Ali Ataie – The Qur’an The 1,400 Year Old Solution to Today’s Society
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Interesting topic tonight.
The Quran,
1400 year solution
to today's
society.
When most non muslims hear the term Quran,
their minds are
often flooded with many interrogative particles.
Like who, what, when, where and why? What
is the
Quran or Quran? Is it the same as
the Quran?
Is it did did you know there's a
book called the Chloran?
Mhmm.
K l o r a m. It's the
handbook of the KKK. It's
written in 19 15th of the Quran. Obviously,
very different than the Quran.
So,
Quran,
al Quran with a definite article
means the recitation,
the rehearsal.
It comes from a root meaning to read
para a.
And the exact equivalent of this root,
para
in the Hebrew,
also means
to proclaim, to rehearse
or to repeat.
This
verb is is found some 739
times in different forms
in the Hebrew bible as well.
So,
as the story goes,
the holy prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
when he was about 35 years old. He
was a merchant.
But he started to lose interest in the
trading.
At this point, he started having dreams
which Muslims
believe,
was the beginning of prophecy.
Muslims also believe that at no point in
his life
did the prophet worship idols.
The prophet was in the spirit of Abraham,
his ancestors.
Oh. Got it.
So there was a group of monotheists living
in Mecca called the Hunafa.
And these people claim to be in the
tradition of Abraham. So these are Arabs, they're
Ishmaelites.
Right? So they're following the traditions of their
forefather.
Abraham,
Ismail,
peace be upon both of them. So the
prophet at this point,
he used to go to this
retreat he had. It was a cave called
the Hared
off on Jabal Anur, the mountain of light.
And he would go there to,
do devotional practices. It's called Tehindna, which probably
comes from
Tehindnof, which is Hebrew.
Meaning some sort of devotional practice.
He would,
make the vicar, he would remember his Lord,
He would contemplate the plight of his people.
He would prostrate to God, things like that.
Or he would just go there to get
away from,
city life, to be in solitude.
So while he was there,
on,
the night of power,
later it's called the night of destiny as
it's sometimes translated.
He was visited by the Archangel Gabriel in
human form.
And Gabriel,
came into the cave
and there's no, you know, small talk. There's
no,
It was just Iqra.
It's read. So it's the firil amar, the
imperative
for read.
And a prophet, peace be upon him, who
has no formal education or schooling,
responded
I cannot read. I am unlettered. I'm not
from the reciters.
The angel repeated the command,
again.
3rd time,
Yefra
So the first five verses of the of
the Quran was revealed. Read in the name
of your lord creates
created man from it says congealed drop of
blood, but I don't like that translation.
Read for your lord is most bountiful who
taught man by use of the pen, taught
man that which you do not before.
So I'll take that. No. I'm just joking.
It reminds me, I just shut mine off
too. If it goes off, you'll understand.
So these are the first five verses of
I didn't mean the verse.
Of the Quran.
Right? And this is in chapter 96 of
the Quran. Right? Which is interesting. You you
would expect this to be in chapter 1
of the Quran because it's the first five
verses, but it's in chapter 96. There's a
wisdom behind that. The order of the Quran
is not in chronology.
It's based on how the prophet ordered it
himself.
So
Muslims believe also an important aspect
of Islamic prophetology
is that the prophet fulfills
ancient prophecy.
Right?
So for example, in the canonized book of
Isaiah,
proto Isaiah in the old testament. There's a
story of 1,
who receives a book and it says lemor
et'lar
in the Hebrew, which means it will be
said to him,
Tarah and ifrah are the exact same word.
It shall be said to him,
read.
And his answer according to Isaiah 2912 is
lo yadayit
seifo, which literally means
I don't know letters.
I can read.
And,
according to Catholicism, there is a
a law known as, the law of discernment
of spirits.
Because when the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam, when
he was first approached in the cave, he
had thought that something evil had happened to
him, or that he had been possessed by
a jinn or a demon.
Now this is interesting because,
the Catholic doctrine says that when the spirit
of God comes upon a prophet, immediately he
will feel a constriction
and then an expansion. Whereas if it was
a demon, there's an expansion and then a
constriction. So prophets called constriction
first, which according to the law of discernment
of prophets,
which is, Roman Catholic doctrine codified.
It was a true vision. And this is
based on,
on experiences
of former prophets. For example, the prophet Isaiah,
when he was in the temple, the spirit
of God came upon him. He was the
corner of the temple saying, what a wretched
person I am. What a wretched person I
am. Musa alaihi salaam, the holy prophet Moses,
very reluctant
when God commissioned him to go to pharaoh,
pick someone else, I can't speak properly, so
on and so forth.
Jeremiah as well. So the Quran is the
revelation of God. We have to make a
distinction between the revealed word of God and
the inspired word of God. So for example,
traditional Christians would say that the Bible is
inspired by God.
God inspired, not a word for word dictation,
but rather an expression of an author's unique
understanding.
So Matthew's under Matthew's personality is very evident
in the New Testament. He quotes from the
Old Testament. Luke is a physician. His Greek
is very clean. You can see his personality
in his work. John, very high Christology.
Paul uses sarcasm a lot in his letters.
So Christians would say these are inspired by
God, but articulated through a material vehicle,
to human agency, a created mechanism, a human
mind, a human heart, and human understanding.
So Muslims have something similar to this
in the Islamic tradition
known as hadith. Hadith are divinely
inspired statements
of the holy prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu alaihi salam.
Words chosen by the prophet to articulate
divine inspiration.
So God inspired the prophet
to exhort his followers
to be humble.
And the prophet chose his words
how to articulate that. And many times the
prophet uses conditional clauses. That's almost his signature.
You can see conditional if then clauses.
This is how he chose to articulate this
inspiration from
God. He said, whoever
humbles himself
will be exalted. Whoever exalts himself will be
debased and humiliated humiliated.
But the Quran is something different than that.
The Quran is not the inspired speech of
God, it's the revealed speech
of God himself. Now before we get into
that, we have to sort of define
who is God in the Islamic tradition. God
in the Islamic tradition is completely and radically
transcendent of creation.
He transcends space time and direction.
And when I say he,
I don't mean to imply
that God is a male.
This is a big deal now in graduate
school.
If you take
classes of theology at the graduate school level,
your professor may actually mark you down if
you refer to God with a mass by
a masculine pronoun.
They'll say use an equal number of she's.
Right? Or just use she because
s h e, the he is already in
the she.
So it's both.
Well, certainly God doesn't have 2 genders. He
doesn't have any gender.
So this becomes problematic. Or they'll say, don't
say him and himself, say God and God
stuff.
Right?
Now certainly in the old testament, the Hebrew
refers to God as who, which means him
in the Quran. Huwah, which means him. The
Greek in the New Testament, autos, which means
him, is masculine. Or the
god,
the lord, masculine. And there's a neuter gender
in Greek. It could have been neuter.
That does not mean God is a male.
That's how God chose to reveal himself,
but it does not mean that he's male.
The word Allah and the word
Adonai and the word Hatheas,
these are grammatically
male. You see, words in Hebrew and Arabic,
all the nouns are genderified.
Every noun has a gender.
Okay? Some have natural gender, some have lexical
or grammatical gender. For example, the word for
boy has a natural gender. Boy
It's masculine. It's a boy. It has to
be masculine.
A girl is naturally feminine. But the sun,
the sun,
there's nothing morphologically
there that will inform you or indicate that
this is a feminine word. But it is
in fact a feminine word. So it's grammatically,
it's lexically
feminine,
not naturally. The same with the name of
God. God does not have a gender. It's
no natural gender. The word itself is lexically,
masculine.
Now interestingly, the
the the dominant attribute of,
God in the Quran, rachma,
comes from, a word meaning the womb of
a mother. Right? The racham. And And in
Hebrew, it's the same word. The rasha means
mercy of God, and the rasha also means
the womb which encloses the fetus. So the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam under inspiration
would sometimes
give examples
or demonstrate divine attributes
by using feminine imagery
like
the woman who had lost her son and
then she she saw him and she picked
him up and she kissed him and hugged
him and breastfed him. And the prophet said
to his companions who were there and saw
this, can you imagine that woman throwing her
son in a fire? And he said,
by God, no. And he said,
God is more merciful to his servants than
this woman is to her son. So he's
using feminine imagery to describe divine attributes.
Alright? So the prophet also is a reflection
of his lord. Muslims believe that he's a
perfection of the Adamic creature.
The prophet is the perfect equilibrium of
jalali attributes. Jalali meaning majestic attributes which are
predominantly found in men, like courage and fortitude
and things like that, bravery.
And the jamari attributes which are predominantly found
in women.
The beautiful attributes, not just physical beauty but
like mercy,
forbearance,
things like that.
In fact,
the prophet's title in the Quran, Nabiya Punmi,
right, has three meanings. The most dominant meaning
is that it means the unlettered prophet.
Okay. Another possibility that the exegetes,
the of the Quran mentioned, Nabi'al Umi, the
gentile prophet.
Because the Jews at the time used to
refer to the Arabs as Umi'i,
gentiles.
Another meaning is nabi umi, the motherly prophet
because means mother.
The motherly prophet.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells the prophet in
the Quran, lower your wing upon the believers.
So the images are like a mother bird
concealing her young or protecting her
young.
When, the prophet,
had a adopted son named Zayd ibn Khalifa.
And,
Zayd's
father from Bani Qalim came back into Mecca
during pilgrimage and he saw his son Zayd.
So he asked the prophet for his son
back.
Right? Zay was taken unlawfully and sold into
slavery.
The prophet adopted
him. So now Zaid's father wants Zaid back.
And the prophet said, let Zaid choose.
And Zaid said, I choose no man over
you. You are you are my father
and my mother.
Right? So prophet has, peace be upon him,
he's a reflection of his lord.
He has
both well, he's gen he has qualities of
both genders.
Because,
he
loved the feminine qualities, the prophet peace be
upon him,
would weep frequently. He would never raise his
voice.
He, never,
struck anyone out of anger.
He,
he loved children. He would pass his hands
over their heads in the streets.
He would greet them initially. It was very
hard to preempt the prophet with his salam.
He would greet you very quickly before you
can say salam to him.
The one who initiates the salam, the greeting
is free of arrogance.
So
going back to God.
God is not located anywhere in creation.
He does not have an address or residence.
Right? So he doesn't live at 123 Temple
Mount Boulevard
or 786
Holy Kaaba Avenue.
We'll pray to the Kaaba. We're not we're
not we don't pray to the Kaaba. We
pray in the direction of the Kaaba. It's
a pipala. Pipala means direction. Even though it's
called Beitola,
right, which is a construct phrase which can
be translated the house of God, certainly God
does not reside
in this cube. No one believes that. It's
a house dedicated
for God.
Just like the Beth El, which literally means
house of God in Hebrew. No one No
Jewish Christian believes that God lives there physically.
No address. No residence.
It's outside of time.
It has no calendar.
It's not November 17th
2010.
God.
So not located outside of time. So, Imam
Ali said, Allahu Khan, Pabla Ba Khan, Wabhu
Al Anh Alama Alayhi Khan. Allah was before
any place, he is now exactly where he
was. The prophet actually said that the closest
a human being is to his lord is
when he is in prostration.
The closest.
Okay? So God is outside of the temporal
world. There's no proximity with God.
As if you're in prostration
So like, there were those miners
2,000 feet below. If one of them is
in such a he's closer to God in
reality
than a man praying on the 89th floor
of the Sears Tower.
The the theologians use example
of the prophet Jonah, who was fudu maxed
in layers of darkness, but prostrating to God.
They say he's closer to God in reality
than an angel in the 7th heaven, who's
flying around. Because he is in such depth,
he is prospered
himself.
So God isn't facing any particular direction. There's
no up, down, left, right. They say the
qibla,
the the the the of du'a, of supplication,
is the sky. So it's permissible to look
up to to supplicate. That does not mean
God is located somewhere
in the physical realm.
It's just a direction of supplication,
that is used to engender
humility in these supplicants.
So God and his attributes are completely dissimilar
to creation. Yeah. So how do Muslims reconcile
their belief that the Quran is a revealed
speech of God,
when the Quran is in Arabic,
a created human language. So the answer to
this question is at the heart of the
topic tonight.
How can a book written in the 7th
century be relevant
for a 21st century audience?
God is radically unlike his creation,
yet he speaks and created human human language.
So the first thing to understand is that
God does not speak in any language.
Not in Arabic,
Hebrew, not in Greek, and believe it or
not, not in English.
Sometimes you hear people on TV say, God
came to my bedside
and said, my son.
Oh, really? Did you sound like that? Do
you have that like country accent?
I heard it clear.
Okay.
Why? Because God, his manner of speaking is
completely dissimilar to our manner of speaking. So
the theologians say that the codex of the
Quran, like this is called we call it
the Quran, but in reality it's the codex.
This is a Mus'haf.
Right? To be technical, this is not the
Quran. This is the codex of the Quran,
which has the script of the Quran.
They say the codex indicates upon
indicates upon
the personal pre eternal speech of God. Is
just an indication. It's called dalala,
indication.
The uncreatedness
of the Quran
is only with respect to its meanings,
which are infinite and they're not in any
particular
language.
The Arabic indicates
some of those pre eternal meanings. This is
why this is why it's reported in hadith
and in sacred sacred traditions. When the prophet
was leading prayer quite often,
he would come to a verse and he
would repeat it 100 of times,
100 of times. Sometimes he'd be there a
3rd of the night
repeating the same verse. So Theodos said that's
because when he would repeat it and he's
instructed in the Quran to repeat the Quran,
recite the Quran in slow measured,
verses, tones.
When he was repeating these verses, more of
these pre eternal meanings would occur to his
heart. So he would better elucidate
or explicate,
that portion of the revelation.
However, unlike
an inspired word,
where the vessel will choose his words, the
Arabic words of the Quran were chosen by
God, chosen by God. Not literally spoken by
him,
but chosen as a means of expressing
his word. This is why the Quran a
lot of Muslims don't know this. The Quran
has multiple readings.
The Quran doesn't have varied readings. There's a
difference between the two. There are multiple readings
of the Quran because according to our tradition,
the Quran was revealed in 7 dialects.
Right? So you'll hear people say
Alright.
That's fine. Or,
slight difference. Madik and medic, one means owner,
one means king.
Both of these readings have
the they both express
some of the pre eternal meanings of the
first surah of the Quran, and these meanings
are infinite.
So the text is always secondary
to the pre eternal meanings. God does not
speak in Arabic.
Okay. He speaks in,
a way that is completely dissimilar to us.
So there are multiple meanings. Multiple readings. What's
the difference between a multiple reading and a
variant reading?
A variant reading is like what we have
with Christian manuscripts, for example.
Aleph o one, known as Codex Sinaiticus,
found by Tischendorf, dates to the 4th century,
you'll have, for example,
a chapter missing
of John or the longer ending of Mark
missing, verses that are missing. We don't have
that with the Quran. What we do have
is differences
in,
diacritical
vowel notations or vowels
or skeletal dots.
K. So it's different. The the the skeletal
the continental skeleton remains the same.
So that's important.
So with this understanding,
how do we understand
God's communication to Moses
at the burning bush? It's not like the
Charleston Heston
rendition
where he's walking and then there's a little
bush and then he hears a voice coming
from this little bush. Right?
Muslims understand the story that Moses,
did not hear anything with his ear. There
was no voice
because God speaks to Moses directly. Not through
an agency like Gabriel, like when Gabriel came
to the prophet peace be upon him.
He spoke to the prophet through exterior locution.
Gabriel said words in Arabic, the prophet responded
and repeated them. But here God is speaking
directly to Moses.
He spoke directly to Moses.
So Muslim theologians would say that Musa alaihis
salam, Moses, did not hear anything in any
language that he can understand.
It wasn't coming from the voice wasn't coming
from any particular direction.
God chose words and put them directly into
his heart through interior
locution.
Some of those meanings suggested,
Oh Moses, I am God, the Lord of
the world.
Take off your sandals.
Go to pharaoh for he has transgressed beyond
all bounds.
What's really interesting is the story told in
the book of Exodus,
it says
God
called out to him. And the verb here
is para'a again.
The para'a
is used,
for Moses, peace be upon. It's used for
the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon. God speaks
by saying recite or read it.
So,
in this sense,
the Quran is very much
a living text
because there are exoteric and esoteric
aspects
of the Quran. There may be an an
immediate reference
for a verse of the Quran, but there's
also,
an esoteric
or infinite aspect of the Quran. A moral
or lesson that's good for all times. For
example,
a delegation came from Medina and they asked
the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, about
the nature of the soul.
And the prophet said,
I'll do that tomorrow.
And 15 days go by, and the revelation
had not descended on the prophet.
So on 15th day, finally it comes.
And God tells the prophet to the angel,
don't say
Don't say I'm going to do this tomorrow
without adding, God willing.
The immediate
occasion was
at that time,
but we take a lesson from this. And
what is the lesson? The universal principle
is a reminder that although we have a
limited choice, it is not an absolute choice.
And that we should always tie things to
the will of God. So this is what
this is why you hear Muslims say, inshallah,
I'll do this inshallah, I'll do that. Immediate
occasion was the prophet's time, but it's good
for all time. So the Quran has this
transcendental
element
to it.
So meanings are dynamic.
Okay?
The text is not dynamic. The test the
text does not change,
but the interpretations
will change based on qualified scholarship. 1 out
of 4 human beings
on planet Earth
is identified, identifies him or herself as a
Muslim. This is a book with an unchanging
text. I think this is one of the
greatest miracles of the Quran.
That a book that has an unchanged text,
the 14th centuries, continues
to influence
millions and millions of people.
Right?
Somebody might say, well, that's in the 3rd
world. That's, you know, the they're behind by
a few centuries. Well, 20,000
people in this country every year. 20,000 Americans.
I'm not talking about immigrants who move here.
I'm talking about people born in this country.
20,000
a year become Muslim.
Right?
This book finds relevancy
with them. It it resonates
with them.
That I think is a great
aspect of Quran.
So just as God is Al Haydu, the
living,
the one who,
transcends death, He, imputed, if you will,
upon the Quran this transcendental
element, thus rendering the Quran valid,
for all times.
And this is something that
religions seek this relevancy. That's why you have
these translations, for example, of the bible, like
the New Living Translation. They'll take the Greek
and put it into modern everyday English.
Right? Or you have, this group, probably, they
had the bible for teens.
So they use, like, teen language.
So for example, instead of, you know, the
cry of dereliction.
My god, my god, why hast thou forsaken
me?
Right? What is that why hast thou it's
very archaic. It's cryptic. So the translation will
say something like,
o m g.
This improvement
They're trying to give it this transcendental aspect,
right, of the text. The text they're trying
to make the text transcend its time and
be relevant for for for Americans in the
21st century. The Quran achieves that without such
maneuvers. The Quran
achieves that through the interpretation of the block
by different scholars.
And this is why it's very important
for
scholars to have requisite knowledge before they can
interpret the Quran. Many Muslims think just because
they know Arabic, they're a PhD in Islamic
studies.
Well, I'm speaking English. Does that make me
does that give me an honorary PhD in
medieval
Shakespearean
literature? Certainly not. Alright? Now to be a
Muslim scholar, you have to know Arabic. You
have to have you have to know it
well. But the very fact
that you know Arabic doesn't make you smaller
any more than me knowing English
makes me a master of Shakespearean sonnets.
Right? You have to master different levels of
knowledge.
13 or 14 levels of knowledge have to
be mastered in order for someone to give
an authoritative
opinion. That doesn't mean you can't read a
verse in the bar and say, well, that
verse speaks to my heart and this is
what I'm getting from it. You can do
that. There's nothing wrong with doing that. But
you can't go out and say, this is
this is what I think it means
and it's authoritative,
and I'm going to publish this
this,
opinion of mine.
Right? That's very dangerous.
So the Quran is not a book of
history,
although we believe that
it does describe historical events accurately. It's not
a book of science, although the Quran
the
the French scientist. You can read his book,
the Bible of the Quran and modern science,
and he converted to Islam based on his
research of the Quran from a scientific
perspective.
The Quran is not a deontological
book of do's and don'ts.
There's 6,600
verses in the Quran. 75 of those verses
say do this or don't do that.
75 verses out of 6,600.
And another 450
verses
explain those do's and don'ts. So roughly 500
out of 66100.
Alright?
It's a book of
guidance. It speaks to the core of the
human being.
To the innate sitra or nature,
the moral compass. And it's supplemented by the
sunnah of the prophet, peace be upon him.
His wife said, his character
was the Quran.
Now there's a hadith of the prophet where
he said,
towards the end of time,
towards the end of time, nothing remains of
the Quran except the script of the Quran.
Meaning no one understands the meanings of the
Quran
anymore,
and this is something that is problematic.
And this is something that Muslims recognize as
being a problem. That we need qualified scholarship
that has
what's known as or a chain of transmission.
The first hadith that children learn in traditional
schools of,
of Islamic,
education
is a hadith of the prophet where he
said,
Have mercy to those on earth and the
one in heaven will show you mercy. It's
very short statement, but they also memorize
the entire chain of transmission, which takes about
15 minutes or 20 minutes to recite
because transmission is very important. Where are you
getting your knowledge from?
And you think, well, it's only about 32
names. That's not very hard. But some of
the names are like Mohammed ibn Mohammed ibn
Mohammed ibn Mohammed ibn Mohammed heard from Mohammed
ibn Hassan ibn Mohammed. It's it it gets
very complicated.
Right? But it's very important to know the
chain of trend. This is why Muslims value
things like genealogies
and credentials.
Right? Before someone gets up and speaks.
Right? Wink wink. They should have credentials.
Don't take their information
unless it's a reliable source.
So think about that.
So
oftentimes in our society, we see this inverse
relationship between information and knowledge.
You would think the more information that's out
there, the more knowledgeable people are. Right? But
we're living in an age of information. You
go on the Internet and find a 1,000,000,000
articles about Islam. But why aren't people
becoming more knowledgeable? Why is ignorance increasing? Why
the inverse relationship? The problem is because
information is only converted into knowledge when the
source of the information is authoritative.
It has to be authoritative.
The source.
So
for example, I use this example a lot.
If Kermit the frog
tells you
not to drink diet Coke because it gives
you osteoporosis.
Would you believe Kermit the frog?
Kermit the frog here.
Don't bring Dyco.
He would probably say, you know,
Kermit
is a puppet.
Or Elmo
tells you that. You'll say Elmo is a
monster.
His best friend is Cookie Monster.
He's an addict.
He can't control himself.
I'm not gonna believe Cookie Monster.
But if doctor Oz,
whose first name is Mohammed, by the way
do you guys know that? Yes. Yeah. It's
Mehmed, which is an apopacated form of Mohammed.
He's from Turkey.
Of course, you never hear about his first
name. There's a good reason for that. You
always hear about Oprah,
Geraldo,
right, Saudi Jesse, Ricky, Lake, Phil Donahue.
And you say, what's Oz's first name?
Doctor?
It's Mohammad Oz. Yeah.
If he says, don't drink diet Coke because
it gives you osteoporosis,
you might say, you know what? Doctor Paz,
he's a doctor,
and I'm gonna switch to Diet Pepsi
because it's all about his source. So the
problem we have today in our contemporary society
is you have a bunch of Elmos and
Kermit the Frogs wearing Doctor Oz costumes
and speaking for Islam.
That's what's going on, whether they're Muslim or
not. You have these these pundits,
these
these 911 opportunists to go on TV
and say
unbelievably
inaccurate things about Islam. I'll give you an
example.
Saw this guy on, one of these Christian
channels,
and you remember the Eid stamp that came
out?
Okay.
It looked like this. And then it said,
Eid Mubarak here in Arabic calligraphy.
Alright? He showed us on Not joking. He
showed us on TV and he said, look,
if you get a letter with this stamp
on it, don't open your your mail
because Muslims read from right to left.
Die.
I was in a I was in a
Starbucks recently.
Yeah. I know about I know about Starbucks.
I just need I was craving a crack.
And,
there was a there was an older man
there who tried to, you know, give his
spiel about his belief.
And I he was saying things like this.
And I said, you know, you really should
have listened to Pat Robertson and these guys.
They don't know what they're talking about.
And I showed him this and said, look,
this this is what one of them said.
And when I showed him this, his reaction
surprised me because he went, would you look
at that?
And then I said, yeah. And if you
write Mubarak,
kara boom.
And then he realized I was sassing him.
So when we say the Quran is a
1400 year solution,
This is first and foremost a faith conviction.
However,
it is a faith conviction rooted in concrete
life experiences.
The Quran continues to change millions of lives.
It's too difficult to dismiss just the effect
of the Quran. It's not even going into
the text of it yet, just the effects
of the Quran.
It's too difficult to dismiss. Something I find
wonderful about the Quran is that it directly
addresses different groups of people. It addresses believers.
Right? It addresses unbelievers.
It addresses directly Jews and Christians.
Means people of the book. What book? The
Bible.
People of the Bible. And it describes for
the Muslims who are
They're not all the same.
They're very different just like Muslims are very
different. You have a group of Adlikita,
that,
are
in complete disagreement with other groups. Read a
book by Chris Hedges. I've heard of Chris
Hedges. A great Christian scholar. Very brilliant man.
He has a book called,
American Fascism,
in which he,
talks about these militarized,
evangelical generals in the Pentagon, the cathedral in
DC, who believe it is their duty to
go tame the wild
Ishmaelite. Right? And bring them the gospel and,
so on and so forth.
Believing and going in and and taking over
countries, this type of
imperial building,
empire building mentality.
The vast majority of Christians
find this idea very troubling. The vast majority
Chris Hedges himself is a Christian from Harvard
Seminary.
Right? They're
not all the same. This is, very important.
Christians will say also that God does have
a preferential aspect.
That God is with the oppressed. He's with
the downtrodden.
He's with the marginalized in society. That is
not necessarily with the militarized
general who wants to go and and and
take countries over. Right? The vast majority of
Christians would agree with that. In fact, Vatican
2 in 1962, 1965,
they had a council of Vatican 2 in
Rome. And their position of Islam, their their
official position regarding Islam is that it is
a legitimate Catholic doctrine.
That's that's official Catholic Catholic canonized doctrine.
Orthodox Judaism as well. And they say any
religion after the flood is a legitimate
religion.
So I wanna share just a couple of
these verses in the Quran,
where all of mankind
is addressed.
Very unique aspect of the Quran. You know,
it's not just like Paul's letters to different
congregations,
the Catholic epistles to Christian congregations, the Old
Testament, the God of Israel, the God of
Israel.
The Quran has universal aspect to it.
Oh, people the whole of mankind,
barely be created you from a single pair
of a male and female. So all of
us are brothers and sisters.
The prophet peace be upon him, he was
the 1st person in recorded history
to equalize humanity based on skin color. There's
no one before him that's anything close to
that or
using skin color. Paul said in Galatians, there's
neither Greek nor Jew nor Christian, we're all
one in Christ. He didn't mention skin color.
The prophet says very clearly,
no Arab is superior to a non Arab.
No black man superior to a white man,
no white man superior to a black man.
Adam
is from dust, all of you are from
Adam, and Adam is from dust.
Equalize it. This is why Islam resonates
with, for example, African Americans in this country.
The The most receptive group of people to
Islam in this country, African Americans. Those marginalized,
the subaltern.
The deletes in India,
the untouchables.
Right? When Islam entered into India, they would
enter Islam and Masih. Why? There are more
Muslims in India than Pakistan.
Much more people don't know that. There was
there was someone the other day who,
who was this? I think this was a
cow.
I had a talk and there was an
American
woman there and she asked one of the
Muslim students, where are you from? And the
brother said India. And she said, there are
Muslims in India?
Yeah. There's
100 and millions of Muslims more than Pakistan.
Alright. It finds
a home in these places.
And we made you into different tribes and
nations so that we may get to know
one another. To know, interact, to learn. Diversity
is celebrated. The prophet said none of you
will enter paradise
until you believe, and none of you believe
until you love one another.
Verily, the most honored in the sight of
God
amongst you are those who have the most
taqwa, the most God consciousness.
That's a good translation of taqwa. Really, it's
a
it's a love that's rooted in fear.
Right? So there's 2 types of fear. There's
there's khoef, which is a fear that one
has a bodily injury.
Like the the field logins say, if you're
walking through a forest on a dark night
and you hear, you have hope, you have
fear of bodily injury.
That's how some people worship God and that's
a level to be trans,
transcended. We shouldn't downplay that. It's mentioned in
the Quran. But then you rise above that
to Hasia, which is a fear of displeasing
God.
Right? So it's like a sun. There's some
there's some children that obey their parents because
they're afraid of getting beat.
I can't do that. My
my dad will beat me. Right? They're afraid
of the whip. Right?
And there are other children who will not
disobey their parents because they love their parents
so much
that it'll hurt them if they knew that
they hurt their father.
This is called Hashia.
This is how the prophet worship
God, How he worshiped
his
Lord.
Shall I not be a grateful servant when
he was worshiping until his feet were swollen
red?
This is the fear that I'm talking about.
The most honored amongst you are those who
have the most tough one.
Another verse in the Quran. So that's chapter
49 verse 13.
Chapter 30 verse 22,
almost done here. And from his signs is
the creation of the heavens and the earth.
And the differences of your languages,
your tongues, and your colors.
So there's no Tower of Babel story
in the Quran. Right?
That diversity in languages and skin tone is
a sign from God.
I don't know if you guys remember this
movie called, Robin Hood.
The one with Kevin Costner.
What what's it called? Not men in tights
but,
the Prince of Thieves. Right? Yeah. I think
it was a little before your time. Make
it 1991.
There's a scene in that movie. It was
panned by critics because apparently he can't speak
with an English accent.
Or
he refuses to. I don't know. There's a
scene Morgan Freeman's in this movie. Right? A
really cute scene where, you know, he's the
the Moor. Right? And he's in Sherwood Forest
and this little tiny
English girl comes to him and, she says,
did God paint you?
And he says, yes.
And then she goes, why?
And then he says because Allah loves great
variety.
I love this.
He can't thank you.
So Muslims operate
under the Quranic principle
of Ildefah ibn Leti y Aksan. I'll end
with this inshallah.
Repel evil with beauty.
The Quran says repel evil with beauty or
something better.
So we are not allowed to answer evil
for evil.
Okay? We're not sanctioned to do that. And
we can see this in the life of
a prophet where he had people that were
fighting against him, actively fighting against him, tried
to kill him for over 20 years, but
at the end, he welcomed them into his
community.
Right? No one is actively trying to kill
us. We don't walk down the street with
people shooting arrows at us. Right? At least
not most of us.
On occasion, I'm sure.
But we're so
we're we're so sensitive.
Right? There was a brother who came into
the mosque, Christian brother. He came to the
mosque and he was asking critical questions. There's
nothing wrong with that. Critical meaning, he was
asking very analytical questions. That's what it means
to be critical, not to necessarily find fault.
And there was another Muslim there who just
after 5 minutes lost it
and said why did you bring these blah
blah blah to the mosque and get them
out of here and this and that. And
the poor guy was just like,
you know, I just wanna get away. You
know? One of those moments. You know? And
it's just like and that was that that
was a threshold. 5 minutes.
The prophet dealt with Abu Sufyan ibn Muhar,
Amr ibn al-'As,
and Iqrima, and all these people over 20
years tried to kill him. And in the
end, he welcomed him.
Then. Right?
So the prophet peace be upon him is
the example
of the Muslims. And the Quran says
that he's mercy sent into all the worlds.
Not just for the Muslims
or the Arabs, for all the worlds, including
all the animals. It's a very clear hadith.
He says don't don't
don't turn the backs of your beasts
into,
manadera,
into
pulpits.
In other words, don't sit on your your
horse or your donkey or your camel and
just start pontificating, because because that poor animal
is holding your weight, come down from your
animal. So he gives animals rights.
He
said don't curse the rooster because
he wakes you up with a prayer.
Don't curse the rooster.
Imagine somebody like sleeping.
Because I've been in I've been in countries
where the houses are mud brick and you
can hear everything through the walls And many
times there's no door. And when that rooster
gets going at 5 in the morning,
it's just like it sounds thunder. Sounds the
name of judgment.
You crazy guy.
I can't curse you.
So we need to implement this imperative. It's
the fact that we're taking the action.
It's it's implement the imperative.
Now I didn't tell you what happened at
the end of my encounter with the Starbucks
guy.
The end of my encounter,
he because he at one point he lost
it and said, you Muslims are violent and
you wanna kill people and this and that.
I was like, okay. So I was trying
to calm him down a little bit. He
didn't like my answers. And then he said,
you know what? I'm a different angle. Why
do Muslim women have to walk behind the
men?
What's up with that?
You guys are misogynistic. Instinct.
And he sounded just like remember John Ashcroft?
He was the attorney general under Bush. I'm
starting to think the only reason why he
had that job is because he had a
very scary voice.
Do you remember his voice? He's a Al
Qaeda.
In a world of Al Qaeda.
Yeah. I remember he he had a good
singing. Remember he let the eagle
slow. Anyway,
what was my point? Oh, yeah.
So this this guy says, guess what? So
I see, you know, there's there's nothing in
the Quran or Hadith that says that a
woman has to walk behind a man. It's
a cultural practice that originated in some Muslim
country. In order to make the women comfortable,
when they're walking around at night, so there's
no men walking behind them. So they would
say, men don't walk behind women and follow
them around, makes them uncomfortable. That was the
point of that. Right? Not because they think
they're inferior. There is a story from the
Quran where it says that Moses it's all
also in the bible. Moses held these 2
damsels in distress in a well. Right? And
then he was sitting there, one of them
came back and said, my father was Jethro
or probably
is inviting you to his house. So Moses,
this is what the tafsir says. This is
what the, commentary says. It says that Moses
had a dilemma. He didn't want to walk
behind her to make her feel uncomfortable
because maybe he'd be looking at her or
she doesn't really trust him yet. She might
he might attack her.
So he said, I'll walk in front of
you
and you lead the way. And she said,
how can I lead the way? So he
said, pick up some stones and just throw
them in front of me to go right
and throw them this way to a temple.
He did that to respect her.
He married her eventually. That's his wife, Zipporah.
Alright. Not because he fell. And I explained
this to him, this man here in Turbot.
And that was it. He sat down.
I
kid you not. He sat down and there's
15 people there maybe.
And he opened his whole magazine and then
he turned around and he said in a
very loud voice,
you need to die.
Die.
I said,
who needs the time? Interesting.
So
So I I couldn't say, hoya,
you die. So I can't. I'm not sanctioned
to do that. So I was shocked though.
I couldn't I couldn't say anything. I was
sitting there like.
And I look around and everyone's
going about the business,
being, like, oblivious. Right? So
eventually, like, 30 minutes later, he comes back
up to me
And he comes up behind me and I
didn't mean it like that. I meant, like,
we all need to die
to see the truth.
And I said, I accept your apology.
When you come into contact with those who
believe in our signs, say peace be upon
you. Thy Lord has inscribed upon his own
self the rule of mercy.
So we need to spread peace. We should
say salaam alaikum to people. There's a hadith
that says towards the end of time, the
youth will greet each other with insults.
And you see this a lot. What's up,
Dom?
Try this like in Arab world, walk up
to an Arab man.
I don't think so. I said, what's up?
What's up, fool? What's up, dog?
Right? I I was in San Ramon. I'll
never forget this. I was going to my
car, and I saw this girl walk right
by me. She saw her friend. She said,
hey, o.
Woah. So with respect to characters, we should
spread peace.
The the slaves of the most gracious,
they tread lightly on the earth. They walk
with humility. And when the ignorant speak to
them, like die,
they answer with peace, they say salam. That's
what I should have said. But I was
so shocked.
So the Quran
invites itself
to higher criticism.
Do they not reflect deeply on the Quran?
This is what we want. We want people
to think about the Quran, to consider the
Quran. So,
we have time for about 15 minutes if
you like for
q and a session. I have to catch
a plane
at 9:30 so I have to be out
of here in 15 minutes. They also have
to give more time because they're gonna violate
me in the little room there.
I have to prepare for that.
So mental preparation
are
so if there are any questions or comments,
if not,
I'm sorry if I was boring.
And,
yes. Yes, ma'am.
Okay.
Yeah. I understand the question. In that in
that instance, I would ask for a reference.
Alright? If she said whoever doesn't believe in
the prophet Muhammad will go to *.
1st ask for a reference in the Quran.
Where does it say that in the Quran?
Now these theologians
have a difference of opinion
as to what happens to non Muslims.
Okay? This is an issue that's highly nuanced.
Okay? They've debated these issues for a long
time. There's an orthodox opinion.
It's a valid opinion.
Orthodox opinion
that says that people
who are not reached
by a
sound prophetic
summons, in other words, they weren't reached by
the prophet's message in a good form,
then they're not responsible to become Muslim.
That's a valid opinion. That's an authentic opinion.
That's not my opinion.
This is, 1000 year old orthodox Muslim opinion.
That if someone was told their whole life
that listen to terrorists
and Islam is evil
and they're they they worship an idol and
things like that, and that's all this person
was told.
According to this opinion, that person is not
responsible to even become a Muslim.
It's a very highly nuanced issue.
God is just. Okay? This is very important.
God is just.
God is not gonna put people into *
forever and ever and ever until they really
deserve it. It's in fact very difficult to
get into * forever and ever and ever.
In fact, the word, which
means
unbeliever.
Right? In reality, a hostile unbeliever.
The root meaning is a farmer.
A kafir is a farmer. It's used to
put on its farmer also
because a farmer will cover his seed.
Right? So a kafir is someone who covers
the truth while knowing the truth.
Allah says in the Quran describing kufr, describing
infidelity,
unbelief,
saying do not cover the truth with falsehood
nor clothe it while you have knowledge of
truth.
Okay?
So,
we're not allowed to say to anyone you're
gonna go to *. We cannot do that.
That that is against our religion.
Because we don't know the end of people.
Right? The the end matters.
I'm trying to keep myself out of *.
That's why we pray for a.
You should pray for a good ending.
Right? Because that's what it's gonna come down
to. We don't know how people will end.
1 of the early salaf
said He said this is, Imam with Zain
ul Abidine,
Roheem.
He said God has has concealed
his saints, his auliya,
amongst the creation. So be very careful how
you act towards people.
Many of my teachers were non Muslim at
one point. Now they're my teachers. Now they're
world class scholars. At one point, they were
non Muslims. But Muslims
at one point showed them love and concern
and and and mercy. They weren't condemned. Right?
So we have to be careful about that.
Imam Khurtubi, a great scholar from Al Andalusia,
he said that when Sidna Umar Radhi Allah
Sallal Anhu, one of the companions of the
prophet, when he was prostrating himself to idols,
he was beloved of God because God knew
his end.
What was his end? He's buried next to
the best of creation right now. He's buried
next to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. The
prophet said, this is my companion in the
dunya and in the akhirah.
Right? So we have to be very careful
how we talk to people. We should be
very concerned about ourselves,
and concern for others also. And not in
the sense that we're going around judging people.
It's not our tradition,
you know. Sometimes you see these guys on
campus with a sandwich board and a megaphone.
You're gonna burn *. You're gonna burn *.
Or you see Muslims. Right? They walk by
med. Okay. That beard is
that that's a Muslim right there.
So measuring beards.
There's an opinion amongst imam imam Shafiqi who
is
a codified imam of jurisprudence,
one of our champions. His opinion is if
if that if you shave completely, it's lakru.
It's not haram. That's a valid opinion. We
have to be very careful who we condemn.
But you have like the the beer police,
the pat leg police,
you know, you're the hedgehog police.
And it's and you know, it's very easy
to condemn a woman
who doesn't wear a hijab because it's something
that's outward.
Right? It's in your face.
But,
you know, what's in that person's heart? It's
it could be worse. We have to think
about this.
It's a hadith.
That backbiting, talking ill of someone behind their
back is worse than fornication.
Do we think about that though?
How often do we backbite?
You know, we won't commit zina of course.
You know, alhamdulillah, we'll say, no.
No way.
Don't even put yourself in a position. Don't
even come near to it. But, you know,
she said he, He
said she said she said. It's all hima.
Right? It's worse than zina in reality.
In reality, but we don't see the reality.
So I would,
to make a long story short, I would
ask for a reference and then I would
explain
that God is just
and this is a nuance issue that the
theologians
have debated over.
So
we're not allowed to judge anyone.
The only people we can say for certainty
that are in *
with certainty, because we stop where Allah is
messengers stop. We don't speculate.
Sira'un, pharaoh,
Haman,
Tarun,
Abu Jahal,
right,
few other people.
Wait how many people? There's 6 people. I
mean, come on.
So
we should,
we should not be so judgmental. And then
the brother standing up which means I need
to sit down now.
No. Just ask a question. Oh, it's a
question really quick. You just You kept using
the term like free eternal meetings. Meanings? Yeah.
What does that mean?
Woah.
That's deep.
So so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
he has alakidum
athati, which means that he has an essential
pre futurality, which means that there's no beginning
to God. Because he's outside of
time. There's no past, present, and future.
Okay?
There's no beginning. There was no there was
not a time when God was not. He
was always there.
Therefore, all of his attributes also have this
attribute of preternality
because there is attributes. So the kalam of
God, the speech of God, which is reflected
in Quran, and reflected in Torah, and reflected
in Ji'u.
The meanings behind the script also has pre
eternal meanings that are infinite. Because God is
infinite and pre eternal.
That's why God cannot be matter. It can't
be substance because science tells us that you
can't get something out of nothing. You can't
get life out of death. Right? Or life
out of nothing.
And axiomatic truth in biology is what? Life
from life.
Right? So where did all this matter come
from? There has there had to have been
the beginning. There had to have been someone
or some entities who's outside
of time, who is not native matter, who
created this. Something related like So we shouldn't
tell people, like you said, that the speed,
like I forgot how you describe it. We
said, like, the codex of the bond Uh-huh.
Indicates upon the Yes. The personal speech as
reflected in, like Yeah. I guess, like, should
you not say that it is a speech
of like you should it is not God
way technically but or not. You can you
can say it's the word of God.
It's permissible to say that. But if you
want to be technical,
if you want to be technical, you would
say that it's an indication of God's word.
It's an expression of God God's word in
the Arabic language.
Because ultimately God does not speak a human
language because God is not human. He's completely
dissimilar to variations.
But we call it God's word because
that's, that's how we're accustomed.
So yeah, I can on the on the
cover of this is the holy Quran. But
in reality, it's the most popular.
The Quran is the recitation itself.
So that that's an issue
that,
the vast majority of Muslims will never even
hear of. The reason I brought it up
is because we're talking about the relevancy of
the Quran today. And that's directly correlated that
the Quran
transcends
4th 7th century Arabia because of that reason.
The pre material, the pre raw meanings are
lifted
and can be applied. And that's not my
opinion. You can see this with experience. That's
why again, 20,000 people in this country become
Muslim. It's still working. Whereas, you look what
happened to Christian Europe when they started printing
the Bibles,
when the printing press was invented. There was
a Protestant Reformation and then there was a
massive
atheist movement that's still affecting Europe.
They just left. They said no we don't
we don't believe in in the beginning. It's
not relevant to anyone.
Any other last questions?
Yes, sir.
Someone. What if I just want to
make that sentence in your, opinion about this
question. But,
Horace, I'm fine if I didn't believe in
Quran.
So the way it came to here, your
answer is very
correct in my understanding. But
how to answer it in this way? Because
many people meet you as a Muslim and
say,
I can be fine to remain as a
Christian. Regime.
So what what I would think of is
you can be fine, as you said, if
you never knew and got the message
likely.
But I'm gonna give it to you now,
and then I start speaking and explain what
Islam is. I mean, if he's a friend
or Yeah. Yes. Someone who's ready to listen.
Yeah. There's a point I want to raise,
and I want to listen to you what
you're gonna say. Yeah. Because when someone asks
you this question like this is, is it
the duty of you to explain to him
what to care what is not written? Of
course.
Yeah. That's a good point. I would I
would quote the Quran.
The Quran says
Don't say trinity. Desist
trinity.
Desist. It is better for you. It is
better for you not to believe in the
trinity. We believe that. That's our faith conviction
that Islam preaches a radical monotheism
which we believe is the teaching of Christ
himself. And that Trinitarian belief is a later
outgrowth
that was decided upon by various church synods
by both,
Many 100 of years after Jesus came upon
and walked the earth. So,
I agree with you. I would say that
Islam, and this is not a politically correct
statement
but I don't really care because I believe
it. That Islam is the best way of
life. That Islam is a superior,
set of beliefs. That it's more authentic.
If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be
Muslim. That doesn't mean I don't respect other
religions.
Certainly doesn't mean that. Okay?
But we as Muslims what does it say
in the Quran about Muslims?
A lot of Muslims, they push the pause
button.
We're the best people.
Don't worry about the rest of
What does it say?
You are the best people for the you
are the best
for the people.
What does the naz mean? All of the
mufasarin
say, this means for the service of mankind.
You're only great because you serve people. How
do you serve people? You give them the
message, you give them the guidance.
That's the only reason. Ultimately, the most important
thing is guidance
of people. So this is ironic that we're
only superior when we think when we're when
we serve people. We're only we only become
the masters when we become the servants.
Right? So it's it's inverse.
So that's that's the point is that I
totally agree with you. We should use opportunity.
Relay for me even one verse. So just
take opportunities
to
present our dean. And if you're not a
good speaker or a good orator,
I don't think I'm a good speaker. Sometimes
the best thing to do is just have
good character,
just to smile,
you know. Or give them, if somebody asks
you a question like that, give them a
a reference to somewhere to someone that can
answer it more adequately,
you know.
So,
so, you know, it's it's it's a it's
a question of sensitivity.
But we have to be sincere. People people
at the end of the day will respect
you more if you have principle.
If you're not just you know, whatever.
It's all the same. Who am I, my
lord?
If you say, I respect you but I
think this is superior, they actually will respect
that more at the end of the day.
You take a stand at your at your
work and say, I'm not going to happy
hour. Every week on Friday they'd ask me,
when I was when I was an accountant,
a company that shall remain nameless. Every Friday,
you come to happy hour? I don't drink
alcohol. I'm never gonna go there. Okay. Next
week. You come to happy hour?
I don't drink alcohol. No. Okay. Next week.
You're going to happy hour? And I feel
like where I said, you know what? Next
time. And they said, go for next
time.
Okay. We're gonna have to stop here because,
he has to get your plane.
Yeah.
You guys will like Quran. We have 2
Quran's over there.