Ali Ataie – Islam’s Acceptance of Other Faiths
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Very interesting topic.
I'll get right to it because I'm short
on time.
The primary text of Islam is called the
Quran, as you may or may not know.
Muslims believe that it was revealed,
to the final Abrahamic prophet.
That's a prophet with an upper case p.
His name was Muhammad,
peace be upon him, who lived in the
6th 7th centuries.
The Quran
explicitly mentions,
Al Yahuud 1 Nasarach,
the Jews and the Christians,
and gives them the epithet,
the honorable epithet of in
Arabic, which is translated as the people of
the book.
So initially, theologians would,
they would interpret the book, Al Kitab, as
being the bible, the people of the bible.
Because the word Bible,
in Greek means book,
and
the Bible in Arabic is called Al Kitab
al Kitab al Mu'aktas,
the holy
book.
Now during the 2nd 3rd centuries,
the Muslim calendar, during the Islamic
expansion,
Muslims came to realize that there are a
lot more religions in the world than just
Judaism and Christianity.
So theologians at the time, they actually expanded
the
meaning of the title at the people of
the book,
to any religion that
that reveres some sort of sacred text.
So Hindus, Buddhists,
Zoroastrians,
etcetera.
So under the Muslim polity in pre modern
times,
the religious traditions
these religious traditions were given a protected status,
freedom of worship, and autonomous
rule,
of their own religious courts.
So was there absolutely equal rights amongst all
the religions? No. That was not seen anywhere
in the world at the time.
But what was happening in the Muslim
lands was really unparalleled
at that time throughout the rest of the
world.
And this is why we find,
historical Christian communities
in Muslim majority countries,
even today.
So,
were there atrocities
committed? Were there people that,
were,
oppressive? Yes.
But this idea of, you know, hordes of
Muslim armies coming in and forcing people to
convert,
is pretty much a myth, even the man
who wrote the book Answering Islam,
named Norman Geismarck.
He actually says in that book, the reason
why the North African Christians actually became Muslim
so quickly was because of low taxes
and stress on brotherhood. That's the power of
taxes.
But there's a verse in the Quran, the
second chapter verse 256 that says,
there's no compulsion in religion.
Right? And this is important. It's interesting
because, pope, Benedict the 16th, he gave,
a
talk at Regensburg University in Germany, September 12th.
Interesting date. 2006,
where he quoted this verse, there's no compulsion
to religion. He said, this verse is abrogated.
Right? This verse has been canceled by other
verses in the Quran, which calls for fighting
the infidel.
Right?
So abrogation in and of itself is a
contentious issue within Quran sciences.
Probably the most authoritative
scholar on this issue is an Egyptian scholar
named Imam Suyuti. You don't have to remember
that, but this is the text that most
of the students will will know and study
called,
Anyway, he says in there that there are
about 19 or 20 or 21 abbreviated verses
in the Quran, and this verse is not
one of them. I haven't come across a
single scholar in my life that has said
that this verse, there's no compulsion in religion,
has been abrogated,
because it doesn't make sense to abrogate it.
You can't force someone to believe in something.
Right? And I can't force you to believe
that
the moon is,
made of cheese. Right?
You can say, oh, yeah, I believe, I
believe, but I can't force that in your
heart, so it doesn't make sense that this
verse will be aggregated. There's no precedent for
that, so I don't know what he's quoting
here.
We'll give you examples of
historical Christian communities in the list of majority
of countries. The Coptic Christians of Egypt, they've
been there for 2000 years. Their claim is
that Saint Mark found at their church.
The church of the Assyrians in Iraq,
which is also called I think they called
it the ancient
Assyrian Church of the East, or ancient apostolic
church of the East, their claim is that
Saint Medeas founded their church.
I've lived in Yemen, I've I've been to
monasteries in Yemen, I've met nuns, I've lived
in Yemen, I've been to North Africa, I've
met Christians there.
In fact, according to Pew, 50 There are
50 Muslim majority countries,
and there are churches in all of them
except for 2,
and that's Saudi Arabia,
and Mauritania.
Saudi Arabia is sort
of weird,
theologically
important piece.
But it's interesting in Saudi Arabia, there are
2,000,000 Christians living in Saudi Arabia. There's no
church in Saudi Arabia. There are 2,000,000 Christians
living in Saudi Arabia, Mostly foreign workers, which
is interesting because per capita there are more
Christians living in Saudi Arabia than there are
Muslims living in America.
Which is interesting.
And then,
so there's about 50,000,000
Christians living in the Muslim majority world in
the Middle East. 50,000,000 compared to about 44,000,000
Muslims living in Egypt. There are more Christians
in the Middle East than there are Muslims
in Europe.
Now if you look at Muslim
Spain or North Africa, this is sometimes called
the Golden Age of Judaism.
Right? This is when Jewish systematic theology and
philosophy crystallized.
You have these major,
classical Jewish
works being produced in Arabic rather than in
Hebrew, later later translated into Hebrew. I'll just
give you a few of them.
It's called, Emunot Vadorot. This is by Sayyagalu
al Fayyumi, he's a great scholar,
in Judaism. Beliefs and opinions. He wrote this
book in Arabic. It's an incredible
book. I've thumbed through it a little bit.
Very difficult. There's another one, Hidayah
Ilatharaydulub,
which is called
by Rabbi Ibnu Pakunda.
Duties of the heart wrote this in Arabic.
You have Kitabakur Jabaddali,
or called the Khuzari, Rabbi Yehuda Hadevi.
Then you have the 2 great works by
Maimonides,
who's called Musa ibn Umayimon
al Portobi in Arabic.
His first book is called Kitabu Farahel,
which is in Hebrew,
the book of the commandments.
He wrote this in Arabic.
Then you have the magnum opus, very, very
difficult, but incredible,
the
guide for the perplexed,
but also by the Rambam, my monarchies.
So the world view of the Quran
is one in which other religions are acknowledged
and accepted,
and that these other religions will always be
there.
So the goal is not global Islamic *.
Right? The goal is peaceful coexistence,
and the technical legal term for this is
Musa Allah.
Musa Allah.
And if you want to do research on
the charter, or sometimes called constitution of Medina,
when the prophet went into Medina, he had
a charter or constitution drafted.
So,
you can do a Google search on that
if you want.
However, the Quran does not advocate a type
of perennial philosophy where all religions are seen
as equally true.
According to the Quran, there are correct beliefs
and there are incorrect beliefs.
There is a way of theologizing or speaking
about God that is correct, and a way
of theologizing that is incorrect.
Either God incarnates or He doesn't.
Either Jesus is God or He's not. He's
either the Messiah or He isn't.
The Quran goes into
these issues.
The Quran encourages interfaith dialogue. The prophet himself
engaged with dialogue
with some Nestorian Christians who came to Medina,
and he housed them in his mosque for
3 days, and they engaged in interfaithful dialogue.
So me coming here today to consider what
I would say is sunnah,
the normative practice of the prophet himself.
There was a Catholic,
lady who came to the mosque in San
Ramon, She was quite elderly. She said, I
remember a time when I was not allowed
to go into a mosque.
Pre Vatican too.
Very interesting. Now think with this,
when the prophet was living in Medina, he
was the head of state in Medina,
The Muslims were living under constant siege in
the city. God gave the Prophet and the
Muslims permission
to physically defend themselves.
So the stance in Mecca for 13 years
was one of assertive non violence,
and in Medina, you have active resistance with
specific rules of engagement.
So the first verse revealed to the prophet
in the Quran, chapter 22 verse 39, that
gave him
permission to physically defend his city. It sounds
like there's an error.
It says all of these verbs are in
the passive. It says permission is given to
those
who are being fought against to fight
because they have been wronged, and indeed God
is able to give them victory.
So active resistance
or martial action
can only be called for by legitimate state
authority,
not by vigilantes,
and is used to defend one's community.
The very next verse says,
Who are these people, the Muslims that are
given permission to defend themselves? They are those
who were expelled from their homes
unjustifiably.
Except that they said, our lord is Allah.
Our lord is the God of Abraham, and
that also entails a belief in the Quran
and in the prophet Muhammad.
And then the Quran says,
If God did not check one people against
another, in other words, if God did not
reveal
a just war theory,
if God did not reveal
rules of engagement
when it comes to active,
resistance. The Quran says,
Then you would have seen many temples,
synagogues,
and churches,
and mosques
destroyed
where the name of God is celebrated.
So the initial impetus for active resistance is
to ensure religious pluralism
according to the Quran,
To ensure sacred spaces of worship and devotion
for people of various religious traditions.
And I preempted
questions. This is why ISIS is not Islamic.
It is a plague upon humanity
that the prophet actually
warned us against.
It was a group of early Muslims who
broke off the guidance of the prophet. They
were called the Karajites.
Right? Or the Khawarij in Arabic.
And today we have neo Kharijites.
You know, people who are Biden exclusivists, people
who are terrorists.
And the prophet said they come in waves
over time,
and it's our duty to oppose them.
So I want you to remember this analogy.
It's a very effective analogy.
Isis is to Islam
as the Ku Klux Klan is to Christianity.
So the question I get all the time
is, why don't Muslims,
like you, your leaders, or scholars, why don't
you all condemn
ISIS?
Right?
If you go to a mosque, you start
talking about ISIS, Muslims start rolling their eyes.
They say, oh, this again? Why don't you
talk about something else?
Right?
So I people ask me this question, I
always say to them, have you ever Googled
Muslim leaders condemn ISIS? And nobody has ever
Googled it.
So I'll just mention a few things here.
Islamic Society in North America,
or called it's called ISNA, they actually released
something called the Code of Honor, where they
condemn ISIS. This is a huge organization
in North America.
There's something called the Covenants Initiative.
Doctor. John Andrew Morrow
is,
spearheading that. This is something that is, known
in North America as well, where he condemns
ISIS and he has signatories to that. There's
something called the open letter to Baldadi, the
so called caliph
of ISIS.
There's a 120 signatories
by scholars all around the Muslim world. These
are people who have sway over the hearts
and minds of tens of millions of people
condemning ISIS.
The Council,
on American Islamic Relations, which is called CAIR,
it's constantly condemning and repudiating ISIS.
There's There's something called the Muslim Council of
Great Britain in 2014
that released a statement
condemning ISIS. There's an incredible book written by
an incredible scholar of Damascus,
his name is Sheikh Mohammed Aliahu.
He's a descendant of the prophet Mohammed. It's
called Refuting ISIS. He wrote it in Arabic,
and then he himself translated it into English.
It's very short. You can probably find it
online quite easily. Refuting ISIS, an ideological refutation
of ISIS.
You have the Muslim Public Affairs Council in
2014 that released a statement condemning ISIS.
You have the Amman message,
where 200 scholars find a declaration,
Amman, Jordan,
denouncing ISIS. You have a fatwa that was
issued by Al Azhar University,
the oldest university on the planet in 2014
that denounced ISIS. The Arab League in 2014
made a statement denouncing ISIS.
In December of 2015, 100,000
Indian scholars and teachers
signed a declaration,
100,000,
denouncing ISIS, and then you have the Marrakesh
and Morocco declaration
denouncing ISIS,
as well.
So these things are out there, but it's
strange how they don't make it into
a MSM or mainstream media, as it were.
I'm I know I'm out of time, so
I'm gonna stop at this point.
Hopefully I answered
the question. I'm looking forward to your your
questions and
conversations later. Thank you for your attention.
We now,
open up the,
floor to questions.
And we do have a microphone
that is gonna go around
and, whoever it is.
Okay. Thank you. So just raise your hand
and you'll get a microphone.
There's a person right there.
And try to keep your questions short and
on for topic since we only have an
hour for this event.
Yes.
Oh, you need a microphone. Oh, she has
a mic. I'm sorry. This is Tom. For
everybody.
I'll talk really fast. I'll talk really fast.
Thank you very much. It was a very
informative talk, and I appreciate it.
As a former Catholic, I would come down
to * if I were to go into
a Protestant church,
let alone a Muslim place of worship.
One of the most,
glorious
experiences in my life was in Southern India
when the Muslims,
the Christians, and the Hindi all had places
of worship and often walk together on the
street. It was
absolutely phenomenal.
And so my question to you would be,
would you ever see that that might happen
here in the United States
Where we're all accepted of, you know, accepting
of others. You mentioned that we all can
openly worship.
I I think we I think we have
that here. I think,
I think
with respect to that, America is at the
the top of the list as far as,
acceptance and toleration of religions.
I'll tell you this, I've
outside of elementary school,
I've never experienced
any type of and I used to debate
Christians, by the way. I used to be
Muslim polemicist when I was in undergrad in
high school. You know, you're young, you're not
married, you got all this energy.
So we go and debate, and I'm I've
had nothing but positive responses, and, you know,
no one's ever pulled me and insulted me.
You know, kids do these type of things
with their kids. Right? You don't know what
so
and it's interesting. I have a friend who
lives in Iraq.
He's actually my wife's
teacher's husband. My wife's Arabic teacher's husband.
And I actually when I was in Yemen,
he was one of my teachers there as
well. Sometimes we talk and he says, oh,
there's a number of soldiers here around the
corner.
And you know, I'm just afraid they're gonna
they're gonna kill all of us.
And then he says to me, how how
are you living in America?
Are you constantly threatened every day by people?
And I said, I've never in my life
been threatened one time.
So as far as that goes, I think
America is actually
a model
that the rest of the world can actually
learn from. Obviously it's not a perfect society,
but what society is perfect. Right?
Yes.
Who has it? I see. And then there's
a gentleman here. Yes. I skipped him again.
Sorry.
He raised a very
important point about the various,
Muslim organizations that have come out against ISIS.
And my question is, why haven't
majored I mean, this is big. Why aren't
they telling people
that Muslims have objected?
I mean, that would cover so many take
care of so many concerns.
I don't know. You have to ask them.
You we have to ask questions like who
actually runs the media.
That's that's those are real questions. Right. That
that I think we're being diverted from.
So that's what I would do if I
were even researching
who actually,
are these people actually
doing things for our best interest? What's actually
happening? Who are these people? We can find
out who these people are.
Yes. If we see any differences
or variations of toleration,
of other faith traditions
between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
That's a good question.
Certainly with the invasion of Iraq, this it's
kind of created a
a power factor in Iraq. Now Sunnis and
Shias have been around for 1200 years,
and in Iraq they've lived in relative
peace. The major difference between, and someone might
even call it a negligible difference, there's really
no difference theologically
that's major.
But the difference is in political theory.
Who who,
who should rule the Muslim or nation as
it were? The Shi'a say it must be
a descendant of the prophet.
So I think a lot of these things
I think there's always been little
pockets
of disputed violence since, you know, since, you
know, the middle ages and even before that.
But I think with what's going on in
the news and the world, those little things
are sort of grand eyes and put forward
as and presented as sort of this global
conflict,
you know.
So, you know, there's the I I call
it the
the Santa Claus effect. You know, you have
the,
you have the true Santa Claus, who was
a 4th century Christian priest who used to
give candy to children, then he died and
he's gone. And you have sort of mythological
Santa Claus
that flies around at night and goes out
of your chimney. That doesn't really exist, you
know. So a lot of this this idea
of, you know, your next door neighbor should
be Al Qaeda.
You know, so even, you know, even if
he's a nice guy,
you know, that's called tafina. They they learn
these words that 99.9%
of Muslims have never heard of.
Right? But, you know, people like Daniel Pipes
for example, he puts it out there and
says, you know, if a Muslim is is
is nice to you and tells you he
doesn't want to kill you, he's lying because
he's sanctioned by God to light a potential
concealment. And he can do that, but no
deal in Omega.
What?
I mean, I did a PhD this time.
I didn't learn about this. I don't know.
Or he's kidding. I mean,
There's something in the deep dark recesses
of Sharia that, you know, the guy has
a gun to your head and says, are
you Muslim? You can say, no.
Sharia.
To save your life.
But this thing is sort of just a
grandad, so this is what all Muslims are
doing.
They believe in us, and that's what they're
doing in America.
You know?
So Sunni Shia differences. Sorry. Just one question.
Oh,
rude. Yes? There's a gentleman back here who's
had his hand up.
Kind of a politically
correct
term to use, but,
I don't think
we have our situation if we
if we try to obscure
what really is going on Sunday. Because in
reality,
the history of Islam has been more than
just Muslim there's been Muslim rule with Karas,
Palestine,
and wherever Islam has spread to, you know,
once God has a certain extent,
it has sought to establish its own rule,
whether it be,
the kind of separatist
movement or even
taking over governments of the countries where it
has spread.
So I I wanted to I read Christianity
and I love
had a really bad history,
not separating church and state.
We have largely learned the lesson. I don't
know what you just
I really wanna challenge you. I think we
have to be honest, and there's still a
problem with Islam,
the lack of separation of mosque and state,
and really throughout the Middle East,
what you have, you're not during Muslim majority.
Next, you have nations under Islamic rule. Sir,
do you have a question?
Biggest
way, but are,
they're afraid to bring that on.
Yeah. So I I would agree with you
to the the pre model rule.
You have empires vying for land.
I also think that a lot of what's
happening in Muslim Muslim majority countries, again, to
use that, what you call a PC
term, is a direct result of,
colonialism in that area that Muslims haven't
necessarily
recovered from.
And then as far as,
under Islamic rule,
you know, there's,
the Quran does not mandate any form of
government. If you can show me a verse
in the Quran that says thou shalt have
a theocracy,
I'll be glad to agree with you that,
you know, there should be no separation of
mosque and state. But you have Saudi Arabia,
which is a kingdom,
you know, and the early Muslims when when
the caliphate became a kingdom, a lot of
early Muslims,
they they frowned upon that. You have,
you have democratic movements,
in the Muslim majority countries, like Syria in
19 forties fifties.
Iran, the president or the prime minister of
Iran who sent
it, actually was a great admirer of Thomas
Jefferson,
but we can't have him. Right?
So he was removed from power by the
CIA,
and the shah was put in,
and the shah was quite
cruel, and he would torture Muslims. My own
family members, some of them were were tortured
by him.
And
so you have these sort of I mean,
Saddam Hussein is another example. This is someone
who's shaking hands with our defense,
secretary of defense in the 19 eighties.
The CIA trained Al Qaeda
in Afghanistan,
and so did Mi 5. So
you have
American or Western interests in that region,
that are
turning that region into absolute chaos,
for different reasons.
But,
you know, you have different forms of government
all over the Middle East.
Let's take one more question.
Yeah. You mentioned
that Saudi Arabia is kind of an anomaly
in terms of,
can you
kind of elucidate a little more about how
to
frame that? Yeah. It's very interesting. Again, we
talk about sacred law, Sharia. Right? People hear
the word Sharia, and they get to start
falling behind.
Sharia literally means a path to cold water.
Right?
So Sharia is an indispensable part of Muslim's
identity.
It's like saying you could be a Jew,
but you can't call the halakala.
Or you could be a Christian, but you
can't follow the Bible. It's like, what are
we talking about?
You know, when most Muslims hear the word
shayaha, they think prayer and fasting, and like,
can I eat this because there's gelatin in
it? That's what 99% of Muslims are thinking
about. So sharia is very fast. There isn't
one way of doing sharia.
Right? So for example in Afghanistan,
again, a country that's been under attack for
40 years,
you have places in Afghanistan
where women do not leave their homes, and
are not allowed to leave their homes.
And if you say what are you what
are people doing? That's so oppressive.
Elders of a certain city will say, this
is the Sharia. Again, that's their interpretation of
it. If you go over to the border
over the border to Iran,
half the physicians and again, Iran's not perfect.
No country's perfect. Obviously not perfect. But half
the physicians in Iran are women.
70% of college students are women.
And if you say, well, why do you
why is it like this? They say, this
is Sharia.
There's a prophet that
of the acquisition of knowledge is an obligation
upon every type of Muslim.
Right?
So it's very vast. Now you have Saudi
Arabia, they have their own laws. They say
women can't drive cars.
Okay.
What?
That's their interpretation of the shitting up. Right?
And as far as theologically,
their their,
theological
stances are very different than traditional Sunni or
even Shri stances.
So they're very,
Takfiri,
they anathematize
Muslims that don't believe exactly as they believe.
And Saudi Arabia is one of our biggest
allies, by the way.
Which is interesting.
But anyway, not making not getting too much
into politics.
But,
so theologically, there's sort of an outlier.
You know, this idea that if you don't
believe exactly as we believe, then we don't
consider you Muslim.
Traditional Islam traditional Sunni Islam always recognizes difference
difference of opinion.
And that,
difference of opinion, there's actually a hadith, a
statement of the prophet, which is not exactly
authentic, but is quoted a lot by scholars
as sort of set As sort of being
true in principle,
that difference of opinion amongst scholars is a
mercy from God.
It's not sort of a a fitna or
a cause of strife
amongst people.
So there is no true there is no
true separation of church and state. I mean,
you have
Rick *
wanting to,
you know,
put abortion into law, and he's doing that
because he's a Catholic. Now I'm not saying
you shouldn't do that, what I'm saying is
there's a difference between a secular society
and secularism.
The the secularism
means, let's banish religion to the household. Right?
Not even talk about it at all. Right?
But a secular society allows for religious discourse,
you know? I mean, you can go up
there and say, abortion is wrong because the
Bible says so. He probably won't get that
law passed,
but he can try.
Right? And he might convince a few people,
so religion is on the forefront. I mean,
everyone in the in congress, almost everyone believes
in God.
So there really is no true separation.
Religion
and and the state are never truly divorced
anywhere you go around.
So I think we also have a problem
with that. If that's what you wanna do,
create a totally secular society. Because they're religion,
then you're a quantum country.
Thank you so much. Thank you.