Ali Ataie – Islam in a Nutshell The Basics of World Religions (Part 1)
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AI: Transcript ©
So before we continue, I want to explain
very quickly about a hadith. What is a
hadith?
Basically, there's 2 types of hadith. There's hadith
that are acceptable, maqbool, and then hadith that
are mardud that are rejected.
Basically, a hadith describes
the,
the actions,
the
or gives the speech
or the tacit approvals of the Prophet Muhammad
the Atha'al,
the, aqwal, and the Taqarir.
So so there's a difference now between
hadith and sunnah,
right?
Obviously there's overlap. We
we, we draw or extract
the sunnah from the hadith,
but they're not necessarily the same things. There's
a lot of hadith. There's thousands upon thousands
of hadith,
different grades, we'll talk briefly about that, anything
that is attributed to the Prophet Muhammad peace
and blessings of God be upon him, is
considered to be a hadith.
But the sunnah of the prophet,
right,
this is what has the sort of providential
protection,
the protection of Allah.
This is the
authoritative
or normative ethos,
the authenticated
practice of the prophet Muhammad
And the function of the sunnah,
as the scholars of Islam say, al ulama,
as sunnah 2 to fasirul Quran,
that the sunnah, really what it does is
that it exegetes, if you will, or it
explains the Quran.
Right? So the Quran itself says in Surah
Nahl, Surah number 16 verse 44,
Allah
says that indeed We sent down this dhikr
upon you, this reminder upon you,
speaking directly to the prophet Muhammad, peace be
upon him, litubayyan
alinasi
manuzila ilayhim.
In order for you to make Bayan, in
order for you to make clear,
right, to explicate,
to elucidate,
to commentate upon what was revealed to them,
to, to
to
interpret the Quran, the revelation
of God. This is
one of the,
one of the functions of prophecy.
So just because you read something in a
hadith doesn't necessarily mean it's true, even if
it's considered to be in
a sound book of hadith.
There are a lot of problems with
with hadith that are graded as sound. There's
difference of opinion about them.
You might read something that is sound,
and try to implement it, but implement it
incorrectly.
For example, one of my teachers years ago,
he quoted a hadith that the prophet used
to eat dates,
but what's the proper way of eating a
date? What's the proper etiquette? You pop it
in your mouth and you spit out the
seed. How did the prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wasallam, how did he eat a
date?
Right? He would put it into his mouth
with his right hand,
and then he would extract the seed by
turning his left hand over with these two
fingers and push the seed out with his
tongue, but no one actually
saw his tongue and then he'd discard
or he would get rid of
the seed. So he did it in a
way
where there's,
there's
a lot of honor,
and there wasn't there's no question about
having, you know, bad adab or having bad
comportment while while while eating.
How does a Muslim pray? I mean the
Quran tells us to pray, but how do
we pray? Can you pray any way you
want to? Can you just kind of follow
what your neighbor is doing or what Christians
and Jews are doing? Is that how we
pray?
So the sunnah becomes
absolutely
indispensable
in understanding
the Quran. How do we send benedictions upon
the Prophet?
The Quran says,
Oh you who believe.
Right? Send benedictions of peace upon the Prophet
Muhammad, peace be upon him. How do we
do that? We have to look at the
sunnah
or the authenticated hadith of the Prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi
wa
sallam.
And it's a meticulous science. We don't have
to go into it now. It's a separate
class. But basically for a hadith to be
sound,
right, there's there's a sanad, which is the
chain of transmission. It has to be mutasil.
It has to be linked. There has to
be a link. No missing,
no gaps in the link of transmission.
The famous hadith of mercy has 23 or
24
links in its chain of transmission.
This is the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad,
peace be upon him, is reported to have
said and you'll find it in Musnad Ahmad
that the most compassionate shows compassion to those
who show compassion.
Show compassion to those on earth and the
one in heaven in no anthropomorphic
sense will show you compassion. This hadith is
called hadith ar Rahma.
There's, like I said, about 2 dozen or
so links in his chain of transmission.
And it is
indisputable, the the words of the Prophet Muhammad,
peace be upon him, and this is actually
the first hadith that Muslim children in the
traditional
Muslim world were taught. This would sort of
set the foundation for their education about the
Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
Stressing the importance of compassion, the importance of
of mercy.
So the chain of transmission
is mutasil.
There's no gaps. Everyone in the chain has
adala. There's there's they have probity.
They're known as being righteous people.
They have tamatdta,
they have intelligence, they have good memories. There's
no hidden
problems, no hidden Allah.
Right?
Which could be anything from, like, bad grammar
because the Prophet, peace be upon him, did
not use bad or incorrect
grammar. He was the most eloquent
of speakers.
So so this is a very meticulous science,
the science of hadith authentication. And this is
different than Sira, right? With Sira you have
to be careful.
A lot of things get into CIRA that
have no chain of transmission.
So it's up to the ulama to go
through and sort of sift through
the Sira and extract what is authentic to
what is not.
Riders of Sira tend to exaggerate
certain things, and it's interesting because the Sira
is something that is constantly under attack
by, for example, Christian apologists, Christian missionaries.
They tend to attack stories in Sira
and many of these stories
are exaggerations,
even according to Muslim Scholars. Some of these
stories have, like I said, no chain of
transmission
and no Muslim really takes them seriously.
But these are the things that are brought
up by missionaries, for example, so basically tearing
down a straw man.
The example that I give,
the equivalent of that is, for example, if
I said something like, if I went to
a Christian and I said, you know, why
did Jesus murder one of his teachers? Now,
of course, I don't believe this at all.
Jesus, peace be upon him,
is a great prophet of God in the
Islamic tradition. But just to make a point
here,
And he says, well, what are you talking
about? I said, no, it's, that's, it's what
it says in,
in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.
Well, he would say, well the Infancy Gospel
of Thomas is
is an apocryphal gospel. We don't believe in
that. That's what he would say.
Right? We believe in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John.
Right? So exactly, we don't believe in that.
So many of these stories in Sira
are just they're falsified stories. No Muslim takes
them seriously. There's no chain of transmission
and they have nothing to do with our
faith.
But this hadith, Hadith Gabriel,
right? This is considered to be a sound
hadith.
It's recorded by Imam Muslim.
It is a very famous hadith,
as I said.
So the hadith begins Anur Mara radhiallahu ta'ala
Anhu
that the hadith is on the authority of
one of the greatest companions of the Prophet
Muhammad, peace be upon him, whose name was
Umar, and Umar
was the 2nd caliph
in Islam
following the 1st caliph Abu Bakr,
one of the most beloved human beings,
to the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him.
And generally,
well, the Sunni
tradition of Islam
prays and love
all of the companions of the Prophet, peace
be upon
him. They weren't all perfect but there's
a respect there and that's in contrast to
the shia,
that don't respect a great number or a
majority of the companions
of the Prophet.
So these are the 2 sort
of major divisions in our tradition.
Sunni Islam and Shia Islam and really the
I would say, the differences
as far as theology goes are minor. They're
negligible.
Some would disagree with that.
But the vast majority of scholars on both
sides
do not anathematize
either side. They don't make tuck feel.
Right?
But the major difference is really in probably
political theory, political theology.
But nonetheless
the hadith begins by saying,
Baynamanahnujurusun
and Rasulillahi sallallahu alaihi sallam. So Sayid Omar
is saying
that one day we were sitting with the
Messenger
of Allah sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
And the title of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam here in Arabic, Rasulullah,
a construct phrase, the Messenger of God.
Rasul is equivalent probably to the Greek apostle,
which literally means one who is sent forth.
And of course the word for God in
Arabic is Allah,
and this is,
the name of God in Arabic, but there
but in in all Semitic languages
the the word for God begins with the
alif and the Lam or Aleph and Lamed.
So in,
in Hebrew you have Elo
as the singular
and Elohim, which is the plural of majesty,
which we find many many times in the
Hebrew Bible.
In Aramaic or Syriac you have Allah, right?
So Jesus, peace be upon him, Isa alaihis
salam,
he would have used
Allah because he spoke
Aramaic or Syriac.
So for example in Mark 1:15,
behold the kingdom of God, the Malkoothada
Allaha is at hand.
So Jesus would have used this name for
God, Allah.
So the Quran, so Arabic uses that name
as well.
So he's saying we we're sitting with the
Messenger of a God, peace be upon him,
that a yomen one day,
and behold
a man rose among us.
Right? So the Arabic here suggests that he
sort of just
seemingly appeared out of nowhere.
Shadidu bayad I thiab,
he was wearing exceedingly white clothes.
Shaddidu Sawad I Shar,
he had exceedingly black hair.
The traces of travel
was not seen on him. So,
you know, he didn't have he wasn't dusty,
he wasn't disheveled, anything like that. He didn't
look like a traveler, didn't have, you know,
a bag or something with him.
And none of us knew who he was,
none of us recognized
him.
Right?
So
this is, obviously the Archangel
Gabriel.
Right?
Jibril alaihis salam, Jibril in Arabic, Gavriel
in Hebrew,
which means the power of God.
And Gabriel
would often
incarnate, that is to say assume,
human flesh in order to teach
human beings, right?
So this is one of the ways in
which the prophets
would would interact
with angels that the angels would take human
form.
It's called incarnation.
Muslims do not believe
that God incarnates, right? So this is a
major difference of opinion
between
a major difference in theology,
let's say between Hinduism and Islam or Christianity
in Islam. In Hinduism there are countless incarnations
of God.
Is
Hinduism essentially a monotheistic
religion? That's an interesting question
that we can talk about later.
In Christianity,
God did not incarnate except for once and
that was in the person of Christ,
according to Christians, and we'll talk about
that as well.
So oftentimes
Gabriel would incarnate
and he would teach the Prophet. He's the
teacher of the Prophet, although Muslims believe
that the prophet Muhammad's rank is higher than
Gabriel.
His rank is actually higher than his teacher
because the prophet is the best of creation.
He is the beloved of God.
Right? So it's not all about knowledge.
Right?
You can have teachers that are
that are arrogant, you have students that surpass
their teachers over time
in piety and even in knowledge. It's very
very common.
So
so Gabriel would come to the Prophet, he
would teach him
the religion or he would bring the prophet
Quran. He would bring the prophet Revelation.
Oftentimes Gabriel in human form would simply tell
the prophet to repeat after him,
and the prophet would repeat and that's called
an exterior locution.
Other times the angel would come to the
prophet but was not seen by him,
and
the angel would dictate to the prophet
internally.
The prophet would,
he would perceive words
internally,
sounds forming words or vibrations forming words,
and he would perceive that and then he
would just repeat that and that's called an
interior
locution. So the Quran would come to the
Prophet
in both ways. And on rare occasion, the
Quran would come to the Prophet
without any angelic
mediation.
Right? So interior locution without angelic
mediation. And our scholars like Imam al Suyuti
and others,
scholars of Ulum al Quran or the sciences,
or I'm using the word science and sort
of the pre 1800,
like, disciplines of the Quran, they would say
that,
for example, the the last 2
ayahs of Al Baqarah
were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be
upon him, by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, by
God, glorified and exalted as he,
through interior locution without angelic mediation.
And they mention others too.
Surah 93, and the Surah that follows it,
Alam nasrahlaka
sodarak.
Allahu'alam.
So here we have Gabriel, peace be upon
him, the great Archangel.
He's taken on human form. He's wearing white
clothes, very white clothes. He has exceedingly black
hair
and no one recognizes him.
So he comes and Sayidna Armar continues, he
says,
so that he sits right in front of
the prophet, peace be upon him,
to the point where he sort of touches
or links his knees against his. So he's
sitting right in front of the prophet, peace
be upon him.
And then Gabriel puts his hands on his
thighs, on his own thighs, and he's listening
intently
to the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.
So here Gabriel appears to be teaching
us proper adab, sort of proper
etiquette or comportment
with the Prophet. And this is very important
for Muslims that
we show proper
respect
towards all the prophets of God, Right? And
of course the Quran mentions about 25 of
them.
But the hadith
indicates that there are thousands of prophets,
25 mentioned in the Quran, and all of
them are respected and loved by Muslims.
Right? So these include
even Adam, alaihis salam.
Adam is considered a prophet
in Islam.
Noah is considered a prophet in Islam.
Moses, peace be upon him,
and
before that Ibrahim alayhis salam
and or Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac, both
of them considered prophets in the Islamic tradition,
both of them beloved
by Muslims,
both of them respected,
both of them considered legitimate prophets
and and righteous.
Even Jacob is considered a prophet in Islam.
So,
these stories that are mentioned about, for example,
Jacob in the book of Genesis,
where he's really depicted
in a very negative way,
right, basically as this kind of trickster,
and that's a kind of common sort of
literary device
or literary character in ancient literature that there's
this trickster
figure
who is considered to be
very clever and gets his way by obviously
tricking people. And this is sort of praised
in the book of Genesis that God has
this type of
unconditional love
for Jacob despite all of his faults.
So things like that Muslims will not
confirm. So the dominant opinion, and we'll talk
more about this as well,
is that
when the Quran speaks of the Torah that
was revealed
to Moses, peace be upon him, it's not
talking about what is today considered the Torah,
right? Because clearly there are stories in the
so called Torah of today
that are unacceptable
from a theological standpoint, from an Islamic theological
standpoint.
There are many things in the Torah that
we would consider to be
accurate
and even true.
But at the end of the day,
Muslims don't rely on any other scriptures. All
of these scriptures from
the perspective of the Quran
and
Islam have been abrogated.
Islam has its own scripture. It is the
Quran. Islam has its own sacred law which
is derived from the Quran and the sunnah
of the Prophet,
peace be upon him.
So anyway,
we were talking about proper comportment with the
prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.
The Imam of Medina
in the second century
second half of the second century,
or right in the middle of the 2nd
century after Hijra was Imam Malik ibn Anas,
who died, I believe 179
Hijri.
Students would come to him
and they would study
fiqh, they would study jurisprudence, and they would
study hadith.
And when they would study fiqh he would
immediately begin teaching
them. But if they wanted to study hadith
he would prepare himself.
Oftentimes he would go, he would take a
shower, he would wear white clothes, he would
tie his turban,
he would burn some incense,
right, put on some musk.
Why would he do that? Is because he's
going to teach the words of the master
Muhammad
sallallahu
alaihi
wasallam.
So out of respect for the words of
the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Ibn Mubarak mentioned something interesting.
He mentions that
one time Imam Malik, ibn Anas, as we
said the Imam of Madinatul Munawwara, he was
teaching his famous Hadith book, Al Muwata,
and
as he was as he was relating a
hadith of the Messenger of God,
peace be upon him, they noticed that he
would he would cringe and his face would
turn pale,
and this would happen over and over again,
but he wouldn't stop
the hadith of the Prophet.
So,
after he was done with the hadith, he
told his students look between my shirt and
my back, and they saw that a scorpion
had lashed him something like 14, 15, or
16 times.
But he didn't want to cut off the
speech of the Prophet Muhammad,
peace be upon him, so he continued
with the hadith.
So Gabriel, he sits in front of the
Prophet, peace be upon him, sort of locking
his knees and listening intently.
And then he says, however,
You Muhammad, so he calls to the Prophet,
peace be upon him, by using his
his first name.
Right? And this was something that is prohibited
to do. The companions,
did not do that, right? They used the
title of the Prophet. Even God in the
Quran
does not address the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
directly,
by using his first name. He speaks about
the Prophet by using his name
in the 3rd person. Right? Muhammadur Rasulullah, for
example.
Wama Muhammadun Ilo Rasul, for example.
But when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is speaking
directly to the Prophet sallallahu wa ta'ala
uses a title.
You ayuharrasul,
You ayuha nabi'u. Why does Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala do that? It's because Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala is teaching the ummah
of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam how to
address the Prophet.
So here, however, Gabriel is saying, You Muhammad.
So the ulama say here that Gabriel is
posing as a Bedouin to conceal his identity
because the Bedouin were a bit
gruff. They were a bit rough around the
edges. Or the urnama say that this prohibition
is not for the angels but only for
the the human believers
and the prophet, peace be upon him. So
in that sense then Gabriel is actually sort
of subtly revealing
his identity.
Nonetheless he says, You Muhammad Akbirni Anil Islam.
Tell me about Al Islam.
Of course this is the name of the
religion, but in this hadith, according to the
scholars of hadith,
this seems to be,
a reference to the sort of esoteric
or exterior
aspects of the religion, what sometimes
philosophers of religion call the sort of lateral
or horizontal
aspect of the religion.
Of course, it means submission submission unto God.
Faqar Rasulullah salallahu alaihi salallam and then the
prophet responded to Gabriel
by saying al Islamu
and tesh hada adlaillaha
illallah.
Right? So Islam is
to witness or to testify
that there is no illah.
There is no deity,
there is no God except
Allah,
except Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
So there's no ilah. Nothing deserves
worship
other than Allah.
Nothing deserves worship.
Nothing other than God
has divine attributes.
Nothing other than God has the intrinsic ability
to help and or
harm you. So this is what is
testified on the tongue. Right? So this is
the first pillar of Islam
Islam.
And tashhadah shahhadah,
to testify, and it's done upon the tongue.
This is when this is this is,
when a a convert
wants to become Muslim,
a proselyte becomes Muslim,
they will utter
the shahada.
They will say ashadu, eyewitness,
I testify,
and la ilaha illallah. There's no illah. There's
no deity. There's no divinity.
There's no other person
that has divine attributes that deserves or merits
worship other than Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And I bear witness that there's
and I bear witness that the the prophet
Muhammad peace be upon him, is the messenger
of God. So the prophet himself,
this is what he says here. Al Islam,
number 1,
is to testify
that there is no deity other than Allah
and that Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam is the
Messenger of God.
So one of my teachers, he said here,
this is this is something
interesting,
la ilaha,
right? That's atheism.
There is no God.
Illallah
except Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala or except God
capital g.
So moving from atheism
into deism now that there is a God
and that this God
is the sort of great architect of the
universe, the creator of all things.
And now we move into theism.
So from atheism to deism
to theism. So deism, God is just
impersonal,
right?
But when we say Muhammad Ar Rasulullah
and Muhammad is a messenger of God, this
reveals
the personal aspect of God.
How does it do that?
Well, it's it shows or it is it
is evidence of God's loving nature,
that he sends human messengers
for the guidance of humanity.
Right?
So
through his prophets
divine imminence,
is
is revealed, this kind of closeness
that God has to his creation.
It is through the prophets.
This is how God reveals
his loving nature.
So the Quran
says,
Right? I always refer to this as sort
of the equivalent of John 316 in the
Quran. This is 21107
of the Quran,
which the prophet in which Allah
is speaking directly
to the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.
And he says we did not send you
except as a mercy
to all the worlds.
Right?
That the prophet, peace be upon him, is
the greatest manifestation of God's mercy because the
prophet is the greatest messenger of God. He
brings us total guidance,
guidance for all the world
until the end of time.
And of course all the prophets
are,
are manifestations of God's mercy.
I want to use that term incarnations of
God's mercy,
right, not incarnations of God's person. That's a
Christian belief,
right?
That is intimated at least in the New
Testament Gospels, especially the Gospel of John.
But that's a Christian belief. So,
the prophets are
are are examples of God's mercy in the
Islamic tradition. Even Jesus, peace be upon him,
in the Quran is also called a mercy.
Wali najalahu
ayatan
warahmataninnna,
that we will make Jesus
a sign of God, a great
sign, and a mercy,
from us.
Right? So we're moving from atheism, and of
course atheism,
is is,
a position of belief. So there's a difference
between
a position of knowledge
and a position of belief.
Right? There are 2 positions of knowledge.
There's Gnosticism and agnosticism.
Right?
So most atheists, for example
the late Christopher Hitchens,
famous atheist and author of this book God
is Not Great,
which has been definitively refuted by the way
by Berlinski's
book,
David Berlinski, which you should get.
And John Lennox also has an extraordinary book
as well.
Nonetheless,
Hitchens always used to refer to himself as
an agnostic
atheist,
meaning that,
that
he is going to live his life under
the assumption that there is no God, but
he doesn't know for sure,
cannot prove that there is no God. So
he's an agnostic
atheist.
Right? It's very rare to get a gnostic
atheist. In other words, an atheist who who
who knows
with certitude that there is no God. And
then of course you have
agnostic believers
and agnostic believers as well.
So then that's the first pillar then, right?
There's no god but Allah
and the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him,
is the Messenger of God. Watukimu salah, he
says, and to,
and to
establish the prayer. So this is the second
pillar.
Right? And the prayer salah
comes from a root word which means to
connect.
So,
the prayer is our connection
to God.
To give zakah, to give charity.
And the word zakah comes from
a word meaning purification.
This is a type
of spiritual purification.
Watsasuma Ramadan
and to fast the month of Ramadan.
Right?
1, 2, 3, this is the 4th pillar.
Muslims that are able to will fast the
month of Ramadan, the 9th
month of the Muslim calendar,
as really a commemoration of the Quran, which
was,
which
whose revelation commenced
during the month of Ramadan.
And
to make pilgrimage.
If you're able to do so, That's the
final pillar
of Islam, to make pilgrimage
to Mecca.
So this is the Prophet's answer for what
is Al Islam.
Right? And again in this context
seems to be referring to sort of the
exterior aspect
of the religion. It is to say upon
the tongue there is no god but Allah,
the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, Messenger of God,
to establish the prayer, to give the charity,
fast Ramadan,
and to make Hajj
if one is able to do so.
And then Qala Suddakta,
Gabriel said, you've answered correctly,
or he confirms his answer.
And Sayna Umar he said,
That was surprising to us that this person
is asking the prophet a question
and then he confirms
his answer.
Right? And this was, you know, you can
call this sort of the Socratic
method, right, where the the teacher already
knows the answer,
but the teacher wants to
honor the student and have the student,
give the correct answer.
Qalafahhbimialal
iman.
Now the second question,
tell me about Al Iman
and which is oftentimes translated as faith.
Right?
Eman
literally means to cause safety.
Right? Safeguard
your soul. It's it's related to the Hebrew
emunah.
Right? So for example, the famous treatise of
Maimonides
is called the
Sherushah Asar Ikarei
Emunah.
Right? The the 13 principles of Jewish faith.
Right? And of course the word Amin is
related
to this as well. So to safeguard your
soul.
Right? So this isn't, you know,
blind. Iman doesn't mean that you just believe
some in something blindly,
believe without evidence,
you know,
belief without evidence. That's not what it is.
It means to accept something,
because the evidence points in that direction and
by doing so
you safeguard your soul in the afterlife.
So here in this context, so we have
Islam, it's being contrasted with Islam,
it seems to be referring to sort of
the inward
aspect or vertical,
aspect of the religion.
Right? So the Prophet, peace be upon him,
he said in hadith, which is sound hadith,
that the quintessential Muslim, right, submitter is the
hands
and
hands and tongue other Muslims remain safe. In
other words,
the true Muslim is not harming, he's not
violent
with other Muslims, and he's not slandering and
backbiting and being calumnus
towards other Muslims. That's the quintessential Muslim. And
then the prophet also said, Al Mu'minu.
Right? The quintessential
believer.
Right?
The quintessential believer.
That the quintessential
Mu'min,
believer,
right, the one who internalizes
the faith
is
the one
that humanity
humanity
trusts
with their literally blood and possessions,
lives and property, lives and possessions.
Right? So the sort of field of compassion
and love is expanded,
It begins with oneself. That's what it means
to be selfish. That's what the word idiot
means. Idios means self.
Right? The idiot only cares about himself and
then it expands obviously to the family and
the community and,
and then to the Muslims and then to
the whole the whole of humanity.
Right? The whole of humanity.
In fact, the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon
him,
he said in a famous hadith, which is
in Bukhari and Muslim,
rigorously
authenticated.
That
that,
none of you truly believe until he loves
for his brother
what he loves for himself.
Right?
So he loves for his brother what he
loves for himself.
And,
this
that hadith I just mentioned is the source
of the hadith, as I said, is in
Bukhari and Muslim.
But Imam An Nawawi also included it as
hadith number 13, I believe,
in his Arba'in, in his famous collection of
40 hadith.
And in his commentaries
he defines
what does it mean, who is your brother?
Right? None of you truly believe until you
love, until he loves for his brother, hatayuhibba
liakhihi.
What does that mean?
He goes on to say in his commentary
that means your brother
Muslim or Jew or Christian
really your brother in Bani Adam,
right, in humanity.
Right? But he makes that point, and one
of my teachers said that there are some
manuscripts of
Imam Nawawi's
commentary
where that sentence
where where the imam says Jews and Christians
is taken out
of of his
of his,
out of his commentary
is apparently,
there are some Muslims who don't want other
Muslims to think of Jews and Christians as
being their brothers,
which is unfortunate. So you have this
this tampering with these with these commentaries.
But that's an authentic saying from the imam.
And that's a sound hadith from the prophet.
So he continues. So what is al iman?
What is
faith? Right? What does it mean to safeguard
your soul?
Qala, the prophet said,
It is to believe
in God. Right?
Literally to safeguard
yourself by means of God,
right?
Or you can just say to believe in
God. And it's not simply
to accept the rational proposition that there is
a God.
Right? That's what that's what Satan did. Satan
accepts
that there is a God,
Right? He accepts that wholeheartedly.
But what what is missing from Satan?
Why does the Quran call him a kathir,
which means an infidel if you want, that's
a Catholic word,
unbeliever,
a rejecter of faith,
is because Satan does not have kabul and
idaan.
Right? He doesn't have acceptance.
He doesn't accept the guidance that comes from
the prophets.
He doesn't have submissiveness or humility towards God.
Right?
One of the books in the New Testament
which is very close
to Islamic teaching
is the Epistle of James.
James obviously
is successor of Jesus according to
Christian history.
He probably didn't write this epistle, but it
certainly sounds like something that he would have
written.
Seems like someone in his sort of school
of thought
wrote this epistle, but he says in there
that
that even demons believe in God.
Right?
Right. So it's it's not just about what
one accepts
rationally
or just sort of
accepts in oneself, but has no
has no, motivation
to manifest that faith in action.
Right? So faith and action, very very important.
So to believe in God then
means not simply to accept things on reason
but to but to show one's faith as
it were.
Right? To perform righteous actions.
Believe in God and in his angels and
in his books,
his scriptures,
and in his messengers,
and in the last day,
the day of judgment.
Al Yom al Acher,
this day of judgment has different names in
the Quran, Yom al Qiyamah, like the Day
of Standing, Yom Ad Din, the Day of
Judgment,
Yom Ad Aker, the final day, the last
day,
etcetera.
So
the prophet here then gives us these sort
of six articles of faith.
Right? Believe in God, believe in angels,
and,
there are
4 major archangels,
Gabriel and Michael,
Jibril and
then
Mikal or Mikael,
Israfil, which I believe is Sarafil
in the Bible or in
Israelite tradition.
And then Israel.
Israel is not Israel,
that's Israel. Israel
is
also the angel of death,
and there are other angels mentioned
in the tradition as well.
As far as the scriptures go, Muslims believe
in 4 major scriptures
and many minor scriptures that are sort
of indicated
as well.
The 4 major scriptures are the Torah of
Moses
and the Psalms of David, the Zavur, the
Injeel,
the Gospel given to Jesus be upon
him, is that the same as the
Christian Gospel? Is it the same as
the New Testament, the 4 Gospels?
It's not an easy question to answer.
The dominant opinion from Muslim scholars
is that those books,
what the Christians are calling the Gospel,
is not the pristine Gospel,
is not the actual revelation given that Jesus,
peace be upon him, although some of the
sayings of Jesus could certainly have been preserved
in these 4 books.
But that these books,
they contradict each other.
And they're written in Greek, which is a
foreign language to Jesus. This is sort of
the dominant opinion of Muslim scholars
and
they're written too late, decades later.
Of course, there are different ways of looking
at these things or counter arguments to those,
to those points as well, but this is
the dominant opinion.
Alright.
So for example,
well,
there are indications in the Quran that
that
fabrications,
textual fabrications,
were committed by Christian scribes
and Jewish scribes.
And
it seems like there's evidence of this
if you talk to textual critics of the
New Testament.
For example, there are
there are manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark
that end at chapter 16 verse 8.
Right? And according to
imminent
textual critics of the New Testament that's actually
the true ending
of Mark.
The oldest and best Greek manuscripts end at
Mark 16:8.
What does it say in Mark 16:8? Well,
it says that on Easter Sunday,
a group of women, 3 women, they go
to the tomb of the sepulcher,
and they find that the stone has been
moved away
and there's an angel sitting inside the tomb
and the angel says to the women, you
seek Jesus
who has risen. He's gone ahead of you
to Nazareth or to Galilee.
Right? And then Mark says whoever wrote this
gospel
he doesn't identify himself,
but tradition calls him Mark.
Mark says that the women ran away and
they were afraid and they said nothing to
no one. And that's the end of the
gospel.
Right?
So what happened? It seems like a cliffhanger.
Was Jesus actually resurrected?
Did he survive the crucifixion
and flee the city because he's afraid of
authorities?
What happened?
And then
a century or so later,
a few decades later, lo and behold, you
have
subsequent manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark where
there's now
a
longer ending, as it's called, verses 9 through
20 where Jesus actually appears
to the disciples, to male disciples, and He
commissions them to go into all the world.
He tells them that they can handle poisonous
snakes and
drink
poison and no harm would come to them.
That's just one example.
So Muslims believe
in God and we'll talk next week we'll
talk
about we'll give a little bit of,
a little lesson on theology.
What do Muslims actually believe about God? Theology,
Theos and Logos, right,
means speech about God. What do Muslims say
about God? Who is God? Do do Muslims
believe that God is 1,
a sort
of
rigid type of Unitarian
monotheism?
Do God believe that
there's a plurality, if you will, in the
quote unquote Godhead as Christians do?
Do Muslims believe that God has attributes? What
are the attributes? We'll go into a little
bit of that, again we want to keep
it
very basic.
Belief in God,
angels,
the revelations given to the prophets
in their original form,
and messengers of God.
Right?
According to Muslim tradition, there have been about
a 124,000
or so prophets,
although that number is disputed.
As I mentioned, 25 of them mentioned explicitly
25 or so mentioned in the Quran
and belief in the final day.
Right? So belief in God,
angels, revelations,
messengers,
day of judgment,
what and that's the 6th
article of faith.
234.
Yeah. And that you believe in qadr.
And qadr,
is difficult to translate
divine decree,
right? Some people
sometimes they translate it as destiny.
I like divine decree or divine apportionment.
And notice here the prophet, he repeats and
that you believe. He repeats that verb,
because
Qadr is very hard to grasp.
Right? It's it's a difficult thing to grasp,
that you believe in the the divine decree,
the good and evil of it.
Right? That everything is from,
everything is from God.
Right? So there's 2 terms in theology.
There's qadr and there's qada,
and some of the scholars say that these
terms are synonymous.
Others say that qadr is sort of the
measuring out
divine apportionment as we said.
God determines
all things,
and then the kadah is the,
the playing out, if you will, of that
of that divine decree in space time
in the world.
Right?
So,
so you had groups in the past that
were known as the Jabariya,
absolute determinists
who said things like,
human beings have no free will,
and so God cannot punish, could not possibly
punish human beings because we have 0 volition.
Then you have the other extreme,
the Qadaria
or the absolute
libertarians. We're not talking about political
libertarianism,
which
believes that government should not have a lot
of intervention,
if any,
in our lives. No, we're talking about philosophical
or theological
libertarianism,
which espoused
that that human beings have absolute free will.
They they create their own actions. In fact,
God doesn't even know,
the juziyat or the,
the particulars
of things. You only know sort
of the essences
of things.
So
the truth is somewhere
in the middle, as they say. Now as
Muslims, we believe that everything is decreed by
God. God has perfect knowledge,
right?
But at the same time human beings are
held accountable
for their choices.
Sometimes this is called soft determinism
or compatibilism,
right?
That even though everything is determined by God,
even though God knows
everything and has the power to do whatever
he wants,
if an action,
is if an action originated within a person
themself,
from that person's wants and desires
and there are moral implications to that action,
then that person is
is taken to account for that action.
Ultimately, it's difficult to understand. Ultimately, it's impossible
to understand,
right?
So that's why the scholars say here that
that the prophet repeats the verb,
that you believe, because this is a difficult
thing to believe.
And it's difficult to think in terms of
God's power and knowledge,
yet he allows us to do certain things
and then takes account,
for our actions. It's a very difficult
thing to grasp.
But
it's it's sort of like explaining,
you know, calculus to
a toddler
or to like a 5th grader, right, they'll
get something
they'll get something from it.
There's a very very limited understanding, but at
the end of the day
the intellect really has to make sajda
because it has to make a prostration to
God.
Because
God's qadr,
his divine decree is beyond
our ability to comprehend,
Right?
If God didn't know what we're going to
do then he wouldn't be God. That's not
a solution to anything.
Right?
But this is,
this is something that we can
discuss later as well. So it's it's
it's akin to what philosophers would call, like,
this this type of soft determinism.
Right? That you're still taking to account
for your choices, but your choices are indeed
limited.
Right?
Okay. So I think it that's a good
place to stop for tonight, inshallah. We'll finish
the hadith next time
and then I'll give you a little bit
of theology
as well,
basic theology in the Islamic tradition.
And that'll complete next week.
That'll complete our section on
basic beliefs of Islam and then we'll move
in week 3 into Judaism inshallah.