he says is going to
happen. This is just natural. Well, that's just my own. I mean
that Avena would Kitab
minicabco Amina Latina, Silla qu and then kathira. That Indeed,
indeed, well, that's a Smyrna in Arabic is a lot of emphasis.
Indeed, indeed, you will hear a lot from those who received the
revelation before you the added key tab. And the machete keen,
which is interesting, the Quran doesn't necessarily affirm
atheism. There were very, very, very few atheists in the, in the
ancient world. There were a few but the Quran does not entertain
atheism. everyone worships something. You're either from
added keytab, or you're a believer, or you're a mushrik.
Right. So if you say for example, the universe created itself.
you're assigning to the universe, a quality of Allah subhanaw taala,
you're saying that the universe created itself, it's the holodeck
of it, or it's the holodeck, first of all. But then he said, No, the
universe didn't create itself, the universe always existed. It has a
sort of
internal pre eternality that's called a vanity and essential pre
eternality. That's an attribute of Allah Subhana Allah. So these are
Mushrikeen basically, that Scott Skald shook, right? So you're
going to hear a lot from people of different faiths, from people that
are Mushrikeen that is going to grieve you and then cathedra a lot
of sort of white noise Interspiritual tut, Dakota in
Nevada given as an illegal motor. But if you show patience, great
theological virtue, and you guard against evil, right? You guard
yourself from this type of thing, then that will be the determining
factor of all affairs. And this doesn't mean that you can't ask
questions to seek, you know, clarifications, asking questions
does not necessarily does not necessarily come from a place of
doubt. Right? We have to remember that as well. Someone asking
questions, even if they're difficult questions, does not
necessarily mean that this person is having issues with their Eman
or something like that. That we should constantly seek to fortify
our Eman but anyway Can you continuing the Hadith, this hadith
glitzy Walmart ACARA Ilya Abdi be che in a heartbeat Ilya IMMAF
mimma if Tara to who I lay, that my servant does not draw close
unto me now again, the speaker here is Allah Subhana Allah to
Allah, on the tongue of our Master Muhammad Sallallahu sallam, my
servant does not draw closer into me with anything more beloved by
me than his photo ID right his obligatory acts of worship.
And he continued, well I as an idea, terrible delay have been no
awful.
And he continues to draw close unto me with his no often with his
supererogatory acts of worship, right? So you have the five
pillars of Islam, these are the Fatah and then you have no effort
you have extra, you have the for example, the five days
right most of the hub days or sooner
but and you have sadaqa extra, you have the Hajj, which is thought
you have ombre, which is extra, that leaves one pillar, the
Shahada. shahada is essentially a form of decode. You sit on the
tongue as we said, you testify on the tongue what is the Nafi law of
the Shahada? It is Earth car it is a vicar, vicar of Allah subhanaw
taala and additional Salah Island maybe it is eulogies and
benedictions upon the Prophet sallallahu Sallam right, so the
love of actions.
But then this, the Hadith Guzzi says drawn year on to Allah
subhana wa Taala with the extra credit as you will then know awful
hard to hit ba until I love him or her. The masculine is used here.
Right? The female gender is encapsulated in the masculine
gender, it's understood to be there until I
Love Him, until this is God speaking until I love him. And
then he says, And when I love him when to some are who I like to
your smart Ruby
and when I love him, right for either, who, when I love him I
become his hearing, by which he sees and his total, and by which
he's sorry his hearing by which he hears in his sight by which sees
what you know who allottee your potential behalf and his hand by
which he strikes and his foot is original, Allah TMG Bihar by which
he walks and if you were to ask anything from me, I shall surely
give it to him. Right? If you were to ask anything from me, I shall
surely give it to him.
And he continues, if you were to ask me for refuge, I should surely
grant him it. Right. So this that hadith is in Behati sound Hadith
Hadith Gotse
so going back to the hadith of Gibreel Alayhis Salam
okay
the sort of Adi Salam, this is the this
gives here a beautiful Shin
haka and Nikka Tara,
first of all, he says, Alia Hassan spiritual
occasion
section of the soul, the relational aspect of the religion,
the soul of the religion.
It is to worship Allah subhanho wa Taala as though we see him as if
you see him
in lamp off in New York, if you if you don't see him, deed he sees
you. Right? So
as if one is rapture, and the beatific vision of Allah subhanho
wa Taala give you a basic worldly example. If your boss comes into
office, and says, make a sale right now. And he sits down in
your office, and he watches you how excellent of a sales call will
you make? Right? That's just your boss at work. Right? Who you might
not even like very much as a person.
But when you worship,
worship Allah, Allah to Allah as if you can see Allah subhana wa
Tada and we cannot see Allah subhanho wa taala. But then No,
no, in your very being. That Allah subhana wa Taala sees you.
And then he says for aka Bernie and his PSA. Right. So there's a
fourth question. Sometimes we can push the pause button on this
hadith, Islam Eman.
But there's one more question.
One more major question is actually five questions. But one
more major question. What? So tell me about OSI the hour ie the Day
of Judgment. The hour right? The word hour in English comes from
the Greek hora. This is the same word that's used for the day of
judgment in the New Testament, for example, which is written in
Greek.
So it begins with a omega but there's rough breathing, so hold
on that's why there's an H. When we say our
so tell me about the hour and he understood this question to mean
when is the hour right now the hour is close to profit so the
lady Saddam
Hussein and he put up these two fingers. So the lower it it was
Saddam, the our and my office very close like this. So he is the
eschatological Prophet he is the first of the major signs of His
coming is the first major sign of a PSA. Right? When you look at the
entire history of humanity, it's very, very close. So the Prophet
sallallahu CEMs answer is monogamous, ooo. Unhappy, Alam
Inessa. Ill the mess ool the one who's being asked the question,
right, the one who's being questioned knows no more than the
questioner the SAT the SAT, meaning Gibreel Ali Salam, nobody
knows the exact time of the SAT. This is a secret that Allah
subhanho wa Taala has kept for himself. Right? In the Quran, it
says they asked you concerning the PSA. When will it be established?
Called in nama al Maha Endora be? Allah Subhana Allah to Allah
commands the prophets of the body send them to say, the knowledge of
the Sangha is only with my Lord. The knowledge of the site is only
with my lord so nobody knows. Nobody knows when
It is in fact, in the New Testament, you have the saying
that it's attributed to a silent Salah in the Gospel of Matthew
chapter 24, verse 36, when he says of that day, right of that day, no
if no man, not the angels, not even the sun, but only the Father.
Now, before we continue, we have to understand here that these
terms, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, these are Hebrew isms, you
actually find these terms, the sort of ingredients of the
Trinity, the ingredients of the Trinity, right, not the doctrine
of the Trinity ingredients in these terms, and Klaich er of
Trinitarian. Christianity is found in the Old Testament, but they
have different meanings. So the early Christians did is they took
terms he appropriated them and redefine them through a
Trinitarian lens. So in the Old Testament, in Jewish texts, even
at the time of Isa Ali Salam, this is this is a a Jewish prophet in a
Jewish environment. Right? When Jews called Allah subhanho wa
Taala the Father, what that meant was, I'm sorry, what that meant
was Rob. So up father means Rob. Right. Isaiah, chapter 6416, at
Adonai Avino, You are the Lord our father. This is totally my jazz is
figurative language. Right? It's figurative, no one is this. No
Jewish prophet Isaiah did not mean that in a literal sense, that God
is a literal father, or God is my literal father, or the god is a
literal father of anyone. And when I say literal father, I not only
mean in the literal physical sense, but I mean any that
anyone's shares a nature with Allah subhanaw taala. Anyone find
quality with ALLAH SubhanA wa, tada. Nobody does. And we'll get
into some of this theology, and then the word, son, right? You
find this in the Old Testament, Israel is my son, even my
firstborn in the Psalms, God says to David, you are My Son, this day
I have begotten you. What does that mean? What does it mean to be
a
bin I deny bin Elohim? Right? Even though law what is what does that
mean? In a Jewish context, it simply means Abdi it means slave
or servant. Right? And it's a great McCombe to be a servant of
Allah is a great station to be the servant of Allah. It's not like
when we you know, we use the term slave people think of, you know,
slave in the American context like chattel slavery. That's what it
is. Right? Because in that type of relationship, the slave is
dehumanize, humiliated and the only one that benefits as a slave
master, but in the relationship with Allah subhanho wa taala, the
slave is honored. And he benefits the slave benefits we cannot
benefit Allah Subhan Allah to Allah one iota, there's nothing
that we can do that can possibly benefit him. We take all the
benefit. So it's a great MACOM to be the Abdi par excellence. And
the Prophet sallallahu Sallam took great pride in the sense that
Allah subhanho wa Taala frequently refers to him in the Quran as his
abdomen. Oh Ha, Isla de ma. Oh, ha. Right.
So, son, in a Jewish context, son means apt means servant EViD don't
die, right.
And Father, in the Jewish context, means Rob. Right? So we have to
keep that in mind. So what does it mean for Jesus to be the Son?
Right? Because in the New Testament, He refers to himself,
more often than not as the Son of Man.
And there's different ways of interpreting that it seems to be
a, a way of stressing his humanity or just a way of saying prophet or
just human being, but sometimes this son now this could be
obviously, there could be
alterations that the text has suffered, but again, keeping
things in a Jewish context, if he's does, son, right, so first of
all, he says, we're all children of God. Right Sermon on the Mount.
In Matthew, chapter five, also in the book of Luke, in the Aramaic,
he says, a wound of Ishmael Our Father who art in heaven, they
asked him, How do we pray you pray like this? A wound of Hushmail Our
Father who art in heaven, hallowed be hallowed be thy name. Right,
our father, not just his father, all of us. And again, ob means
Rob. So I would actually translate that the meaning of that as Rob
BANA Rabbana Oh our Lord, that's what it means. Right? So what does
it mean that for Jesus to be the son or, you know, mono game as we
EOS you know, the one of a kind son? What does that mean? Well,
Christians take that to mean that he's the second person of a triune
godhead, but it simply means that he's the Messiah.
All right, Isa Ali Salam has this unique title. He's a unique ABD
and the Prophet salallahu Salam is also a unique to Avid and Musa Ali
Salam is a unique to add right unique apt unique slave of Gods so
anyway, going back to this idea of the PSA I have to explain this
sort of before we get into this. So Matthew 2436 He says,
of that Day no with no man, right not the angels who day haha we us
in the Greek, not even the sun, not even the Messiah, not even
this unique servant of Allah subhanho wa Taala meaning himself,
but only the Father only the rub. Only the rub knows this the the
side, the day he calls it al Yom Yom Alvine.
So essentially Salam here, according to a Christian texts,
which is a canonical texts, authoritative texts, the Gospel of
Matthew the most, the most popular gospel in all of antiquity, admits
he doesn't know Now what's really interesting is later scribes, they
removed that that statement all day, halfway Eos, from manuscripts
of Matthew's Gospel. Later Greek manuscripts, they omit that. So
Jesus says, of that day, knoweth, no man, not the angels in heaven,
but only the Father. Which still doesn't help really, because the
son is not the father, you can't say that the Father is the same
person as the son. That's a violation of Trinitarian theology.
But these scribes, whenever they were probably second, third
century, they found it very troubling that Jesus who's
supposed to be God doesn't know something because Ellen mutlak,
right? Very important concept. God has these sort of Omni attributes,
right? He's omniscient. He knows everything he's all knowing.
Right? This is called a qualitative attribute of God. God
has certain attributes
that qualify him as being deity. One of them is omniscience. I see
fat 190 We call them an Arabic. Right? At the moment lock perfect,
knowledge doesn't increase doesn't decrease. It's perfect. So the
fact that Eastside acnm According to this Christian text, whether
it's authentic or not, Allahu item, it doesn't really make a
difference to us. Right?
Whether it's authentic or not, but according to this text, he admits
that he doesn't know something. And if he's God, he's supposed to
know everything.
Of course, the numbers 2319. This is in the Torah, or the modern day
Torah, numbers 2319. It says low each a God is not a man. Right
that he should lie. Numbers. 2319 God is not a man is just three
words. I always have my students memorize it low each ale. God is
not a man. No, each ale not a man is that he should lie is the rest
of that statement. So Christians, how do Christians deal with the
statement God is not a man that he should lie. They say, Yeah, God is
not a man that he should lie. In other words, God can become a man
and he did become a man. He became Jesus peace be upon him. And Jesus
never lied about that. Right. But that's not the actual meaning of
that verse in Hebrew. And this is something that rabbinical
authorities point out in their debates with Christians. This goes
all the way back to like the third century, Rabbi Abba, who have said
Surya, who used to debate Christian apologists, he said,
That's not the meaning of it. The meaning is, whoever claims any man
who claims to be God, he's a liar.
Right? So that's the meaning of it. God is on a man that he should
lie. Any man any human being, who claims to be God is a liar. And
that's not the only place you have Hosea chapter 11, verse nine, key
I know he alle Villo ish. Indeed, I am God and not a man. They are
two mutually exclusive
entities. Right. So the prophets have a lot he said them he's a man
masu and have the Atlanta Minister actually the one who is being
questioned those no more than the questioner.
And he continues, so now we have
yet another question. So Islam eemaan Right. Yes, on a PSA. Now a
fifth question and clarifying question number five, maybe just
you know, for for a question for a
building on a Marathi ha. So tell me about the you don't know when
is the south, but tell me it's signs importance. Right. So why is
this important? Because we need to recognize the signs of our times.
Right? And be able to guard or protect ourselves against evil.
That's why there's a
are a fairly large corpus of what's known as eschatological
literature in our tradition, the Prophet sallallahu sallam, he
spoke a lot about the importance of the PSA, and the fitten the
trials and tribulations that are going to manifest towards the end
of time, because the prophets a little odd, he said them he's not
just a Bashir. He's He's not just a bear of glad tidings. Yeah, you
hadn't to be your inner son like a Shah. He doesn't mumble but she
didn't wanna Vera. Shah, he didn't want me Bashir. It gives the
Bushra one Avira and a warner. He's here to warn us about things.
What Darrian Illallah hibi in the knee, we'll see Raja monniera So
the Prophet sallallahu Sallam He gives us warning. This is part of
his vocation, as a prophet. So what does the Prophet sallallaahu
Salam? What does he say? He says intelli the AMA Tura butter ha.
A jeep statement.
He says that the slave girl or the low born bass born girl will give
birth to her mistress mistress means female master. Right? That a
girl will give birth to her mistress or master. So the URL
Amma they have differences of opinion about this, but generally
they say that the meaning of this is that towards the PSA, there's
going to be sort of a flood of what's known as filial
recalcitrance, the opposite the opposite of veteran Whitey Dane,
the opposite of filial piety, which is so important and
everything starts at home. All of Confucius's philosophy begins with
beautiful validate. Right, you know, so, it's bolsters or
buttresses our case for Lookman and Hakeem as being looked at as
being Confucius because he's giving advice to Yagoona yah, yah
yah brunette LA to Shrek Bella in the shurkin, a woman or the
Yagoona, right, he's teaching his chill his son is children.
So feeling cat recalcitrance. So you have this idea. Now, this kind
of postmodern philosophy that's floating around in colleges and
universities.
society in general, this idea of radical absolute egalitarianism in
the society, which has never worked, history has shown it's
never worked.
hierarchical structures are very important to society, those work,
and they're, they're tried and they're tested, that there's
always going to be when you can't equalize people, it's just not
going to happen. People have different abilities. People are
born into different types of class and status and wealth. There's
always going to be a Hoss and an arm, there's always going to be,
you know, a noble class or a nobility, the nobles, if you will,
influential, wealthy and then there's going to be the the arm
the laity are the commoners. That's how it works, hierarchies
work, they work in the workplace, they work in educational
institutions. And they work in the family this the the study that I
cite, oftentimes, Charles University in Prague, where the
researchers discovered that, that households where one spouse is
dominant over the other, those households tend to be happier and
have more children. What do I mean by dominant? I don't mean that one
spouse is oppressing the other one. I mean, there's a clear sort
of social hierarchy within the family, a chain of command, where
the person at the top they are, they're magnanimous in the way
that they treat their family but the buck as it were stopped at
that person. They have the sort of final say, within the household.
And this This study found that 72% of those happy families were male
dominated. So there's a reason why Allah subhanho wa Taala says, I've
reached out to our moolah, Allah Nisa, you know, the Quran is not
trying to be misogynistic, and,
and, you know, because that's, you know, this whole whole idea of
patriarchy, and we need to smash it and build up. I mean, good luck
with that these things are not going to work. Right.
So this idea of, you know, children now, ruling their
parents, right.
I just saw thing on the news the other day, there's a show on
Netflix, I think it's called the baby sitters club or something
like that, where you have this eight year old boy who's in the
hospital, biological boy. And you have these doctors that are
treating this patient as as a boy. And then one of one of his friends
or someone a girl comes in and says can I talk to you two doctors
outside? And this girl who's like 10 years old or something, the
friend of this boy who's sick begins to just lecture these these
grown adult physicians. I don't care what your chart says.
Look at her it's a girl you know treat her like a girl you're being
violent or something you're creating an unsafe space for this
girl it's actually a girl. So now we just kind of live and make
believe land and the doctors are sitting there doctors physicians
in their 50s listening to this 10 year old girl lecture them Okay,
you're right you're right. Very very strange
Okay, so and then he says, Well Antara and profanity erotica Allah
RIA SHA II Toluna fillable Nyan, so that's the first one he says
the Prophet sallallahu Sallam he says, the slave girl will give
birth to her master. And then he says something interesting, you
will see the barefooted naked, destitute herdsmen,
competing
in the construction of lofty buildings,
right. So,
why are these two signs why are these two portends so that the
scholars say that well, one will come very quickly and one will
come later or one will come within the family and one will manifest
in the society. The barefoot naked destitute shepherds herdsmen,
competing in the construction of lofty buildings, right? So in
other words, but dunya love of the world, the New Testaments
love, love of Mammon, right? That's how easily Islam at least
according to the New Testament puts it. You know, the Hadith says
Herbert dunya love of the world. Right so Cooley Hardy,
is the head of every type of sin, love of the world. Right? So this
idea of you know, shepherds, naked, barefoot, now competing and
lofty buildings. It means that hurt but dunya can take root, even
in the most unlikely of places. In the most unlikely of places,
simple shepherds, Bedouins living in the desert in tents are now
fully engrossed and love of Mammon as it were love of the world.
Right? There's a surah of the Quran that
that we, we know very well, but we seldom contemplate Surah 102
Attack catheter. What does a catheter mean? It comes from a
theater, it's form six verb which denotes this kind of reciprocal
action. So you have this sort of mutual competition or rivalry,
right? For stuff for Kathira for a lot of stuff, and Hakuna Matata
cathode. The Quran says
that this this mutual competition or consumerism amongst yourselves,
deludes you or distracts you right it distracts you al Hakim with the
Carrefour hut azul tamale macabre until you visit the graves. Right.
And the meaning is either until you go into your grave. And that's
really when you wake up. Because said it said human beings are
asleep or when they die they wake up. That's when the Yaqeen to
McCullough sofa to Isla moon. So Mikayla sofa to alimony, low tide,
low tide, I'm gonna marry again letterwinner Jehane. Or it means
that you should go to the graveyard when you actually go
visit a graveyard. That's when people start putting things in
perspective, right? That's why we should go to funerals, somebody
dies in your community, and there's a Janaza prayer go to the
graveyard go look at the burial. Right? And this, you know, to
cathode, this idea of, of competition, you know, you have a
perfectly good phone, you know, you got to buy another phone.
Because your your cousin has a the latest iPhone, your phone is
perfectly good. But no, you have to compete with this person. And
that's just in one little gadget. There people like this, they spend
their entire lives just to CAFO.
Very interesting. So the Prophet Soleimani send them his two
portends that he gives us, right? He tells us basically number one,
there's going to be a major breakdown of social structures.
Right? We're going to enter into a type of social chaos.
And then we're going to there's going to be a sort of dominance of
materialism people will fall into total materialism. Right. And
another thing he said is not mentioned in the Hadith here, and
the Hadith of Gibreel. But the Prophet sallallahu Sallam he said
that there are other signs, other portions of the PSA, that coming
of the Antichrist is one of them.
If you look at ISA Ali Salam, if you look at our Christology, Isa
Ali Salam, according to the Hadith of the Prophet salallahu Salam
here
His message is is growly it's, it's otherworldly, right? He's
talking about moat about death. He's talking about aka. He's
talking about purifying the self. You know, he says the dunya is
like a bridge, hurry up and cross over it. He says, The world is
like a man whose See, trapped on a on a boat, completely lost. See,
he starts taking handful after a handful of seawater into his
mouth, which is representative symbolical for the dunya the more
he drinks, the more thirstier he gets, and then it kills him.
Right?
He says, The world is like a haggard old prostitute, who sticks
her hand out from behind a wall, which is all you know, be jeweled
with rings and,
and nail polish and bangles and wave it over to her. So the men,
they go, and they look around the corner, and then she grabs them
and slaughters them. That's the nature of the dunya.
Right, so the Antichrist, then the Missy, de jaal, is message is the
is the polar opposite of Si de Sena
is that salvation is through materialism. This is all there is.
So just enjoy your life. Right. And this is, you know, the
barefooted naked destitute herdsmen competing in the
construction of lofty buildings. That's how the Prophet sallallaahu
Salam described this, this phenomenon, very dramatic sort of
way of putting it
and then he says filmer in Tala ca for the birth to Malian
singer Omar he says then this man left and I stayed for a while and
the the prophets of the body suddenly came to me and said,
Yeah, Omar a tad Did he mannessah
Do you realize who the questioner was?
And say no, I'm not he says Allah who was sort of who I am. Allah
and His Messenger know best
for him to who? Gibreel
indeed, he was Jabril de Salam.
Yes, the age of Horus. Indeed. This is what Crowley says in the
libre. legis Aleister Crowley, one of these sort of hidden figures
that have so much that has influenced American western
society, now world, the world in such an incredible way, the
founder of the modern religion of Thelema, which is a type of
Satanism.
Right, he wrote this book called The libre legis, which he claimed
was dictated to him by a shaytaan by a demon named a wuss, which is
interesting sounds like what it was. And in that book, he says,
you know, Crowley says that we're going to enter into the age of
Horus the age of the child, right? The dominance of the child, in
other words, and in an age of, of a lack of discipline, an age of,
of just, just following the house.
Right, following the knifes an age that where it's unreasonable,
because the purpose of the acha acha means to bind something.
Yeah, kill means to like the to the hobble a camel. Yeah, couldn't
have the Prophet sallallahu sallam said about the camel running
around outside the Masjid. So whose camel is that? The Bedouin
said, That's my camel. That's what Coco Allah I've trusted Allah. He
said, tie her down. Right? The intellect is supposed to talk down
and control, the knifes the how the Caprice? It goes all the way
back to Plato. We mentioned this before. The rational soul has to
has to be in the driver's seat to keep the appetitive soul and the
striving soul in check.
But it's the age of Horus
I'm sorry if there's problems with the audio.
I'm the only one here today inshallah we can work that out.
God, God incarnate is an Aryan and Greco Roman concept.
Well,
Arianism is
it's hard to it's hard to pin down. Aryan Christology, it's God
incarnate is certainly a Trinitarian belief. That's
Orthodox Christianity. Right?
In Qatar, not to suggest it is in the Nicene Creed. It says in the
Nicene Constantinopolitan creed that God came down and assumed
flesh. That's what that means incarnation. What did Arias
actually believe?
Most of his writings are lost with the exception of
most of our information about areas comes from his opponent.
thence, which you can't really trust, can you really trust your
opponents to reproduce? Even the Cournot mo tomb Christian
theologian who wrote the book?
It's a very good book, if I can think of the title,
classic classical Trinitarian theology.
Right, he says in that book tomb T O M, he says that it's, it's known
that many early church fathers, they would they would be lie areas
they would they would misquote him, they would quote him out of
context.
But something seems to be Arius because it's in the Nicene Creed
is the belief, that Eastside a Salam that Jesus Christ peace be
upon him, that the Son of God in he used that term, but then the
Trinitarian sense, Son of God, there was a time when the son did
not exist, right? That sort of the credo of the of the errands. It's
according to the Nicene Creed. In Greek and pateo, hottie Luke ain,
there was a time when he was not, there was a time when he the son
of God was not an Arias refer to Christ as the cutest smart
creation, the sun is created term. Right?
So that's sort of one way of looking at Arianism. The other way
of looking at it is, well, okay, that might have been true. But did
Arias somehow still
give the son some sort of smile, divine or demigod status?
To the I mean, that's certainly how some of the early church
fathers portray him, that the early church fathers, ironically,
are defending monotheism, in the face of what they believe is a
type of by theism, which is being espoused by the Aryans. So terian
theism for the early church fathers is a real type of
monotheism whereas what Arias was saying is Arias is trying to
propose that they're actually two Gods the Father and the Son. I
think that misrepresentation of Arianism I think areas believed
based on
what cursed me as far as my research that areas believed that
the sun was was created at some point that Curtis Martelly on he
calls him the best of creation right that was that was Eric
okay
so anyway, he says that was Gabriel in the hood you bill
attack on you i limo container calm he came to you to teach you
your religion. And that's the end of the Hadith. Right.
Now, I only have a few minutes left I want to just
read a few statements from the beautiful creed, a very ecumenical
popular creed of Imam Abu Jaffa to how we
the world famous creed which is derived from the Quran, the motto
water of a multiple attested hadith of our master Mohammad
salatu salam and the edge map, the consensus of the first three
generations the sell off of the Muslim ummah.
Just read very quickly here, he says. So number one, and of
course, creed, the Creed comes from the Latin credo, which means
I believe, right?
So creed in Arabic is Aveda, which is related to the Hebrew word aka
Ada, like the binding of isaac Genesis 22, right to bind to
something that's what the root is, why don't open that Tamil the
Sunni, right release the sort of, not from my tongue, which is the
prayer of Musa. So these are these are beliefs that are binding upon
Us. It's just a list, a list of our beliefs. This is the aim of
the creedal. theologian. Right The aim of the creedal theologian is
simply to articulate our basic beliefs just a list of our
beliefs, and it's different than animal Qalam. Right animal Kalam
or dialectical theology, or possibly a better translation, I
don't like speculative theology, but a discursive theology, the aim
of the discursive theologian, the multicolumn, is to reconcile our
belief, our sacred texts with reason, right. So it's not just,
you know, we believe in God and this is who God is. It's, you
know, is belief in God reasonable is belief in Revelation reasonable
is belief in angels reasonable, right. So hearing Mamata Howey
he's assumed the role of a of a creedal field
origin, right? So he's not going to get into a lot of discussion, a
lot of
dialectics, if you will. So he begins by saying, in Allah, why
don't lash out eCola God is one, and he has no partner.
And some of the elements say here that white here denotes a sort of
internal oneness of God, that is one quote unquote person, using
the person as an entity which has a personality, one entity, right
persona, or hypothesis in Greek. In other words, this sort of
Godhead in Islam as a simple unity, rigidly one, Unitarian
monotheism, and Christianity,
when it comes to the essence, attributes and actions of God, so
in our tradition, no one shares in the essence and attributes and
actions of God. No one has the essence attributes or actions of
Allah subhanho wa taala, except Allah subhanho wa taala, who is
rigidly one, in internal oneness is wide. And Christianity, three
hypotheses, three persons share in the essence, the attributes, and
actions of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It's why Allah
subhanaw taala He says, When I tell Hulu salata
don't say three, so that that doesn't mean Trinity. It could
mean Trinity.
But it means three, don't say three, whether it's three gods,
right, and other like a sort of Neoplatonic, or middle platonic
hierarchy of being where there's, it's really more Heno theistic,
where there's one major God, but then there's two sort of minor
gods that are that are effects of the major God or the one. Right,
so the Godhead is sort of three distinct gods that have similar
essence. Don't say that. Well, that took who said, that don't
say, one essence and three persons.
So this verse, well, that's a quote with the latter. The way
that it's worded is is incredible, because not only is it denouncing,
Trinitarian, monotheism, but also these types of middle platonic
Haendel theistic try theism, all of these types of things, because
that was also very popular. This predates Christianity, middle,
platonic philosophers. They talked about the one they talked about
the, you know, who, who caused from his being the logos, they use
that term or the noose, the word, and through self intellection,
this kind of emanation, and then you have another emanation from
the from the logos from the news that created this, the what they
call the su que the psyche, the Spirit, Father, Son, Holy Spirit,
right, Christianity is heavily influenced by middle and Neo
Platonism, to the point where in the Gospel of John, you see that
word, and arcane holla. us in the beginning was the logos, and the
Word was with God and the Word was God.
Again, we so what we have with Christianity, you have an
appropriation of Jewish terminology, redefined the
Trinitarian lens, you also have an appropriation of Hellenistic
philosophy and theology
redefined through a Trinitarian lens. Right. So with the New
Testament books, especially John, you have sort of one hand on Plato
and Aristotle and the other hand on the Tanakh, the Old Testament,
and it's really sort of marrying the two together.
This is why Imam Al Ghazali warns us in the two half with one
philosopher, that it's very, very dangerous to get into these to get
into Hellenistic metaphysics. He's not an anti scholastic Imam Al
Ghazali says in that text, he says, I'm not against, you know,
you know, you know, the hard sciences and natural science that
has nothing to do with your religion. Right? He says, if if a
if a scientist comes up to you and says, you can predict
the the eclipse of the moon or something, that's fine, don't
argue with him.
But steer clear of Hellenistic metaphysics, because look what it
did to Christianity, and liquidity to Judaism as well. Philo of
Alexandria, highly influenced, middle Platonic Philosopher who
talks about a deutero stay off a second God that he calls the
logos, right? lived in Egypt in Alexandria. That's probably where
the Gospel of John was written as well. Anyways, I'm out of time
in hola Hawaii doing last year eCola. That's the essence of the
theology.
Well, who Allahu Ahad Allahu Samad lemmya, Ledwell and Mulan, well,
I'm on level one.
So next week, Allah to Allah will continue and we'll go into
Judaism.
Well Salah Mohammed and Allah Allah He was actually a Salam.
Welcome
Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa sallahu
wa Rahmatullah he was born out of menorah him.
Satan Muhammad in one early he was a huge Marine, satanic Allah and
Milena. Ilana alum tena in Inwood Hakim Mala Hola, La Quwata illa
Allah Hill allele Adim Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi
Wabarakatuh.
This is our third class
in sha Allah, covering the basic concepts of the world's major
religions. So, the first week we spoke of our tradition of Islam,
as well as the second week, so today in sha Allah tonight,
inshallah to Allah, we're going to begin
the first part of the religion of Judaism.
So, it's difficult to distill a religion down to
a couple of sessions, but I'll do my best in sha Allah to Allah.
Also at 820 or so we'll take a break, maybe seven or eight
minutes.
So we can pray Maghrib Inshallah, to Allah for those of us on West
Coast time.
So,
I thought a good
thing to look at, when it comes to Judaism is the famous creed of my
manatees. So my monitor is famous rabbi and philosopher. He died in
the early 13th century.
He was buried InfraStop in Egypt.
Moshe had been my mon is his name. And Jews refer to him as the
Rambam. That's the sort of acronym means Rabbi Moshe been my Mon.
He was an incredible scholar. He was a great scholastic. He was a
great synthesizer of,
of
Jewish thought, as well as Aristotelian ethics. And we'll
talk a little bit about that as well. He believed that revelation
and reason go hand in hand, he was a natural theologian,
meaning that he believed that one could engage in Reason and
philosophy as evidence of God.
He was a champion of what's known as negative theology. And we'll
explain that as well. In sha Allah, he he wrote, quite
extensively, probably his two greatest works are the and he
wrote them in Arabic. At least the first one was an Arabic Delilah
twill Hierin, which is oftentimes translated as The Guide for the
Perplexed.
It's called the modern Neville cream in Hebrew, three volumes,
and basically the aim of the Guide for the Perplexed, who are the
perplexed? Who are these people in a state of hierarchy? These are
people that cannot reconcile knuckle with aka.
They can't reconcile the revelation with reason. So again,
that's sort of the job as it were, as we said last week, of the
dialectic theologian to reconcile the two.
So that's what he attempts to do in the famous Guide for the
Perplexed is second famous texts is called the Mishnah Torah, which
is a commentary on the Torah,
Jewish law, and Scripture.
And in his Mishnah Torah,
My motto is articulated basic creed, right? So his creed is 13
principles. That's all it is 13 lines. And it's taken from the
tunnel off in the tunnel mode. So we sort of have to get familiar
again, with our terminology. What are we talking about when we say
turn off is another acronym
that the Tao comes from tota. There's a noon in there, which is
from Naveen means prophets. And then the calf which is more
guttural in Hebrew.
So tonna comes from kitto beam, the writings, so
it's basically the Hebrew Bible, right, Tanaka and Hebrew Bible are
synonymous. Of course Christians would call this the Old Testament.
Right? So the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible,
the Tanakh these are all synonymous of course the term old
Old Testament is Christian terminology.
Jews, at least Orthodox Jews would find the term Old Testament to be
a bit offensive,
which implies that the the covenant that God made with Moses
and the Israelites on Sinai has been abrogated.
So so that's the Tanakh. Right? So you have the Torah. So what do we
mean by Torah? What do they mean by Torah? They mean the Five Books
of Moses, right?
This is called also called in Hebrew, the whole nosh, because
the term Torah is a bit ambiguous, right? Sometimes when Jews use the
word torah, they're talking about the Five Books of Moses, sometimes
they're talking about the entire Old Testament, the entire Tanakh.
Sometimes they're talking about all of the sacred literature,
including the Talmud, and we'll talk about that. So the term Torah
is a bit ambiguous. But when we say who much which comes from
which is related to the Arabic word Hamsa, like Penta tuk in
Greek, here, we're talking about the first five books of the
turnoff, right? The books that are traditionally ascribed to Musa
alayhis salam, and Orthodox Jews believe in fact, that Musa today
so them wrote these five books on Mount Sinai
some 3500 years ago, he wrote them over 40 nights, he was in sort of
a trance, he did not sleep, he did not eat, he did not drink. He was
simply receiving these five books, what are these five books called?
Well, in Hebrew, the first book is called that a sheath, which comes
from the very first word, and that's how they're all called in
Hebrew. It's the first a word or so a word in the first verse of
the first chapter of that book. In this case, Genesis, right is
called bet a sheath because the book begins bet a sheath about
Elohim, Hashem ion, and hit our hearts, that in the beginning, God
created the heavens in the earth, right?
However, it's called Genesis in English,
which is taken from Greek. So the titles of the books that we know
are taken from Latin and Greek and of course, they're, they're taken
into the English language.
So Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. These are
the five books of Moses, this is the whole much, right, this is the
first five books of the Tanakh, the Old Testament, the orthodox
belief, again, that Moses himself, Musa SNM, wrote these books.
They are equivalent to our conception of the Quran, as far as
the Quran being
a dictate from Allah subhanaw taala. So Musa alayhis salam is
not being inspired. These are not His words, he's not receiving some
sort of inspiration or He ha, and then he's articulating the wording
himself, the left is not is right, just like with the Quran, the
Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu. It it was setting them is receiving the
words either through exterior or interior location. And he's simply
repeating those words that he's hearing from outside of himself or
that he's perceiving within himself.
So that is the status of the homage Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, Deuteronomy, right. And then we have the Nadeem at the
prophets. Now, so there's another set of books in the Old Testament
that are called after certain prophets, right? So you have books
like Jeremiah, and Ezekiel and Isaiah and Amos,
Zephaniah, etc. Like,
right? So, these books are believed by Jews to be inspired by
God, right? So it's not a system of Verba you know, word for word
dictate. It's more like Hadith. If there's something comparable in
our tradition, inspired words of God where a prophet would receive
inspiration, but that prophet would use his own words, he would
articulate that inspiration. And then you have a third class of
Revelation. Right? So or degree of revelation in the Old Testament,
which is called the kitto beam.
The writings are hagiography, and these are books that are authored
by nonprofits. For example, Proverbs, so Jews don't believe
that David and Solomon are prophets. This is a difference of
opinion that we have with them. So the Psalms For example, is kitto
beam. So a lower degree of revelation still sacred writings
canonical and sacred, but not as high right? Not
Not as great as the writings of Isaiah. And Isaiah is not as great
as or exalted as the writings of Moses, which are not even the
words of Moses. They are the words of God spoken by, by Moses.
So my motto is creed is taken from the turnoff, aka Old Testament, as
well as something called the Talmud. The word Talmud is related
to
the Arabic till need, right? Until meat means like a pupil, right? So
the tongue wood is sort of the pupil or the little student of the
Torah. The Orthodox believe the Talmud is also sacred writing,
right? So it has a status that we would the equivalent in our
tradition would be something like Ill harm right or Ihar, which is
non prophetic revelation, so not ye, ye according to our scholars
like imamo so UT and Zetta, Kashi and others.
The term Ye is prophetic revelation. So Musa Ali Salam in
our tradition, Ibrahim Ali Salam, Elisa Elisa, they receive the ye.
Right, but saints are nonprofits. The Quran says that the Hawala
Yun, the disciples of Isa Ali salaam received e ha, non
prophetic revelation inspiration inspired revelation.
Right? So that the Talmud then has two parts, the Talmud is made up
of the Mishnah and Gomorrah, right? Mishnah and Gomorrah.
So the Mishnah, according to Judaism, is the Oral Law of Moses
that was finally reduced to writing. So here's something
interesting that a lot of people don't know, even a lot of secular
Jews don't know is that in the Orthodox tradition, Jews, Orthodox
Jews believe that Moses received a two Toros on Mount Sinai, he
received the first five books, which is the very words of God.
But He also received inspiration
that, that he eventually would articulate piecemeal over his
life, in his own words.
So essentially a commentary of the Written Torah. Right, so receive
the first five books, and then Musa alayhis, salam, Moses, peace
be upon him according to Judaism, he has, as he would live his life
and situations would arise with the Israelites in the Sinai
wilderness, he would, he would comment, commentate or interpret
what was written in the first five books with his own words. And
those words were eventually written down in the first century
of a common era.
So it's kind of like the hadith of Musa thy son on his Tafseer, if
you will, of the homage. So it was written down
and called the Mishnah. Right. And then between the second and
seventh centuries of the Common Era, second and seventh century,
second and eighth century,
rabbis began to
write commentaries on the Mishnah. Right, and that was called the
Gomorrah. So Gomorrah means completion. So you have the
Tanakh, right, the Old Testament, which is the torah, the homage, in
other words, then the beam the profits that get to beam the
writings, and then you have the Talmud, which is made up of the
Mishnah, the oral law that Moses received that was eventually
reduced to writing in the first century, because a temple had been
destroyed and now the religion was in danger to the rabbi's decided
to write it down. And then you have rabbinical commentaries
written on the Mishnah that occurred primarily in two
locations at the rabbinical Academy in Babylon or Iraq and as
well as the rabbinical Academy
in, in Palestine. So really have two versions then of the Talmud.
You have the Babylonian Talmud, and you have the Palestinian
Talmud.
Okay.
Okay, so.
So my motto is then, the genius of my model is, is that he's able to
take this massive corpus of literature. I mean, you look at
the, the Tanakh and the Talmud, I mean,
Millions of words, and he's able to distill it and give us the bare
bones of Jewish theology. And that's what he does here with his
13 articles of Jewish faith 13 principles of Jewish faith. And he
says very clearly that if you don't believe in any one of these,
you are a cofell Quite a catheter, in his opinion now there's some
difference of opinion amongst Jewish theologians, Joseph Alba,
for example, a 15th century Spain, Spanish rabbi said that only three
of the 13 are essential in my modern easy confused, which is
essential with that which is derivative. But generally, my
monitor is is articulation of the crit is accepted by my Jews the
world over. Right. So
he called these the shoulder Sha Sha, if curry and Muna, which
literally means the 13 principles of Jewish faith. So at this point,
we're going to take maybe a seven minute break, inshallah. And we're
going to pray the Maghrib and then we'll come back. And we'll begin
with the first couple of principles as articulated by my
monitors in Sharla.
A lot of them are in Savalas, and Muhammad and one earlier he was a
huge Marine. So now continuing to principle number one, or number
one, as articulated by my manatees, he says,
says, I believe, with full faith with perfect faith or sound faith,
that the Creator lets it be his name. And the Hebrew here is
if you know Arabic, you could pick up Hebrew quite easily is only my
mean. The Emona Shalina Shahab for youth Baraka, Shimo Annie Anna, me
known
Eman Salima, I believe with sound faith that the body Albury that
the Creator East Proxima to Baraka is smooth, bless it be his name.
He creates, he says, and He guides all of creation.
And he by himself did and is doing and will do all actions. And it's
very poetic here the way that he that he frames it using the OROSEI
via
ASA OROSEI. Yeah, I saw so uses the perfect tense verb then he
uses the active participle. And then he uses the imperfect tense
verb. So basically what he's saying in this principle, the
first principle of the 13th is that God alone is the creator and
direct DOER of all things. That God is the primary cause he's the
efficient cause of all things, which is contra Aristotle, right?
For Aristotle. God is not the efficient cause. Because Aristotle
believed that the universe is pre eternal. Right?
So, for Aristotle God, the unmoved mover is kind of like a giant
cosmic magnet, that who draws all things unto himself so there's
sort of an unconscious pull towards God. And God did not
create XV Hilo according to Aristotle's metaphysics.
So God is only the final cause for Aristotle, but now in in Judeo
Christian Islamic tradition.
God is ultimately the final cause, but he's also the efficient cause,
meaning that there was a sort of conscious push, that he is the
beginning of the ontological origin of all things universe is
not pre eternal in the past universe was created from nothing.
XV Hilo, the creator of the universe was created from nothing
by God, right? God is the efficient cause the primary cause.
So he says that God by himself, right he did and is doing and will
do all actions. Right. So you can think about here no one does God's
actions up to God, none.
No one can create anything except for God. Right. So if you examine
the rationalists, the Martez ILA claim is controversial.
huncle afterall, the creator
is that the rationalists were highly influenced by Greek
Philosophy.
They said that due to our absolutely free will,
we create our own actions. We are the creators of our own actions,
that our actions, in effect, inform God himself. So God only
knows what we decide to do. So things are not predetermined. So
you have rationalist elements
in the Jewish world as well. And it seems that my monitor is a lot
of these, or you can argue all of the 13 principles has a polemical
aspect
to them. In other words, he is trying to argue against a position
that he believes to be heretical, this idea that God does not create
everything that we create some of our actions that God does not know
everything, he doesn't know particulars, he only knows you
know, essences.
So this is soundly refuted by minorities in his writings, as
well as the theologians of Athens sunnah. Well, Gemini, they also
had to deal with this idea. And our theologians they would quote
from the Koran, right, well, Allah Who holla Coco Mamata, Maroun,
that God created you and your actions, right? Allah subhana wa
Tada is the only real creator. Right Allah Who hottie who, che,
that Allah subhana, Allah to Allah is the creator of every thing. So
these are some of the proof texts that our theologians would use. My
monitors would quote from the book of Isaiah, for example, which is
in the new beam, the prophets, that middle section of the homage
to Isaiah chapter 45, or six and seven, where God is the speaker.
In Isaiah is speaking the words of God, although Isaiah is choosing
the wording, according again, to the to the Jewish tradition, where
he says, I make peace and need or say shalom, who for a rock, and I
create evil, right? God says, I make peace, but I create evil. He
creates everything, even evil. The notice how he says it, I make
peace, I'm the doer of peace, and I create evil. Right? So even
though God is the creator of evil, and ultimately he is the doer of
every action, the way that it's worded in Scripture
is a way that we should think about it.
And then he says, I need I don't I are set called La that I am the
Lord and I do all of these things. I do all of these things. So GOD,
ALLAH SubhanA, WA Tada for my monitor is God, a Buddha, the
creator, is the only creator. He's the only creator and he's a doer
of all actions. So God's omnipotence includes the power to
will that which is evil, from our perspective, right. So this is an
important concept, God's omnipotence, his Quadra includes
the power to will that which is evil, at least from our
perspective, so the rationalists they denied this, and they said
things like good and evil, have intrinsic properties. And that,
that the intellect knows, and that God is bound to act with it.
Right, so good and evil exist outside of God, as absolute
things,
they have intrinsic properties. And so God is bound to be good
according to what is good. So this whole idea is is a is a
philosophical
argument that is brought out by Plato,
the Euthyphro dilemma, right? Are things good because God says
they're good?
Or does God say they're good, so therefore they're good. This
argument ultimately, ultimately,
ALLAH SubhanA, what to Allah is the standard of good, right? Good
and Evil do not exist as they don't have any type of sort of
ontological existence up there in the ether somewhere distinct from
Allah subhanahu, WA, to Allah that Allah Subhana Allah is the one to
determine what is good and what is evil.
So this is what he's getting at here.
Just to give some more notes here, from the Orthodox tradition of
Judaism, the rabbi's say that, that faith emaan, which they call
a Munna, it requires the idea or element knowledge or Mandisa.
In other words, credulity, believing in something without
evidence is actually blameworthy. Right. So you must know that God
exists, you must know that within yourself, right? You have to prove
it to yourself that God exists. You have to find evidence of God's
existence find them. And now who? La ilaha illallah, as the Quran
says, know that there is no God, but Allah subhanahu wa taala.
Right, so the article, the article comes first, the article in Hebrew
is called the second. And it is a necessary condition of, of
knuckles. And we would concur with this. Right in order for you to be
tasked to believe in the revelation of God the knuckle, you
have to have intellect, it's a necessary condition. It's not a
sufficient condition because there are other conditions. Right? But
it certainly isn't necessary. So it's necessary for you to be able
to understand at least, like what is the difference if if we say for
example, God has neither Tathra or i Dad, my God has no no
multiplicity whatsoever, with respect to Kathrada, or i Dad,
right? To understand what that means, you know, like, this is one
pen, right? But this pen is composed of multiple things.
That's called Kathrada. So this has nothing to do with Allah
subhanaw taala you might have, you might have two pens, right? So a
plural of numbers, this has nothing to do with Allah subhanaw
taala men have three similar pets you have not have three pens that
in essence there, they have tennis, right, but one is blue,
one is red and one is black. So different attributes have one
essence that has nothing to do with Allah Subhana Allah to Allah.
So that's important. We'll get back to that idea as well. When we
talk about the rigid Oneness of Allah subhanho wa taala.
So
the rabbi's say that and Munna begins with the XFL. And so faith
begins, where the intellect stops, right, but the Sahel leads you to
faith, the Ockel the intellect leads you to faith, they are not
in conflict. Right, the XFL is not a hindrance to God, it can be
trusted, to a certain degree. When you lose, we use logic at some
point, logic will break down especially when we talk about God
we talked about that metaphysics. Allah subhanho wa taala. God is
greater than human logic. But we still use logic. So it's really a
faith based on evidence. Right? It's reasonable faith. Right, like
Richard Dawkins is incorrect. When he says that faith is belief
without evidence. That's not what it is at all. Right? You believe
because it is reasonable to believe it's reasonable to believe
in God again, that's the task of the dialectical theologian. That's
the task of my manatees in the delta delta A little higher in the
Guide for the Perplexed, why is it reasonable to believe in God?
Right? How is belief consistent with reason? It goes all the way
back to the pre Socratic the pre Socratics. Someone like
Heraclitus, who just looked at nature and in the Koran, we are
encouraged to look at nature. Look at what Heraclitus called logos we
talked about this last week as well. There's there's an ordering
principle in nature, things are ordered. Things are predictable in
nature. Right? He called that Lagace or logos the Quran says
AlFalah young Verona Illa EBk for holy thoughts, do they not look at
the camels and how they're created? Right look at the
creation of the camel it's incredible. Right?
Look at the heavens how we raised them hi, how we made the the earth
appear like a carpet. These are great signs. Look at Nature's
evidence of God, the island, right? That's what the world is
called. The island is related to the high Lama. It's a great sign
of Allah subhanho wa taala. So that's,
that's important. So Heraclitus he looked around, and he saw logos
now, later on another philosopher that's still pre Socratic. And
Sagaris I believe. He said, Look, if there's logos in nature, if
there's order in nature, then someone must have ordered it.
Right? There must be some grand intellect and he called it the
noose. The intellect the noose is the one who ordered the universe.
So that's what his intellect that's what his reason
compelled him to admit that there's order in the universe and
someone must have put it there. There must be some
intelligence that has ordered the universe.
Alright, so the rabbi's they speak of Ibrahim it is set up and they
call him up
I have a vino, our father Abraham, that he looked at creation. And he
came to know that God exists. Right? So Abraham, according to
the Jewish tradition was a type of evidential list,
right? That you look at evidence to arrive at faith in God. And
there's something of this in the Quran as well we find in sudo and
Ibrahim alayhi salam, looking at a star and najem have a rugby This
is my Lord, Fela, Fela. And then it said, This is not my lord.
Right? And then he saw the moon, this is my Lord hyva rugby and
then it said, Allah unless Allah Subhana Allah guides me I shall be
of those who are lost. And he saw the chumps the sun, I had to hear
up, this is my Lord, salam, I felt that and then it said, Alright, so
don't get the wrong idea here. There is no question of Ibrahim it
is
even entertaining the thought of worshipping these celestial
bodies. Right? This is his argument against his people. He's
trying to demonstrate to them the futility. In the worship of things
that are mutable, things that change, something is changing.
It's constantly changing, even if it's predictable. If it's
changing, then it's not eternal. If it's not eternal, then it
cannot be worshipped in its right. It's not a man who would be happy.
Right? So this is Allahu Allah, this is the point. This is what we
get from the argumentation. This is this is in a Mamata, but he
says there's a bit of sarcasm here that this is the argument he's
presenting to his people that you're worshipping these celestial
bodies. Right? He's trying to understand your thought process,
explain it to them and and try to drive home the futility of worship
have of creation.
Right, God cannot change because God is perfect, and you can't
improve on on perfection. Right. So the answer the anthropic
principle, right, the teleological argument.
Some people call this the argument, the argument for
intelligent design or fine tuning the great watchmaker analogy,
going back to William Paley.
So the Midrash, which is the word for Tafseer, in Hebrew, the
Midrash says that Ibrahim Ali Salam as a child, he figured this
out, by listening to his name Shama, this is a term in Hebrew
nation, which is trapped in his mind.
It's more like fitrah. Right, I would say kind of a theological or
moral compass, the level of the Soul that sort of pulls you
towards a greater understanding of the Divine. And this is the
purpose of
the Shabbat Yom Shabbat, Yama supped.
According
Judaism, set when the body is not working, you can listen to your
nation, you can listen to your moral compass, if you will, and
you reflect upon God and His greatness. Listen to your soul
without any type of worldly distractions. So this is a bit
akin to the match odd position of AKA, call that the Ockel Is there
enough evidence for the ACO to arrive at a creator god? Right.
But the intellect must be aided with Nakata to know the Shediac
the sacred law although the one could argue that there are Maroof
whether things are simply known through the intellect through
things through innate knowledge that's still given by Allah
subhana wa Tada it's given the by the and what up one who bestows.
That's a long a long argument about whether we have innate
knowledge or
whether we don't. Okay, so that's basically the first
the first point here, the first principle, just to recap it again,
God alone as a creator
is only one Creator. He is the direct DOER of all things the
primary cause the efficient cause That's principle number one.
Principle number two for my monitors. He says the same
beginning He says, I believe with sound faith, that the Creator
blessed be his name.
He says who Yeah, it hoo wah wah had I brought you mom at the how
is first statement in Lulla Washington la sharika. Alright, so
here I'm on it. He says God is ye feed which is why hid that's the
cognate he is one he is uniquely one. And then he continues there
and Yuffie doors como who assumed on him and there is not a human
weakness or oneness, like him, in any way, shape or form,
right, any way, shape or form, so a lot of emphasis, he continues to
say, and he by himself is our God who was, is, and will be, or that
that was our God, oh, and is our God and always will be our God
again very poetic here using the perfect tense and then immediately
the active participle, then the imperfect tense.
So basically here then, in this with this principle, God is
unique, and he's radically one and immutable. Right? He doesn't
change. Right now like a chapter three, verse six, I am the Lord
and I change not right? That Allah subhanaw taala is a Salam. Right.
And this is one of the words this is one of the names of God
according to the rabbinical tradition as well. It doesn't mean
the peace it means the perfect, God is perfect, he doesn't change
because he is perfect, and you cannot improve on perfection.
So the commentators also say here that God does not incarnate
into human flesh and become a human being. This would compromise
his radical uniqueness and his immutability.
He is also transcendent of space time and matter. Right.
So the word for uniqueness or an Arabic word Dunia,
the Hebrew equivalent is yucky, do your feet do what Ania. Right. And
the great statement in the Torah, the great,
monotheistic statement of the Torah is Deuteronomy six, four. So
remember Deuteronomy, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the whole much. The fifth book of the
Five Books of Moses is called Deuteronomy. That's the that's the
English name taken from the Latin
or Greek, meaning second law. Six four of Deuteronomy, Shema
Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai. Aha, this is like their Shahada.
Right? So when one enters into Judaism, and one can convert into
Judaism,
there's there's an there's some sort of misunderstanding, popular
misunderstanding that Judaism does not allow proselyte or converts.
That's not true at all. You can convert to Judaism. And when one
does convert to Judaism, one will recite the Shema, the Shema,
Deuteronomy six, four, Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the Lord
is one, right? And
devout Jews, they try to recite this as much as they can, they
want it to be the last words on their tongue before they die.
That God is a hot Adonai Eloheinu Adonai, a hard the word The Hebrew
word ephod is spelled exactly the same as I had, although Allahu
Ahad God is one.
And there's some interesting, curious parallels
to Plato, in the park amenities, for example, Plato refers to God
as to hen the one, right? Of course, Plotinus, who wrote a
neotys, who was the great formulator of Neo Platonism, which
is a third century religious interpretation of Plato, we have
this whole system, he's a system builder, the hierarchy of being
and so on, and so forth, and the Godhead consisting of the the one
that he said, talk, and then you have the logos, then you have the
Suquet, the spirit, right? We'll talk more about that when we get
to Christianity, because Christians borrowed from this
idea.
But even if you go back to Plato again, in the Timaeus, right, one
of his dialogues, he says that God looked around the world. And he
said, it was good. Right?
And that is very curious parallel to something we find in Genesis
one, when God is creating in stages on these different
what is the plural of Yeoman? In Hebrew? I think it's your meme. I
think it's a sound plural. We say I am an Arabic, God is when God is
creating different things on these yomim. After each day, he says key
tool. It is good. It is good. And this is something that Plato says,
And the time is there. Is this a legend, right? This is sort of ad
hoc. There's no strong evidence of this. But there's this legend,
very interesting that Plato was captured at Syracuse, and he was
enslaved, and he was brought to Egypt and Egypt at the time of
Plato.
at a pretty sizable Jewish population. I mean, Alexandria in
Egypt, would be one of the great Jewish capitals of the world, the
first place where the Torah was translated into Greek into any
other language. The first language was Greek, was in Alexandria,
Egypt in 250, before the Common Era. So there's there's a sizable
population of Jews living in Egypt. And the legend is that
Plato in Egypt, read the books of Moses. And he was highly
influenced in his metaphysics, right? Again, there's no evidence
of this conjecture, but it's an interesting theory. Of course,
Plato is much more metaphysical than someone like Aristotle, even
though Aristotle studied under Plato, if you've ever seen that
great painting of Raphael, right, it's called the academy, where you
have all these philosophers. And then right in the middle, on the
left side, I believe you have Plato, who's holding the Timaeus.
Right, his most metaphysical work, and he's pointing up like this,
because for Plato,
reality, that I mean, the real essences of things are found in
the celestial realm. What we have here are just shadows on the wall,
if you will. Right. So here, the famous theory of ideal forms, in
the celestial realm, the essences of things, right.
And, of course, the essence or the form of the good to agathon Is God
is the form of the good for Plato, this idea would be bothered would
be borrowed by middle Platanus, who are religious, and they would
say all of these forms
God's mind, right.
But Aristotle in that, in that painting, is to the right and he's
holding his ethics. And he's got his hand over the earth like this,
he's not pointing up, he's pointing parallel to the, to the
earth, because Aristotle is an empiricist. and a high, low
amorphous, and he believed that the essences are forms of things
are in matter itself, form or essence and matter are not
separate, as, as Plato taught. So that was a major difference of
opinion that Aristotle had with his teacher, Plato.
But nonetheless,
whatever happened here, it's an interesting curious parallel
between Genesis and some of the Platonic dialogues.
So Shema, right so the Shema, right there shahada begins with
hear,
Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the Lord is one. And to hear
doesn't just mean to hear it means to receive to accept, really, it
means to obey, right? So the five senses, the five physical senses,
they correlate to different spiritual senses, if you will.
Right, there's sort of a correlation, dealing with
spirituality. So in Scripture to give you an example,
hearing something means to obey.
Right? Well call do some Yeah, now Wattana. They said, We believe we
hear and we obey. So this is these are synonymous. This is synonymic.
juxtaposition here. Right? They're synonyms. To hear something means
to obey, to see something means to understand. It's interesting I in
the Quran into the room, Illa, Houda, lyase. Maru.
Allah subhana, Allah to Allah speaking to the prophets of the
body, so when you call them to guidance, right? They don't hear,
what does it mean they don't hear. It didn't hear the words of the
Prophet said a lot. He said, No, of course, they've heard him. They
don't obey him. What taught our home young Dodona Ilica whether
you've grown, and you see them looking at you, but they didn't
see. You see them looking at you, but they don't see.
Right? To see something means to understand something, right? You
say that in English, so I'm gonna explain something to you because,
Ah, I see. Right?
And then you have three different degrees of experience, smell,
touch and taste, smell something, right. You don't quite touch it,
but you get something of it. And you touch something. That's a
deeper level of experience. And then you taste it. That's the
deepest. Right? You take it into your body, you accept it
completely. It's zoek. Imam Ghazali talks about this soap to
taste to one's faith. There's Hadith that mentioned the
sweetness of faith, the taste, right, the sweetness of faith.
So the shimmer
Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the Lord is One doesn't just mean
here. It means to obey.
Obey the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Right? So the rabbi's say that Hashem a heart, God is one. Yes.
It's not enough to just accept the rational proposition that God is
one. Just to give it some ear service, one must prove one's
faith. They say, by following the commandments, the myths vote, this
is the Hebrew term that's used in the Bible. mitzvot are
commandments.
Alright, right. So there are three requirements for the new convert.
Right? And I think the, the misunderstanding comes from
the idea that in Orthodox Judaism, as well as conservative Judaism,
it is not necessary for one to convert to Judaism in order to be
successful in both worlds. This is very interesting. Right? So Jews
and the Orthodox tradition, and the conservative tradition and
tradition and other reform as well. Although when we get to
Reformed Judaism, many of them don't even believe in God. So
we'll just talk about the Orthodox tradition.
There are seven laws that they call the Noah Hitec laws, the
Noahide laws and Noahide laws, they're called the,
the Shava. Myths for time, Bunny know off the seven laws of the
children of Noah,
for non Jews. So if you're born outside of the Jewish faith, or
your mother is not Jewish, if your mother is Jewish, then you have to
follow all 613 of the commandments. There's no way out
of it. You can't say I converted to Islam. Therefore, I'm just
going to follow the seven Noahide laws, and I'll be fine. That
conversion is not acceptable. If your mother is Jewish, you are
Jewish. So in Judaism,
the Jewish faith is path matrilineal ly the tribe comes
from the Father. You know, whatever you're trying to tribe of
Judah, the tribe of Levi, right? The tribe of Simeon is a car,
whoever you're whoever it might be the 12 tribes, but Jewishness is
passed through the mother. All right. Well, let's just say that
you're.
You're an Iranian like me, right? My mother is not Jewish. So if I
believed if and I kept the seven Noahide laws, and these so seven
Noahide laws.
Jews would argue our models, they're known, they're innate.
They're axiomatic. Right? Everybody knows them.
They are God is one or sometimes they explain it by saying that
there's the people know innately the futility of worshipping idols,
the futility of worshipping material things they know innately
that's wrong, even though a lot of people do that. It goes against
the fitrah. And of course, the fitrah can be
God is one not to steal, not to commit adultery, right
now,
not to murder, right?
Not to
normal, while it's still alive, basically what that means is
respect creation, respect, animals, respect all of creation,
set up Courts of Justice, is one of them as well.
See if I can I think I'm missing one here.
Oh, don't blaspheme God. Right. So, recognize there's a single
creator god, that's the first one and then not to blaspheme God or
curse God. So one recognizes that God is a creator, and he's all
powerful, and he's in he's the creator of us. He's the creator of
everything. And one knows not to dis be disrespectful towards God.
So those are the seven. So according to Judaism, if one if a
Gentile that's the word for non Jew or goy and Ebru if a goy
follows these seven Noahide laws, they will be successful in this
life and the next and the next life is what takes precedence.
They call it the alarm about the world to come. This is the alarm
Jose, this is this world. Right? And then there's an alarm haba
becoming world, right. What was he seven or eight o'clock so
rabbis are trained. If someone comes to them if a goy comes to
them and says I want to convert to Judaism, the rabbi's are trained
to turn that person away three times because for them
There's no need to convert to Judaism. If you follow the seven
Noahide laws, you'll be successful.
Right? But they say, if you become a Jew,
that the burden of spreading the light of L Earhart falls down on
your shoulders, now you have a great responsibility to spread the
light of monotheism to all the nations.
And you're going to fall short of that. And oftentimes in Jewish
history, you have what's known as collective punishment. You have
the Jewish nation being punished as a whole. So the rabbi's will
tell the proselyte if you want to convert, get ready for a lot of
trials and tribulations and musi bat, and so on and so forth. It's
not going to be easy. Or you can remain a non Jew, follow the seven
Noahide laws, and you'll go to the next life and you'll be in a good
state. So what's then the incentive for becoming a Jew?
Then? Why would anyone convert to Judah? Well, if you convert to
Judaism, and you keep all 613 commandments, right? And you do
them and you suffer in this world, you will have the highest of
stations and the next life. That's the incentive. So there's degrees
in the alarm about in the world to come.
I'm out of time. We'll continue talking about these principles
next time in sha Allah to Allah.
wa salam ala Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salam, Al hamdu
Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salam alaykum Warahmatullahi
Wabarakatuh. So tonight, we're going to finish our section on the
religion of Judaism, inshallah. So last time, we ended
by looking at the first and second principles of Jewish faith as
articulated by Monty's in his mission on Torah.
So just to recap very quickly, he said, the first one is that God
alone is the creator and the direct DOER of all things. He's a
primary cause and efficient cause of all things.
And then number two, he said that God is unique and radically one
and immutable.
Right. So just by way of commentary, we talked about the
Shema is something equivalent, in some respects to our shahada,
Deuteronomy six four we mentioned that last time here or Israel, the
LORD our God, the Lord is one the great specification of the oneness
of God. So, the rabbi's say that one should say the Shema with
cover knock of another very important concept. In Judaism,
it means something like focus or humility or devotion, kind of
similar to what we would say is who Sure, or F loss. It's very
difficult to translate. Rabbi Akiva, according to the Gomorrah,
remember Gomorrah now is the rabbinical commentaries on the
mission of the oral law or the second half of the tongue. But
Rabbi Akiva, he is famous for reciting the Shema at his death,
he was actually killed by the Romans during the failed Bar
Kokhba revolt. In 135 of the Common Era, he actually endorsed
this man Simon Bar Kokhba as being the true Jewish Messiah. And Bar
Kokhba actually was able to
defeat the Roman
legions at Fort Antonia in Jerusalem was actually able to
seize the temple at some point, but he was killed thereafter in
battle. But according to the Gomorrah, Akiva, his final words
were the Shema. According to many eyewitnesses, many of the Jews
that were going to a gas chambers during the Holocaust, they were
heard reciting the Shema, again, that's Deuteronomy six, four. So
the Emona of Adel had the faith or the belief in one God, this is,
according to Jews, the Jewish contribution to the world, right?
That they brought the light of Tawheed to all the nations to the
game. So we would have issues very problematic statement. We would
say, for example, that I mean,
the term Judaism as we said, it's anachronistic to use at the time
of Abraham or Noah. There was no such thing as Judaism at the time
of, of Ibrahim Ali salaam, the term Judaism. The eponym of
Judaism is Judah, who's or Yehuda, who's one of the the old
The older sons of Jacob, of course, Jacob is the grandson of
Ibrahim of Abraham.
So in the Quran makes this clear Makana Ibrahim Oh yah hoo Dee and
that Abraham was not a Jew. It doesn't make sense to call him a
Jew. It's anachronistic. It's kind of like saying
George Washington was a fan of the Washington Nationals. Right? There
was no such thing as major league baseball at the time. It's
anachronistic. It's a bit ridiculous to say that. Right? So
we would say that all of these prophets, Abraham, no, Adam, all
of them were Muslim. They were submitters unto God, but this is
Jewish theology. So the Jews believed that he had monotheism.
Yes, he does. monotheism is the Jewish contribution to the world,
and that the Jews were chosen to bring the light of the One God to
the world. So this is the essence, this is the definition of their
chosen pneus. Right? We hear this phrase, the chosen people, why are
they chosen? They're chosen to bring to hate to the nations to
the world, right? This is the nature of their chosen. So it's,
it's really seeing now as a burden, and something that
that is a major responsibility. That's how they actually look at
it. Right? The poet said how odd of God to choose the Jews, right?
Just two lines of poetry, quick poetry. And this is mentioned in
the Quran, only Fidel to whom Allah al Amin, right where Allah
subhanaw taala speaks in the first person and I chose you. Yeah,
Benny is Salah, ILAs the context, and I chose you, above all of the
nations. Right? Why were they chosen? What's the nature of this
chosen this? They were chosen to bring the light of monotheism to
the nations but certainly monotheism existed in our
conception of sacred history. Way before Benny Surah Al way before
Musar days, even before Abraham, Ibrahim Ali Salam.
So the rabbi's go on to say
that
that physicality has nothing to do with God, physicality implies
limitation. God is not physical, he's not corporeal.
Right. So there may be one US president, but he is not unique.
Right. There's one Wahid US President. But he's not a had.
He's not unique. So he's flesh and blood, all like all other mammals.
Use in space time. So again, getting to this, this
differentiation between distinction between Wocket and
ahead. And again, many of our theologians say that they're
absolutely synonymous. But others would say no, God is, for example,
wide in a sea fat has attributes but I had in his essence, we
mentioned last time, probably the Hebrew equivalent to why it is
yeah, feed, which is a term that's used by manatees, it's from the
same exact route. And it can, it can denote this type of eternal
oneness with God that he's one person, meaning one consciousness,
that there's no multiplicity in the so called God had a simple
unity. Of course, by simple we don't mean unintelligent, we mean
indivisible, radically one, right? Whereas I had, which the quote the
equivalent is in Deuteronomy six four in the Shema, if God exists
again the same exact word, from the same root, denotes His
external oneness, that he his utter uniqueness, right that
nothing in creation resembles him whatsoever. Right well qualified
to kneel, however, if other dissimilarity to creation.
Now the rabbi's go on to say that it is permissible for Jews to pray
in a mosque as long as they face the quotes Euro Shalom Jerusalem.
It is not considered idolatry because Muslims worship a heart.
Muslims worship the one true God. Right. So for the most part, our
theology is correct. They have issues with our Prophet ology.
Right. And our Aqeedah with respect to sacred texts, and we'll
talk about that, but our theology really I would say that the
differences are, are minor.
However, they mentioned that the she louche that's the Hebrew term
she louche Arabic is a tat. What is the Arabic term?
Leaf leaf right? Well, that's a call with Eliza test the Trinity.
She loses the Trinity is
considered idolatry according to almost all the consensus of at
least a classical Jewish authorities, they call this
evidence Zara of who does Zara who does a bad Zara means false?
Right? So false worship or idolatry because the Trinity and
we'll talk about the Trinity next week in sha Allah and the week
after that the Trinity involves what's known as hypostatic
multiplicity, this idea that there are multiple persons of God, that
there are three separate and distinct persons of God, and that
all three are co eternal and CO substantial. CO equal, this is
highly problematic for my monitors so he doesn't consider this to be
correct theology by any means.
So all of the major rabbis they say that belief in the truth or
the solution is Apple does Zara is in Shrek. The Rabbi's are famous
for saying to you smile, to had Ishmael Velocita had a dome. We
would rather live under Ishmael meaning the Arabs or Muslims
rather than under a dome or Rome or the Christians. If you look
throughout Jewish history, the Jews really flourished under
Muslim caliphates. Especially when we look at Muslim Spain Muslim
North Africa. Jewish systematic theology was born in Muslim Spain.
Right. My mom oddities. Joseph albeau, Judah Halevy. sadya. Guy
on these are the great Jewish thinkers and philosophers
systematic theologians. Most of them actually wrote in Arabic,
that was their primary language. My monitor is wrote the,
the, the Guide for the Perplexed to the Latin high ed, and he wrote
it actually in Arabic, it was translated later into Hebrew. But
if you look at Jewish communities living in Christendom, or
Christian Europe, it was very precarious. And oftentimes, they
were pilgrims set against them that sort of state sponsored
terrorism or persecution. They were exiled several times, twice
from England twice from France, a couple of times, they think also
from Austria. The plague was blamed on them. Because
Jewish communities that wet were more that were actually living in
their own cloistered communities at the time, they did not mix with
the going in until much, much later, we're talking maybe, you
know, 17th 18th centuries 17th or 18th century when they actually
started to intermix and live among the Gentiles. But in the Middle
Ages, you have the Christians dying, you know, something like
40%, of, of Christendom was decimated by the Black Plague, the
bubonic plague, but the Jewish community is relatively
unaffected. So of course they escaped go to this is because of
you, your killers of Christ, this type of thing, you've cursed us.
And the reason why the Jews weren't dying from the plague is
because there's a Seder, there's a chapter in the Mishnah, which is
called toe rot, which babble taharah right? So the Jews had
these ideas of cleanliness of horsell of wudu of no Jassa right
and that's where the disease you know, from fleas and from rats and
things like that.
So there's that famous statement we'd rather live under each my
alias married IDs and I'm Arabs are usually the Muslims are
referred to in rabbinical literature. As Ishmael Ishmael
lights. I monitor these refers to the prophet as that Ishmael light
for example, in the Mishnah Torah.
The Rabbi say something interesting to say Christianity is
like a pig. The pig appears to be kosher. So what is kosher
according to you know, we say kosher cash route. What is what is
halal for a Jew to eat? At least for the Orthodox and conservative
animals that have a cloven hoof and chew the cud?
Right, so like an animal that can eat food, it's called a ruminant.
It can bring it back up and chew it later, like a cow, or a goat. A
sheep can do that a giraffe can do that giraffe is actually kosher.
But camels don't camel is not kosher.
So they're saying Christianity is like a pig. You know, the pig has
a split hoof but it does not chew the cud. So in other words, we're
saying Christianity looks great. It sounds great on the outside.
Right? It looks good on the outside, but it's deceptive.
Right? So Christianity, you know, if you if you talk to Christians,
there's a strong emphasis on relationship and love of God,
which is great, you know, we believe in those things as well.
But when the Shetty is,
is not emphasized, and there's nothing to ground you, then you
start saying deviant things, right. So there's that famous
statement of
Imam Malik even when as the Imam of Medina, who said that whoever
studies
to so wolf when you use that term, right, we say Sufism and not
necessarily like that or to so with Ali Hassan animus Sulu, right
Alma Tez Kia it has different Esma
according to them Abadi al Asha
for the signs of have to sell off. He said whoever studies to soloth
but did not engage in fic in Sharia socket to Zen Dhaka right
that he will be he will become a xindi that he will become a
heretic. That's what the word is in deaath means or an unbeliever.
Right. So it's very dangerous state, but whoever studies FIP
Chetty Ah, but did not study to so wolf socket to first suck up will
become a facet, which is not as bad as as India, right? It's
better to err on the side of the Shediac. Right? It says, whoever,
woman the gem, Albina, Houma, Taka, Taka, Taka and Whoever joins
the two will actualize the truth. Right.
So
the rabbi's also mentioned, for example, you shouldn't walk next
to a church. Right? I mean, it's not an official mitzvah. Right?
The 613 mitzvot are in the Torah. And the Talmud, really, in the
Torah, they're all they're going to my Montes is his
enumeration of the 613 commandments. But this is a strong
recommendation given by the rabbi's. That if you're walking
down the street and you see a church, you should cross the
street, because it's good to keep a safe distance from all from all
idolatry. So it's actually prohibited for a Jew to walk into
a church. And the Orthodox would even say it's prohibited to go for
for an orthodox rabbi or an Orthodox Jew to go into a reform
synagogue, because there isn't a total commitment to all of the
mitzvot in the reformed in the reformed synagogue, reformed
temple.
Questions about the kippah the Kipper is the small skullcap that
Jewish men tend to wear.
And this is a mitzvah it is a commandment. It's called the
kippah in Hebrew, which means to cover it's called a yarmulke, in
Yiddish, which is a sort of kind of a dead language, but it was
spoken by Jews in Eastern Europe in the second century.
The purpose of it is to remind the Jewish man that there's something
above him at all times, and Jewish women are also supposed to wear a
something to cover their head, something like a hijab. Sometimes,
if you go to a an Orthodox community on the east coast,
the cultural practices that girls would get married, and then they
would shave their heads and wear a wig. Right? So it's kind of a
so the point is not to show your real hair.
Okay.
So that's the second principle then God is unique and radically
one and immutable. Before we move on a couple more things I want to
say about that.
That's more focused on the theology rather than the practice.
We mentioned last week that my Montes was a negative theologian.
Right? He was a negative theologian, and many of the great
systematic theologians of Judaism, Joseph albeau, and others by EBU
pakoda they tended to be
negative theologians, apophatic theologians, right?
So they would they would engage the theological approach of
negation, and this is called Allahu Sundby, and Arabic, and
it's generally considered to be a safer way to theology dies, what
does it mean to theology dies, right? theosophy means God. Lagace
means many things, word or reason, so to speak reasonably, so to
speak about God, it's better to talk about in other words, it's
better to talk about who or what God is not rather than who or what
God is. Right? So even Hinduism has a theological approach that is
akin to negative theology is called near guna Brahmanism. And
we'll talk about that in sha Allah when we get to Hinduism, it
Shankara calls it neti neti theology, he sort of the champion
of of what's called Trans personalism or near guna
Brahmanism, which means not this, not this, nothing in nothing that
you see in the so called Creation
is and I said so called Creation. We'll talk about what that means
in Judaism, sorry, in Hinduism, because everything is ultimately
an allusion in Hinduism. Nothing is actually God. That you see.
Right. He is utterly transcendent.
So why theologies like this, again to uphold God's radical
uniqueness, right? His UFC dudes, his wife dionaea, because God's
nature is holy other. So if you look at the first two
commandments, right, so we talked about, you know, a 10 commandments
famous movie made
in the 19, I guess was in the late 50s, Charlton Heston is Moses, the
10 commandments, I think they made another, a couple more Moses
movies after that they weren't very good. And that movie is not
very good. It's not very accurate, according to the Bible anyway. But
everyone has heard of the 10 commandments, but that's only 10
of them. Those are the sort of attainment and main commandments
but as we said, Jews believed that there are 613 commandments. But
let's look at the first two commandments. So you will find
this in the book of Exodus chapter 20, right at the beginning of
chapter 20, to remember x Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
Deuteronomy, the five books, the Pentateuch, the whole mash, right?
The five scrolls of Moses, this is the second book, Moses is on the
mountain. And God says to him, that I am the Lord thy God, right,
who brought you out of the house of bondage out of Egypt at
Mitzrayim. And then he says, Lo, yeh laka Elohim al openeye, you
shall not have any other gods before me. Right? So this is the
first commandment, that the God that brought the Israelites out of
Egypt, he's the only God. Right? And when it says, You shall have
no other gods, you know, that doesn't mean that there are other
gods. Right? What that means is, that you shall have no other so
called Gods You shall not worship anything else other than me
because the God that is bringing you out of Egypt is the only true
God right? So we find that term Alia in the Quran also, like the
people of Abraham, it is to them. They were devoted to their adding
their gods, those aren't really Gods so called Gods. Right? So
that's the first commandment. And then he says, low to high c'est la
Ficelle the quilter Mona Asha, Misha,
Misha mining Niall. So now we're getting into the second
commandment, it's kind of a long one. He says, God again speaking
directly to Moses, and by extension, so luck out. So this is
the capital V top, so speaking in second person masculine singular
to Moses. But as we as Imam Shafi says about the Quran, whenever
Allah speaks to the prophets of Soleimani, Salam in the Quran
directly.
It is also by extension to the OMA unless it's very obvious that it's
only speaking to him. Right? So in this case, the rabbi's would say
to Moses, and by extension, the arm, you said, I have the bunnies
slide, right? The children of Israel.
So he says, You shall not make unto yourself the likeness of any
image, which is in the heavens.
Above you reminded the ASHA audits the target, or the likeness or the
image of anything, which is in the earth or on the earth below you.
But Asha, the Mei Yin, with the audits, or the likeness, or the
image of anything that is in the water beneath the earth, right. So
that covers everything that covers the universe, everything above the
Earth, on or in the earth below the earth, right? There's nothing
like God, there's the first two commandments of Exodus.
Right? We talked about numbers 2319, or we talked about that low
Eesh Ale, God is not a man that he should lie. And we mentioned that
Rabbi a bottle of says Urrea, who died in 320.
of the Common Era who was actually a, a brilliant orator and a
defender of, of Jewish faith in the face of the Christians.
He was sort of an anti Christian polemicist, or apologist Jewish
apologist. He said, the meaning of that is that whoever claims to be
God as a liar, that's that's what the Hebrew actually means.
According to Rabbi, a bottle of Cezary. Right, we talked about
Hosea 11, nine, key and ova live Hello Eesh Indeed, I am God and
not a man. mutually exclusive. God and man, right.
Isaiah 55 Eight is a very famous verse of transcendence, all of
deutero Isaiah So according to you
historians of the Old Testament, the book of Isaiah actually has
three authors. It was authored at three different times. So you have
proto Isaiah from chapter one, to chapter 39. And then chapters 40
to 66 is called deutero. Isaiah, and it's really an deutero Isaiah
where you get a strong teaching of God's transcendence. And then
after that you have treato, Isaiah, a third Isaiah until the
end of the book, but in deutero, Isaiah, basically,
if you believe that God exists,
literally within the four elements, then you're a mushrik.
Then you're an idolatry. God is transcendent. So 55, eight of
Isaiah is right there. My thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are
My ways your ways. Right? Or Isaiah 40 Chapter 20. Sorry,
chapter 40 Verse 25. To whom will you like in me? Right? It's a
rhetorical question. Nothing is like God. In fact, the name
Michael in Arabic. Sorry, the name Michael in Hebrew. It's Hebrew in
origin. It's also you know, me cat or Mikael, it's in the Quran. The
name of one of the archangels but its origin is Hebrew. Mi ka al mi
means man, who in Arabic, and then CA is the calf. Calf Leticia BIA,
like we say Lisa, calm Miss Li che one. Right? So man, cha, ale ail
Allah, or ILA who was like God, it's a rhetorical question. It
doesn't mean a man's a man whose name is Michael is like God, it
doesn't mean that it's his name is a rhetorical question who is like
God? Nobody is the answer. It's already understood that you know
the answer. That's the point of a stiff hammer chocolatier. You
already know the answer to the question. It's really just a
reminder. Right?
Okay, so negative theology.
So according to my mind at ease, right, when referring to God's
nature or essence,
right, so, according to my monitors, the name of God's
essence, is the tetragrammaton.
The four letter word, those are the four letters that you find all
throughout the Hebrew Bible. Right? That's the sort of initials
of God's name, right? Yod Hey, Vav Hey, yo, hey, Vav Hey, right. So
you'll see that in the Hebrew you'll see it. Usually in English,
it's just translated as Lord with a capital L. Or Lord, all letters,
bow in caps. But that's actually the four letter name of God are
the initials of God. Now, how do you articulate your Hey vav Hey,
the articulation is not known for sure.
Once a year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of
the Jewish calendar, the high priests of the temple who was
called the hot Cohan, a duel, you would go into the
Kadosh shim the holy of holies inside the temple, right, the
Beit, what's called the Beit Mikdash need to knock this in
Jerusalem, you would go into the innermost chamber on Yom Kippur
war, and he would pronounce the the holy name of God the actual
small album of God. Right, the initials of which are Yod. Hey vav
Hey yhW H. So the high priest knew the name. And he would make a a
Toba on behalf of all of Israel by calling on God's most sacred name
to tshuva or Toba repentance. And then he would pass knowledge of
the name to his successor and he would pass it to his successor and
so on and so forth. But since the temple is destroyed, and 70 by the
Romans, General Titus, the priesthood is gone. No more
sacrifices. Right? The name has become lost.
But my monitor is the yard. Hey, Vav. Hey, the tetragrammaton, the
Shem, Hama frosh, as it's called in Hebrew, this is the name of
God's essence.
All right, and generally, the Orthodox agree with him. The
Kabbalah a text of Jewish mysticism. It disagrees with this
and says that the actual name of God's essence is ain solf, which
means the one who was without limit. The limitless that's the
name of God's essence. Other rabbis they use the name ma hoot.
Now, hoot so
right in the middle of Mahieu, do you have the who are the letters
in Hebrew? Hey involve? Or ha and wow. And in Arabic? Also, if you
look at that tetragrammaton again, your Hey vav Hey, right in the
middle again, you have the Pooh bah. Right? So these are the
prominent letters of the sacred name of God. And oftentimes in the
Hebrew Bible, the tetragrammaton is shortened by just who, right?
For example, the name Elijah. Elijah in Hebrew is Eliyahu. Le
means my god, Yahoo is Yahoo. Right? Which is, again, a
shortened
way of articulating a yawn. Hey, Vav, Hey, but how to actually
articulate all four letters is not decisively known, of course, and
it's actually impermissible and a mortal sin for Jews to try to
articulate
that tetragrammaton
the Christians of course, they don't have these religious
scruples. So you'll find for example, Jehovah Witnesses, their
their claim to fame, is that the yod Hey, Vav, Hey, is pronounced
Jehovah. Right? So they'll come to your door and they say, Do you
know the name of God? And you know, the country of Muslim house
and the Muslims say Allah? And they you know, that's not a name.
That's a title. Of course, we say no, it's actually a name. And
there's a debate.
But they're trained that No, Allah is a title. It's from the God and
that's a minority opinion.
Anyhow, so we can ask them, How do you get Jehovah? And they say,
well, from the tetragrammaton Yod. Hey, Vav Hey, why h w h. So we
asked him then, okay, those are four consonants. How do you know
how to vowel it?
And 100% of the time 100% of the time, the Jehovah's witness will
have no answer for you.
And then you say, Okay, fine. That's how you vowel it. So,
Jehovah. So Jehovah with a J, and they say, yes, but this is a yoed
in Hebrew. How do you go from a Yoda to A J? And again, 90 90% of
the time, they won't have an answer for so it's conjecture,
they really don't know. Right? Others will say Yahoo a lot. You
hear that? A lot to Yahoo way. Right? It just seems to roll off
the tongue. So that might be what it is.
My My opinion is it's probably yes, that
yes, that is a fairly modern era. It's a present tense verb, in
perfect tense, which means he is right. So verb meaning he is and
continues to be.
Right? And then the shortened form of it who are who are is the third
person masculine pronoun, which again means he is but it's a
pronoun, this time, it's not an actual verb. Right? Even r&b. He
says ha hoot. As a possible name of the essence of God.
Hoot. So again, that Hua is in the middle. Imam Razi suggests that
who is and Israel Adam, Allahu La Isla Illa Hua, there is no god but
who are called who are Allah Who Allahu Ahad say Who is Allah Ahad?
Hua that's the Isml Adam, Allahu Allah, there's difference of
opinion.
Nonetheless, according to my Montes, when referring to God's
essence or nature, there are three main attributes existing
theologians would agree that the CIFA to Neff Sia, sort of the
the core attribute of God is existence and it's not an
accident. The attributes and accidents are different. A God
doesn't have accidents is an essence and attributes. Right, the
attributes are necessary, X accidents are not net are not
necessary. So it was an accident that
I was born Iranian
and have a white beard now that's an accident. If I was not born
Iranian, and my beard was black, I would still be me. It's not
essential to my nature. That's an accident. But the fact that I have
an intellect that is an attribute of me if I do not have intellect,
and I wouldn't be classified as the rational animal, right, as the
human being the homo sapiens, the homo sapiens means the the
rational
A human being, right. So intellect is an attribute of the human
being, whereas skin color, eye color, so on and so forth. All of
these things are accidents, they're only possible they're not
necessary. It could have been different. If I had different
color eyes, if I had no eyes, I would still be a human being that
was blind and still be a human being.
Okay?
So, existence, unity and eternity, three main attributes, according
to my manatees, and even these, he says we should understand them
negatively. So it's better to say, God is not non existent. It's
better to put things negatively. It's better to say that God that
with God, there is no plurality or multiplicity
associated with him whatsoever, we talked about Kathira and added and
so on and so forth. It's better to say that God is not bound by time
right. So, so, even these core attributes is articulated by month
by month, these are better to put them negatively however, he says,
when we may speak of God positively. So, in other words,
cada fatica Lee, so, if apophatic negatively, katha fatik positively
for the notetakers, you can make Katha phatic expressions, positive
expressions of God, but only in reference to a divine action in
Scripture. So, for my monitor is one cannot speak positively about
God in any way, shape, or form, unless one relates relates it to
an action that was done in in Scripture. I'll give you an
example. So, if you say for example, God is good in any
language. So in Hebrew, right, you would say I do Knight Tov, or Tov
Elohim right. So, in English, God is good. So, God, there is the
subject and ted.is is called the copula to verb, the linking verb
and and good is the predicate or the Hubble, this is a cat of fatik
expression.
My modernities would say that expression is schicke. It is
idolatry, to make that statement, God is good period, idolatry,
because we did not relate it to an action. And also you can say mo
che Tov in Hebrew, Moses,
Shalom,
shalom alive or Allah His salam, peace be upon him. Moses is good.
So good, the predicate good, the word good. The the, the noun good,
can be predicated of many things.
Right? So how can you possibly use the same predicate for God and
Moses?
Alright, so for my mind, it is that's a big problem to do from a
Aki to standpoint, your qualifying God, the same noun that your
qualifying Moses are saying, using the same noun. So that's
problematic. So from my mind, as you would have to say something
like God is good or he is all good because he led the Jews out of
Egypt and defeated the Pharaoh or something like that.
So you can make a cattle static expression, you can make a
positive statement about God as long as you use it in sort of the
superlative and then relate it to something that God actually did in
Scripture. So the Divine Names for my monitors are simply and
strictly descriptions of God's actions. That's all they are. The
Divine Names of God, in the Tanakh in the Hebrew Bible, are simply
and strictly descriptions of God's actions. So referring to God as
king like Meles, right, while not referencing an action in Scripture
is shidduch is idolatry. According to my Montes, because King can be
predicated of many different human beings. Right.
Dahveed Ha, Mela, King David Shlomo Hamelech King Solomon,
right. So it's it's God's action that makes him unique, not his
names. No one can do God's actions. Solomon and David, not
even Moses can bring the has the power intrinsically, to bring
anyone out of Egypt and defeat the Pharaoh. Moses didn't do that.
Moses was the vehicle through which God actually did it.
Remember, God is the doer of all actions. He's on file free agent,
as my monitor is articulated in his first principle.
Okay. My monitor he says something interesting. He says if you
You praise a king who possesses millions of gold pieces for
possessing millions of silver pieces, then you're actually
disparaging and insulting the king. Even though your intention
is to Praise the king, look at this king. He has so many millions
of silver pieces while he actually has gold pieces. Your intention is
to praise him but you're actually insulting and disparaging him.
Aquinas said even the praise of God is extremely remote from his
reality and praising God actually requires a repentance, the praise
of God, forget about the cursing of God, disbelief in God. So one
is over the praising of God because you're using language and
language is created God is uncreated.
Right?
So positive attributes may not be assigned to God, unless these
refer to God's actions in Scripture. God is powerful because
he did this. He saved us from the Pharaoh. Right? So all divine
names are derived from God's actions in Scripture, according to
my monitor. These are the words Jews cannot say that these names
of God and this is my mind and his opinion, these names of God had no
reality until after the creation of the world, according to my
manatees. So God is King like Meles and shepherd, Rory, and Sal
and God is the rock. You know.
The exception to that is the tetragrammaton. The Yoda gave off
Hey, because my monitor is that that actually refers to God's
essence. And God's essence was was existent. It's a necessary
existence, obviously, before creation, but if you say before
creation, that God was many olam is the king of Rabbul aalameen.
Medical, I mean, for example, then that is too speculative. For my
monitors. It's, you know, it's true in principle, but my monitor
is just does not want to go there. It's too conjectural because these
names are describing God's actions.
That's what they're doing. So we cannot talk about God's essence by
using these names before he actually the action. Of course,
you mama to how he says something very interesting in his creed. He
says that God can be his most Soufan be Jimmy see fatty, he mean
as a leader, that, that God Allah subhanaw taala is can be described
by all of his attributes from tree eternality because the capacity to
create is always with God is always with all
right.
So
so he says, it's the hotpot is smell Harlock herbal Hulk, he
merits he deserves the name.
The Creator even before creation, He merits the name Rob even before
mirboo He merits the name Lord, even before anything to lord over
any creation, he means because the divine
omnipotence, the potential, the full potential and capacity is
there to create. So I'm sitting right now, or this one, the
learning method and there's just an example to sort of, maybe bring
our understandings
I'm sitting right now. But you can still describe me as I call him
the standard because I have an ability to stand. Now that ability
could be taken away from me. Right? Because Allah subhana was
allah God is in control of all things. He can incapacitate me
look at Allah. But the fact that I'm sitting now doesn't mean that
I can't stand that you can't describe me as a stander, you can
describe me as a standard because I have that ability. So with with
God, just because he did not create he merits the name Holic
and nothing can incapacitate him. So he makes a decision out of his
absolute volition within his nature to create nothing can stop
his Iraida right, he is intrinsically independent.
Right? So my monitors would disagree with that. And say that's
just too speculative. Don't talk about God's essence. Before
creation. That's that's conjecture. Don't go there. The
names of God are describing his actions and scriptures full stop.
Okay.
Now returning now, so that was now we can go to the third principle
where he begins by saying the same way anymore. I mean, the Omona
Shalina. Should have voted if Barack schmo I believe with
With complete faith that the Creator blessed be his name.
He says
you know, goof that he's not a body It just
ain't low soon demyan color and there is there is not for him any
likeness whatsoever
right? He's not a a body he's not matter. Like it just America but
compounded, compounded body does not he's not composed of anything.
There's nothing like him what's so at least a committee he shaylen.
And what's interesting is that this statement was actually a bit
controversial in 12th century Judaism, because many rabbis
tended to be literalists they were thought ear when it came to the
turnoff, right? They were majeste Sima they were anthropomorphise.
So they actually denied that the Bible has the Hebrew Bible had a
Modjadji meaning didn't have a figurative meaning. Everything was
happy. Everything was literal. It's very problematic. Moses has
been Tuku, for example, was one of the famous anthropomorphise
rabbis. He died in 1290.
A few decades after the death of my manatees, where he said, The
Tanaka is happy. It's absolutely literal. Like in Psalm 18, it
says, God has ears is he? Yeah, he has ears. And, you know, they're,
they're, they're, you know, physical ears. And he has, you
know, it says, smoke exuded from the nostrils of God in the Psalms.
Right? It says, Yeah, that's exactly literally what happened.
How does how do how does my monitors deal with with chap with
passages like this? Well, the tunnel has what we would call work
on that and with the shabby hat, and these terms are Quranic right?
More Commands or verses. So I yet work on that. We're all
hieromartyr shabby hat. Right? So and I am with the shabby Ha, is a
verse in the Quran that is on the face very clearly understood kind
of one dimensional, even in translation very clearly
understood.
What can that and you know, as the name suggests that there's,
there's the verse of legal import, right? Or what we would say in
what Jews would say in Judaism. It's halakhic. It relates to the
Holocaust, right? There's a juristic aspect to that.
And then you have much a shabby hat, which are obscure verses or
polyvalent verses that are not easily grasped. They require some
study, they require commentary. They may be theological, they may
be anthropomorphic, right? Yadda yadda, Allah He FOCA ad and the
yet of God is above their hands, and yet is usually translated his
hands, what does it mean God has a hand, God's hand is above their
hand. What does that mean? God has a physical hand. Right? No, it
doesn't mean that at least it can mean for the day one. So
the best examples, the quintessential example of an ion
with a Shabbiha, right of a pistol, which is the word for it
in Hebrew. That is anthropomorphic, in the Torah is
Exodus 3323. Right? The quintessential anthropomorphic
verse. So this is when this is when Moses asks to see God's face.
He said, Let me see your * in your face. And God says, you'll
see my whole, you'll see my back. So what does this mean? So my
monitor is engages, and we'll chat we esoteric exegesis of the, of
the tourism with the shabby hat. In other words, he interprets
these verses in light of God's transcendence. Right? And this is
the whole project of the guide of his magnum opus, delighted to
write the modern Neville theme, the Guide for the Perplexed, what
is he trying to do? He's trying to bring together knuckle inocle
Revelation and reason. Right, and preserve 10 Z, preserve
transcendence of God.
So,
this is what he says. Now, before we get to my monitors.
There was a another theologian that preceded my monitors. He died
in the 10th century. His name was Sathya gyaan. And he was probably
the very first Jewish systematic theologian, very, very famous,
wrote in Arabic also, his book is called beliefs and opinions.
Kitab Al Anon.
not Well, yeah, the car that I believe is the actual title. And
then it was later translated as safer MO Not or something like
that. I don't remember exactly the Hebrew title. But sadly a guy on
he lived in Iraq, he also did an incredible translation of the
entire Hebrew Bible into Arabic. And Hebrew and Arabic are very
close. It is by far the best translation of the Hebrew ever
done.
So how to Sadie a guy on how does he deal with this? You know,
you'll see you won't see my face, you'll see my back. So he says,
seeing the back of God means
seeing, it means
seeing a creative light,
right, which which he calls the Shekinah, which is related to the
Arabic Sakina. The sheffey now represents God's presence on
Earth. It's a symbol of God's presence. It doesn't mean it's not
God's presence, literally, it symbolizes God's presence or
tofield. Right, this created light that Moses would see, when he
would go into the Mishcon, the tabernacle of meeting, the sort of
portable temple. The prefigure ment of the actual Temple in
Jerusalem, right temple that Moses would go into in the Sinai
Peninsula, and he would speak with God. A Saudia says, When God
wanted to speak to Moses, he would create a light in front of Moses,
telling Moses getting his attention, essentially, right in
this light is called the Sheffy na.
And this light was so brilliant that Moses could not look at it.
He can only look at it when the light was sort of leaving, and he
would sort of see the tail end of it. And Saudia says that sort of
tail end of the light. That's the whole, I don't know, that's the
back of God. So he takes the passage as total majaz. It's,
it's, it's a figurative expression. Seeing the back of God
for Moses means that he saw I created light that God would
manifest in the tabernacle of meaning, and after some point, and
actually says, an exodus, that Moses had to wear a veil over his
face, because the light was beginning to shine off his own
face, and it was a blinding light. So he would wear a veil.
Right? So the cheffing Act is an intermediary between God and human
beings, during prophetic encounters. Now my monitor is he
agrees with Sandia, with respect to the Shekinah.
But he adds an interesting esoteric dimension, by the way,
the rabbi's quote from the Talmud, that says, the sages, meaning the
rabbinical sages, they teach that the Torah speaks in the language
of man.
Right, so this is why there's with a shabby hat, in the Hebrew Bible,
this is why there's anthropomorphic verses in the
Bible.
Right? Because it's trying to communicate something true that
you can understand, but it's not literally true.
It's, it's its rhetoric, it's very effective form of rhetoric. Right,
and God has to, in a sense, condescend, as it were, to speak
to us, as one of my teacher said, like a mother has to sort of
condescend to speak to her, her young child, if a mother wants a
toddler to, you know, finish his meal, you know, you can't sit down
and reason with a toddler, you have to eat this because it's
nutritious. And, you know, so you can't do that you have to sort of
make a game out of it, or you have to sort of use different in
donations and things like that. So, so in order for us to
understand right
theology and understand the will of God, God has to use expressions
that we can relate to.
And that's that's the purpose of these anthropomorphic verses, but
they have to be interpreted in the light of transcendence. I'll be
done in five minutes. Inshallah. So then my monnalisa, he adds a
interesting, esoteric dimension. So he says, yes, the back of the
Sheki. Now that's true. But what is the Panay? I do nine, what is
the face of logical law? What is the face of God? My mind it says,
the face of God refers to an intense, clear knowledge
or a complete apprehension or comprehension of God. So it
comprehension of God is impossible for any human being. That yeah,
only for Allah Illallah no one really comp, no one really
comprehends has it DRock Allah of Allah subhanho wa Taala other than
God himself, so it's impossible. You know, Moses is at can ice can
I comprehend you as you comprehend yourself? Right. And of course
From an Islamic standpoint, that's a problematic request. According
to many of the theologians, the prophet would not ask for
something that's impossible. Inconceivable, considered bad
Adam, but this is the opinion of my manatees. Whereas the back of
God the whole Adonai
is a reference to the knowledge of God which man can no
man's capacity is to only know the quote back of God, to have mattify
of God. Right. So in other words, Moses seeing the back of God means
that Moses had the most naughty federal law, the most
Gnosis
the most intimate knowledge of God that is possible for a human being
to have, right
yeah.
So none of the none of the rules of physics apply to God.
Certainly not Newtonian physics. He transcends physicality
completely.
Getting into a little bit of the Halacha Jewish law, no iconography
of God or even human beings or even celestial bodies are allowed
in Orthodox Holika. So even like painting pictures of planets, or
human beings, animals are okay, it's it seems as long as there's
something sort of left off like an eye is left off, and there's some
deformity given.
Most rabbis were against to swear photography, even with the dolls,
you know, the cut the nose off or something, or missing finger no
complete image is allowed. That's the Holocaust. So Hashem the God,
right? God is not the four elements fire, water, earth and
wind. So the rabbi's say, you know, it says in the Psalms, God
has an outstretched arm, right? And the the the eyes use, like arm
the.in, the Hebrew zodat. And the meaning of this means that he's
the savior. Not that he's a physical arm. Right? He lends a
hand as it were, right?
So the Torah speaks to us in the language of human beings.
I think that's a good place to stop. So I'm almost so yeah.
I mean, we're done with Judaism, we have to move on. There's a lot
more to say obviously, that's only the third out of 13 principles.
Maybe we can do a second part of this course later. But we are
going to move I gave you the basics of Jewish theology.
So we're going to move next week in sha Allah to Christianity.
So look at the New Testament, what is the New Testament look at are
you sadly salam from a from a Christian perspective?
And look at the Trinity what is the Trinity? What does it not?
It's important for us to understand what is the Trinity?
What do Christians actually believe? At least what do their
books
how do their classical traditional books, find the Trinity it's very
important for us to understand that. So see you next week,
Inshallah, to Allah Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. All
the cinema aleikum wa rahmatullah Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh. This
is Thursday evening, August 18. We are live from MCC
for our class, the basics of the world religions.
Inshallah, tonight, we're going to start a two part program or
session on
Christianity. So we finished Judaism
last week controller, so we're going to start Christianity. And
we're going to begin tonight by talking about the New Testament.
That is to say the Christian scriptures.
And then, next week, next Tuesday, Inshallah,
we're going to look at the Nicene Creed, Orthodox Christian creed,
Trinitarian creed,
as well as the Trinity.
So that's the plan for Christianity. And again, we are
live. I'm looking at the chat box here. So if there are any
questions, I forgot to mention this in weeks past unfortunately.
But if there are people that want to ask questions, you can go ahead
and type them into the chat box and I'll answer them if they're
appropriate. I'll answer them on the on the air inshallah.
Okay, so
last week, we said that the primary text of Judaism
is the Old Testament, of course, again, Old Testament, it's
Christian terminology.
It's called the Tanakh in Hebrew
Which of course, again stands for Torah and the beam kettleby, the
Torah, the Pentateuch, the first five books, the prophets like
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the writings like Psalms and Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes, First and Second Kings, so on and so forth. Okay.
With the New Testament,
we have something interesting. So so the Christians now, they
believe in the Old Testament, right?
They believe it to be the word of God, however, they have their own
set of primary scriptures. And these scriptures are not affirmed
by the Jews.
So doesn't look like the video is working here. Inshallah, it'll
come back.
So I can, if people have questions we can deal with that inshallah.
Tada. So New Testament, right? It's called the Hey, Cain, IDFA,
the FA, K, literally the New Testament. Now, the phrase New
Testament is actually in the Old Testament, it's in Jeremiah 3131,
where there's this promise of God that I'm going to establish what's
called the Biddy Tada, SHA, and Hebrew, which literally means New
Testament. Of course, the Jews take that to mean something
completely different than the Christians.
In Jewish circles, Jeremiah is prophesizing, that towards the end
of time, during the reign of the Messiah, the Messiah will
implement the Jewish law. And that's going to be new for most
people, because most people are not Jews. And it's going to also
be sort of a renewal for Jews that weren't practicing the law. But
nonetheless, this is the name of the Christian scriptures, the New
Testament. So what is the essence of the Old Testament and the Old
bit eat? The word pitied means testament? It basically is the
following it is if you adhere to the law of Moses, if you follow
the law of Moses, then you will gain salvation. Right? That's,
that's basically the essence of the law.
The essence of the law in a nutshell, let me just quickly try
something here.
So I can
try this again.
Sorry about that.
Okay, I think we're okay now.
Yes, so let me just reiterate.
It's Tuesday, August 18, Tuesday evening, we are live for people
out there that want to ask me a question. Feel free to type that
into the chat box inshallah to Allah. Okay, so the, the essence
of the Old Testament is, or the Mosaic covenant, which is
preferred language, according to Jews, is that if you follow the
law of God, you follow the myths vote, right, and you will be
saved, you will gain salvation. And this is interesting, because
this is the answer of Jesus peace be upon him, at least according to
the New Testament Gospels. And we'll talk more about these, what
are these gospels? There are four gospels in the Christian New
Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you have this particular
p or this, this story in three Gospels where a Jewish scribe
comes to Jesus and he says to him, Good Master, what must I do to
gain eternal life? And then Jesus says to him, why are you calling
me good? There's no one good, but one, and that is God. And then he
continues, follow the commandments, and you shall enter
the life. Right? There's variations. I mean, that's the the
reading and Mark. That's how Mark has it. There's slight variations
in Matthew and Luke, let's mark 1018. And you haven't and Luke
1818 and Mark, Matthew 1917. So here, Jesus peace be upon him,
according to this Christian texts, these Christian texts, is
affirming the old Biddy to the Mosaic Covenant, but then by
gospels end, right. Later on in the Gospel, Mark 14, Matthew 26,
and Luke 22. We are told that Jesus celebrates the Passover, the
last supper with His disciples, and He takes the bread and he
gives it to them and says, This is my bread and the wine. It says,
This is my body. This is my blood of the new covenant, right of the
New Testament. So now he's establishing a new covenant,
right, a new agreement. So what that means is now is that the old
covenant that God made with the Israelites at Sinai, this covenant
has been revoked. It is abrogated, right and now
Um, one has to simply believe in Jesus as Lord, as Paul says, and
that God raised Him from the dead, and you shall be saved. Right? So
that's the essence.
Paul states This, I believe in First Corinthians. That's the
essence of this New Covenant then.
Okay, so let's take a closer look then at the New Testament. So,
there are 39 books. In the Old Testament, there are 27 books, in
the New Testament, called a canon of 27 books.
There are four, four major types of books in the New Testament, the
first major type of book is called a gospel. So a gospel is basically
a narrative about Jesus that really focuses on the passion,
right?
The last week of Jesus's life, according to these texts, so
they're basically for extended passion narratives. The real focus
is on the suffering and death resurrection of Jesus. That's
really where the focus is. So you have you have gospels, one of the
types of books of the New Testament there, four of them,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we'll talk more about them.
Inshallah, then you have a book of history, one book of history. And
the New Testament is the fifth book of the New Testament. It's
called the Book of Acts, a CTS, also called acts of the apostles
in the Catholic
the Catholic version, English versions. So basically, this is
early Ecclesiastical History, early church history.
There are three main characters, really two main characters,
there's Peter, and there's Paul. But there's also James Wright,
Acts chapter 15. You have the famous Jerusalem council, this is
really this sort of seminal event
in the early Christian movement,
and the sort of prototype of the later church councils ecumenical
church councils that are going to follow in the fourth century, all
the way into the 21st century,
or 20th century, we haven't had one. There hasn't been an
ecumenical church council. And the 21st century, the last one was in
the 1960s, called Vatican two. So the sort of
prototype of that the archetype was the Jerusalem Council and Acts
chapter 15. And the issue of that time was how much of the Mosaic
Law is required for these Gentile Prophet lights? For these Greeks,
the Greeks are becoming Christian, how much of the Law of Moses
should we impose upon them? That's why they held the council
basically. So you have early church history, the book of Acts,
and then you have something called the epistles, which simply means
letters, and there are 21 of them. So for gospels, there's one book
of history called the Book of Acts. Then you have 21, epistles
or letters. And these are written by various apostles, right,
various apostolic authorities, various disciples of Jesus, at
least according to Christian Christian tradition. So these
epistles, they deal with doctrine, they deal with council
instructions.
They deal with just different issues that arise in various
congregations.
According to historians,
seven of these 21 epistles were genuinely written by Paul, right,
the apostle Paul will talk about him in sha Allah.
So scholars agree almost by consensus that seven of them are
written by Paul, seven of them. Another seven of them are
disputed, but claimed to have been written by Paul. Right, in other
words, someone pretending to be Paul.
So scholars have deemed these to be pseudo Paul line, which is sort
of a nice way of saying they're forgeries, right? Someone is
writing these letters pretending to be Paul, and they're not Paul.
They're forging these letters pretending to be Paul. And then
you have seven what are known as Catholic epistles, not Catholic
with a capital C, not Roman Catholic, but Catholic with a
lowercase c, which simply means universal epistles, and these are
written by various apostles as well like James and Peter and John
and Jude, although again, the vast majority of historians do not
believe that these men actually wrote these books that bear their
names. These are also four
juries
when it comes to the Gospels, they're called Matthew, Mark, Luke
and John. But in reality, they are anonymous. None of the authors
identify themselves. church tradition assigns them or
attributes these books to two disciples of Jesus, Matthew, the
tax collector was also called Levi, and John Johanan, the son of
Zebedee, who's one of the disciples of Jesus, the beloved
disciple, according to the Gospel of John, although it's disputed
whether John, the son of Zebedee is the beloved disciple, that's
the dominant opinion.
Historians do not believe that these two men actually wrote these
gospels. And then you have the gospel of Mark. Mark was,
according to church tradition, he was a student of Peter.
So he's like a tabby. And then you have the Gospel of Luke, who is a,
a friend of Paul or Paul's traveling companion. So this is
very interesting, we noticed that you have the gospel of Mark, which
is accepted by the church is totally canonical,
and written around, according to the vast majority of historians,
probably around 70 of the Common Era or so. Most historians put the
day even many confessional Christian scholars, they placed
the date of Mark's Gospel around 70, around the time of the
destruction of the temple.
But there's also something called the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of
Peter is not accepted as canon. And the reason is, well, it's just
too late. That's one sort of way of looking at it. Another way of
looking at it is that it contains material that is that is offensive
to the early Christian movement. So in the Gospel of Peter, it
states that Jesus, when they were crucifying Him, He was silent, as
if he felt no pain. So that doesn't work with the early
church, because for the early church, at least, the early Paul
line church, Jesus needs to suffer, it really needs to hurt.
You know, his pain is our gain, as they say. It's the most painful
death ever. He's bearing the sins of the world. He's smitten and
afflicted, he's bruised for our iniquities, he's crushed for our
transgressions, as Isaiah chapter 353, says, which Christians
believe to be referencing Jesus. So it seems like in the Gospel of
Peter, he's just, he's not feeling pain, or perhaps his soul has left
his body there, crucifying an empty shell, something's going on
there. The church didn't like it. So the Gospel of Peter is
rejected. But the gospel of Mark who's who's Peter student is
accepted. Right, as canonical.
And then the Gospel of John.
There's good reasons for placing John around 70, or even earlier as
well. But the vast majority of historians placed the Gospel of
John, anywhere from about 90 to 110. of the Common Era, if we just
take the low number, right. The earliest date of 90,
right?
It's, that's called the terminus post quem. Right, the earliest
date 90, so let's, you know, gospel, the the the apostle John,
who wrote the gospel was probably let's say he was, I don't know, 30
years old, at the crucifixion around the age of Jesus, probably
the same age. Right? The disciples were probably not old men. They
were probably young men around the age of Jesus is 30 years old,
right in the year 30. So he waited then 60 years, right? To write his
gospel, around 90, again, we're taking the low end date of 90, so
he's 90 years old. Right? And he's writing this gospel, and he's
writing it in Greek. And it's quite sophisticated Greek. And
John, the son of Zebedee is supposed to be a Galilean
fisherman. And 95% probably, of people in Palestine at the time,
certainly, you know, fishermen and peasants, they were illiterate,
they could not read or write, or they were unlettered. So how is it
that he can produce this gospel where he's talking about
referencing the logos, which is a Hellenistic philosophical idea
that goes back to Heraclitus, maybe studied for 60 years, but it
still doesn't make a lot of sense that he would write it in Greek
and not in Aramaic or in Syriac. Another issue is that in John, so
if you ask a Christian, where does Jesus claimed to be God in the New
Testament, and the four Gospels, right, invariably, the Christian
will quote something from the gods.
Full of John. Right? It is the highest Christology. So a
Christian would say, Well, John 1030 The father and I are one.
There you go. John 858 Before Abraham was I am right. So print
print Abraham, good Guinness they Aygo, me, right present tense.
Before Abraham was I am I already was before Abraham. So here,
Jesus, he's intimating his pre eternality that he predates
Abraham.
Oh, they'll say,
I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, right John 14, six. So you
have these im statements. That's what these are called the famous
im statements of the Johansson, or Gospel of John, the Johanna, and
gospel. We find none of these im statements in Matthew, Mark, and
Luke, these three gospels, which are called the Synoptic Gospels,
right? synoptic meaning one is basically that Matthew, Mark, and
Luke, they follow basically the same chronology of events in the
life of Jesus. Whereas in John, we have this drastic departure from
the synoptic chronology, not only in chronology, but in content. So
in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the preferred method of teaching, his
preferred pedagogical method of teaching is through parable. But
in John, He is giving these very long
monologues about his relationship with the Father making big big
claims he's, he's engaged in these long, and sometimes very tense
debates with the Jews, as it says, right, the Jews, that it's very
clear in the Gospel of John, that the enemies of Jesus are not
scribes and Pharisees, right? I mean, you find that language in
Matthew, which is written around 70, or 8085. But by the time John
comes around, there's there's a clear departure. You have
Christians and you have Jews, right? In earliest Christianity,
the Christians were a sect of Judaism. They're called the note
serene, or the Nazarene ins or the FPU name, which means like the
spiritual poppers, the poor people, but now we have a
definitive split. In the late first century, these are Jews. So
it's very clear, if you read the Gospel of John Hoyt, you will die,
right? The Jews are the enemies of Jesus, and Jesus is always butting
heads with the Jews.
So it's very, very interesting.
But the main point I was going to make is
that these I am statements which are supposed to be divine claims
of Jesus, Jesus is claiming to be God in these I am statements. If
he truly made these statements, then we really have to sort of
give an F to Matthew, Mark and Luke, for how they wrote their
gospels.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke mentioned all three of you mention that
Jesus, he rode a donkey into Jerusalem. When he came into
Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, he wrote a donkey into Jerusalem, all three
of them mentioned that, right? You might think, well, is that really
important? Apparently, there's something in the book of Zechariah
or Zephaniah that says, you know, the king of Zion comes to you,
seated humbly upon a donkey. So it's a fulfillment of prophecy.
Okay, still doesn't seem very important. But if Jesus is making
a divine claim, he's claiming to be God. He said, Before Abraham
was I am the Father and I are one.
I am the Way, the Truth and the Life I am the good shepherd, I am
the door, right? These big, big claims that he's making in the
Gospel of John,
Matthew, Mark and Luke 100%, failed in recording these divine
claims, how can they not record these divine claims of Jesus?
So the answer is they're completely inept. And they've done
a horrible job at writing their gospels, or Jesus never made those
statements. Right. And the majority of historians nowadays,
they believe that the latter is actually true that the Gospel of
John is really an a historical document. It's really just sort of
a Christological meditation of a certain community of Christians
called the Johanne and community.
And, you know, this this community if you read the Gospel of John,
for example,
he and he's aware that you have Matthew, Mark and Luke floating
around
In that in the Mediterranean, but he at times deliberately
contradicts the synoptics. Right? For example, in Matthew, Mark, and
Luke, it says Jesus was crucified on the day of Passover, which is a
strange day to be crucified. But John says that he was crucified on
the Eve of Passover.
So the question then becomes
who's right? And they both be right. Whether to crucifixions,
how can these texts be inerrant. Right? And this is the position of
like, fundamentalist Bible colleges like the Moody Bible
Institute, probably Liberty University, Oral Roberts
University, that these books are inerrant. How can both of these be
true? Was Jesus crucified on Passover or the Eve of Passover?
Which isn't whether to crucifixions, somebody got it
wrong?
Or there they both got it wrong? Right.
It says in a Synoptic Gospels, that when Jesus was
going to be crucified, for no apparent reason, the Romans pulled
a random guy out of the crowd named Simon of Cyrene and
compelled him to bear the cross. Right, so he took the cross of
Jesus with probably the cross beam. Its estado switch is like a
steak or a beam, probably just a crossbar,
and made him bear the cross while Jesus sort of just followed in
front or behind it, I remember what it says in the synoptics. But
that's an Matthew, Mark and Luke, John knows this. But John goes out
of his way to contradict the synoptics. And he says Jesus bore
his own cross, to Golgotha, the place of the school where the
Romans used to crucify Jews insurrectionist Jews or
troublemaking Jews. So why does John do that? Right? Well, there's
probably some sort of Christological or polemical reason
why he does that.
Now, we know that there were early Christian groups that denied the
crucifixion of Jesus. One such group was the were the best
Philadelphians named after facilities, I might have mentioned
him in the past. He was a Christian teacher in Egypt,
Alexandria, in the first quarter of the second century, and
facilities. His opinion was that Simon of Cyrene was transfigured.
Right, he uses that word in Latin, transfigured autumn, transfigured
to look like Jesus. And Jesus, the maid, was transfigured to look
like him. And so the Romans grabbed, you know, the apparent
Jesus. So this is called substitution theory, supernatural
identity transference.
And so Jesus was able to escape the crucifixion. So it seems like
John is familiar with this belief around the time when he's writing
at 90 CEE or at 100 CE, possibly 110 C. So what he does is he
completely eliminates the entire episode of Simon of Cyrene for a
Christological reason, even though he knows he's contradicting the
synoptics, even though his readers will eventually know that he's
contradicting the synoptics. Right? But his whole point is to
teach you is is not to give you accurate history. John admits at
the end of the gospel, these things have been written to
convince you that Jesus is the Son of God. Right? That's the whole
aim. That's to tell us that's his MCSA of writing his gospel is to
convince you by any means necessary, that Jesus is the Son
of God. Right?
That He died for your sins, so don't get it twisted. He wasn't
substituted, died on the cross. And then John tells us something
else at the Crucifixion scene. So Matthew, Mark and Luke were told
that Jesus is on the cross for a few hours, and markets maybe three
hours in the swipe pilot marveled Pontius Pilate, the Roman
governor, this man has died already. After just a few hours on
the cross. Pontius Pilate made a career of crucifying Jews. So if
he's astonished and he's he's marveling that this man has died
already, then there's something happening, there's something to
look into how can he be dead already? And of course, Christians
will say that Well, Jesus, you know, he was beaten beyond
recognition and you know, he was flogged front and back down to his
bowels. I mean, his intestines were falling out. You read things
like this and in Christian polemical writings like by Joshua
McDowell and, and others. Michael Okona, and
Things like that. So he's just you know, he's a * * mess
you know he's going into his body is going into shock and, and so
three hours surprising even lasted three hours Why is pilot shocked
pilot is an expert do killer he's an expert do crucify fire and he
is says he marveled this man is dead after three hours. Are you
sure he's dead? How can he be dead? And he oversaw all of you
know these so called beatings and floggings and so on and so forth.
I mean, nowhere in Matthew Mark, and Luke doesn't say that he was
nailed to a cross. Right? That's not mentioned in the synoptic
tradition. We find that in John and it's not mentioned directly.
It's when you know, in the upper room where the you know, the
doubting Thomas of Jesus shows his hands, you know, in his feet,
apparently the marks of the crucifixion. So we find that in
John, right. But something else that happens in John is, Jesus is
on the cross, and he's impaled on the cross.
We don't find this in Matthew, Mark and Luke, why didn't Matthew,
Mark and Luke, If Matthew is an eyewitness, this is what
Christians believe, at least traditional Christians. Matthew is
an eyewitness of the ministry of Jesus. Right?
Why didn't Matthew say, well, he first took Jesus and fled. I mean,
that's what it says. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, when Jesus was on
it was in the, on the Mount of Olives in the Garden of
Gethsemane, the Jewish
Temple Guard came to arrest him and his all of his disciples for
sick forsook him and fled. So Matthew wasn't there. Okay, but
Matthew could have there were there were people that were there,
Matthew could have interviewed somebody, and I witnessed how what
happened that the crucifixion, and Matthew seems to know a lot about
what happened at the crucifixion, even though he wasn't there.
Matthew records the final words of Jesus on the cross. I didn't even
know that somebody told him, why didn't somebody tell him that
Jesus was impaled on the cross?
John, that's what John says, writing in 90 or 100.
Well, it probably didn't happen. That's why it's not historical.
Why does John say that Jesus was impaled on the cross. Because
apparently there might have been Christians who had the belief that
Jesus was put on a cross, but he didn't actually die. You might
have swooned, he might have survived the cross right
there that's that's why he was seen alive in his fleshy body
after the suppose it is suppose a death? Well, John eliminates this
type of
heresy according to him and says, no, no, no, no, don't get it
twisted. He was impaled on the cross. He's dead. There's no doubt
about it. Alright.
So basically,
okay, so when a little bit off course here,
but that's okay. So we said that there's four gospels, there's the
book of Acts. There's
21 epistles, and then we have one. Apocalypse, right. Apocalypse is a
Greek word, epochal.
Meaning an
unveiling or a disclosure, cash. It's called metabolismo cash.
And this is sort of
a book that describes visions of the eschaton, the SAT towards the
end of time. It's very, very cryptic. It's very symbolic. Very,
very strange, very enigmatic. I mean, you have, you know, the Four
Horsemen and you have, you know, the lake of fire. And it's very
strange book, you have the mark of the beast,
the mark of the theory on in Greek,
which is 666. It's stated in Revelation, chapter 13, verse 18.
So this book is called the Book of Revelation. Right? In the Catholic
version, it's called the apocalypse. Of all these strange
things happening. The mark of the beast, the Antichrist is 666.
Nobody knows what that means. Some people believe it's the numerical
value of his name. Some scholars believe that it's a reference to
Nero, the Roman Emperor, who was who, who was compared today by
Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump.
He said, I think he said Sanders said today, what did he say? He
said, When Rome was burning,
Nero was was playing his fiddle, but Trump was golfing. Right.
So Nero is sort of seen as this, this
this sort
of prototypical horrible leader, right.
So some scholars believe that the numerical value of
Emperor Nero is 666.
Okay.
So you have these 27 books. Okay. Now, the first books of the New
Testament to be written, were not the Gospels. Okay. The first books
chronologically of the New Testament.
Were the Paul line epistles. Right, the letters written by
Paul. So who is Paul? So Paul is actual name is Saul of Tarsus. He
was a Benjamin eight Jew from Sicily, who was also a Pharisee,
who early on was a very zealous Christian persecuting Pharisee. So
he would persecute the earliest of Christians, like the disciples,
right before they were actually called Christian. They were they
were the Nazarene. Right? So Jews who happen to believe that Jesus
was the Messiah, Paul was the
the man that the high priests would call upon to, according to
his own words, he would bind them up, capture them, and bring them
back to Jerusalem for for trial.
So he was a persecutor of the early Jesus movement.
And then, according to Paul, he had some sort of conversion
experience on the road to Damascus, where he claims that he
had an encounter with the resurrected Jesus, who
commissioned him to go into all nations, and admonished the
Gentiles. Right, so he's the apostle to the Gentiles. So then
Paul goes to different major metropolitan areas around the
Mediterranean. And he begins to preach what he calls my gospel.
That's what he says, My Gospel, remember, Jesus of the seed of
David rose from the dead, according to my gospel, he says,
And he uses that phrase three times, in his in his,
in his letters, two of them are genuinely written by Paul, one of
them is pseudo Paul. So when Paul says My Gospel, it seems like he's
making a distinction between what he is saying and what this other
gospel is saying. And he actually says that, in the book of
Galatians, he chastises his congregation in Galatia, which is
in Turkey, for believing in quote, another gospel. So there's another
God.
According to Christian historians, the story is this, Paul went to
Galatia. And he made a lot of converts to his gospel, his
understanding of the gospel, that Jesus was the divine Son of God,
and that He died for your sins.
And that's the new that's the new covenant. And, and, and then he
left Galatia. And then a group of apostles from Jerusalem sent by
James, who is Jesus's brother or cousin. It's not really clear what
Brother means half brother or cousin, possibly step brother.
Nonetheless, the book of Acts tells us that James is the leader
of the Jerusalem apostles, he sends messengers, other apostles
into Galatia to correct Paul's deviant teachings.
Right? And so they're able to convince these Galatians
that Paul was wrong about many fundamental issues. So then Paul
writes, now the book of gluttony, his letter to the Galatians where
he chastises the Galatians How dare you believe in this other
gospel? Right, we didn't bring this gospel. And then he goes on
to accuse Peter, James and Barnabas of hypocrisy in the book
of Galatians. So Paul is butting heads. He has fundamental, big
issues with actual disciples of any side as he admits this in the
book of Galatians. He refers to them sarcastically, so called
pillars. That's what he says these so called pillars of the church.
He says, these these super apostles, who did they think they
are the super apostles? This is his sarcasm. Who is he talking
about? He's talking about actual disciples of Versailles. They
sunnah. He says, I don't need a letter of recommendation. You
know, I have my I have my experience. I experienced the
resurrected Jesus. What does he mean? I don't need a letter.
letter of recommendation according to New Testament scholars, these
apostles that are coming into the cities in Paul's wake and
correcting his deviant gospel, have actual Ijaz that they have
these teaching licenses that they've brought from Jerusalem
signed by James, who is the leader of the Nazarene, the early
Christian movement. Paul has no such letter, because he's a
freelance self appointed apostle. So he says to his congregations, I
don't need a letter. I had this experience, and he's any Brad's I
don't I didn't take this teaching from any human being from any man.
I took it directly from Christ. This is what he says yet he is at
odds
ik time, fundamental issues, he's butting heads with the actual
disciples of a silent Salam.
All right. So Paul is a highly problematic person, to say the
least.
So
So then, so Paul began writing around 52 is his first letter was
to his congregation, at fest Salonika, a major Greek city,
right, it's called First Thessalonians. And in First
Thessalonians, Paul is very clear. And there's certain central Paul
line themes. This is how scholars like textual critics can tell if
this is written by Paul or not. So you have these 14 A pistols that
are claimed to have been written by Paul, According to historians,
seven of them are by Paul, because, you know, they, they
would
analyze the text through certain textual measures. And the other
seven are deemed to be forgeries in the name of Paul. Right. So the
seven genuine letters, the first genuine letter is called First
Thessalonians. And then you have Galatians, five Lehmann, First
Corinthians, Second Corinthians Philippians, and Romans. And in
these seven letters, you have these central Paul line themes,
the second coming of Jesus will be in his lifetime. This is
absolutely fundamental, to Paul's understanding of his gospel, what
he is claiming he has taken from Jesus, for absolutely fundamental.
We're going to be
transformed in the twinkling of an eye, he says, in First
Thessalonians caught up in the clouds, with the Lord. And all of
his advice, on marriage celibacy, on a commerce all of it is
predicated upon his belief that at any moment,
Jesus will manifest in a second coming and set up His kingdom of
God on earth. Right? As as the Jews believed the Jewish Messiah
would do. Right?
And of course, this never happened.
It never happened. You know, so we have here, ay,
ay, ay, ay falsify, falsifiable claim of Paul. Paul is very, very
clear, he believes the second coming will occur in his lifetime.
In fact, the author of Mark's gospel and these four gospels, so
obviously, we have the Paul line letters that are written between,
you know, 52, and 65, or something, and then you have the
first gospel mark. So the four Gospels are highly influenced by
Paul line doctrine.
Right? And again, that's why and these four gospels, I mean,
they're basically for extended passion narratives. Because the
cross is so central for Paul. Paul says in First Corinthians, If
Christ is not raised, our faith is in vain. If Christ did not raise
from the dead, if he was not resurrected, our faith is in vain.
There is no point to this religion.
Right? So you can see how Christians are oftentimes offended
by the Muslim suggestion.
That Eastside a Salam was never crucified. He's never crucified,
he's never killed, he's never resurrected, and Christianity is
in vain.
With this is what Paul says in First First Corinthians.
So now in Mark, right, you have Jesus saying that among those
standing here, right, he says, there are some standing here, that
shall not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in the
clouds.
Right. And for Mark,
the son of man seems to be
Ay, ay.
Ay ay ay title of Jesus Himself. coming in the clouds, he's
paraphrasing something found the book of Daniel chapter seven, the
apocalyptic Son of Man, which Christians or mark at this point
believes to be a prophecy of the Jewish Messiah, the bar, a Nash,
Son of man was exceedingly powerful on the earth. Jesus is
saying, there's some standing here, he's telling this to Jews
around 29 or 30 of the Common Era. There are people here now alive,
that will see me coming with great power in the clouds.
Now, we cannot possibly attribute such a statement to recite a
salon, because that would make him a false prophet.
And true prophets do not make false prophecies.
Right? Christians have ways of sort of working around these
things.
But what's very interesting is Mark wrote that around 70, so
he's, you know, he's taking a big risk. Because, you know, if, if
there are a few people alive in the generation of Jesus, around
70, of the Common Era, but it seems like Mark believes, because
because of what's happening in Jerusalem, around the time of
Mark's composition, Mark believes it is the end of the world, what's
happening in Jerusalem between 67 and 73. It's the Jewish war that
Josephus writes about. So you have an all out assault upon the Jews
in Palestine, by the Roman war machine. Right, so there was an
insurrection by the,
the economy kinda in the,
the Zealots, or the proto zealots. These were Jewish insurrectionists
that tried to seize the land,
and implement Jewish law from the heathen colonizers, the Romans,
they were absolutely crushed. Over this six year period, the Romans
started in the north in Galilee, where Jesus was raised, and they
just swept right down the entire country, destroyed the temple and
70 and massacred
you know, men, women and children the of that mass suicide that
happened at the fortress in Masada, around 73, of the Common
Era. So Mark believes this is the end of the world. Right? So this
is the end of the world, then the second coming of Jesus is
imminent. So he has no problem saying, putting the words into the
mouth of Jesus, there are some standing here that shall not taste
death. And so until they see the Son of Man coming in the clouds
with great power.
All right, we will not attribute this false prophecy to a true
prophet inside a center. Mark is influenced by Paul who made this
false prophecy. Paul believed the Second Coming was imminent, it did
not materialize.
Paul also believes in justification by faith alone. He
believes that the law of Moses was abrogated
almost completely.
And he believes in vicarious atonement, this idea that Jesus
was a savior, man, God, a divine Son of God, who died for your
sins. Alright.
What's also interesting about Paul, is that he does not mention
anything about the historical Jesus. Paul does not quote Jesus
accurately one time, in any of his letters, whether they're genuine
Paul or pseudo Paul, Paul never mentions a miracle that Jesus
performed, like these exorcisms that are such a big part of the
synoptic tradition, the healings, right? The resurrection of
Lazarus.
He doesn't mention any of these things. Paul does not mention
anything about the historical Jesus. He's completely focused on
the crucifixion and resurrection, the significance of the death of a
savior, man, God, that's what his attention is almost exclusively
focused on. Right?
He doesn't mention the virgin birth of Jesus.
Why wouldn't he mention that? Very, very strange. He actually
says Jesus, who was of the seed of David, mean, it seems like he
believes that Jesus was just born
as a descendant of David in the conventional sense, right? Why
wouldn't you mention these things he doesn't quote, or he sadly
Islam isn't, quote, the Jesus of the Gospels. If there's an oral
tradition, floating around, where Jesus is making divine claims that
are recorded by John Paul doesn't seem to quote it. He doesn't quote
them. Why doesn't he quote
that, either he doesn't care that Jesus claimed to be God, and I
think he would care. Or these statements did not exist.
And John invented them out of whole cloth
in order to convince his audience that Jesus is the Son of God.
Now, Paul does something quite radical.
What he does is he appropriates an old pagan motif.
Okay, this is known as the dying and rising savior, man God, motif.
So this was a motif a belief that predated Christianity by hundreds
and hundreds of years, this idea that
some sort of incarnation, a divine Son of God comes to the earth
suffers and dies for the sins of humanity. It's very beautiful
story. You have a personal Savior. Right? What Paul does is that he
gives it a Jewish makeover.
And he uses it to explain what he believes to be the gospel.
Right. So what Paul basically does, I liken it to like a
Christmas tree,
a Christmas tree, right? So we have this tree, which is brought
into the home, which is what the ancient pagans used to do. I mean,
in Jeremiah, I think, chapter 10, verse two, he says, imitate not
the way of the heathen, the infidel, who brings a tree into
their house, and decks it out with gold and silver. That's what the
tree worshipers used to do. Today, we call them tree huggers. No, I'm
just kidding. But that's what they used to do. Right?
What Paul is doing is basically he's taking a tree at Christmas
tree, a, a symbol of paganism that says Foundation, and he's putting
a Star of David at the top of it.
Right.
So he takes paganism. He takes paganism as his foundation, and he
kind of dresses it up with the trappings of Judaism.
Before Christianity,
you had Osiris, the Savior man god of Egypt, Adonis of Syria, Romulus
of Rome, Salem, Oxus of Thrace was mentioned by Heraclitus, and its
histories in honor of Samaria, who's a female, daughter of God.
And of course, Mithras, the Persian Son God who although he
didn't actually die, he did suffer for the sins of His people.
There's a book called The World, the world's 16th crucified saviors
by Kersey graves, written 1875. There are some problematic
elements to this book from a historical standpoint, but it's an
interesting book.
Christianity before Christ is the subtitle there's another book by
Tom Harper called the pagan Christ which is quite interesting as
well. So Osiris Adonis, Romulus, a Marxist II Nona. Mithras, all save
your gods, all sons of God with the exception of Manana, who is
the daughter of God, but basically all you know children of God, but
not the God. They are not the God. Right. So all of these traditions
are what's known as Heno theistic.
And I am convinced that Paul himself was a hetero theist, I do
not believe that Paul is a mono theist. Right. Paul believes that
Jesus is a second deity. Paul is highly highly influenced by
Hellenistic philosophy. Hellenistic motifs like this one
here, the dying and rising savior, man God motif, but also this idea
of, you know, this middle platonic idea that the Godhead is three
unique deities
where there's a hierarchy of being the one, the word, the logos, and
the spirit. Right? All three are divine. The latter two are the
effect of the cause. Who is the one he's the, the the, the source
and origin of everything, even though the logos and the spirit.
So even though the logos in spirit, are from the very essence,
your x Dale, they're from the very essence of God, they are not as
exalted as the one who is without origin. Right? Who is the origin
and and is the cause of the others. So you have this hierarchy
of gods. Right. So Paul is borrowing this idea
So as John John directly calls Jesus the logos, all right. So
it's hard to it's very difficult. I mean, eventually
Christian apologists and a third and fourth century, they had a way
of sort of working out how this is still monotheism. It's not
monotheism according to the Islamic definition of monotheism.
But they, they sort of took these middle, platonic and Neo platonic
ideas of a hierarchy of Gods of a hierarchy within the Godhead and
said, there's really no hierarchy of being just a person. So kind of
sleight of hand. We'll talk about that next week. In sha Allah to
Allah.
But anyway, you have the Savior min gods, they all undergo a
passion, some sort of suffering, and the obtain victory over death
is very interesting. You know, the Koran says that the Christians
say, and mercy Herban Allah, that Christ is the Son of God, that he
Kokkola whom be of why he him, you draw who Napoleon Lavina come from
in Kabul, that is a saying that issues from their mouths in this
day, but imitate what the unbelievers of all these ancient
pagans used to say, all the way back, hundreds and hundreds of
years.
And of course, Hellenistic religion tended to be syncretistic
right, they would mix and match different elements. So like the
cult of Mithras was an amalgamation of Hellenistic
meaning Greek, as well as Persian beliefs.
The cult of dying ICS was an amalgamation of Hellenistic as
well as Phoenician beliefs. The cult of
Paul line Christianity is an amalgamation of Hellenistic and
Jewish beliefs. So now you have this kind of new hybrid religion.
And when that happened, now you have this definitive split all set
the foundation right in the middle of the first century, by the end
of the first century, you have this definitive split these are
not Jews. These are separate religion they're called Christians
they worship Christ as a god right.
So that's,
so you have these 27 books that just to wrap up inshallah
four gospels, one book of Acts 21 epistles one, one apocalypse.
Okay.
I think that's
good for tonight, inshallah. So we will see you next time. I think
that's a good place to stop. I don't want to start any I know
there's a few minutes left here, but I don't want to get into a new
topic because it's going to take a bit of explaining to do. So we'll
save that for next time. We'll talk we'll finish our discussion
on the Gospels. There's one more thing I wanted to say about about
what's known as backward Christology which is very very
interesting that we find in the four gospels Christology in the
making James done this idea. We'll talk about that and then we'll go
into the Nicene Creed and talk about the Trinity inshallah. Okay,
so they called
him
solo SUTA Mohammedan. While early he was a huge marine
Subhanak Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah tena indica Antal I'm
allemaal Hakeem. Hola, hola, wala Quwata illa biLlah Hill Ali loving
Him As salam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
So this is our
final session on Christianity.
So last time, we talked about the four Gospels,
and something of the Christology Christology is a academic term
meaning,
belief about Christ, we talked about the Christology that's found
in each gospel.
The story historians have noticed that, through the years, the
Christology of of the Christians has become higher and higher. So
it throughout the Gospels, so in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is peace
be upon him according to
he is a a prophet. He's the hidden Messiah. He is.
It's a very, very short gospel. His statements are very brief. And
then in Matthew, He is now the open saya.
He fulfills all of these prophecies in the Old Testament.
Many times Matthew takes a lot of liberties as to how
He's
interpreting Old Testament
stories and texts and applying them to Jesus. It seems at times
he is simply making things up. For example, He says, in, in at the
beginning towards the beginning of his gospel, that because Jesus
came from Nazareth, this is so that it might be fulfilled what
was what was written by the prophet, he shall be called the
Nazarene. He shall be called a Nazarene, Matthew was presenting
the statement as if it's from the Old Testament from the Tanakh. But
there is no such statement. In the Old Testament.
And the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is called as Soto in Greek, which
means Savior.
Although there's different ways of understanding that term in Luke,
but the main thing about Luke is Jesus becomes now this universal
messenger.
Universal profit.
Jesus becomes this sort of quasi Aristotelian philosopher
where he is expounding truths through parable. I mean, we get
some of that, obviously, Matthew, and mark as well, but especially
in Luke, because Luke is trying to appeal to a Gentile audience, a
Greco Roman audience. And then finally, in the Gospel of John,
Jesus is called the word, the Lagace.
The word made flesh, a divine incarnation.
So
today, then we're going to look at
the Nicene Creed, this is an Orthodox Christian creed. When I
say Orthodox, I'm talking about Trinitarian Christianity.
And this creed was ratified in the early fourth century, of the
Common Era,
following the Council of Nicaea and 325, of the Common Era, before
the Council of Nicaea, you have many different types of
Christians, many different types of Christianity's
too numerous. to even mention here, it would take a seminar to
mention what was happening in the first three or four centuries of
the Christian era with the Christian religion.
You had Christians who believed that, or you saw a Salam that
Jesus peace be upon him was only a human. You had other Christians
who believed that he was only God.
You have Christians who believed that he was one of many gods.
You have Christians who believed that he was the only God.
You have Christians who believed that he didn't have a physical
body. He was a phantasm.
There were Christians who believed that he was both divine and human.
You are Christians who believed that not only was he both divine
and human, that he became divine at his birth. You're Christians
who believe that he became divine at His baptism.
There were Christians who believed that he became divine at his
resurrection. It's called exaltation Christology.
Yet Christians who believed that he was always divine
right, that he was the pre existent or pre eternal Son, that
He was the logos again, this is a unique idea.
You had Christians who believed that they were three gods.
You had Christians who believed there was one God. But this God
had three different modes Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It's like
God putting on three different masks one person of God, who has
sort of three modes, so he father and then he became, totally became
the Son. And then he becomes the spirit, resurrects the son, he
becomes the son again, and then he becomes the father again.
This type of Christology is called modal monarchy anism or scibelli
anism. So you have many, many types of Christianity.
Now, Constantine, who was the first Christian emperor, he wanted
unity in his empire.
And so after defeating his rivals to the throne,
he called for this council the Council of Nicaea very important
council 325 of the Common Era,
the first so called ecumenical world church council, although all
of the bishops that attended Nicaea believed already that Jesus
some peace be upon him was divine in some way. Right.
Although that is
debatable, but certainly, there were no EB unites, present at the
council, you know, Nazarene. They weren't any Jewish Christians that
were at the Council, the Jewish Christians were extinct by this
time. And if they were still practicing, and there were pockets
of them, they certainly were not going to be invited to the Council
of Nicaea. So it's not really an ecumenical or universal or world
church council. So Constantine called for this,
this council, and there's a lot of sort of misinformation as to what
actually happened. At this council, Dan Brown wrote a book
called The Davinci Code in which he is gives a lot of false
information as to what happened.
But at the end of the council, and, and whether Constantine was
actually Christian or not, during this council is actually open to
debate. It's not clear. Certainly his mother was Christian. His
mother was a very hardcore Christian. But it seems like
Constantine called the Council for more political reasons he wanted
unity in the empire.
So at the end of the council, after deliberations upon
deliberations, the bishops draft
this creed, and it's a short creed. So we'll just go through
it. The creedal exposition of the 318 Fathers, right, that means the
bishops that attended the council.
So they say,
and it begins, and it's written in Greek, right?
Whether a Saudi Salam spoke Greek or not, is open to debate.
It seems like he probably knew some Greek
because it was the lingua franca
of the Mediterranean at the time.
So
the New Testament
documents, the New Testament books are all written in Greek. Those
are original documents. Originally written in Greek, Paul wrote his
letters in Greek, he did not write them in Syriac or Hebrew.
Right, the original documents are in Greek. So Eastside A salaam,
you know, he grew up in a very eclectic environment in the north
of Palestine, and a province called Galilee.
So no doubt he knew Hebrew that was the language of the synagogue
liturgy. He was a rabbi, you have to know Hebrew, it's like being a
chef today and not knowing Arabic doesn't make any sense. Or just
being an item and not knowing, not knowing Arabic. So you know,
Hebrew, the new Aramaic or Syriac Syriac is sort of late Aramaic or
sometimes called Christian Aramaic. It's related Semitic
language related to Hebrew and Arabic, the language of the sort
of masses, right, the sort of amnio. So he certainly knew that
as well.
He probably knew some Latin, which was the official language of the
Roman Empire. And of course, Palestine at the time, was a
colony of Rome. And then, and then Greek as well, which was widely
spoken in that area, even the Romans adopted Greek, in that area
in the Middle East in the ancient Near East. So the Romans spoke
Latin and Greek, so are you sila salaam, and many of the Jews at
the time, probably spoke Greek as well.
But since the New Testament was written in Greek and coin, a
Greek, which is also called Alexandrian, Greek, so this is the
language of Alexander. But don't forget what Alexander did is that
he conquered
all of North Africa and, and the Ancient Near East during his time,
and his influence in that region was still very much alive in the
first century of the Common Era. It's called Hellenization, right
Greek influence and all spheres of life and many disciplines,
including theology and philosophy, but also cultural aspects, right
linguistic aspects, very heavy
influence.
So the Creed begins like this. And if you're watching live, you can
feel free to ask questions, Inshallah, in the chat box, and I
will get to them in sha Allah. It begins by saying, to stay well,
amen, we believe, a Santa Fe on Putera panto Cateura so that's the
Greek. It says we believe that's how the Creed begins. We believe
in one God, the Father Pantocrator Torah means the panto creator, the
sort of creator of all sometimes that's translated as the almighty
In the Latin says could I do most in autumn day on Patreon, Omni
put.
So they translate tanto pantokrator, pentacle Torah as
basically omnipotent, and that's why we get the English all mighty.
So the Father, we believe in one God, the Father, the Creator of
all, it continues, the Maker of all things seen and unseen.
And we believe he says, or they say Asthana Kurian AAACN Kristin,
to an hoian to Theo. We also believe in one board. kudu, Yan
means Lord in Greek. Now this word, Lord
is a tricky word. Because the word Lord can apply to both God and man
in New Testament, Greek, right, Philip in the Gospel of John,
somebody comes to Philip and says, cu da, cu da, right, Lord, Lord,
now Philip is certainly not God. Philip was a disciple of Jesus.
But in the Creed, the fathers don't mean it like that. The
fathers mean to say that Jesus is God, he has a divine right. So
it's important for us when reading this creed that we understand
these terms, as they were understood how they were
understood at the time they were written. So we have to be a bit of
an originalist when it comes to these reads, right? Just as when
we read things in the New Testament,
when a Saudi Salam is called Lord hood EOS in Matthew For example,
you can make a good case that Jews are not referring to Jesus as Lord
God Why would you do that? A Jew comes to Jesus cootie a cootie a
like the Lord God, Lord God. All right, that's that's cool for
that's apostasy, a Jew would not do that. So, looking at the sort
of context, the social location of a site A salaam, himself, the word
is a bit ambiguous. CU da can simply mean master or even rabbi,
even the word rabbi. Rob be right means my lord. Right? You know,
Rabbi, Shmuley bow talk. You know, he's not the Lord God, when people
refer to him as rob the rabbi. They mean to say, Master Teacher,
right.
But here in the Creed, they're taking kudos to be a divine title.
And we believe and want and one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
that's what they say here, the Son of God. And then it says, Get a
center act to Pat Rossmann again, A, which means begotten from the
Father uniquely.
And they say this is from the essence of the Father. Right? This
is from the EU see us to Petra Ross. So what does it mean then
Jesus is the Son of God, according to Trinitarian Christianity, what
do Trinitarians mean by that? It's important for us not to build a
straw man, and say, Oh, Christians believe that when that that God
had relations with Mary, physical relations, and Jesus was
the offspring of God and Mary, in that, that physical sense, that's
not what Christians believe, at least not what Trinitarian
Christians believe. Mormons, on the other hand, do believe that
but Mormonism is a very strange form of Christianity, if we can
even call it Christianity. Certainly Orthodox Christians,
whether they're Eastern Orthodox, or Protestant, Catholic,
would probably not consider Mormons to be true Christians, any
more than they would consider Muslims to be Christians.
But what they mean by Son of God, is that the father generated the
son. So we have to be careful about our language generated not
created, the Son of God was not created. That's a heresy. Right,
that was arias. His position was also at the Council of Nicaea, by
the way, and whether Arias believed that Jesus or the sun was
a semi deity somehow is open to debate.
But certainly, from what has survived from his writings, and
what we can take from his opponents, albeit with a grain of
salt. It seems as though Arias believed that the Son of God was
created by the Father. So that's not the Trinitarian position. The
Trinitarian position is that when they say Jesus is the Son of God,
or and they say we believe in the Son of God, right?
That the meaning of that is that God generated or caused the son to
be from his very essence.
right from the goose EOS to Patras, as it says, In the Creed,
so God did not so the father did not create the son out of nothing.
X ne Hilo. Right? That's a heresy. The Father created the world out
of nothing. But the father generated, or B got, that's the
term they use B got, which of course has a lot of baggage to it.
Because we think, Okay, this father B got this son, and this,