Ali Ataie – Did Noah’s Flood Actually Happen
AI: Summary ©
The flood of Nuh alayhi fruct causes a flood in the Black Sea and has had historical and political implications. The flood was a civilized society, not just political, and the speakers emphasize the importance of understanding the actions and attributes of the flood. The Christian Jesus is a Christian alternative to the Jesus, and the message of the prophet's teachings is a Christian Jesus committed promises to the Newreact and the New 235. The church is constantly trying to use evidence to prove his claims, and the message of the prophet's teachings is a Christian Jesus who committed promises to the Newreact and committed promises to the New 235.
AI: Summary ©
Assalamu alaykum. Warahmatullahi
barakatu.
Welcome back to another episode of our podcast.
Today, we're excited to have doctor Adi Adi
joining us again. For those who don't know,
doctor Adi is a professor at Zaytuna College,
and he specializes in biblical studies but also
has a thorough understanding of comparative religion and
that sort of deal. Thank you for joining
us, doctor Ali.
Thank you, brother Ahmed. Good to see you
again. You know?
Pleasure to be on. Thank you so much.
No worries. No worries, doctor Hardy. It's always
a good time having you on.
Just like office hours. Just like office hours.
I wanna begin by apologizing
because I haven't uploaded a podcast in a
long time.
I've just been on vacation. I've just had
exams. So this is the first one that,
that we that we've uploaded, and we have
a number of other ones that are going
to be recorded.
So the topic today, which is of interest
of of of many people, including myself,
is looking at the flood of Nuh alayhi
salaam
and
many secular historians,
people use this whenever they hear of the
flood of Noah. They usually critique it,
as something which is unscientific,
something which we have no evidence, no references
for.
But, yeah, when you study this topic in-depth,
when you study comparative religion, when you study
a number of ancient texts, you begin to
realize that there's a lot more evidence for
this,
than than what people make, seem to be.
So this will be the subject of our
podcast today, Inshallah.
So,
doctor Ali, I will let you, begin the
conversation and direct where we wanna head.
Yeah. It's a very interesting, topic.
I'm glad that you chose it.
We'll see what we can do with
it. Yeah. So, you know, our our faith
in Allah and his messenger, you know, certainly,
it's not blind faith. I mean, it's not
without evidence.
Some new atheists, they,
they define faith as, you know, belief without
evidence. But but our faith, our conviction is
based upon
and and fortified by knowledge.
Right?
So that's that's really,
really important point,
to make.
Allah he
he says to the prophet in the Quran
that,
say that this is
this is my path. I call to it,
with clear sight and,
many of the exegetes.
For example,
I believe, he
said that the meaning of this is with
with Burhan, with with evidence.
So,
you know, we we seek evidence for our
for our beliefs.
There is no blind faith.
So this is a very interesting topic,
and I guess the first thing I'll say
is that,
the the
obviously, it's it's it's a narrative that's that's
found in the book of Genesis,
as well as the, Quran.
And the narratives in Genesis and the Quran,
seem to indicate
that the flood, was global,
at least in some way, especially the former,
especially in Genesis.
So this is the Bible? This is the
this is the old testament that you're talking
about? Yeah. So Genesis is that's that's a
good point. The Genesis,
is
the English term. It's derived from, I believe,
the Greek, but in Hebrew, it's called Beresheaf.
It's the first book of
the Jewish and Christian Bible. This is a
book that Jews and Christians,
have in common. They both believe in the
book of Genesis. Of course, they have different
ways of interpreting the book,
but it's the first book, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, Deuteronomy. Those first five books
is called the chumash or the Torah,
the Pentateuch.
Right? So Jews and Christians believe in the
book of Genesis, and and the flood narrative
is is told in chapters,
6 through 8, I believe.
But I I think Genesis is is more
explicit that it was a global
deluge, a global flood.
So so so so does that mean that
the flood occurred everywhere in the world or
that its implications were everywhere in the world?
That's a very good point. It it seems
to be the the former when reading the
the book of Genesis. Okay.
I don't necessarily
believe that's what the Quran is saying,
but it's it's possible as well.
Okay? And I'll I'll come back to that,
because it's a very important point.
But the first civilizations in the world, according
to,
secular historians,
were,
Sumerian,
Egyptian,
in Indus Valley, Chinese, Mayan, Greek, and Persian.
And, of course, the last one is the
greatest civilization. I'm just
joking.
But basic that always got the pro Iranian.
No. No. No.
No. Oh, pro Persian. Always got that,
in that order.
But here's the question.
From our perspective, like, we're not
the people of Noah civilized
from a historical standpoint. Why why is Sumer
or ancient Mesopotamia?
Why is that the first civilization?
So I guess we would have to, you
know, define the word civilization. What what makes
a people civilized
according to secular historians?
According to secular historians, essentially, there are 5
characteristics
of civilization.
So they'll say,
it has to have a steady food source.
There has to be religious beliefs of some
sort.
There has to be some sort of technological
advancements.
Then they say,
the practice of the arts of some sort,
and then the last one is writing,
a a written alphabet.
So as far as historians are concerned, all
of these were present,
in ancient Mesopotamia.
That's why it's called the cradle of civilization.
And and what year is ancient Mesopotamia?
So here we're like, maybe we're looking at,
like
like, 45100
BCE, something like that. Okay.
Yeah. So, like like, 65100
years ago.
Okay. Or you have the first, you know,
so called cities like Uruk and
and Ur and Isin and Lapur,
these ancient cities that are within those two
rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, ancient Mesopotamia.
Mesopotamia
literally means the land between the two rivers
or the land between rivers.
So so from a sacred historical perspective,
the perspective of believing Jews, Christians, and Muslims,
the society of Noah was indeed a civilized
society.
Secular historians, however,
do not have hard evidence
of a civilization before Sumer.
So this is the difference. Okay? So secular
historians
do not consider sacred texts
as accurate tellers of history
unless they are corroborated by something physical.
Okay. Like historical documents
of other civilizations,
or archaeological evidence,
of some sort.
So this is why, like, if you look
at the exodus narrative in in the book
of Exodus,
you know, the Hijra of Bani Israel from
Egypt,
historians don't believe
that
most of what we're reading in Exodus, they
don't believe that most of it is historical.
In terms of, like, the number of people
who made the Hijra. Right? Yeah. Primarily because
the numbers are just way
exaggerated.
Right? So, like, in Exodus, it says 600,000
men of fighting age,
made Exodus. 600,000
men, that's not including the the women and
children Mhmm. And then all the animals and
things like that. So you're looking at, like,
2,000,000 people making exodus. So the historians would
say, well, somebody would have noticed that. Another
nation I mean, that's like a third of
the population of Egypt Mhmm. Leaving Egypt.
They would have left this massive footprint in
the Sinai Peninsula,
and other nations would have noticed that. Egyptians
would have probably recorded that. Although sometimes the
Egyptians did not record their their, their defeats.
So the my reading of the Quran
is that we that that's not necessarily true
of the Quranic narrative. I mean, the exodus
could have been a few 100 people. If
you look at the hijrah of the Sahaba,
the prophet and the Sahaba from Mecca to
Medina, it was a few 100 people
or a few dozen people even.
Right?
So so so here with the exodus, most
secular historians would confirm
sort of the historical kernel, kind of what's
known as a minimalist sort of history. Yeah.
Yes. There was this figure
we'd probably named Moses, they say, because Moses
is an Egyptian name.
Okay. And the Israelites would not give their
hero an Egyptian name.
You know? Know? It doesn't make sense to
do that historically. They'd give their hero a
Hebrew name. The so the fact that his
name is Moses probably means that was his
actual name. Right? Interesting. Because it's a bit
embarrassing for them that their hero it's called
the criteria of embarrassment,
that their hero actually has an Egyptian name.
So there probably was a figure named Moses,
around the time of 19th or 18th dynasty
in ancient Egypt who did lead a small
band
of of of slaves,
across the Sinai
Okay. And into But is his name
is the name Moses
engraved on any of the hieroglyphs, for example?
No. You don't find the name Moses.
But that's, again, that's something that,
is is a bit common amongst the ancient
Egyptians. They usually did not record
things that would sort of paint them in
a bad light.
Right? Okay. And they would declare what's known
as a on
on people that they didn't like. For example,
there was an Egyptian pharaoh named Akhenaten
Yeah. Right, who was in the 18th, the
18th dynasty.
His his his, his, birth name was Amenhotep
the 4th, but he became a monotheist,
which is very, very interesting.
So he said he said that the Aten,
right, so, like, the sun god is the
only god. Maybe he was influenced
by,
by Israelite monotheism that was in that region,
a few centuries earlier if we place the
exodus in the in the,
yeah, in the 18th, dynasty.
So there was an active campaign to completely
erase him from history.
So, like, archaeologists or or Moses? Which one?
Terraria? Akhenaten. Okay. Akhenaten, what I mean, our,
historians didn't even know about him until, like,
19th century.
Wow. And this was a pharaoh of Egypt.
He was a pharaoh. We're not just talking
about a leader,
of of of of a few Israelites,
of, you know, that were sort of conscripted
to do these,
these tasks. And they and the in and
contrary to popular belief, the Israelites did not
build the pyramids.
The pyramids way predate,
the Israelites.
It it goes back to, like, the,
the the first kingdom, like, 3,000 BCE or
something like that. The Israelites, even according to
the Torah, they would make the storehouses out
of mud brick. They didn't work with stone.
They were masons.
Okay. But that's just a sort of side
note.
But here's the thing, though, is, like, we
don't we don't have to. As Muslims, it
seems interesting that the Quran sort of avoids
these historical problems
with biblical narratives.
Mhmm. You know? So I I would say
the same thing about the flood, and I'll
come to that point,
in a minute.
So, however, this this with with respect to
the people of Noah,
the the historical sort of general consensus
may actually begin to change. So so 2
professors at Columbia,
named William Ryan and Walter Pittman, they were
both, marine geologists,
actually.
They published a book in 1998,
and they called it Noah's flood, the new
scientific discoveries
about the event that changed history.
Okay? And this was now this is about
24 years ago. And they contend and they
sort of updated things as the years have
gone by. But they contend that about between,
let's say, 7000
so,
between 7688100
years ago.
So somewhere between 6068100
BCE
and 56100
BCE,
they contend that there was a massive flood
in the region of the Black Sea,
okay, that displaced about a 150,000
people. And the Black Sea is where Russia
and Turkey is. Exactly. Yeah. It flooded, according
to them, 39,000
square miles of land. It also caused,
a 3 to 6 foot global rise in
sea levels.
So it was catastrophic locally,
but also had devastating global effects. So basically
Basically, like, every coastal region of every country
was flooded. If this theory is correct, how
did this happen? According to Ryan and Pittman,
in the aftermath of the first ice age,
there was a period of rapid sort of
glacial melting,
resulting in a rise,
in global sea levels.
So the Black Sea before this time was
a freshwater lake.
Okay? Then when this when this flood hit,
200 times the flow of Niagara Falls
poured into the Black Sea every day,
from the Bosporus. The Bosporus is also called
the Strait of Istanbul. So this is a
strait that separates the Mediterranean Sea from the
Black Sea. It acted as a dam of
sorts.
Okay? And it was totally breached
during the flood according to,
this theory
of of Ryan and Pittman,
and they've been opposed. You know, there's other
scientists who who say that,
other geologists and,
who who oppose them.
But it's it's it's an opinion that's worthy
of scientific inquiry. So others would say, no.
It wasn't a it would they they sort
of
will will disagree on the on the on
the sort of catastrophic
aspect of this and say, no. It wasn't
a catastrophe. It was sort of a gradual
inflow
of water. Okay. It didn't all happen at
once. Yeah. So there's a difference of opinion
about that. Okay. But but this was a
freshwater lake, and it ended up a massive
saltwater sea.
Okay? And fossils of freshwater animals were actually
pulled up. The shells of freshwater mussels
from the floor of the Black Sea were
pulled up. Also, according to them, human artifacts
were discovered
under 90 meters of water.
So this was this was evidence of human
civilization.
And and, you know, another interesting thing, doctor
Ali, is, you can correct me if I'm
wrong, but from what I've read, the the
ark of Nuh alaihis salaam also landed at
Mount Judi, which is in Turkey.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's mentioned in
the Quran. And I'll and I'll get to
the ayat here
Okay. In a minute. It's it's it's coming
up right now. So so so this was
there's evidence of human civilization. These were, you
know, man made structures that were found.
And so the flood destroyed what were apparently,
the most ancient farming communities. Now interestingly, you
talked about the the ark of of Noah.
The Quran tells us that the waters came
from below and above.
Okay? Mhmm. In Surat al Hud, if people
look at the ayat, verse number 44.
So so naturally with with the breach of
the Bosporus, there was water, you know, pouring
into the Black Sea community.
The groundwater had had risen, and there was
also massive rains apparently.
So in in Surat al Hood in Surat
al Hood,
I number 44, and it was said, oh,
earth, swallow up your water.
Right?
So so it was said, oh, earth,
swallow up the water.
Mhmm. And, oh, sky, withhold your rain.
And then it says the flood water receded
and the decree was carried out.
And the ark rested on Mount Judi. Now
Judi is one of the,
as you said, one of the, it's actually
one of the lower mountains of the Ararat
system in Asia Minor or modern day Turkey.
And it was said away with the wrongdoing
people.
Orion is was quoted as saying, it this
is going to rewrite the history of ancient
civilizations because it shows unequivocally
that the Black Sea took place,
that Black Sea flood took place and that
the ancient shores of the Black Sea were
occupied by humans.
I'll just read one reviewer of the text.
This is what they said. They said the
authors they're talking about Pittman and and Ryan.
The authors contend that the Black Sea at
the time of the alleged flood was a
fertile oasis,
a cultural magnet where diverse peoples, farmers, animal
breeders, artisans
exchange techniques and possibly genes. They pointed to
the sudden appearance in Europe
shortly after 56100
BC of outsider tribes, advanced farmers,
who the the theory goes, were fleeing the
flooded Black Sea region.
Other flood refugees in this scenario migrated to
Russia's steppes, Anatolia,
Mesopotamia, and the Middle East, preserving memory of
the catastrophe
and mythic and oral traditions,
later enshrined on clay tablets and ultimately in
the Bible. And then they go on he
goes on to say Ryan and Pittman based
their theory partly on radiocarbon dating of marine
sediments that they collected in 1993 during the
Black Sea ex expedition, so on and so
forth.
Now now
the epic of Gilgamesh,
which is a very ancient,
epic,
was discovered in the 19th century,
of the common era.
And this text, the Epic of Gilgamesh, has
a flood narrative.
Right?
Mhmm. Exactly. And it shares several similarities
with the biblical narrative. So many historians,
maybe skeptical historians,
and assumed immediately that the Torah, whoever wrote
the Torah simply plagiarized
the epic's flood narrative.
The flood survivor in the epic,
is called.
However, other historians maintain that there was,
sort of a common
or shared oral tradition,
about a massive flood
and that this explains why both the the
Torah and the epic
have flood narratives. So there was no direct
textual influence,
but rather a shared historical memory.
And this also explains why many, other cultures,
that could not have met,
okay,
had flood stories, like like in India, Chinese,
Greek, Persian,
Native American,
etcetera.
Okay? So perhaps the writers of Genesis,
chapter 6 through 8
around
and and that's the thing is, like, the
book of Genesis actually
I mean, no historian
really believes that Moses
wrote Genesis.
Okay? So
the the dominant theory as to who wrote,
the
the the book of Genesis,
yeah, is the theory of Julius Wellhausen. It's
called the documentary
hypothesis, and this is still taught,
in in universities
even in seminaries.
Okay. So when I you know, years ago,
when I was taking classes
at the
at the Jesuit school,
our professor,
who was a Catholic priest, he taught us
the documentary hypothesis,
which basically says that that
the the modern day Torah
or the Pentateuch, the 5 books, Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy,
These 5 books were actually
4 separate narratives at one point
that were sort of stitched together by a
redactor
sometime around the 5th century before the common
era. So so Genesis chapter 6 through 8
was probably written
around 1,000
to 800,
BCE.
Perhaps the writers of Genesis, when they were
writing Genesis,
1,000 BCE to 800 BC, perhaps they were
familiar with the epic, and so they presented,
the Torah as a corrective
of the Sumerian narrative.
So although there are points of similarity, there
are also many points of divergence.
Okay.
For example, the the epic, the narrative in
the epic is focused on,
like, the flood survivor
and his greatness.
While in Genesis,
the focus is really on God and God's
greatness.
In other words, the epic is more sort
of
anthropocentric.
Right? It's it's it's more sort of centered
on humanity
while while Genesis is more theocentric. It's focused
on God.
Okay. And then and then the Quran further
corrects the narrative,
when it was revealed to the prophet,
in the Quran.
So we would say that
the the narrative in the Quran is actually
a restoration of of the actual narrative,
as it happened in real history because the
Quran is a revelation,
and the Quran has access to history. It
can tell us what happened in the past
because the author of the Quran,
is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So we see these different iterations,
right, and different traditions of the same
basically, the same event
all throughout the world, right, which is really
interesting.
Because, you know, what what's interesting, doctor Ali,
is,
you know, we imagine
today an event happened.
We were together and
and something major happened. And then I went
home, I told my family. You went home,
you told your family. We never saw each
other again.
And then
your and then your family passed into the
next generation and the next generation.
Obviously, parts of the story would change, but
the fundamental part of the story, the fact
that there was a flood
that destroyed people, that was whether or not
it was universal or whether it was just
particular in a certain area, that much for
sure we can say is without a doubt
correct. And we have ample evidence through many,
religions,
through,
ancient texts, through archaeological evidence that whether or
not the flood was local or universal, we
know that there was a flood that existed.
Yeah. Exactly. There there are good historical reasons
for believing
in this narrative just as there are good
historical reasons for believing
in an exodus of some sort.
Okay. In in these stories in the these
stories in the Quran, and it's and it's
and it's something that is stressed in the
Quran.
These are true stories.
You know? This is not.
Right? And a lot of, you know, these
sort of, radical revisionists
nowadays,
you know, these mythicists, the people who deny,
for example, that Isa alaihi salam ever existed.
And now, you know, you have these people
saying that the prophet
never existed. And these people are just, you
know, these,
you know, these extreme skeptics. I mean, this
is this is really an irrational position.
Right?
But you're absolutely right. And this is why
we say the Quran is
is, in its transmission
because the Quran was heard
and recited,
every day
by 100, thousands, tens of thousands of people.
You know? So so fabricating the Quran is
is basically impossible
because the text is just so well known,
and it's repeated over and over and over
again. Whereas Hadith, you know, some of the
Hadith are also they've reached,
but very few of them. That's why people
would fabricate Hadith because they can even though
the prophet
is extremely eloquent,
his style could be convincingly mimicked.
And and and as I said, the vast
majority of hadith are not are not are
not mass transmitted.
So people can be fooled with hadith, and
that's why we have to verify change of
transmission and things like that.
So, doctor Ali, can you you you mentioned
this word
several times. Can you explain what it means?
Yeah. Yeah. Mutawater basically means
something that is mass transmitted,
multiply attested,
right, to the point where it's just impossible
for people to have colluded,
or conspired,
to
to foister a lie,
or foist a lie upon the people.
It's just something that is taken as factual
because groups and groups of people from different
regions
that have not met are saying basically the
same thing.
Okay? So,
for example,
you know, Thomas Jefferson was the 3rd president
of the United States.
This is.
This is something that is just mass transmit.
Do I know that that actually is true?
I don't know. There's no way to know
because we don't have access to the past.
But people who deny something like this,
right? I mean, there are people who deny
things like this, and we look at them
as being sort of quacks and rightfully so.
Because,
you know, if if we're denying things like
this, we can deny anything.
Mhmm. Right?
You know, Caesar Augustus was the first Roman
emperor. This is just known.
Right?
And and so so the going back to
the text of the Quran, you know, we
have we have variant readings in the Quran,
and I'm gonna talk about this inshallah at
length
in in the coming
podcast of blogging theology inshallah.
But,
you know, I talk about sort of the
guilt the guilt complex of the Christian polemic.
What that means is oftentimes
Christians,
because,
their text has been sort of
deconstructed
by by
Western,
historians
and academics and textual critics.
They feel a type of guilt. So what
they do is they lash out against the
Quran.
Interesting. Although try to say, oh, we have
problems with our text, but you also have
the same problems.
You have variant readings as well. We have
variant readings. You have variant reading. Mhmm. So
let's say, for example,
in medic, you know, in al Fatiha.
Even in al Fatiha, there's a difference of
opinion.
Which one of these is correct? And, of
course, the
the difference between Koranic variant readings
and and, let's say, New Testament variant readings
is that Koranic variant readings
are part and parcel to the very method
of its revelation.
Right? There's a there's a hadith that is
there's a tradition
in Islam that is
love
thee, and this is something that even western
scholars admit to because it's so ancient
and so widespread
that the prophet
said that the Quran was revealed
that the Quran was revealed,
upon 7 modes or with 7 types of
recitational differences. So these variant readings were actually
part and parcel of the revelation.
In other words, they have an origin in
the prophet himself.
Right? Whereas the biblical variant readings,
these are
changes to the text that were made way
after,
Isa alaihis salaam,
by scribes who were theologically motivated.
Right? And they have deep theological ramifications.
So our our response to would be that
the prophet,
he repeat he recited that aya
both ways. He said, Madikhi o Madin and
Madikhi o Madin.
Mhmm. Okay?
And I would say this is as factual
as saying Thomas Jefferson was the 3rd president,
or Caesar Augustus was the first Roman emperor.
Again, people can question these things if they
want. But, I mean, if you
just if you just do if forget about
the, like, you know, like, the chains of
transmission.
Just use logic.
Right? So, like, you know, the 5 daily
prayers were mandated in the 8th year of
the Meccan period.
Right? Mhmm. Al Fatiha has to be recited
in every prayer cycle. Everybody knows this. Yeah.
And so and so the prophet,
he led the Sahaba in prayer for 15
years.
So 15 times
354 days, which is the lunar year, comes
out to 5,310
days.
I actually did the math on this.
And and 3 of those daily prayers are
audible in their first two cycles,
Fajr, Maghrib, and Isha. Yeah. So so they
would have heard the Fatiha
6 times a day from the prophet. So
5,310
days times 6 recitations a day equals nearly
32,000
recitations
of Al Fatiha. The prophet the the Sahaba
heard the prophet
recite Al Fatiha 32,000
times
over the course of 15 years.
And this is not counting,
you know, when they heard it in Salatul
Jumah, Salatul Aid, or just in conversation and
lectures and sermons. So did the Sahaba really
get that wrong? Was there really a difference
of opinion,
as to whether he said Malik or Malik?
Did they really sort of transfer this uncertainty
to their students? This is totally
ridiculous. He obviously
recited it both ways.
Okay? So this is what I mean. The
Quran was a mass transmitted living tradition. It
was heard and recited and memorized
every day since its inception by dozens, 100,
1,000, 1,000, 1,000,000, billions of people.
Right?
So, you know, it's the reason why I
wanted to to mention this up is because,
too often in today's age, when we talk
about epistemology,
when it comes how do we know,
people resort to empiricism right away, that we
need a physical document that explains the flood,
which is which is important, and it's an
important point of knowledge, but it's not the
only way to know things. And so this
concept of,
which our religion is is largely based on,
is this notion that you have people living
across the world, people living, for example, in
Spain,
in North Africa, in Turkey, in India,
in Pakistan, in Indonesia, Malaysia.
These people have never met, and they're all
pious, righteous people, and they're all saying that
the prophet
said this statement, and they're using the exact
same words.
Yeah. That is an evidence to the fact
that this this statement is true. And this
is something which is you know, like like,
the idea of testimony. And the reason I
mentioned is because we're gonna get into some
of these points with the flood. But the
famous instance that some scholars give is,
you know, most people haven't been to China.
Mhmm.
But how do they know China exists?
Well, they'll say, well, I've seen a picture.
Well, that you're just basing that on a
testimony of
China. Well, how do you know that that
video is not actually real?
It's based on somebody's testimony. So unless you've
been there, if you believe that China exists,
the reason why you believe it is based
on your testimony,
and which is not any way to doubt
it, but it's just to show that there
are other ways to know knowledge. So when
we look at comparative religion, whether it's Islam,
Christianity,
Judaism,
Hinduism, which we'll get into, or you look
at many of these ancient texts,
like, for instance, those who are in Vancouver
will find this interesting.
The the indigenous people of Vancouver, the chiefs
of Squamish,
there was once a a western man who
went to them, and he asked them to
tell them about their religion. Name the the
man's name was Charles Hill
Tout,
t o u
t. And as he was speaking to the
chiefs of Squamish,
they told them about their creation story.
Because every civilization, every society that always exists,
they need to have a story of where
they began and where they're going. And so
as he's doctor Ali, as he's listening to
their conversation,
they start telling him about the beginning of
their creation story.
And when he asked them how they got
to these lands,
they said, before we got here, there was
a major flood that occurred in the world
in which almost everybody died, but a handful
of people survived.
And from thereafter then, our people came to
this land. Right? You'll find this, I forgot
the author's name, but it's called First Nations
book,
and it's, it's on page 7.
So whether or not, you know, we we
want to,
get caught up in the specifics of, oh,
but this text said this happened, but this
text said this happened. The general consensus is
with overwhelming evidence that the flood did exist.
Yeah. Yeah. And you'll notice a lot of
these secular historians who do take these radical
positions,
there's something else going on with them.
You know?
There's something about these religions,
that really bothers them. You know? There's something
about the moral code, if you know what
I mean, that really sort of,
it it doesn't sit well with them. So
they have an axe to grind. And just
like these, you know, these really bitter Christians
with this with the they have, you know,
this we talked about this guilt complex. They
have these huge chips on their shoulders.
So their attitude is basically towards the Muslim.
If my book is going down in flames,
I'm taking your book down with it. Right?
Mhmm.
And, again, the Quran doesn't I I don't
believe the Quran carries
the baggage,
that that these that the biblical narratives
do because the biblical narrative
I mean, it's it's so,
at times, it's it's it's so exaggerated in
its narratives
Mhmm. That it sort of it just canceled
itself as far as
as far as history is concerned, at least
secular history. Mhmm.
But the Quran, the way that these narratives
are presented in the Quran is a way
that's more tempered, a way that's more
sort of,
acceptable to this type of
mindset
that looks for things
as far as evidence in history. And it's
it's not because the Quran is is
is necessarily changing the story for the sake
of that, but it's from our perspective, it's
actually giving the true account of these stories.
Mhmm. Right? So that that's that's an important
point to make that, yes, the Quran is
a.
The the Quran is a confirmer of biblical
tradition, and this is something that's mentioned in
the Quran.
But the Quran is also correcting and revising
these traditions. Right? A corrective of biblical narratives.
So And also, doctor Ali, the the other
thing also,
about the Quran,
which I think you've you've told me, is
that the Quran
typically doesn't get into the specifics of these
stories.
Yeah. Right? The Quran doesn't explain how many
people went on the exodus.
The Quran doesn't tell the amount of people
that died during the exodus. The Quran doesn't,
with the topic of Nuh, alayhis salaam, the
Quran doesn't say
exactly how big it was, how many people
got on there. It explains the the broad
overall story.
Exactly. Because the Quran wants us to take
lessons from it. But sometimes,
like the story of the cave, for example,
with the boys in the cave, the Quran
will fix it, and will give a specific
number or with the story of Yousaf alaihi
salam in the Quran. Right? It will correct
it and say, no. It wasn't a fear.
It was actually a king. But, like,
overall, on a lot of these things,
the Quran doesn't get into specifics.
And I think for that reason,
we don't necessarily need to delve onto the
specifics too much because if it was of
important,
if it was crucial information for us, then
Allah would have explained it to us.
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. The the Ibra, what's known
as the Ibra, which is sort of the
transcendental lesson.
What's the point of these stories? These are
true stories. They're not symbolical stories.
They're not they're not myth,
in in that sense. These are true stories,
but the most important thing that we take
from these stories is the sort of overarching
lessons
of these stories. Right? So there's an axiom
in in
in, in
in
the the Quran
that says that
which means that the,
the salient point of these verses in the
Quran
is due to the generality of the wording
and not due to the specificity
of its occasion of revelation.
In other words, there were ayaat revealed to
the prophet
about a specific event in his life.
Okay?
That's the immediate occasion of revelation,
but that revelation has
transhistorical
significance.
It's not just limited to his time.
Okay?
So for example, the the,
you know, the the sort of archetype of
Moses,
and the pharaoh. You see these archetypes being
played out throughout history. The pharaonic archetype, the
Mosaic archetype,
the Isawi, like the Jesuit, like the like
the Christic
archetype.
Right?
That the prophet
is actually also
a
a a Josephine archetype,
that he was like Joseph.
And this is a way in which,
in which, Allah
sort of described him in a way that
is recognizable
to the,
that he parallels
the story of Yusuf when you think about
it. And, of course, again, the skeptic will
say here, oh, that's just you know, this
is evidence that this is just a a
recycled
myth, and it's, you know, it's borrowing from
these from these, previous,
mythologies
and sort of repackaging them.
And, again, they can they can have that
opinion. That's that's,
that's that's usually how they go about looking
at these texts with a with a hermeneutic
of suspicion.
But the Quran says something different. You know?
The Quran says they recognize the prophet
like they recognize one of their own sons.
So the prophet
when
and and, you know, I don't think people
as most historians would dispute the fact that
the prophet
what made Hijra and then came back to
Mecca and conquered Mecca.
I mean, I think this is something that
is just just well known,
in the history of the prophet
and then when he came into Mecca, what
did he say? He
said, Right? There's no blemish on you today.
Mhmm. Quoting from Surah Yusuf
because it seems like he recognized himself as
being this type of Josephine archetype
or antitypes or the type and antitype.
You have this sort of
these sort of prophetic markings,
about him. In in Mecca,
he was like,
Isa alaihis salam. He was like Jesus, peace
be upon him,
where he his preaching was
nonviolent,
completely nonviolent, but a principled
nonviolence,
right, where you take a stand uncompromising
with with, his, theology and morality.
And then in Medina, now he's in a
position of power. Now he's more Mosaic.
He's like Musa, and and there's Jews
in,
in Medina,
right,
that that recognized that about him.
I mean, Sahib al Khare tells us that,
you know, Jews would come and and sit
in his presence, and they would sneeze on
purpose.
And it says they were hoping that the
prophet would say to them,
Right?
May Allah have mercy upon you because many
of them knew he was a prophet.
Mhmm. And the prophet Subhanallah.
Wow. He would say to them,
may Allah guide you,
and and and rectify your understanding.
Right? Because there's no reason for them to
reject his prophecy.
They came up with all types of excuses.
And even Jews in the medieval period, they
came up with excuses. Like, he's not he's
not a Jew.
Prophecy is only for the Jews. And so
the Quran makes an argument.
What about Abraham? Is he Jewish?
Abraham, who is the first person called prophet
in the Torah,
whom the Jews refer to as
Abraham Avinu, our father Abraham. He is a
gentile. He's non Jewish.
One of the greatest prophets to ever live
is a non Jew.
So,
that's that's no excuse. Well, they say he
changed he abrogated parts of the Torah,
and you can't do that.
There were medieval rabbis
who believed that, yeah, a prophet can can
abrogate certain mitzvot, certain commandments, not the fundamental
commandments of the Torah, and the Quran does
not abrogate
the fundamental commandments
of the Torah. But certain other things,
that are not fundamental,
sure, but some of the rap just rabbi
Joseph Alba, we said, yeah. A prophet,
a prophet can certainly can certainly do that.
Right?
Mhmm.
So,
so this is just a different way of
looking at history.
You know?
We look at history. We recognize,
you know, these sort of markers of prophecy,
in the life of the prophet,
whereas the the skeptics will say, this is
just a recycled myth, and now they're applying
things to the prophet,
and they make critical assumptions about the Quran
because they've made those assumptions about the bible.
You know? So they'll say they'll say things
like, the Quran must have been written after
the prophet
because because the 4 gospels were written after
Isa alaihi salam.
This is a
a major mistake.
Mhmm. But that's what they wanted. They even
use the same terminology
Like Arthur Jeffrey, this Australian,
orientalist, he said the Uthmani codex is the
textus receptus
of Islam
and the Masoretic text of Islam. And John
Wansburrough
talked about the halachic and the Haggadic
exegesis of the using these biblical and Hebrew
terms because they want to graft,
the biblical method upon the Quran, and it
doesn't work. The reason it doesn't work is
because,
the Quran is a completely different text.
I mean, there are 0 manuscripts of the
New Testament,
that are extent
from the 1st century.
Okay? So if you ask a Christian, when
did when was the New Testament written?
Most Christians would say the entire New Testament
was written in the 1st century.
Okay?
But,
there are 0 extant manuscripts
of any New Testament
book,
from the 1st century.
It's just
0. I mean, it's it's not there.
The New Testament is is is not attested
in in any manuscript witnesses,
in in its 1st century. However, we have
the entire Quran in 7th century manuscripts.
You know? So, like, when I talked about
John Wansborough, he was a professor,
at SOAS in London,
and his his theory decades ago was very
popular.
His theory was that the Quran was written
in the latter half of the 8th
century. The Quran was written in the latter
half of the 8th century
in Iraq
and that the prophet never even existed.
Okay?
This was his opinion.
Okay? And it was very popular at that
time.
And Patricia Cronet. Right? She was his student,
and she's the one who peddled this idea.
There's nothing about Mecca. It's probably Petra, and
there's still people who peddle this nonsense today.
Right? This highly radical revisionism.
But then,
they found manuscripts,
dozens of manuscripts
that are written
in the 7th century.
Right? So
Wansbrough and and his entire ilk
are just totally falsified
historically.
Right?
So the Quran and bible are very, very
different. Today, you'll find historians will say that
the gospel of Luke maybe was written in
the 2nd century.
Maybe the book of Acts was written in
the second the gospel of John probably written
in the 2nd century. Why do they say
this? It's because there's nothing there's no manuscript
of the Bible that is extent that's dated
to the 1st century.
So the Quran does not have that problem.
Mhmm. And so so when it comes to
the flood then,
because of because the Quran is is very
general
about it. It explains
what exactly happened, but because it doesn't get
into the nitty gritties, it didn't it doesn't
get into the specifics whether or not it's
universal
or particular.
It's very easy for us to affirm it.
And Yeah. Because that's not that's not an
important point.
Yeah. That that's that's sort of missing the
picture.
So so what
so the I mean, it's a hard question
to answer. There are number of lessons
from the story of Nuh alaihi sallam.
But what's one that that you think kind
of really sticks out
about, the whole flood narrative?
Yeah. Well, you know, something that a lot
of people struggle with nowadays, especially in light
of the current zeitgeist, the sort of spirit
of this
age, is their children, you know, turning away
from the religion. Mhmm. You know, this is
this is very, very common.
You have,
you know, you have children that are because,
you know,
what children are exposed to today, I mean,
it's just, it's unbelievable what they have to
go through,
in school, the curriculum in school, public school,
in social media.
You know? What what what they actually act
show on television
nowadays,
like, at these award shows.
I mean, just 20 years ago, that would
have been, you know, hardcore *,
considered hardcore
*. It's just on on network television and
prime time.
You know?
And,
and and so children today,
they struggle mightily with with keeping their faith.
And a lot of them feel like,
they,
will sort of let their parents down or
something if they if they bring these these
these issues,
these
that they're dealing with to the forefront. So
they keep things to themselves. And then, you
know, after some time, just, you know, the
faith is sort of just
ringed out of them. So, you know, with
the story of Nuh
his son, Right?
One of his sons,
was not a believer. Right?
So,
and he's a prophet.
Nuh alayhi salam. It's not just a prophet.
He's a Rasul, and some of the he's
the first Rasul. He's the first one to
actually receive a revelation that was ordered to
take it to the people.
Right? And his own son
was an unbeliever.
So at the end of the day, we
just have to do the best we can.
Mhmm. Right? We can't force anyone to believe
in anything.
At the end of the day, we leave
it in the hands to in in in
the qadr of Allah
Right?
And so I think that's one of the
lessons we can take from the story of
Nuhal alaihi salaam is that we have to
do the best we
can. We have to strive,
especially for the sake of our family, our
children.
But at the end of the day, this
thing is out of our hands.
That Allah
tells the prophet
Awesome.
You are not you are not guiding them.
It is not upon you to guide them,
but Allah guides them.
Right?
And then, like, on the occasion of the
death of Abu Talib.
Right?
Right? You cannot guide all whom you love,
right, which is an indication that the prophet
loved Abu Talib. Of course, that was his
uncle. He raised the prophet,
but God guides whomever he wills.
Right?
SubhanAllah.
So there's a certain type of, you know,
comfort we take in the taslim of the
Qadr.
There are people who don't believe in Qadr,
and they're just living in the past, And
they they have miserable lives.
Right?
And they and they and they kinda just
stop functioning, and they have to take drugs
all day just to get out of bed
and go to work and get to sleep.
So it's it's part of,
it's part of the blessing of being a
Muslim
that we actually can have taslim. We can
have a type of,
of submission to the Qadr of Allah.
Right? So that's one of the lessons we
could take from it. Also, the fact that
Allah,
he is, you know, he is Rahman Ar
Rahim. Right? He's Ghafoor Rahim,
but he's also.
Mhmm. Right?
That,
Allah
is Al Muntaqim.
Right? That Allah
has
and
attributes.
K k. Can you translate these terms? Yeah.
So Allah
is most merciful.
He is the most gracious.
He is the,
he is,
the one who forgives our sins. He's.
He is the most,
he's the forgiving,
but he's also severe in punishment.
Right? He is the, revenger.
Right?
So there's this sort of dual aspect,
with our theology that Allah
has these jamali,
these beautiful qualities, as well as these majestic
or qualities of rigor.
Right? And that's what we learned from the
flood narrative because on Christianity,
you know, the first the first,
epistle of John says, god is love.
God is love. Right?
So, you know, that's that's a hard statement
to justify
in light of the flood.
That's that's a hard statement to justify in
light of,
you know, God putting people into * for
eternity. If God is love, if he's essentially
love, is the Quran doesn't say that.
Mhmm. God is.
He is loving.
Allah is loving, but he's also.
He's also severe in punishment.
Right?
So, again,
we we don't we can explain these things
with much more coherence,
from our theology.
Whereas in in in Christianity, for example, it's
very hard to talk about
God being love.
Right? And God and this is this is
not even the teaching of the Bible, but
this is sort
of sort of, what you'll find with Christian
polemics and apologists. They'll say, God loves everyone,
even the worst of sinners and things like
that. That's not the teaching of the bible.
But the Quran, you know, the Quran,
God hates
first of all, the Quran never says in
the Quran, Allah
never says he hates anybody.
Right? Bad caffeine. He doesn't love the,
but he never uses hate. But in the
bible, in the book of Psalm chapter 5,
the lord abhors,
hates the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.
Right? So that's what it says. And so,
this idea that that, you know, that god
is love, which is a new testament theology,
it's very hard to reconcile that with old
testament stories, especially ones like the flood,
or even this whole idea of of *,
the existence of *. We don't have that
baggage again.
Right? Because we know that Allah
We know that when we study theology,
Allah has these attributes
of rigor and attributes of of of majesty
and attributes of beauty and mercy.
The
last thing I wanted to ask you, doctor
Ali, now that we've gone into biblical and
the Quranic narrative,
And this is
obviously purely theoretical.
We don't need
to get into this topic,
but I it's just an interest of mine
is where exactly
what
where what people did Nuh alayhi salaam go
to?
So there was this article that I that
I read, and the author was arguing
that Nuh alaihi salaam was actually sent to
the subcontinent.
And some of the evidence that the individual
cited is that the flood narrative
plays a quite central role within Hinduism.
So for instance, we have Hindu texts such
as we have the Purana.
We had the we have the Bhagavad Gita.
They talk about the flood and how it
destroys the world. It's it's quite detailed. Yeah.
They have this they have the argument that
there is this character who you can explain
more about named Manu,
and they believe that Manu is Nuh alayhi
salaam.
That their calendars for begin with
from what I've read, their calendars begin with
this
flood narrative,
with the
similarly, the Hindu calendar begins with the epoch
of the flood, and it's something they constantly
reference. And there was this hadith. I don't
know if it's authentic or not, but the
author used it in which it said that
on beyama, on the day of judgment,
the people of Nuh alaihis salaam are
they don't recognize who their prophet is. They
don't recognize who was sent to them.
What whether it
always said something that, you know, they would
they wouldn't Allah would say say to them,
irrespective of the hadith, irrespective of the hadith.
What I find quite fascinating is
we have no we we don't know the
people that knew Hala Salam was sent to,
and there's only one
major world religion
in which you cannot trace the origins back
to and or to one specific person
to say this is in Buddhism, you can
say Buddha.
In, Christianity,
you can say, okay. You know, is
Isad, al Islam, and all the other prophets.
We have our prophets.
Confucianism, you have Confucius. But in Hinduism,
they have
these characters, but they don't really have
their prophet, like the main founder. And so
I just think I just think it was
interesting just looking at the parallels between the
2. Yeah. It's very interesting. It's it's very,
very fascinating.
You know, the Quran says
that we we raised amongst every people
a
messenger. Right?
So, yeah, conceivably,
you know, ancient India received profits. Ancient China,
received profits.
Maybe ancient, Greece.
Again, I would say that,
so who who are the people of Nuh,
alayhisam?
I don't know. But it it it does
seem, again, like there's this shared historical memory
of some flood
that happened in the world,
that had
global implications.
Right?
Because you do find this in in you're
right. In in Hindu text and Buddhist text,
you find it obviously in Judeo Christian text,
in the in the Quran,
and in in many different,
civilizations across the world.
You you find this this story. So there
there has to be something to that. Mhmm.
Exactly.
So simply dismissing these things as mythology
or something that,
you know, something that is just,
pure fantasy or as the
Mhmm. As the Quran says, quoting the detractors
of the Quran. These are just sort of
fairy tales, tales of the ancients. They're not
they're not true.
That doesn't make sense to me to do
that. Something definitely happened. Mhmm. Right?
So, yeah, I mean, I don't know who
it was. I think it might have been
one of the enlightenment philosophers. He,
who, you know, who's not a scholar of
religion, obviously, but he said something like there's
apparently etymological
similarities between,
the names of certain patriarchs
and and, Hindu deities
like Brahma,
Abraham,
and Sarah and Saraswati.
Right?
And,
what is it? Yokshan and Krishna.
So
there there's probably nothing there, but I think
I think his point was that that,
it's possible that
these these stories these stories of the patriarchs
in the Judeo Christian Islamic tradition of Ibrahim
alaihi salaam and of Sarah alaihi salaam,
and,
and Isma'il alayhis salam, that these stories
at some point did reach India,
and
that maybe some of these Hindu texts,
were influenced
by these by these stories. Not not necessarily
influenced by the Pentateuch or the Torah,
but the actual sort of oral tradition of
these things actually happening
before the Torah or Pentateuch was even written
that had traveled into India, and then the
Indians are receiving these traditions. And then over
time, they sort of appropriated the names of
these peoples and developed their own type of,
sacred narratives.
So you you know you know what's actually
interesting is we,
there was a Mughal prince named,
prince Mohammed Dara Shukoh,
who was the brother of Aurangzeb, and he
was a scholar of Islam and Hinduism. He
knew he he studied Hinduism with the Hindu
scholars,
and he wrote his famous book, Majma'al Bahrain,
the meeting of the 2 c's, and the
2 c's he referenced was Islam and Hinduism.
And when he
and there's a number of similarities, and the
whole book is just on the similarities
between the two religions. It's been translated into
English.
But one of the interesting things he mentions
there is he said, if you look at
the Brahman gods I mean, the the Hindu
gods of Brahman,
Shiva, and Vishnu.
Mhmm. These and you can correct me. These
are the gods of destruction,
of life,
and
Yeah. So Brahma, creation
Yeah. And then Vishnu of preservation
Vishnu. And Shiva of destruction.
Destruction.
And what he does is he says these
are
very similar
to the 3 angels of Jibril,
Israfil, and Mikael.
Because one of them, I think,
Israfil
is the destroyer.
Mikael,
I probably should have revised this.
But he he explains how the those 3
angels fit those 3 there in Hinduism, which
is quite interesting.
Yeah.
I mean,
Abu Rehan al Biruni,
who was a famous Muslim, probably the founder
of the discipline of comparative religion.
He wrote a book famous book,
the the annals of India.
I got it right here.
Yeah. And he he says that, at its
theological
core,
Hinduism is a monotheistic
religion.
But, and then he explains this sort of
what's known as a 2 tiered model of
religion, which is something that David Hume also
wrote about. And it's this idea that,
people that are not philosophically
sort of adept
and have problems with, you know, sort of
abstract ideas,
they need stories. They need narratives.
They need to place their love in something
physical, like a statue or an idol or
something like that.
And so the masses,
because they
because they did not have the ability to
think in in the abstract,
they
proliferated this type of idolatry
from a an essential,
monotheistic
core,
right,
which is a very interesting idea. So in
other words,
Hinduism in its in its essential
teaching believes in one god, and that god
is Brahman.
Right? Brahman,
which has a dual etymology. It means to
breathe.
It also means to be great. So it's
like the great breath
of existence.
But over time, people began and and, you
know, you can imagine, like, Brahmin philosophers
or Hindu philosophers,
talking about different aspects or attributes of Brahmin
as creating and destroying and sustaining.
Mhmm. But Brahmin, the Khaleq, you know, the
Brahmin, you know, the the Rab and things
like that.
And then over time,
the general masses,
basically deviating, and this is the word that
the al Biruni
he calls it the Arabic word in hit
off, a type of deviation from Tawhid
where they started to,
basically
Turn those attributes into gods. Into gods. Exactly.
They would,
anthropomorphize,
these attributes
of god.
And
so for the sake of sort of
facilitating the understandings
of the of the laity, But then over
time, people started to think, well, these are
separate gods. Exactly.
And now this pantheon of gods arises in
the Hindu con in the Hindu,
consciousness, whereas at its theological core and origin,
it was just Brahmin.
Mhmm. Right? And this is also I mean,
you can correct me also, but this is
also if if you read the philosophical
books of Hinduism,
such
as the Bhagavad Gita, the Puranas,
they really indicate
one one god.
Yeah. No. Yeah. Brahmin is god.
Right? There's one god. So,
you know, it Hinduism became a polytheistic religion.
And some some theologians, they don't like the
term polytheism with respect to
Hinduism. They'd rather call it polymorphic
polymorphic
monotheism
and this idea that sort of god takes
on
different
forms, but it's but it's still god. This
is not you know, it's it's still problematic,
obviously, Mhmm. Because,
you know, through the passage of time, you
do have this in hit off, this deviation,
from Tawhid.
And this has happened over 100 and 100
of years. And this could happen quite quickly,
actually, because we know I mean, the the
origins of of Hinduism, as you stated,
they're very murky, but we know that Isa
alaihi salam was a prophet. There's no doubt
about that. Mentioned in the Quran.
And but by the time we get the
gospels,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, written in 70,
80,
90,
and a 100,
you have, you know, a a breach of
Tawhid. These four books are not teaching Tawhid.
You know?
That's that's
that's my opinion, at least,
that that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John written,
you know,
Mark, at least, written, you know, 40 years
after Isa alaih salam
is is is presenting
Isa alaih salam as a divine being. I
don't believe that Mark is saying that Jesus
is the God, but he's definitely a divine
son of God. I think this the text
actually presents him as a as a sort
of a lesser deity. This is in the
sort of,
with the sort of backdrop of a of
a of a of a Greek metaphysic.
But you you know, doctor Ali, the best
example
for me
about deviation from religion comes
with the story of Musa, alayhis salaam, when
he goes to
the mountain to meet Allah
for 40 days.
I mean, I I I really think about
this. You imagine here you have one of
the greatest messengers ever,
and he's with his people. And they've seen
him, and they've seen the flood.
They've seen the miracle he's done. They know
without a doubt he is a prophet,
but he goes for 40 days, and by
the time he comes back, they're worshiping a
golden calf.
Yeah. And and the crazy thing is, doctor
Ali, is they still had a prophet,
which was Harun alayhis salam with them.
But just just within 40 days, they were
able to turn that quickly back into polytheists.
That that's all it takes.
Yeah. And,
yeah. And, like, you know, this is,
again, going back to our sort of current
situation in the world
where the the strange and unorthodox and the
very the very, very
is now becoming
the normal.
Mhmm. And this is a prophecy. You know
you know,
that this dean started.
It started strange,
and then it became sort of normative. Right?
And then it's going to return to be
strange
once again. So glad tidings to the strangers.
Mhmm. You know? So,
and
and so, yeah, nowadays, you have Muslims that
believe in very strange things,
that still identifies Muslim.
You know, they you have Muslims that I
mean, I don't wanna get into specifics,
but you can imagine some of the opinions
that some of our Muslim so called leaders
hold about certain issues,
that are clearly antithetical
to our tradition,
to our morality, to our ethics, to our
theology,
and they'll justify in certain ways. And the
young people, I mean, it's just,
it's it's, it's becoming a total circus.
Mhmm. They they they have a lot of
problems, you know,
trying to determine what is what is Islam
even. Like, what is this what is this
religion? So now the ulama, they talk about,
you know, making dawah to Muslims.
Whereas before, you don't make dawah to Muslims.
You make dawah to non Muslims.
You give nasiha
to Muslims.
But now the aqeedah of of people who
identify as Muslim
is so out of whack
Mhmm. Right, is so unrecognizable,
is so strange
that,
that,
you know, that they they actually require a
type of dua to bring them back into
back into the Mhmm. Into the,
into the tradition.
And that's another word that they don't like
is tradition and and normative. And all of
these are sort of, you know, microaggressions.
They they trigger these sort of
reactions in in in in certain people. But
but that's our that's our religion.
Right? You know, doctor Ali, just to just
to close off, I wanna
reiterate a point that you began the podcast
with, which is this notion that Islam is
a rational religion. It's a rational faith and
that we have proofs for why we believe
in things.
Mhmm. And
if a person is struggling with a topic,
the answer is not that Islam
does not have an answer for it, but
more so you haven't found the answer for
it, but Islam hasn't. And so something like
the flood, something which is not
that big of an issue,
is one that some some Muslims
do deny
because of their insistence that the only way
to understand reality is according to what the
leading secular scientists,
historians, archaeological
archaeologicalists
believe. And so
this was an attempt to show this was
one example of addressing a topic.
But any other topic we have, whether it's
proving the existence of God, which you've done
a podcast on, we have evidence for it.
Whether it's affirming the prophecy of the prophet
we have we have,
we have miracles, and we have evidence for
it. When it comes to proving
the the fact that the Quran is a
revelation from Allah, we have evidence for it.
We are an evidence based religion.
It is not irrational to believe in Islam,
or rather it is irrational not to believe
in Islam.
Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly.
You know,
the great universities
of
of,
of, western civilization, they all started off. Most
of them started off as as seminaries.
Right? You know, Harvard Harvard and Yale and,
you know,
of course, in in the Muslim world,
because belief in God was an absolute given.
Everybody believed in God.
Mhmm. To not believe in God,
right, this was seen as irrational. This was
seen
as something that is just,
an extreme
position that,
that,
is
just basically
something that,
you know, kind of crazy people
ascribe to.
The
greatest minds who ever
lived,
they recognized,
you know, a a
whatever you wanna call it, a higher power
or a transcendent reality,
this is absolutely fundamental.
You know? So
one of the diseases of our age is
this idea of material reductionism,
that, you know, it's it's if you can't
see it, you can't smell it. It doesn't
exist.
And a lot of Muslims, unfortunately, falling into
this,
this type of,
falling for this type of polemic,
and,
really this anti traditional,
anti religious
polemic where religion is painted as as irrational,
as misogynistic
and, you know,
homophobic
and, you know, transphobic and all these types
of things that they all these types of
buzzwords. And and Muslims of the academy, at
least in Western Academy,
they don't wanna be labeled these things. Right?
Mhmm. So, you know, it's it's gonna be
fight or flight.
You know? And,
you know, kids today, they have a lot
of stress. They have to deal with a
lot of things.
They don't they don't want to fight. They
just kind of,
you know, they let these things kind of
simmer, and then eventually, it sort of it
works on them
and,
and without recourse to to sound scholarship because,
you know,
you know, none of these issues
you know, you know, it's like it's
like
a a a a Muslim scholar recently. He
said he he misspoke,
and he said that, you know, there are
there there there are there are,
you know,
the our our narrative has has issues,
has,
hold that. Yeah, that that western academics,
are poking now,
that we're not equipped to to handle.
I don't think that's true at all. I
think we have. I think our narrative is
sound. I think our narrative I mean, there's
nothing that anyone can say that, you know,
our our theologians
and our philosophers,
in our in our in our classical exudes,
they haven't thought of these things before. Of
course, they thought of these things. We just
have to find them, and we have to
we have to learn them. You know? So
that's, there's nothing new being presented.
Exactly. Exactly.
The idea all of these topics that I
mentioned of proving the existence of God, proving
the prophecy of the prophet,
proving the Quran is a miracle,
proving the Quran is preserved. All of these
answers came at least 8, 900 years ago.
And Yeah. I mean, the fact the fact
that the Quran you know, there's a challenge
issued in the Quran, produce a chapter like
into the Quran, produce a recital
like in the like unto the Quran. And
this was you know, the first challenge is
in Mecca,
and today, the Quran is universally
accepted by by secular historians as being the
greatest masterpiece
in the Arabic language,
whether you believe or think that there's something
comparable to it or not. That fact by
itself
is a is a reason to just pause
for a second
and say, okay. A man in Mecca,
an unlettered man in Mecca in the 7th
century is saying that this book
is going to be basically the
the sui generis
of the Arabic language,
right, the magnum opus of the Arabic language,
and it is today. Mhmm. That's right.
Even if you believe that whatever, you know,
or whoever poet or,
whatever this poet's name was who tried to
mimic the Quran.
People haven't even heard of these people, which
means that it's nowhere near
the the, it's not near the it's not
on par with the Quran at all.
But just that fact that the Quran
to this day
is is the is the the masterpiece in
the Arabic language, that should give you a
moment to just pause
and say there's something about this book. Mhmm.
You know, there's something about it. Right? You
might not you might not say, well, it's
a it's a revelation, but there's something about
it. Mhmm. That's just one piece of evidence.
Just one piece of the puzzle here.
And and and like the you know, just
today in Arabic class, the idea that
perhaps the only reason why the Arabic language
was preserved is because of the Quran.
And that Yeah. In rules for Arabic today,
the the source that they quote as to
why this is the ruling in in necro
and grammar and logic is the sources of
Quran. So they always return back to this.
They don't return back to, you know, pre
Islamic Arabia with other texts. No. The the
it's the Quran. So all of Arabic, they
have to turn back to this book. Yeah.
And, also exactly. And and one of the
one of the of the Nabooah, one of
the,
fruits of of prophecy
of the prophets of the. He was the
greatest monotheist who ever lived, the most successful
monotheist, okay, who ever lived. So the Jews
I mean, a rabbi once told me, he
said, we cannot just ignore him
because the the the Jewish claim to fame
is toheed.
You know, their claim their claim to fame
is we brought toheed to the world.
Right? But the greatest monotheist by far no
one's even in the same ballpark.
The greatest monotheist, most successful monotheist of all
time is the prophet.
So he told me, we just can't ignore
we have to say something.
So some of our rabbis said, okay. He
was a go'el. Go'el in Hebrew means like
a.
Like, he like he's a renewer of of
Tawhid.
So he was
kind of a prophetic figure, and others said
that he was a he was a prophet.
He's a. He was a true prophet, but
he's only sent to the Gentiles, not to
the Jews. So in other words Mhmm. 99%
of the they so there's something there. There's
something about him. You can't just ignore him.
You can't just dismiss the Quran. You can't
just dismiss the prophet. So The Jews dismiss
the Christian Jesus, and they can do that
because the Christian Jesus I'm not talking about
the real Jesus.
The Christian Jesus
does not teach Towheed.
Okay? He commits blasphemy in the New Testament.
He makes false prophecies in the New Testament.
So the Jews can just ignore him, put
him aside completely and say, you know, because
that's a big that's a deal breaker. Mhmm.
Right? If a if a prophet is claiming
prophecy and he's not teaching Tawhid,
that's a deal breaker. We just put him
aside. But they can't do that with the
prophet.
They And, you know, they Mhmm. They they
call us they don't they don't call us
monotheists. They call us radical monotheists.
Yeah. Exactly.
A radical type of monotheism.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is,
you know,
this is you know, and and and, like,
medieval medieval rabbis,
you know, they they they would, you know,
you know, try to use any type of
excuse not to believe
in the universality of the message of the
prophet, sallallahu alaihi salam.
But all of these reasons, they they collapse.
You know, there none of them are strong.
There's an interesting book written by
a a former,
medieval, rabbi named,
Shamuel Ben Yehuda Al Maghribi. It's called Ifhamal
Yehud, the confounding of the Jews, where he
actually goes through all of these excuses
that that the rabbis give as to why
they're not going to believe and obey the
prophet,
and he just completely takes them apart 1
by 1. There's no reason not to believe
in him. Mhmm. You know, when your claim
to fame is Tauhid,
and you're disbelieving
in the greatest who
ever lived,
then there's a there's a problem with with
with with your judgment.
Mhmm. Exactly.
So,
just on a closing note, I just wanna
end off with a hadith,
from our beloved prophet Muhammad
who said that a time will come when
holding on to one's religion will be like
holding on to a hot coal.
And
within Islamic history, you will see that
Muslims
have always had many problems they had to
combat, but the ideological combat, which is alive
and thriving today, is the biggest threat for
us,
holding on to our faith. But the important
principle
to always remember
is our our religion is based on evidence.
It's based on reason, and we go wherever
the evidence goes. If the evidence,
if all of the evidence in totality
proves that Islam is true, we follow it.
And that's what our scholars have said. That's
what the great
historians and people who've converted to Islam have
said. So,
if you have any final thoughts, doctor Ali,
please share them.
Yeah. I would just, you know, second that
thought,
and say that, you know, this is this
is a this is a a, a religion
where the pursuit of knowledge
is is central. The first word revealed of
the Quran is,
which means to read.
There's many, many ayaat in the Quran,
where we are commanded,
to seek knowledge and to use our intellects,
you know, and to to ask the people
of knowledge if we don't know some.
Right?
Are those equal, those who know and those
who don't know? So we're constantly,
commanded by Allah
to use our intellects, to use reason,
to engage with people, to find evidence. Right?
The Quran commands us to ask the people
of the book
for evidence for their claims.
Mhmm. Where is your proof? Where is your
evidence if you speak the truth?
So so people have to keep that in
mind. Okay? This is this is a religion
of the thinking person.
This is a religion you know, it's really
we're really and I've said this before, you
know, in the past. We're really becoming the
last line of defense
in all of this this postmodern
craziness.
You know,
many of the churches in the world, they've
let, you know, these sort of circus through
the doors,
and
they're teaching things that are clearly antithetical
to biblical tradition. And although a lot of
Muslims are falling into this,
we know that there's always going to be,
according to the promise of the prophet, there's
always going to be people that are on
the truth, on on the Haqq,
who are going to have a difficult time,
you know, dealing with this kind of dominant
zeitgeist. So,
you know, life is short. My my parting
advice is life is too short to be
a sellout.
You know? If you're, you know, in if
you're a teenager or if you're in your
twenties, believe me, life is going to move
so quickly.
You know? Before you know it, you're going
to be 40 years old. You're going to
be 50, 60 years old. It moves very,
very quickly. It's not worth,
you know, selling your dean, okay, because you
don't want to deal with,
you know,
a type of, you know,
you know, people mocking you and things like
that because this is what's happening. There's there's.
There are a lot of people that are
mocking. Just don't go on the Internet. I
mean,
you know, it's,
you know, it's people,
you know, they they go down these Internet
rabbit holes.
Right? Yeah. And a lot of these people,
again, they have they have personal issues
that are behind the scenes. We don't know
what they're what they're up to, what they're
doing. They misrepresent their religion. They present, you
know, like, this whole idea of variant readings.
They'll show, like,
you know, a a Quran written in in
Warash next to a Quran that's written in,
in in haf's, and he'll say, look. Look
at the difference here. And, you know, the
Quran is is there's a difference in the
there's a contradiction in the Quran and a
lot of Muslims because
they haven't studied traditional texts. They don't have
a solid Islamic education. They think,
yeah. My my imam or this this lied
to me. He told me the Quran is
exactly the same, and, no, the Quran is
a multiformic text, and it has been multiformic
since the beginning.
You know? So these are things we have
to know because our enemies
are basically weaponizing our tradition against us because
they're taking advantage of our ignorance.
Mhmm.
Thank you so much, doctor Ali. Always a
great time. No problem. I would recommend everyone
to look at some of other of doctor
Ali's talks, especially his talks on blogging theology.
And he has referenced the preservation of the
Quran,
that,
throughout throughout this, podcast, but he's gonna be
doing a formal one, which will be coming
out on the blogging theology YouTube channel soon.
So for everybody interested in that topic, feel
free to check it out there. So thank
you so much for joining us, doctor Arlie.
Doctor. Langhar, thanks for having me. Good to
see you.
Thank you everybody for listening.
We will see you
soon.