Ali Ataie – How Do We Fortify Faith in These Faithless Times
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
So my topic is how do we fortify
faith in these faithless times?
That is to say, how do we strengthen
our iman in the face of such disbelief
in the modern world?
So the the answer is actually quite simple.
The answer is by dedicating ourselves to seeking
knowledge.
So the prophet
Muhammad
that seeking knowledge is an obligation
upon every Muslim. So there's a reason why
it's an obligation.
There's a reason why he,
he said everything in the dunya is a
person.
Okamathada. He said that everything in the world
is a person except three things. The remembrance
of Allah
and whatever is beloved to Allah
and the teacher and student of Elam, of
knowledge.
And there's a reason why the only thing
in the Quran that Allah
commands us to ask him for an increase
in
his knowledge,
which also happens to be the Secunda College
school motto.
Some universities, they have,
like, Fiat and Luxe, let there be light
from the gospel or Luxe et Perotas,
light and,
truth.
That's truth with a capital t.
You know, these other schools no longer teach
traditional religion
nor even objective
truth.
Now they teach that truth is relative
and scripture is archaic
and irrelevant,
even oppressive.
But scripture cannot be ignored,
so it must be radically reinterpreted
in light of the current zeitgeist or prevailing
culture.
So let me say a few more things
about the state of modern academia.
Colleges and universities in the west, in particular,
are becoming,
total disasters.
Absolutely toxic
for people of traditional
faith.
The so called higher learning academia
is becoming fundamentally
anti theistic.
So at first, academia was theistic.
Right? So,
like, Harvard and Yale and,
Georgetown, these actually started as Christian seminaries.
Education used to be sought primarily
for the sake of God.
There was a theistic worldview,
a metaphysic
that was based on scripture
and tradition,
and then academia became atheistic.
It was an atheistic term at some point.
So there's no God. And if you believe
in God,
that's your business. Just keep God out of
here, out of the institution.
But now in this post mon postmodern,
post truth
world,
academia has become anti theistic.
Right? Which really means 2 things. Number 1,
the belief in God and practice of religion
need to go. Just throw it all out.
Or if you insist on believing in God,
that's okay, but you must reject traditional religion.
You must change your beliefs
for the sake of hurt feelings.
Otherwise, you are a patriarchal misogynist,
homophobic,
transphobic,
regressive
bigot.
There are still a few
Catholic colleges
that continue to, you know, keep it real
as they say. Thomas Aquinas College, I think
they make their faculty and students,
pledge that they are committed to the Magisterium,
which is the traditional
teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church, the
Papa Maria
University as well.
You know, with Setuunah, if you're not familiar
with Setuunah, Setuunah College is the first ever
accredited
Muslim College in North America. Our founders are
pillars of the community.
Our fundamental metaphysics and worldview
are rooted in traditional Islam, Sunni Islam.
And we teach both the Islamic and Western
tradition as well as both canons, so seminal
texts in both traditions.
So students, they read,
they read Klazali, they read Vitemia, they read
Suyuti, they also read Aristotle, Plotinus, and Aquinas.
We teach the Trivium,
which is grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
So these are the liberal arts. Right?
You know, when people hear the phrase liberal
arts, they often get the wrong ideas.
They hear the word liberal, and they think
the political left,
they think Joe Biden
or Beto or Rourke.
They hear arts,
and they think underwater basket weaving.
So the word liberal
comes from
the Latin for freedom.
So these are the freeing tools grammar, logic,
and rhetoric.
These are tools that free our minds. They
allow us to think critically.
They allow us to think outside the box.
These are the most powerful tools that one
could possibly possess.
Why? Because they can move the world.
The most influential people in history were masters
of these tools.
As one of my teachers said, the prophet
Muhammad
was the most logical human being. He was
always grammatically correct
and was the most rhetorically powerful person who
ever lived.
So language is very powerful,
and advocates of the current Zeitgeist understand this.
If they can control our language, then they
can control our ideas.
Stanford University just released something called the harmful
language guide.
I don't know if you're familiar with this,
but Stanford University,
it is now considered harmful to say the
word American.
You can't say American.
You can't say immigrant.
You can't use expressions like beating a dead
horse.
You've heard this expression?
Because apparently, if you say beating a dead
horse,
you're more prone to abusing animals.
You can't say the word landlord or manpower
or stupid or homeless person or prostitute.
You have to say a person engaged in
* work and we wouldn't want to offend
the prostitutes.
The
tragic aspect of this
is that these free tools are seldom taught
anymore,
and people don't really value them anymore. There's
a reason for this. The elites who imagine
themselves in control of this world
don't want people to think for themselves.
They want people to become cogs in some
corporate machine.
They put it into our heads that unless
we study STEM
or their version
of the humanities
and social sciences,
then not only will we be financially
impoverished,
we will also be socially
outcast.
Cancelled, as they say.
So this is what the sheikhon does. He
threatens us with poverty.
They want to destroy the nuclear family
because individuals are easier to control,
than family units.
People are more likely to acquiesce to tyranny
if they are alone as opposed to having
a spouse and children.
So they want men and women to hate
each other.
This is cultural Marxism,
and this is happening right now. This is
an epidemic.
We have things like the big tau movement,
men going their own way, men swearing off
women.
We have incels, men work, involuntarily celibate, can't
find spouses,
And we have the rise of radical and
militant feminism
amongst women
where they are taught by their college professors
to denounce marriage.
Marriage,
as being oppressive,
even a form of slavery.
Because everything for these people is power dynamics.
Right? They make the false assumption that human
beings
are constantly motivated by power and nothing else.
It's a very cynical worldview.
These postmodern philosophies
bifurcate
the world into 2 classes, the oppressed and
the oppressor.
That's cultural Marxism.
And ironically, those who are often labeled as
oppressed are actually the oppressors
and vice versa.
So Tova and Shukur and Toaador
are thrown out the window. These are the
3 of the greatest,
what we consider to be theological
virtues.
Tova is repentance.
Shukur is gratitude.
Tawadur is humility.
So now Tova is replaced with living your
authentic self.
Right? Hey. Just accept yourself.
Right? There's nothing wrong with you.
If you don't think there's anything wrong with
you, why would you make tovah? Sugar is
replaced with self victimization.
Right? Sugar is gratitude. But if you're constantly
told that you're a victim,
why would you be grateful? Grateful for what?
I'm a victim.
Right? And to what we're humility is replaced
by off the charts narcissism.
The elites controlling this current zeitgeist want to
domesticate
men.
They want men to work from home, to
marry their computers,
to get fat,
and to eat bugs.
Why? Because traditional masculinity is apparently toxic.
They want women out in the workforce,
not at home managing a household
or raising children.
And women who prefer to take care of
the home are often shamed
and accused of, quote, internalizing
their patriarchy.
In fact, Rockefeller admitted that he supported feminism
for financial reasons.
The American government can now tax the other
half of the country
that wasn't previously working.
It was a big money grab.
So in the future,
people will wake up in the morning, you
know,
alone in their rented pods,
getting into their expensive
climate friendly electric cars
that the government can shut off remotely,
and go to some job and be a
cog in a corporate machine.
What a wonderful life.
So my advice is don't fall victim to
these things.
Our tradition
works.
Our Islamic tradition
works. It is tried and tested
for 1400
years. It comes from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Listen to the advice of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. Listen to the words of our prophet
Muhammad Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. He said that when
a man came to him and said,
yeah, Tell me something unique about this religion.
And the prophet said to him, very short,
concise,
beautiful,
but deep.
Say I believe in Allah
and be upright upon that.
So this is why nihilism is on the
rise.
Nihilism is this belief that there's no meaning
to anything. There's no meaning meaning to life.
This is why people are depressed. People are
drowning the notion
of meaninglessness.
But it's okay. Just amuse yourself on social
media. Just entertain yourself endlessly
with your technology.
Neil Postman, he talked about this in his
book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. This was a
few years ago, but he said that religion,
politics, and education are all becoming entertainment.
We need entertainment to dull our sense of
meaninglessness.
This is why we now have a 24
hour news cycle.
This is why now we have,
social media addiction,
Like TikTok and Instagram,
people spend hours and hours a day
on these things.
It's a quick dopamine hit. The average TikTok
video is about 11 seconds.
You just keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling.
Next thing you know, it's an hour later,
2 hours later, 3 hours later.
Right?
This is why we have
a pandemic of
Internet * addiction.
You know, a 10 year old child today
will see more sexually explicit images.
In 10 minutes,
than a 70 year old man who lived
pre Internet during his entire life.
In 10 minutes, a 10 year old child.
So our brains are being rewired.
These things clash with our fitrah, our natural
disposition.
The result of this is depression on a
massive scale.
But rather than seek out our true purpose
in life,
we fill the void with entertainment, with pleasure,
with hedonism.
What happened to modesty, to stoicism,
to discipline,
to piety before God?
So traditional values are being replaced
with
just do you,
and get it
and YOLO
and do what thou wilt.
Right?
So we have to take this very seriously.
Seeking knowledge is all over the Quran, Sunna.
It's absolutely central to our tradition.
Knowledge frees our mind and freedom is powerful.
What was the very first word
of the Quran
revealed to the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasall?
It was iqra.
Read. Right?
I saw a,
Christian magazine called Christianity Today,
and there was an there was an article
in this magazine
written by a Christian. They're all the the
writers are all Christian.
And
the,
the name of the article was the greatest
book never read.
The greatest book
never read. It was about the Bible. Here's
a Christian complaining about other Christians who who
never read the Bible.
And in this article he said
that he went to churches at random and
he was he asked Christians coming out of
church so these are people that
not only identify as Christian but actually go
to church.
And he said to them at random, can
you name the 4 gospels
in the New Testament?
Just name
them. And he says 50%
by 0%.
Could not even name
the 4 gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
People don't read.
How many Muslims? So I actually I actually
mentioned this to one of my teachers,
and he said
he said, you know,
I wonder how many Muslims coming out of
Salatul Jum'ah
can quote 1 hadith
of the prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
One hadith in Arabic.
How many Muslims know the names of the
Suras of the Quran?
Right? If I say Suras with An Kabut,
what Sura number is this? Anyone?
No?
29.
Alright.
How many Muslims can properly cite?
Iconic ayat.
You know what? You ever watch a football
game? And you see this guy in the
crowd completely drunk but only a big banner
that says John 316.
You ever see that John 360?
That's that's their verse. You know, they're sort
of Christian theology in a nutshell. We have
a
verse.
Right?
Our prophetology in a nutshell. What Surah is
this? What Ayah number is this?
Very seldom of us know these names. Ayatul
Kursi. Where is this in the Quran?
I'll call it 255, Marshall. That was kind
of an easy one, though.
How many Muslims can name
the children of the prophet sallallahu alaihi sala
or explain the difference between Farud and wajid
and sunnah mustahab.
These are basics.
So
is Nur.
Knowledge
is light, and light is guidance. And Arabic
is a sacred language. So it's not an
accident that if you rearrange
the trilateral root letters of the word, you
get
action.
Because a true elm, a true knower,
puts his elm into an amal, his knowledge
into practice.
These terms are related.
You know, there are Jewish professors of Islamic
studies with double PhDs
teaching all around the country. Are these urdama?
Of course not.
They don't put their knowledge into practice.
Now rearrange these letters again and you get
lamah,
which means light, luster,
radiance,
resplendence,
brilliance.
It's Ajit, knowledge plus action
equals
life. The word iman comes from the root
Amina.
Right? Which means to be safe
and secure.
The word iman is a form form infinitive.
Form foreign Arabic denotes causation.
So iman billah
or a mumin billah
is one who makes himself
safe,
billah by means of God.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is al mumin,
one of his asma'a al kursna,
the ultimate cause
of safety and security, the giver of iman.
So in the knowledge increases our imam.
And I actually prefer the word confidence as
a translation of imam
rather than the word faith. The English word
faith, unfortunately,
has been sullied
by the New Atheist Movement.
They define faith as belief without evidence.
Right?
So belief without evidence. And unless you say
I have faith in myself or something, or
I have faith in Bill Gates.
But if you say I have faith in
God, they say, oh, faith in God.
And so they set up this false dichotomy
with faith in God on one side
and reason and science and knowledge on the
other as if faith and knowledge
are diametrically opposed, as if faith and knowledge
are somehow incompatible
or antithetical.
And so many people unwittingly
indoctrinated
by their rhetoric,
think that they have to make a choice
between knowledge and faith.
So they choose knowledge and abandon the religious
tradition.
Right? And so they become atheists and agnostics
and deists, which means I believe in a
creator God, but I don't believe in a
religion or none. They become nones, not Catholic
nones.
Some of them become Catholic non, but not
really. N o n e s. These are
people who check none of the above
when it comes to religion.
So I say use the word confidence rather
than faith. What does confidence mean? Come from
the Latin
con with Fides.
Faith is the same meaning, but does it
carry the baggage of the work that the
word faith does? If you say to an
atheist,
are you a man of faith? Is it
no. No. No. Faith is for people who
don't think.
But if you say, are you a man
of confidence?
Oh, yes.
It's the same thing. Here's the point. Everyone
has confidence
in something.
The Quran does not entertain
atheism.
There's no such thing as atheism.
In the Quranic world view, everybody worships something.
The atheist has confidence
in the chef at the restaurant.
Right? That the chef won't poison him with
spoiled food.
The atheist has confidence in the pilot
of his airplane that he won't crash the
airplane.
The atheist has confidence in the l in
the
in the,
the architects and engineers of the elevator he's
about to to get into at the 15th
floor of some high rise building.
The atheist will claim, however,
that he has good reasons
for being with faith
when it comes to these things, And we
have good reasons
for being with faith
when it comes to Allah and his messenger.
This is not a,
a belief without evidence.
When we acquire knowledge, our confidence in Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and his messenger increases
and becomes stronger.
The atheist,
believes in
so the past is *. We don't have
access to the past. But if you ask
an atheist, what do you think about this
historical event in the past? He'll give his
response.
He'll give his his his opinion. That's technically
iman bil ray.
What did our master Ibrahim, Alaihi Salam, say
to his people?
We have to read the Quran. So his
speech is transhistorical.
In other words,
the speech of the Quran
is relevant for all times.
Okay? This is timeless.
There are timeless heba, timeless lessons
in the,
sacred narratives, the
of the Quran. These are not meaningless fairy
tales as the
say.
Have you really considered what you worship?
Ibrahim alayhi salam is telling his people, have
you really considered what you worship?
So one of our scholars, Imam al Razi
or Imo Abu Ta'ala, he says in his
tafsir
that these verses are one of the strongest
proofs
against theological
Taqleid
and for istidilal.
So make a note of these terms.
What is theological
taqidil?
It is blind conformance.
It is uncritical belief.
It is following someone without due inquiry.
It is to believe without evidence. So here
we can actually
use the new atheist
false
definition of iman
as an accurate definition of theological
taqleel,
belief without evidence.
Taqleel in matters of creed or theology
is unacceptable.
You have to be convinced
of your.
You must engage in istidla.
What is istidla? It means to seek a
dadeel.
Proofs and evidences.
So in this vein, the prophet
he said,
that asking good questions is half of knowledge.
You have to actually believe
what you claim to believe,
and you should be able to even be
a bit discursive
in your theology. In other words, you should
be able to explain and justify
your beliefs
even if it's just at a basic level.
We don't have to be theologians, but we
have to know something.
So if a teenager stops praying because his
father dies.
Right? Or if a teenager goes off to
college
and stops praying
and he was just making taqleet
of his father.
This is unacceptable.
This is not real confidence.
It's not real iman.
May Allah
guide
us. We should be able to explain, if
only to ourselves,
why God exists and why he is one.
We should be able to explain why we
believe in the prophet Muhammad salallahu alaihi wasallam,
that he's the messenger of God, and why
the Quran is the word of God. We
might use rational and historical linguistic
and scriptural proofs.
We believe because it is rational. Belief in
God is rational.
And all of God's commandments have a rational
components. So nathal and aacal,
which which is to say,
revelation and reason
cannot
ultimately
contradict
because they come from the same source.
And sometimes
a rationale of a certain commandment is mentioned
explicitly
in sacred text.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, Inna salatitanha
al faksha when will come.
Right? That indeed the prayer it prevents. In
faksha usually means some type of sexual sin.
Right? Indeed the prayer prevents one from sexual
deviancy
and wrong action.
If you have to pray 5 times a
day at different times with Uhuru,
engaging in Fasha and Mulkar become very, very
difficult.
And Imam Al Khortubi and Imam Zafashari, they
mentioned in their tafasir
that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he
said of a young man who prayed but
was inclined towards indecent acts,
soon his prayer will prevent him
from doing that.
This is time tested, but we have to
be patient and constant.
The prayer comes from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and we must trust the process. It works.
Don't leave the prayer.
This is very important.
But even here with the prayer,
right,
we don't know the reason for everything.
Why 5 times a day?
Why 4 units at Tohor, 3 at Maghrib.
Allahu 'alaam.
At some point,
we say, Aslamna.
We submit.
The religion is called Al Islam.
It's not called Al Yateen or Al Marifa
or something like that.
You know? I used to teach Arabic in
the masjid. My brother came in one time
and he said to me in the middle
of Arabic class basic Arabic class.
And he
said, I have a question. I've asked
numerous
and this and that. No one can answer
my question.
So okay. So maybe I don't know if
I can answer it. It's tough question. It's
about.
So
go ahead. I'll I'll give my best shot.
So this is what he said. He said,
why do I have to wash my hands
when I break wind?
And he said, this this
issue
is not allowing me to pray.
I need an answer. I need a rational
answer to this.
And and so I said, and you know,
although I don't need oh, no. No. No.
It's what they all say. Give me an
answer.
Okay.
So I
said, and the prayer sort of prepares us
the the wudu prepares us for the prayer.
It puts us in the right state of
mind. No. This is what all these
mollavies and mollas and
give me a scientific answer.
So I said and and excuse my crudeness.
I said, you know, when you break wind,
fecal particles fly up into the air, and
whatever goes up has to land.
So the border they're going to land on
your hand. You put your hand in your
mouth, you get sick. He said, oh,
And I was completely joking.
And he said, okay.
Alright.
And I was just sitting there making duas.
Don't ask me why we wash our feet.
So the point is that the Opham has
limitations.
It has a jurisdiction.
Right? What what did you have for lunch
18 days ago?
Good luck.
So in actual fact, submission to god is
intelligent.
The the true akhil, the truly intelligent one
submits to Allah.
Right? Because Allah is good, Allah is God,
and God is a source of all knowledge
and wisdom. You know, when in the Quran
we're told that when the Bani Israel were
leaving,
Egypt and they came to the Red Sea.
Right? They saw the the sea in front
of them. They saw Fir'aun and his Jurud
behind them. And they said,
this is it. We're done.
This is what their uncle suggested to them.
Right?
But Musa alayhi salaam, what did he say?
He said, by no means.
Indeed,
but my lord is with me. He will
guide me.
And Allah ordered
Musa,
strike the sea with your staff.
Right? And Musa, alayhi, salam, didn't say, oh,
Strike the scene with my stuff.
How is that going to what do you
think about? No. No. No. Immediately,
he did that.
Right? Sameera Nawa Ta'ala.
Why? Because he's dealing with Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. He's the true Aqid.
That is rational.
The
prophet,
he
said,
He said the intelligent one, the truly intelligent
one is the one who subdues his lower
self
and works for that which comes after death.
Why is that intelligent? Because the afterlife is
eternal. It's it's it's everlasting.
And the unintelligent
one is the one who puts
his desires,
who who who enslaves his desires
to his lower self and has vain hopes
in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Furthermore, there are things that we believe like
the day of judgment
that are super irrational.
In other words, unseen matters mentioned in sacred
text. These are called, send it or yet.
But even here I would argue
and sorry my my voice is
sort of I did
a a 4 hour podcast today
earlier speaking for 4 hours straight.
So I apologize. I'll do my best to
show up. I would argue belief in the
day of judgment is rational. You see human
beings constantly seek
to establish justice in this world. Injustice is
repugnant to us as human beings. This is
innate, inherent,
part of our collective
consciousness.
As a species, we establish courts
and judges and witnesses. Does anyone really believe
that rapists and murderers and oppressors
who are never brought to justice in this
world,
they just get away with it?
I don't think so. If people are honest,
they don't really believe that.
An atheist once told me, well, I don't
believe that. I believe in karma.
So karma, I thought you were materialist.
Karma is a metaphysical process who regulates
and controls this process called karma?
So on atheism, it is impossible to be
objectively
immoral.
In other words, there is,
in other words, there can be no
true
right and wrong
on atheism
because atheism
atheists are materialists.
They don't deal with morality.
And such a world view can lead to
total social chaos.
On atheism, we're just fizzing molecules.
That's all we are. I'm a fizzing I'm
fizzing right now.
Right?
We're just, carbon based monkeys.
We're just atoms colliding into each other. You
know, imagine a stone rolling down a a
hill. A stone rolling down a hill. Atoms
colliding with atoms
colliding with atoms. Is there a moral component
to this? Is this moral or immoral? No.
No. It's just atoms colliding with atoms missing
molecules. If I take a knife and I
stab a man in his heart,
what's the difference?
Atoms colliding with atoms.
Murder is just a breach of subjective societal
norms in atheism.
It cannot be objectively
wrong.
There's no higher standard of morality
on atheism.
You know, there's a book by David Berlinski
called The Devil's Trap, and this book just
lays to waste Dawkins' God Delusion.
But people have never heard of this book.
They've heard of the the God Delusion. But,
anyway, Burlinski in here, he quotes a philosopher,
from a few centuries ago. And the philosopher
said,
a theist who believes in God, he said,
imagine you have a magic button.
There's a magic button.
And if you press this button,
all of the wealth of the world will
come into your possession.
But there's a catch. There's a caveat.
One human being in the world
will fall down and die. And it could
be anybody.
Right? It could be your own mother.
It could be a stranger in a different
country.
So the the philosopher says, to whom will
you entrust this button?
To an atheist
who doesn't believe
in ultimate accountability
on some day of judgment
or to a theist who does believe in
a day of judgment.
So this idea that if we just get
rid of religion and turn all these churches
and synagogues
and mosques into Starbucks and Hooters and and
Chick Fil A's, then everything's gonna be okay.
We'll hold hands and we'll be peaceful. No.
No. No. No.
The main
thing that is preventing people
from doing harm is religion,
is the fear of God.
This is just a fact.
So, Emman Ghazadi, he said, we should never
refer to atheists as intelligent.
It doesn't matter if an atheist has a
200 IQ.
This belief in your creator
is the apex of idiocy.
Right?
And so Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
Allah tells us that the messengers said to
their people, is there really a doubt
about Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala?
The originator of the heavens and the earth.
Right?
If I ask somebody, who who created
this phone?
Did this phone create itself?
No. You'll say no. I said, who who
created this microphone?
Did it create itself? No. Who created this
this building?
It created itself? No. Who created this universe?
Did it create itself? Yes. Okay. You're in
it.
Universe created itself from nothing. This is what
they say. Wow. The universe created itself
from nothing,
from nothing, for nothing. This is a big
metaphysical claim.
A big claim.
Something that did not exist
prior to its creation
created itself.
Masha'Allah.
Amazing.
Something cannot come from nothing
in nature, not at the Newtonian level nor
at the quantum level.
Life only comes,
life cannot come from death. Life only comes
from life.
Our life comes from,
and this is rational.
There's something else about the Akkah that's amazing.
It's just another proof of the sacredness of
the Arabic language. The word aqa comes from
aqala, which means to hovel or to control
something.
Right? So there's this iconic hadith of the
Bedouin who came into the Masjid. Right?
And his camel was outside running around, and
the prophet, sallallahu alaihi salam, he said, whose
camel is this? That's my camel.
I've I've trusted Allah. And he said,
hobble her down, tie her down, then trust
in
Allah So the function of the akhav is
to control
both the emotions and the appetites.
And Plato spoke about the tripartite division of
the soul, and Plato was right about this.
The rational soul,
the emotive soul,
and the impenitive soul.
The rational soul must be in the driver's
seat as it were, while the emotions and
appetites
are on the back seat. The point is
not to kill the emotions or appetites.
That's not our tradition.
You don't kick them out of the car.
No. Emotions and appetites are healthy.
Right? The goal is to hobble them, to
control them, to discipline them for the sake
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. So that the
intellect takes precedence in our lives, and this
leads to a happy and fulfilled
life.
So there are millions of people right now
in the world in major existential crisis.
There are millions of people in the world
right now whose entire world view
is being turned on its head
by the current psych guys. This pervasive and
pernicious culture that makes them question their own
common sense.
Their own common sense is being questioned.
Their own conscience,
common sense, fundamental
principles of being,
language,
definitions,
objective truth, all of this is being challenged.
And as I said, this new generation of
children are steeped in nihilism.
This idea that ultimately,
there is no objective meaning
or purpose to human life. So
you have to give your life meaning,
any meaning that you want.
That's what they say. Existence precedes essence.
This is their
yummy.
Apida.
Existence precedes essence. This is what Sartre said.
A a
philosopher, French philosopher.
And his consort,
Simone de Beauvoir,
one of the founders of modern feminism,
She said, one is not born, but rather
becomes a woman.
A rejection of human nature,
of human essence.
This is called existentialism,
where you can make your own reality.
Right?
There is existentialism
and as a philosophy,
and there is existentialism as a lifestyle.
So get ready for meta.
The metaverse
is coming. In a few years, billions of
people are going to be living fake lives,
married to fake spouses,
living in fake houses,
raising fake children.
Just reminds me,
I took a picture of this in a
builder bear.
Oh, yeah.
This is a picture from Build A Bear
workshop.
This is what it says. They wrote this
on the top for the kitties, you know.
You aren't born a bear,
you become a bear.
This is parodying Simone de Beauvoir,
a radical
militant feminist.
Existentialism
is all about you.
So a traditional theocentric life,
a life of to
Allah, which is our purpose according to the
Quran, which is a high purpose.
When the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, heard the,
the Quran recited back to him
and he was referred to as Abdu. He
started to weep.
This is the highest title of the prophet
say, salam in the Quran. I am the
servant of Allah.
This is the purpose of our creation, to
worship Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
This is being replaced with an essentially egocentric,
like egocentric, rather than theocentric,
rather than god being at the center, the
ego is put in the center, the nus.
It's a very subtle type of idolatry.
It's actually called idolatry.
Idolatry, the worship of the nafs. And this
happens when people impute
the unique nature of Allah upon themselves. This
is just shit.
Right?
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
Have you seen the one who takes his
own desires
as his god?
This is all related to this revolt
against
normativity
and objectivity,
and this movement towards queer identity.
What does queer mean? Unique,
different,
special,
individual.
You can't define me,
my identity, and gender.
I am the undefinable,
and I'm fluid.
I can change whatever I am
depending on what I want to be. I
decide what I am. I am whatever I
want to be.
There's nothing like me
whatsoever.
This is just idolatry.
You know, there's this YouTuber who goes around.
He's a 59 white guy. Right?
And, so he goes around these college campuses,
and he goes up to college students
that are dropping a 100 k on an
education.
You know?
Anyway, so he goes up to me and
said,
and she said, can I ask you a
question? Yes. Am I a woman?
And they say, yeah. Sure.
He's already sure about that?
Yeah.
And he said, okay.
Am I a 6 foot 5 woman?
And they go,
and he goes, what's wrong? Oh, nothing.
Yes or no? Am I 6 foot am
I 6 foot 5 woman? He said, okay.
Yeah. Sure.
Yeah. Sure.
And then he says, am I a 6
foot 5 Asian woman?
And they say, yeah.
Sure.
He said, what's wrong with you?
What is going on?
You have children in elementary school identifying as
animals.
They're called furries.
So they they start they, you know, you
know, so and so. What's the answer to
2 +2? Meow.
And so the teachers are saying, no. You
have to answer the question. And then the
student goes back to their parents and the
parents complain to the school,
my child identifies as a cat.
This is really happening. I'm not making this
up.
And so the the the teacher has to
entertain this delusion. And one of the student's
parents actually said, you have to put a
litter box
in the girl's bathroom.
This is real.
This is what's happening.
They start very early.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala describes the uru albaab,
the people of essential understanding in the Quran.
What did they
say?
You did not create this for nothing. Glory
be to you. So save us from the
punishment of the fire. So perhaps the central
message
here is that that is that existence
has objective
meaning. Your life
has objective meaning with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Even if you're not on social media, even
if you don't have any friends,
even if 2 people in the world
don't know your name,
you mean something
to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
wa hasmun Allah.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala suffices us. We
must not let this world deceive us.
The only opinion
of you that matters at the end of
the day is the opinion of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
This is it. The only opinion that matters
is the opinion of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
On the day of Ta'if, the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam, he was stoned out of the
city. He was bleeding.
They were abusing him, insulting him. Right? And
he sat under the tree. We know the
story.
His only concern
was what is the opinion of Allah
about me right now? This is his only
concern.
Right? So he made that beautiful dua. If
this is happening to me and you're not
angry with me for that, Ubali,
then I don't mind in the least.
If the whole world is against you,
but Allah is for you, you win.
So life is too short
to be a salah. We shouldn't be salah.
We shouldn't be salah.
It's too short. Life goes by quickly.
Anyway, I think I just stopped here and
tell.
So we have a couple of minutes. I
think we pray at 8. So if there's
any comments or
questions, inshallah,
we'll take them.
Yes, sir. With the mask. Yes.
Sure.
So,
I'm not doing the break, so it should
be easy. Right?
So my question is, you know,
when you're talking about you mentioned many times,
it's all about submission, submission, submission. Right?
Sub submission to all this.
However,
in the public forum,
in many locations,
it's always mentioned.
However, in parallel,
in medication also,
mention all of the MBI.
But the conclusion is
it's all about solutions, all the prophets,
are
Muslims. But on the end, when Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala
talk to the human,
So yeah. I mean,
I don't know if I
caught a question, but,
I would say that,
I would say that,
submission to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is intelligent.
That's that's the point I was making in
my in my talk. Right?
That it's it's not a type of submission
without any type of reason.
Right? It's a submission that's based on
on
on istidla.
That is intelligent to submit.
Right? It's intelligent to have iman,
and iman does not mean blind faith.
That's not our definition. That's the definition of
these before.
Okay? Our definition of iman
is safety through God, safety by means of
God, and this is intelligent.
And we can provide evidence that this is
intelligent. So that's what I'm that's that's what
I'm saying, Trevor.
You mentioned in, in in the talk about
the religions of people who buy them. But
looking at the history, I mean, there's a
lot of wars started by religions just talked
it even between a quotation in Christian versus
Christians, Christian versus Muslim and Christian against Jews.
So how can we answer that, especially for
for students?
Yeah. So
I think the, it depends on your definition
of religion.
So I would say that
radical ideology
is is really what people
is is really the
the sort of
champion of,
the ideology that's claimed the most lives. It's
just a radical type of ideology. So not
necessarily a religion as we understand
Judaism, Christianity as well. Because if you look
at the 20th century,
we have secular war.
Right? We have millions and millions of human
beings, innocent human beings.
Right? And you might see all these people,
you know, Mao and Stalin and these people,
you know, Hitler, a lot of them,
Paul Pott. So these people are atheists.
And that might be true, but I think
they believed in a radical type of ideology.
So if you wanna call that religion, I
would call that a type of religion.
Right? So really, when I compare things, we
have to look at,
you know, you look at Islam, you look
at Christianity, you look at Judaism. Yeah. There's
been conflict in the pre modern world.
You know, basically, you have,
you have, different empires that are borderless, that
are constantly vying for territory.
This was a status quo of the pre
modern world. The status quo of the pre
modern world was one of warfare.
Right? So it's it's a very different type
of world we're living in. So that's why
if you read, you know, Fatawa of pre
modern scholars, they talk about the oral Islam
and the oral,
They bifurcate the world into these 2,
these 2 divisions because that was the status
quo of the world back then. Nowadays, this
bifurcation doesn't really work because we now we
have nation states that have borders. Now we
have international peace treaties. The status quo of
the world should not be one of of
warfare.
So it's completely different world. Right? But even
with that said, in the 20th century, you
have radical ideologies
that do not espouse Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
who are killing millions.
Millions upon millions.
Right?
So that that's that's how I would I
would understand it,
that it's religion, but it's it's it's the
it's false religion.
That's okay. And I think that, we have
to go for a shot. It's gonna go
through the doctor Aliyah Tai.
A shot, of course, 8 PM in the
prayer hall. And one quick announcement, tomorrow, we
have a game day because it's a rainy
day and we want families to come out.
We'll have board games. We'll have lunch, bring
a snack to share, bring some board games,
and come enjoy the day out there. We're
here. Family in the show. Oh, we got
any time
Yeah. The the devil's trap. Yeah. Berlinski.
Devil's trap. The devil's delusion. Something like that.
David Berlinski.
If there are more questions,