Ali Ataie – Looking to the Quran & Sunnah for Answers in Troubling Times
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AI: Transcript ©
This is Ali Atai,
and,
this is a,
MCC
special lecture on the day of Friday
in lieu of the
Friday chlipba.
Like to thank MCC for the opportunity,
to,
keep in touch. Very important with the community
even though we're going through this
strange,
world crisis.
It's very important to stay in touch.
And Alhamdulillah,
we have the technology to do that,
and to,
and to interact with with each other.
And
grow in our relationship and continue to to
learn from each other.
So the,
I'll give a very short talk
short reminder,
to myself and
to all of you by extension.
I struggled with the title of this talk.
It's hard to
it's hard to entitle something
in advance. It just sort of has to
come naturally,
as some sort of,
inspiration.
But I think broadly looking to the Quran
and Sunnah,
for answers in troubling times.
And certainly these are troubling times.
So my contention is that the answers that
were
that we are looking for in these times
lie within,
our religious tradition.
That it's all there.
That Allah
has given us
complete guidance.
This is deen al haqq. This is a
religion of truth.
There's no religion.
There's no deen to come after.
There is no messenger after our master, Muhammad
He is the messenger, Allah
says.
He is
he it is that sent his messenger
with guidance, alhuda,
in the religion of truth. So it's all
there. It's in the Quran.
We have to know how to find it.
That takes training. That takes wisdom.
That takes discipline. It's in the sunnah. It's
in the normative practice
of our master Muhammad
It's in the words of our recognized
ulama, our scholars and sages,
the great Imma, the Mufasirin,
the Mashaikh.
It's all there in our tradition, capital T.
We have to know how to go in
like an ocean.
There's
there's precious
jewels in the ocean. We have to know
how to dive in and extract
extract them.
However, we must consciously
and constantly,
and I'll repeat that, we must consciously
with intention with niya,
with a type of awareness and constantly, in
other words, repetitively
rededicate
ourselves,
with sincerity, with Sidq
to Allah and his messenger in order to
understand our times properly
as well as prosper in our times. So
it's not just enough to be able to
understand what's happening,
but to be people of success
in our times.
So we're living in times that
one might call
even apocalyptic.
This is a term that a lot of
Christians
are throwing around.
Apocalypsis
means in Greek it means some sort of
unveiling that's going to happen towards the end
of time.
Right? I mean you look around the world
today,
physical and spiritual diseases
are everywhere.
Right? It's like a flood.
Right?
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he
in the hadith, he said
that,
that the the similitude of the ark of
Noah
He said
the similitude of my family, my house,
is like the ark of Noah
that
that whoever embarks upon it is saved.
And whoever,
does not is doomed, is damned.
So the flood in the latter days, what
is this flood? Is it a physical flood?
Oh, there are physical floods that are happening,
but really a flood
of of sin,
a flood of
spiritual diseases, physical diseases.
It's really bringing the world to its needs.
And, of course, we stay optimistic
because the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he was
an optimist.
He was a realist. He explained what's happening,
without apology.
He told us the truth, but he also
was someone who,
was, a very positive person. He said, indeed,
the affair of the believer is always good.
Right? If it's a punishment of some sort,
it's an opportunity for the Muslim to make
Tawba,
to reorient oneself. That's what Tawba means to
Allah.
And that's a beautiful thing. It's a great
thing. Tawba is a beautiful, beautiful theological virtue.
Right? And if it's,
if it's a type of purification
that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is putting us
through, then that's good. He's refining us. Right?
He's refining our character.
He's giving us stations, increased stations.
It'll be a means by which we
attain higher degrees in Al Aqirah.
So everything is good.
The affair of the motman,
is good.
But there are incredible unprecedented things happening in
the world right now.
So these are these are times that require
us. They require us to be people of
fabila,
people of virtue,
people of,
temperance,
of courage,
of justice, of wisdom. We know these as
the cardinal
virtues.
Right? But also
people of of trust. Yeah. Right? So there
are also in in in addition to these
to these cardinal virtues, which many atheists also
will espouse, there are theological virtues,
right,
of tawakkul al Allah, trust in Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
Trusting in Allah for the believer is easy,
but for the unbeliever,
a lot of times it's difficult because the
unbeliever believes
that
he can know everything through the aqal. So
basically, it's a type of
self worship.
Allah
says,
that whoever places their trust in Allah,
Allah
is sufficient
for that person. So trust in Allah is
a beautiful
is a beautiful,
theological virtue.
And
it's not true what the atheists are saying,
that religion is simply
a way for people to cope with the
death. It's just a consolation and that's all
it is. No. Religion makes strong demands of
people.
It's not easy being a good Muslim. It's
not easy being a good Christian or Jew
either. Religion makes demands.
And it's just a it's just a false
notion, a cop out to say, all these
religious people, they don't wanna just deal with
the reality of their mortality. No. I would
say that people who reject religion,
in a way they're just being lazy
and they don't want to admit
certain things that they can't verify.
And they just want to live according to
their hua.
Right? It is religion that really gives us
discipline. It is religion
that that gives us our,
morality.
So tawakkalal Allah and then obedience to Allah
and His messenger. Another great theological virtue.
Right? So we have to be people of
theological virtue, even if that means committing a
type of social
suicide.
Right? We have to stand firm for our
tradition,
even if that means committing some sort of
social suicide. Because what's what's the most important
relationship in your life?
Is it the relationship with,
you know,
your mother or your father
or yourself? There are people now, young people
who don't wanna get married. They,
especially women, They're told by university professors that
it's a type of slavery, so they self
partner. That's what they call it. Right? I'm
the most important
person in my life. Everything's about me. It's
all about looking out
for my own
interests.
Right? The most important relationship in the life
of a believer
is the relationship the believer has with Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, with his or her Lord.
That's axiomatically
true. That's just obvious.
The only opinion
that really matters is the opinion
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. It's Allah's opinion
of us. That's the only opinion. Fadkuruni adkurkum.
Right? This is something that we should
remember, this ayah from the Quran
when things happen in our lives. Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala is speaking in the first person
that he says,
remember,
remember,
me so that I might remember you.
Have regard for me so that so that
I might have regard for you. Prioritize
me and I will prioritize you
with his tafik.
That is all that is going to matter.
At the end of the day
is Allah's remembrance of us.
Right? Because Allah
opinion is the only opinion that matters.
We recite in al Fatiha. We should think
about these words. Again, this is what what
I was referring to earlier
as a a constant
and conscious sort of reevaluation
of ourselves.
Think about what we're saying in prayer.
Al here, the definite article is immersive. It's
denotes
istiraq,
all praise.
Lila, this lamb denotes a type of
possession.
All praise belongs
to
Allah Our lord is Allah
Our God is Allah
All praise belongs to Allah. Arrahmanur
Rahim, the indiscriminately
compassionate, the infinitely loving.
In the Quran of Asim, the owner of
the day of judgment.
The king
of the day of judgment. Allah
will judge us.
And what an excellent judge.
Allah
says,
is not Allah the wisest of judges? Yes.
Now, sociologists,
they tend to,
divide up,
the world into different ages or epics.
And I've mentioned this before, but this is
important to understand
in our times that the medieval period, right,
and the term medieval has a bit of
a negative
connotation,
but I don't mean it in that sense.
Just
use it as a way of describing that
period in history.
That the medieval period is also referred to
by sociologists as the age of faith.
Right? This is when religious faith dominated the
world. However,
sociologists also admit
that this is also
a oversimplification
of sorts. That if you look at the
greatest of the theologians
of the medieval period and all 3 of
the Abrahamic
faiths, you'll notice that their sources of knowledge,
In other words, their epistemology
was grounded
in 2 things,
reason and revelation.
Right? Both are absolutely essential.
Nakhal and Aqal,
reason and reveler. Nakhal and Aqal.
Naqal and Aqal, reason and revelation. And according
to the exigits of the Quran,
this is the meaning of nurun alanur and
ayatunur,
Light upon light
is reason
interacting with the revelation of Allah
And this is where true knowledge comes from.
And this is,
this is the way of the people of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Reason and revelation.
And then we move into the age of
reason,
which is also known as the age of
enlightenment.
That's what it's called.
Where Naqal is very much downplayed
for Akal only. So now it's about intellect.
So focus is more on rational inquiry. It
was on empiricism.
But again, this is a bit of a
simplification oversimplification.
Most of the enlightenment thinkers
affirmed revelation
and affirmed the importance
of the recognition
of God,
of Allah
as the source of our existence.
Right? The primal cause of all things, the
primal cause of the universe,
and the source of our morality.
However, some of them, like David Hume,
right, they took Nakal completely out of the
picture,
misrepresenting
the importance of religion
in people's lives. What is the point of
religion? Imam al Razi says to create benefit
and ward off ward off harm.
This is the point of religion, to create
benefit for for creation
and to ward off harm. If you look
at our Sharia, again, this term Sharia,
very much misunderstood as you can imagine. You
all know this since since 911. People think
the Sharia
is some draconian code of penal punishments.
If you look at all of the laws
in the Sharia,
every single one of them,
the purpose of them is to protect or
to preserve 1 of 6 things or, or
more than one of these 6 things.
To preserve the preservation of religion, freedom of
religion,
the preservation of life, of property, of intellect,
of lineage and of honor.
That's the point of the sacred law. The
sacred law, the point of the sacred law
is not to
handcuff your life and and destroy and make
your make your life miserable. If that's what
you're getting from revelation,
then you've misunderstood revelation.
If religion is making you a horrible person,
then you're not doing religion properly.
Right? That's why it's very, very important. Just
because you have sources in your house, just
because you have
whatever you might have, Quran or Bibles or
Hadith on the on the shelf,
This takes discipline. As I said, this takes
training. We have to sit with people
that have studied these things for decades in
order to understand these things properly.
We should take this very seriously,
that the akhira is really the abode that
we should put our focus on, because the
dunya, as one of my teachers says, is
designed
to crush our hopes.
You know, it's it's ebb and flow. We
have good times in the dunya, we have
bad times in the dunya.
Right? Sometimes we have very bad times.
And if we put all of our eggs
in the basket of the dunya or a
majority of our eggs in the basket of
the dunya,
we're gonna end up with a lot of
cracked eggs.
Right?
So it's very important for us as believers
to understand
the transient nature
of the dunya that this is a testing
ground.
So you have the age of faith.
Right? You have the age of reason.
From the age of faith, you have Naqal
and Aqal. This is how it's understood.
Right? This is a proper epistemology,
and then a downplaying
of revelation,
but not a total rejection of it in
the age of enlightenment.
But nowadays,
we live in an age of feelings.
This is now the sort of post enlightenment,
postmodern period that we're living in, the age
of feelings.
Right? And it's very difficult for our older,
generation to understand exactly what the youth are
going through.
College nowadays
is a very, very different place than it
was even in the nineties.
It's very different what what these young people
are being exposed to.
Right? Now even Akal has been removed from
the picture.
Everything is subjective.
You can't really know anything. This is what
they're taught.
There's no real truth to be discovered.
We can't know what is moral again, sort
of taken from,
David Hume.
Right? You can't get an ought from an
is, this type of thing. Obviously, there's
a very, compelling argument against that argument, but
this is what they're taught. You can't know
morality. You can't know something's right or wrong.
Now if they're taking it even beyond morality,
you can't know history they're saying now. There's
no such thing as objective history. There's no
way of knowing what happened.
And even further now, with the hard science
the hard sciences. Right?
You can't know if something is true or
not.
I mean, the entire edifice
is being pulled down,
and and they're attempting to rebuild it. So
if you can't know anything, what's the point
of getting an education? Well, that's all about
getting some sort of power, so you can
put yourself in a position of power.
Everything's power plays now.
So this idea of being humble, of believing
in God,
in,
in
obedience, things like that, obedience to people of
knowledge, obedience to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, these
things are sort of
seen as,
as,
as sort of outdated. They're unfashionable.
They're antiquated.
They're archaic.
Right? Everything's about feelings now.
Right? It's all about how you feel. How
do you feel about abortion?
How do you feel about
the hot button topic, racism in the world
right now? How do you feel about issues
related to
gender and sexuality?
What's your feeling?
Right?
The prophet
he said to one of his companions,
uinkanamuran.
Speak the haqq. Speak the truth.
Even if it's bitter.
You go around talking about Al Haqq, the
truth, at college campuses today.
I mean, they're looking at you crazy. What
are you talking about? There's no truth. It's
my truth and your truth.
Truth is subjective. It's whatever you want it
to be.
It's whoever makes the most compelling argument now.
Everything's sophistry.
Right?
That's
okay. Speak the truth, even if it's bitter.
And don't be afraid of people if they
reproach you. Don't worry about that.
Don't be afraid of people. Fear Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala. And if you feel that your
opinions
will cause you harm,
then be
silent.
The prophet
said, whoever is silent is safe.
Right?
We don't have to always give our 2¢
on things.
You know, this is an age where people
think, you know, they see something and they
read something they have to give their opinion
on. So you don't have to give your
opinion. You can take the 5th amendment.
I get questions all the time from people
asking me questions
about certain things. I probably answer 5% of
them.
I don't have to answer all these questions.
Who said that I have to answer every
question?
Who said that I always have to have
an opinion on something?
Who said that if I have an opinion
on something, I have to tell others my
opinion about something?
Those are my opinions.
That's between me and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
I don't need to tell people.
So if someone responds if someone responds to
your logic,
your reason, and your evidence with insults,
then you should know that you're dealing with
a person who believes
that whoever shouts the loudest makes the best
argument.
Right? And that's the method of children.
And it's amazing the prophet
he said towards the end of time, children
will be empowered. You think about that literal
children,
but also this kind of,
this kind of sustained,
immaturity
that you see in a lot of adults
now.
Right?
That, you know, a child is
who's crying
for a toy in a store is very,
very difficult to reason with.
There are adult children nowadays
who lack basic self control. They can't reason.
They don't know how to think. Right?
They don't teach linguistics. They don't teach grammar.
I mean, grammar really
teaches you how to think.
Right? They don't teach logic anymore. They throw
tantrums
when they don't get what they want.
Right? Everyone is
emotionally
incontinent.
Right? And they think that's a strong argument.
If I cry or if I shout,
then I've won the argument.
Right?
And with with this type of thing, just
say salaam.
Allah says when the ignorant speak to to
the believers,
they respond with salam.
Because if you engage with this type of
highly emotive personality,
it's gonna be a lose lose situation.
It's the total waste of time. You're going
to be misrepresented.
They're going to just label you some ad
hominem attack,
some name. They're gonna call you something a
bigot and that's it's gonna last and it's
gonna be plastered everywhere.
Don't even engage with some of these people.
Right?
So, fa'aina tezhaboun.
It's a great question.
One of my colleagues asked,
I was watching his lecture
on the MCC
series
on this question, this beautiful rhetorical question that
Allah asks us in the Quran.
Where are you going?
Which of these paths are you going to
take? Are you gonna take the path of
emotion
and Hawa?
I want to do this because it feels
great, therefore it must be great.
Right?
I think it was
I think it was Robert George at Princeton
who said that,
there was this evangelical
Christian lady who left her husband for another
man, and then she justified it by saying,
well, God wouldn't put that
love for that other man in my heart
if he didn't want me to have that
other man.
This type of justification
for adultery.
Right?
We see the same kind of justification with
other lifestyles.
I have this feeling. I have this lust
in my heart,
and, you know, God put it in my
heart. And, you know, if he doesn't want
me to explore this type of thing, what
are you talking about?
Right?
The point of the intellect is to constrain
the desires.
This goes all the way back. This is
even, you know, you go into Greek philosophy.
Right?
Plato.
Right? The the 3 degrees or the 3,
the 3 dimensions of the soul, of the
tsukai.
The rational soul has to always be in
the driver's seat. This is basic. You have
to control the appetitive soul. You have to
you have to control
the striving
soul that the intellect must,
and the word aqal in Arabic literally means
to hobble something. It comes from a root
to hobble.
Right?
Like to hobble your camel, to tie it
down so it doesn't bolt away from you.
Because the desires, the how wow, well, you
can justify anything. People read the Quran,
People read the Bible. People read any any
religious text. They can justify any type of
behavior
if they want it that bad.
Right? They will torture the text. Hermeneutical
waterboarding. If you torture a text
long enough, it'll admit to killing Kennedy.
It'll admit to anything.
Right?
People know it's also known as chasing leprechauns.
Something in a text that isn't there, you
keep chasing it, eventually,
hawa? Are we gonna or are we gonna
take the path of this type of extreme
rationalism,
empiricism,
and not,
not
acknowledge,
spiritual verities,
which is a type of kufr because all
of us are conscious.
And consciousness
itself is a metaphysical
reality.
Nobody knows for sure
how we're how does it work? How do
we go from a
a brain,
a whatever it is, 6 or 7 pound
brain, I don't know how heavy the brain
is, a piece of matter. How do we
go from that
to thought, perception,
memory?
Nobody knows this. Nobody.
Right? This is a great
mystery.
It is a it is a metaphysic we
are experiencing things in the metaphysical realm right
now. Right now, just being conscious, it is
a metaphysical reality and experience.
There's no denying it.
Right?
So is that gonna be our path? This
type of materialism?
Or is our path going to be the
path
of the people of Allah? People who use
their brains,
people who have intellect, who use their intellects.
Also people who believe in
the Tanzil,
the revelation
from Allah
And
acknowledge Allah
as the primary cause of all existence.
And that he is our Lord and that
he is
the standard of of our morality?
Or are we going to be arrogant and,
and
determine ourselves to be the standard
and worship ourselves? Worship our own intellects? Worship
our own desires?
And then if we do acknowledge some sort
of divine revelation, are we going to try
to fit our own,
subjective whims and desires and caprice
into that revelation so that we can make
the text say whatever we want it to
say? Or are we going to actually
be humble
and and and
and and and mold our own desires and
intellects
to fit in with the revelation of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala and continue to strive. That's
the point of it. That's why people have
urges and things like that
is because this is a this is a
testing ground and
it's not easy.
Right? And just because it isn't easy, doesn't
mean we give up. We have to be,
we we have to be courageous. We have
to be human beings and strive. And don't
be lazy and give up and then make
excuses.
Right? There are people that are
working full time to destroy Abrahamic morality.
They slander Muslims. They misuse and represent Muslim
sources.
Right?
I mean, a few years ago after 9:11,
there was 5 or 6 people that that
were causing problems writing books and going on
shit. Now you have hundreds of people
with the explosion on the Internet.
You have people claiming to be, you know,
Muslims, lovers of Allah and his messenger, yet
their actions and words betray their so called
convictions. This is a big, big problem.
You know? How do we know this is
a big problem? It's because these types of
people are described over and over again in
the Quran.
Allah
says about the Munafiqeen.
He says,
That
shaitan has overwhelmed
them
and that he made them forget the dhikr
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Dhikr polishes the
heart. People who don't make dhikr,
right,
they allow the heart to become more and
more diseased and corrosive, and then they sort
of just lose their human nature. They don't
even act like human beings anymore.
This is what shaytan does.
Right? And the greatest dhikr is the Quran.
So shaytan makes them lose the Quran. So
you you you
notice people that,
you know, they, they claim to speak for
Allah and his Messenger. They don't quote the
Quran.
They don't read the Quran. They have nothing
to do with the Quran. You're thinking
how is this person
representing Allah and his messenger
when there's not even a peep about the
Quran?
Right? It's very strange.
Hold on tightly to the rope of Allah
That's the Quran according to the exigence.
Do they not think deeply about the Quran?
So I'm out of time.
I'll just leave you with one other hadith
of the prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam. Beautiful hadith,
very short.
Say I believe in Allah and
be upright upon that. This is our duty
in this world. Don't think you have to
respond to this or that crisis or anything.
Take care of your own heart. Take care
of your family.
Establish the prayer.
Read your Quran.
Right?
Don't worry, be happy.
Although
obviously there's there's there's there's cause for worry.
Be practical.
You know, don't don't be an excessive person.
But at the end of the day, know
that the affair of the believer
is good.
Right? And this is what the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam said. If the affair of the
believer is good and we have and we
have,
good opinion of Allah
Allah
is our sovereign lord, and he is