Asif Hirani – On Islam In The West

Asif Hirani
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss their experiences with various cities and beliefs, struggles with addiction, and desire for a spiritual path. They also talk about their struggles with writing and Facebook followers, as well as their desire to become Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about- Islam-about
AI: Transcript ©
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Today, the first session we have is actually

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a conversation with our brother Paul, about different

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aspects of your life.

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Brother Paul, first of all, welcome to Texas.

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Is this your first time in Texas?

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It is.

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As-salamu alaykum.

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It's great to be here.

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And have you ever been to America before?

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Yes.

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Like Chicago?

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No, I've been a number of times, mainly

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to Chicago, which is my favorite American city.

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Anyway, moving on quickly.

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I like California.

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It was my first visit to Texas, though.

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It's great to visit the former colonies of

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Great Britain, and it's good to see you're

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doing quite well.

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So, congratulations, and I'll report back to headquarters,

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to the King of England, that you're doing

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okay, inshallah.

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That was not planned.

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It will be interesting, very interesting.

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So, after Chicago, which is your favorite city,

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what's your next favorite city in America?

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You want me to say Dallas, don't you?

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Yeah.

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I haven't been here long enough.

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San Francisco is nice, very nice.

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Berkeley, which is not San Francisco, but close

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by, is very nice.

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I like university cities.

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There's so much amazing stuff going on in

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the States.

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That's good.

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So, Brother Paul, we have seen you on

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blogging theology, inviting different scholars, but very few

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of us actually know about your story.

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How did you convert or revert back to

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Islam?

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And when did it happen?

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And last night, you were saying something interesting,

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which actually sparked in my mind that you

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said, if I'm not mistaken, that you were

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evangelical fundamentalist.

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And from that, what happened that you ended

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up here, not only Muslim, but influencing other

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Muslims to become better Muslim?

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The reason I don't talk about my story

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very much, because frankly, it's not interesting.

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It's actually very boring.

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So, I'm not keen to inflict this on

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you, particularly in the morning like this.

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So, it's not very interesting.

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So, I'll give you the extremely brief version.

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There are kind of two conversions in my

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life.

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One, when I became a born-again fundamentalist

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evangelical Christian in my early 20s.

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Now, that is a conversion, because I didn't

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even believe in God before that.

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So, I moved from an entirely secular worldview,

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with all the attendant moral attitudes, to one

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where I had quite a strict moral code,

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a definite belief in God's existence.

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Obviously, I believed Jesus was God, and the

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Bible was the infallible word of God, and

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so on.

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So, most of the beliefs I had then,

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I still have now.

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It's not like I've rejected Christianity in total,

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because a lot of Christianity is true.

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I often think of it like an iceberg.

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We see the differences above the sea level.

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Oh, that's the bit we don't agree with,

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which we don't, as Muslims.

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But a lot of it we do.

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Muslims and Christians both believe in the Day

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of Judgment.

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They believe that Jesus was a Messiah sent

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by God.

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We believe in the Old Testament prophets.

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We believe in angels and demons.

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We believe God created the universe, and so

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on, and so on.

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There's an awful lot we have in common,

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actually, compared to any other religion, really.

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If you think of Hinduism, or Shintoism, or

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whatever, they don't believe a lot of that

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stuff.

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So, yeah, I was very attracted to Christianity

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by the very loving fellowship, the Christians I

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knew.

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I wanted a spiritual path, and I didn't

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know anything about Islam, of course.

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And so, I embraced Christianity in that particular

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form.

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And I started reading the Bible pretty much

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straight away, as you do as an evangelical.

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And that's when the problems started.

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So, I kind of noticed things.

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I mentioned some of them last night.

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There are passages in the Gospels where Jesus

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denies he's God.

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Which is a bit embarrassing, if you're an

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evangelical, fundamentalist Christian.

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And that sent me off into researching, looking

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at what's going on here.

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Mr. Scholars, how should we interpret this?

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And then, I discovered other problems, which I

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didn't know about from my reading of the

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Bible, that scholars knew about, to do with

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the historicity, or the lack of historicity, of

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the Gospel of John.

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The Gospel that has the highest Christology, the

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most exalted understanding of Jesus.

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And it's nearly universally considered to be the

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least historical of the Gospels, for very good

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reasons, actually.

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So, I ended up having this kind of

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very painful, bifurcated existence as a Christian.

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On the one hand, I continue to pray

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and worship as a Christian.

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I believe the Trinity and everything else.

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On the other hand, I was becoming increasingly

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aware of what Christian scholars were saying about

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Christianity.

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About the Bible, about manuscripts, about the historical

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Jesus.

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The fact that the Trinity, understanding the Trinity

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didn't exist in the first century.

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It came about much later.

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How can that be?

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And that became more and more painful.

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Psychologically distressing, actually.

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Because I couldn't put down the two issues.

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I couldn't stop being a Christian.

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And yet, I also was fascinated by the

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historical figure of Jesus.

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And this went on for years.

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In those un-PC days, I consider myself,

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I wouldn't say it now, of course, a

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disabled Christian.

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Disabled Christian?

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Well, I couldn't walk properly in my life

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as a Christian.

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I was handicapped.

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It's a metaphor, obviously.

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A spiritual and intellectual metaphor.

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It means you didn't get divine guidance properly

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for the different aspects of your life.

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Is that what you're referring to?

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You didn't get divine guidance in your different

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aspects of life?

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I sought guidance from my pastor, and from

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books and other Christians.

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And so, it was a journey.

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It wasn't just like one thing overnight, I

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realized there was a problem.

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I was constantly wrestling with it, and trying

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to find answers, and not finding answers, and

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discovering more problems.

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And one day, I decided to look to...

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Because I became quite Islamophobic as well, actually.

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Wow.

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And looking back now, racist, I would say,

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actually.

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Because I was fearful of the increasing demographic

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presence of Muslims in London, near where I

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live.

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And so, I thought I would go to

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my local mosque, Regent's Park Mosque in London.

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It's interesting.

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Regent's Park Mosque has a board of trustees,

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which is not remarkable.

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But all the trustees are the ambassadors from

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the Muslim nations.

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So, guess who our treasurer is?

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He's the Saudi ambassador.

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And I always laugh.

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I think, well, there's no chance of us

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going bankrupt in this mosque.

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Anyway.

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So, I went there.

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I literally walked through the doors, because I

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knew the mosque existed.

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Because, hey, there's a mosque.

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I can see it.

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And I immediately spotted on my right a

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bookshop.

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I thought, ha-ha, a bookshop.

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I can relate to that.

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So, in I went.

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And I was spotted by some kindly brother

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who bought me a pile of books.

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And so, that started me in my...

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I gave myself three months to learn all

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I need to know about Islam.

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Hilarious, three months.

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And so, I read the Quran in English

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in a dreadful translation.

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But it started...

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I suddenly realized that there was another parallel

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religious tradition of, as I thought, of equal

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profundity and equal...

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an extraordinary tradition that rivaled Christianity that spoke

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also of Jesus as being sent by God.

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And that was very interesting.

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Wow, I didn't know that.

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And that began a discovery that ultimately led

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to my embracing Islam about a year and

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a half later, I think.

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Wow.

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I told you it was boring.

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So...

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No.

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No, no, no, Mashallah.

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Okay.

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So...

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How did you start?

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I mean, one way is that you accepted

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Islam.

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You took Shahada.

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But now, you're not only a Muslim.

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Rather, you are influencing other Muslims and other

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non-Muslims also about the beauty of Islam

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through blogging theology.

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So, when that idea came that you have

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to start this channel and I'm pretty sure

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there are some people because your channel is

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my favorite channel by the way on YouTube,

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Mashallah.

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If you haven't subscribed it, subscribe it.

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It's very different than other motivational speakers.

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It's pretty academic-centric.

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It's like a good resource in the contemporary

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Islamic epistemology.

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So, now my question to you is did

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you get any pessimistic brothers and sisters in

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your life who told you that who is

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going to listen to this two-hour academic

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video?

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The attention span is 30 seconds for the

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Gen Z but still, Mashallah, you are flourishing.

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Yeah, it's a good question.

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Well, to answer that question, we need to

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go back to the beginning of the channel

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which is during COVID, during the COVID lockdown

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in the UK.

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We went out into the streets of London.

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It was like an apocalyptic scene and there

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was no one around.

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It was really weird.

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I mean, because people were encouraged to stay

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indoors, of course, during COVID.

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So, I bought a new MacBook Pro and

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I started making videos just for my own

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interest.

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There was no great vision or plan at

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all, whatsoever.

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And they started becoming increasingly popular and they're

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mainly on things that interested me like the

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Bible or Christianity or Islam.

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And I invited or contacted scholars whose books

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I had read, inviting them to talk about

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their books.

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I really wanted to ask them some questions.

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And I remember the first one was a

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guy called Sir Anthony Buzzard, of all things.

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And he's an American, sorry, he's a British

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Bible scholar who lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

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And he's been here for many years and

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is a Unitarian Christian.

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So, I thought, that's very interesting.

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So, he believes in Christianity, but doesn't believe

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Jesus is God.

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So, I had him on for about, and

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it was great fun, hour and a half

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conversation, really loved it.

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And then I invited someone else, Dominic Crosson,

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who's actually a much more senior, very world

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-class biblical scholar in the States as well.

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And he agreed to come on.

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So, great, I can talk about a book

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I read by him.

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Now, these videos were, I don't know, an

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hour or two long and it really didn't

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matter what other people thought about that because

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I wasn't doing it for anyone else.

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I was doing it because I wanted to

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really grapple with the subject matter.

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And then people did start telling me, well,

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Paul, you know, people's attention span these days,

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young people especially, don't watch anything for more

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than 10 minutes, 10 seconds, isn't it?

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I can't remember if it was 10 minutes

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or 10 seconds.

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And I thought, well, that's very interesting, but

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I really don't care.

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I don't care.

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I'm not doing it to reach out to

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young people.

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I'm not doing it to be inspirational, as

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you call it.

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Ghastly word, inspirational.

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I'm doing it because I'm interested in the

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content and I want to share that content

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with a few other people, if it is

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just a few other people.

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And I'm glad I ignored the advice from

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wiser people because it was wrong.

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It was bad advice.

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And indeed, a lot of young people are

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interested in serious content that's not just on

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TikTok or Twitter or something.

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And I remember I did a video with

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Professor Tupke from Brandeis University on Islam and

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LGBT, you know, that thing.

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And I think it was, I forget how

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many, I think it was two hours long.

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Yeah, I think it was four hours.

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Four hours, four hours long.

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Sorry, four hours long.

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Okay, this is breaking all the rules.

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You don't make four-hour videos with academic

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videos with professors and expect anyone to watch

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it on YouTube.

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Anyway, I think it's had about quarter of

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a million hits so far.

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And it became, not anything to do with

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me, but with the professor, an absolute gold

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standard on this, this thorough, interesting, balanced, academic

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understanding of what on earth this LGBT thing

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is and where did it come from and

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how are we to understand that as Muslims.

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And I thought, great.

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So that's what we do at Handela.

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And I see myself very often as part

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of the audience.

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I'm there to listen and learn and benefit

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from the guests rather than in any way

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as their equal.

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I think with the exceptions where Imam Tom,

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for example, who I have a huge amount

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of respect for, I feel well, maybe because

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the ages, I feel more I can just

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chat with him and give my uneducated opinion

00:13:15 --> 00:13:18

because he's very relaxed, which is cool.

00:13:19 --> 00:13:20

Yeah, that's cool.

00:13:20 --> 00:13:21

That's cool.

00:13:21 --> 00:13:24

And I really wish that, inshallah, the channel

00:13:24 --> 00:13:26

will have more and more subscribers because it's

00:13:26 --> 00:13:28

really beneficial, really, really beneficial.

00:13:28 --> 00:13:30

I've heard so many people are getting benefit

00:13:30 --> 00:13:32

from that intellectually and emotionally.

00:13:33 --> 00:13:36

And that actually, that video for Dr. Sharif

00:13:36 --> 00:13:38

sparked me to write the book on Rethinking

00:13:38 --> 00:13:39

the Rainbow, which I gave you yesterday.

00:13:43 --> 00:13:46

So, Brother Paul, by the way, if you

00:13:46 --> 00:13:49

are not able to understand the British humor

00:13:49 --> 00:13:51

so far, I'm still learning.

00:13:51 --> 00:13:53

Yesterday, we were in a restaurant and I

00:13:53 --> 00:13:54

think Ahmed should be here.

00:13:55 --> 00:13:57

His colleague, he's from Germany.

00:13:57 --> 00:13:59

He's doing a PhD from Berlin.

00:14:00 --> 00:14:02

So, he ate the food.

00:14:03 --> 00:14:05

Actually, he drank the water and he said,

00:14:05 --> 00:14:06

it's very drinkable.

00:14:08 --> 00:14:09

And I said, what does it mean?

00:14:09 --> 00:14:10

He said, I'm praising.

00:14:10 --> 00:14:11

It's awesome.

00:14:13 --> 00:14:15

This is the humor in German.

00:14:15 --> 00:14:17

Yeah, in Germany, if you say something, if

00:14:17 --> 00:14:19

you were given something like, I don't know,

00:14:19 --> 00:14:21

a meal and you say, it's not terribly

00:14:21 --> 00:14:26

disgusting, it actually means that you like it.

00:14:27 --> 00:14:29

So, in America, I think you say, oh,

00:14:29 --> 00:14:30

my God, that's awesome.

00:14:30 --> 00:14:31

The most amazing thing I've ever had in

00:14:31 --> 00:14:32

my life.

00:14:32 --> 00:14:34

Oh, my God, you know, about something trivial

00:14:34 --> 00:14:35

like an ice cream, you know.

00:14:36 --> 00:14:37

In Germany, they say the opposite.

00:14:37 --> 00:14:39

Well, that wasn't terrible.

00:14:40 --> 00:14:41

No, I'm not joking.

00:14:41 --> 00:14:42

This is what they're like in Germany.

00:14:42 --> 00:14:43

So, you've got to learn the lingo.

00:14:44 --> 00:14:44

They're not being rude.

00:14:44 --> 00:14:45

They're actually praising it, you know.

00:14:46 --> 00:14:49

Whereas England, we're much better than these two

00:14:49 --> 00:14:49

countries.

00:14:49 --> 00:14:50

We're in the middle.

00:14:51 --> 00:14:53

So, we don't over-praise and we don't

00:14:53 --> 00:14:53

under-praise.

00:14:54 --> 00:14:55

We just say, that was good.

00:14:56 --> 00:14:57

So, you're saying moderate nation.

00:14:58 --> 00:14:59

Well, we are the via media.

00:14:59 --> 00:15:00

Yeah, we're the middle path.

00:15:02 --> 00:15:04

England is, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:15:04 --> 00:15:07

I think that's pretty ethnocentric, right?

00:15:07 --> 00:15:08

Absolutely.

00:15:08 --> 00:15:09

And your point is?

00:15:10 --> 00:15:10

Okay, so that's humor.

00:15:11 --> 00:15:12

Okay, okay.

00:15:13 --> 00:15:16

Coming back to now one, I would say,

00:15:16 --> 00:15:23

serious question and that is your observation of

00:15:23 --> 00:15:25

challenges of Muslims in the West.

00:15:26 --> 00:15:28

And I know there are plenty, but I

00:15:28 --> 00:15:30

would say few of them which are the

00:15:30 --> 00:15:31

biggest challenge right now.

00:15:32 --> 00:15:33

What would you say?

00:15:33 --> 00:15:35

Because you have seen the other isle, now

00:15:35 --> 00:15:36

you have seen the Muslim community.

00:15:37 --> 00:15:39

What are the biggest challenges you see, especially

00:15:39 --> 00:15:40

for Muslims in the West?

00:15:42 --> 00:15:43

Oh, I'm not really qualified to speak about

00:15:43 --> 00:15:44

that.

00:15:44 --> 00:15:45

All I can say is, in what I

00:15:45 --> 00:15:47

just, I mentioned this last night, I've discovered

00:15:47 --> 00:15:49

in the UK and also in France and

00:15:49 --> 00:15:54

Germany and Scandinavia, is it an extraordinary success

00:15:54 --> 00:15:57

story in some ways when it comes to,

00:15:58 --> 00:16:01

particularly younger Muslims, adherence to the Sunnah, the

00:16:01 --> 00:16:02

prophet, upon whom be peace.

00:16:03 --> 00:16:04

They're much more committed.

00:16:05 --> 00:16:07

This is not just, this is something I

00:16:07 --> 00:16:08

discovered, it's not my opinion, this is well

00:16:08 --> 00:16:09

known.

00:16:09 --> 00:16:12

Much more committed than their parents and their

00:16:12 --> 00:16:14

parents are more committed than their parents who

00:16:14 --> 00:16:16

were the, often the first immigrants to, say,

00:16:16 --> 00:16:17

the UK.

00:16:17 --> 00:16:21

So there's an extraordinary revival of practice and

00:16:21 --> 00:16:23

faith amongst Muslims in the West.

00:16:23 --> 00:16:25

I don't know about here though, in the

00:16:25 --> 00:16:25

United States.

00:16:26 --> 00:16:27

Maybe I'm bracketing that out because I don't

00:16:27 --> 00:16:27

know.

00:16:28 --> 00:16:29

But in Europe, it's true.

00:16:31 --> 00:16:32

And I just thought it was the UK,

00:16:32 --> 00:16:33

but it's not.

00:16:33 --> 00:16:38

I've got a friend of mine, a Swedish

00:16:38 --> 00:16:41

scholar, Islamic scholar, living in Saudi Arabia and

00:16:41 --> 00:16:45

he reports the same phenomena in Stockholm and

00:16:45 --> 00:16:46

in Denmark and Norway.

00:16:46 --> 00:16:50

And it's true in France and Germany as

00:16:50 --> 00:16:50

well.

00:16:50 --> 00:16:52

So I just want to start by saying

00:16:52 --> 00:16:54

that there's some good news.

00:16:55 --> 00:16:56

It's not, you know, there are problems, of

00:16:56 --> 00:17:00

course, but there's also an amazing success story

00:17:00 --> 00:17:01

compared to other religious traditions.

00:17:01 --> 00:17:03

Christianity is in free fall in Europe.

00:17:04 --> 00:17:06

It really is in terminal decline.

00:17:07 --> 00:17:09

It's on its last legs.

00:17:09 --> 00:17:10

And I don't like that.

00:17:10 --> 00:17:12

I want Christianity to be strong if only

00:17:12 --> 00:17:16

as a book against secularism and this kind

00:17:16 --> 00:17:19

of militant secular liberalism that is attempting to

00:17:19 --> 00:17:20

change our faith.

00:17:22 --> 00:17:24

So there is some good news.

00:17:25 --> 00:17:27

Another bit of good news which I really

00:17:27 --> 00:17:30

want to stress is the quality of dower

00:17:30 --> 00:17:33

in, again, talking about my experience of the

00:17:33 --> 00:17:36

UK, compared to even in my short time

00:17:36 --> 00:17:38

as a Muslim, say over 10, 11, 12

00:17:38 --> 00:17:39

years.

00:17:39 --> 00:17:42

I've seen such an increase in sophistication, in

00:17:42 --> 00:17:47

education, in knowledge, in maturity, in good adab.

00:17:47 --> 00:17:51

I mentioned someone like Hamza Zortes of the

00:17:51 --> 00:17:53

Sapiens Institute in England.

00:17:54 --> 00:17:58

Very nuanced, sophisticated, intellectually switched on brother who

00:17:58 --> 00:18:01

knows his stuff Islamically and the Western tradition.

00:18:02 --> 00:18:03

This is amazing.

00:18:03 --> 00:18:04

And he's not unique.

00:18:04 --> 00:18:08

And he's mentoring others like Muhammad Hijab and

00:18:08 --> 00:18:09

many others.

00:18:09 --> 00:18:14

So we're seeing a generation of lay ulama,

00:18:14 --> 00:18:17

that's not a good expression, but very bright

00:18:17 --> 00:18:20

and educated young scholars and others who are

00:18:20 --> 00:18:23

engaging and critiquing the West, but not from

00:18:23 --> 00:18:25

a purely rejectionist point of view.

00:18:25 --> 00:18:29

They are engaging it with nuance and sophistication,

00:18:29 --> 00:18:31

but they're faithful to the tradition.

00:18:31 --> 00:18:35

They're not liberalizing or modernizing it at all.

00:18:36 --> 00:18:37

So it's very encouraging.

00:18:38 --> 00:18:42

That's one thing which you guys in England

00:18:42 --> 00:18:42

think about.

00:18:42 --> 00:18:45

If I have not mistaken, I've spoken right

00:18:45 --> 00:18:47

now to four different scholars, not you, but

00:18:47 --> 00:18:49

four different scholars from England.

00:18:49 --> 00:18:52

And they all said that in England, at

00:18:52 --> 00:18:56

the scholarship level, we have a perception that

00:18:56 --> 00:18:59

in America, Muslim, both the scholars and the

00:18:59 --> 00:19:02

American Muslim population masses, they tend to liberalize

00:19:02 --> 00:19:03

and modernize.

00:19:04 --> 00:19:06

And to a certain extent, it's a reality

00:19:06 --> 00:19:07

because of certain factors.

00:19:08 --> 00:19:10

But what did you notice?

00:19:10 --> 00:19:12

Is that a partial reality?

00:19:13 --> 00:19:17

Is that something which is actually, yeah, in

00:19:17 --> 00:19:17

America?

00:19:18 --> 00:19:20

Well, yeah, it is.

00:19:20 --> 00:19:22

I'm not going to mention names.

00:19:22 --> 00:19:23

I really am not going to go there.

00:19:24 --> 00:19:26

But I'm going to say some names that

00:19:26 --> 00:19:27

I really like.

00:19:27 --> 00:19:31

Professor Ali Attai at Zaytuna College in California

00:19:31 --> 00:19:34

is, in my humble opinion, an outstanding human

00:19:34 --> 00:19:37

being as well as an outstanding scholar.

00:19:37 --> 00:19:38

He's a polymath.

00:19:38 --> 00:19:40

A polymath is someone who is an expert

00:19:40 --> 00:19:41

in many fields.

00:19:42 --> 00:19:45

So he's fluent in Biblical Hebrew, New Testament

00:19:45 --> 00:19:46

Greek, obviously Arabic.

00:19:46 --> 00:19:47

He speaks Farsi.

00:19:47 --> 00:19:50

His parents who I've met are Farsi speakers.

00:19:51 --> 00:19:51

He even speaks English.

00:19:52 --> 00:19:56

And he knows Christianity better than most Christian

00:19:56 --> 00:19:57

ministers.

00:19:57 --> 00:19:58

And obviously, he knows Islam.

00:19:58 --> 00:19:59

He's an Islamic scholar.

00:20:00 --> 00:20:02

So there's some outstanding scholars here, I must

00:20:02 --> 00:20:02

say.

00:20:02 --> 00:20:03

And he's not unique.

00:20:03 --> 00:20:05

There are others associated with Zaytuna, for example.

00:20:07 --> 00:20:09

Hassan Spiker, who was on the faculty there,

00:20:09 --> 00:20:09

is now moved back.

00:20:10 --> 00:20:15

He's a Cambridge theologian, a philosopher, rather, an

00:20:15 --> 00:20:15

Englishman.

00:20:17 --> 00:20:19

So there are some other people I won't

00:20:19 --> 00:20:21

mention who perhaps are not quite in that

00:20:21 --> 00:20:21

class.

00:20:22 --> 00:20:24

But I'm not going to ad hominem people.

00:20:24 --> 00:20:25

I'm not going to criticize individuals.

00:20:26 --> 00:20:28

So there are some excellent examples of great

00:20:28 --> 00:20:30

Islamic scholarship in the States, I think.

00:20:30 --> 00:20:31

Sorry.

00:20:34 --> 00:20:36

Dr. Ali Atai and Hassan Spiker.

00:20:37 --> 00:20:39

Ali Atai, Hassan Spiker, who was on the

00:20:39 --> 00:20:41

faculty at Zaytuna, he's now moved back to

00:20:41 --> 00:20:42

Amman in Jordan.

00:20:43 --> 00:20:44

But he's really worth...

00:20:44 --> 00:20:46

He's a brilliant young Islamic scholar.

00:20:46 --> 00:20:49

He's written a lot of books on philosophy,

00:20:49 --> 00:20:51

on metaphysics, on ethics.

00:20:52 --> 00:20:55

His work is difficult to read because it

00:20:55 --> 00:20:56

is at a very high intellectual level.

00:20:56 --> 00:20:58

But he is...

00:20:58 --> 00:20:58

He's interesting.

00:20:58 --> 00:20:59

He's a white guy.

00:20:59 --> 00:21:01

And I say that because he was born

00:21:01 --> 00:21:01

as a Muslim.

00:21:02 --> 00:21:05

His parents, one of whom was American, converted

00:21:05 --> 00:21:05

in the 1970s.

00:21:06 --> 00:21:07

So he was born and brought up as

00:21:07 --> 00:21:09

a Muslim in Cambridge in England.

00:21:11 --> 00:21:13

But he is a brilliant young scholar, worth

00:21:13 --> 00:21:15

watching, following him on Twitter, reading his books.

00:21:18 --> 00:21:20

Those are just two almost random examples.

00:21:20 --> 00:21:21

There are others, of course.

00:21:24 --> 00:21:28

My brief analysis of why American Muslim community

00:21:29 --> 00:21:33

is more left towards, lean towards leftist approach.

00:21:33 --> 00:21:34

And you...

00:21:34 --> 00:21:35

I just want to ask you if it's

00:21:35 --> 00:21:36

the right analysis.

00:21:36 --> 00:21:38

It's because of, first of all, we are

00:21:38 --> 00:21:41

less in population from the percentage and more

00:21:41 --> 00:21:41

scattered.

00:21:42 --> 00:21:42

America is big.

00:21:43 --> 00:21:46

So from Seattle to Florida, you've already seen

00:21:46 --> 00:21:46

that.

00:21:46 --> 00:21:49

While in Europe and England, everyone in one

00:21:49 --> 00:21:49

town.

00:21:49 --> 00:21:50

So you would...

00:21:50 --> 00:21:51

And one more reason is because of the

00:21:51 --> 00:21:52

social pressure.

00:21:52 --> 00:21:53

This is imperialism.

00:21:54 --> 00:21:55

This is the hub of imperialism.

00:21:55 --> 00:21:57

So everything needs to be Americanized.

00:21:58 --> 00:22:01

Is that, to a certain extent, right assessment?

00:22:02 --> 00:22:02

I think so.

00:22:03 --> 00:22:05

I mean, I'm embarrassed to say Britain is

00:22:05 --> 00:22:08

often portrayed as the poodle of the United

00:22:08 --> 00:22:08

States.

00:22:09 --> 00:22:09

You know, a poodle?

00:22:09 --> 00:22:11

These little dogs that follow their owners around.

00:22:12 --> 00:22:14

People often say, we in Britain are like

00:22:14 --> 00:22:15

that, vis-a-vis America.

00:22:16 --> 00:22:19

And I think, unfortunately, it's true in terms

00:22:19 --> 00:22:21

of our foreign policy and everything else.

00:22:22 --> 00:22:23

And we're not the only country to be

00:22:23 --> 00:22:24

poodles, by the way.

00:22:24 --> 00:22:25

In fact, a lot of the world is

00:22:25 --> 00:22:26

like that at the moment.

00:22:26 --> 00:22:29

So it's a bit humiliating for us.

00:22:31 --> 00:22:32

What was your question?

00:22:33 --> 00:22:35

I'm just saying that, is this the right

00:22:35 --> 00:22:35

reason?

00:22:35 --> 00:22:38

Because of imperial reason and because Muslims are

00:22:38 --> 00:22:40

scattered, that's why Muslims...

00:22:40 --> 00:22:41

Well, I was going to say Muslims haven't

00:22:41 --> 00:22:42

been here for very long.

00:22:42 --> 00:22:43

But that's not true, is it?

00:22:43 --> 00:22:45

I mean, Muslims have been here in this

00:22:45 --> 00:22:48

land even before the revolution.

00:22:48 --> 00:22:50

I mean, in Muslim slaves, of course.

00:22:50 --> 00:22:51

In their millions.

00:22:51 --> 00:22:52

I mean, there'd be Muslims here.

00:22:52 --> 00:22:55

Christians in this country, I assume, don't realize

00:22:55 --> 00:22:57

that they think Muslims are just immigrants to

00:22:57 --> 00:22:57

be here for five minutes.

00:22:58 --> 00:22:58

No, no.

00:22:58 --> 00:23:01

They go back before your country was officially

00:23:01 --> 00:23:04

broke off from the UK when you did

00:23:04 --> 00:23:04

that thing.

00:23:07 --> 00:23:08

So you've been around a long time.

00:23:09 --> 00:23:12

And I think the problems in America...

00:23:12 --> 00:23:16

You're at the epicenter of imperialism.

00:23:16 --> 00:23:18

And I would say the epicenter of genocide.

00:23:19 --> 00:23:22

This country is the country that supports the

00:23:22 --> 00:23:23

genocide of the Palestinians.

00:23:23 --> 00:23:25

And that's an unspeakable crime.

00:23:25 --> 00:23:27

And I'm sorry to be very critical of

00:23:27 --> 00:23:28

your country.

00:23:28 --> 00:23:30

But I wish you wouldn't do that.

00:23:30 --> 00:23:31

And I wish my government wouldn't do that

00:23:31 --> 00:23:31

either.

00:23:32 --> 00:23:35

Because it's an appalling genocide.

00:23:36 --> 00:23:37

And it will go down in history as

00:23:37 --> 00:23:39

one of the worst crimes of the 21st

00:23:39 --> 00:23:39

century.

00:23:40 --> 00:23:42

And the free people of the West, inverted

00:23:42 --> 00:23:43

commas, are doing it.

00:23:44 --> 00:23:45

So it's unspeakable.

00:23:48 --> 00:23:51

Let me ask you the very controversial question.

00:23:53 --> 00:23:59

Are you a Ashari, Asari, Maturidi, Hanafi, Shafi,

00:23:59 --> 00:24:00

Maliki, Hambli?

00:24:01 --> 00:24:02

What are the flavors we have?

00:24:03 --> 00:24:04

Who are you?

00:24:05 --> 00:24:07

Yes, is the answer to that question.

00:24:10 --> 00:24:14

I embraced Islam very much through the Sufi

00:24:14 --> 00:24:15

door.

00:24:15 --> 00:24:17

I read the works of Guy Eaton.

00:24:17 --> 00:24:19

He's a brilliant English writer.

00:24:20 --> 00:24:21

I do recommend his work.

00:24:22 --> 00:24:25

When he died several years ago, he'd been

00:24:25 --> 00:24:26

a Muslim for 50 years.

00:24:26 --> 00:24:28

He was a British diplomat and writer.

00:24:28 --> 00:24:30

And he was a scholar in residence at

00:24:30 --> 00:24:32

Regents Park Mosque, where I embraced Islam.

00:24:34 --> 00:24:37

And I picked up some bad habits from

00:24:37 --> 00:24:39

some of the Sufi Muslims that I knew.

00:24:39 --> 00:24:42

By bad, I mean I became reflex, in

00:24:42 --> 00:24:46

a very ignorant way, reflexingly anti-Salafi.

00:24:47 --> 00:24:48

So Salafis are just bad people.

00:24:48 --> 00:24:49

They're extremists and horrible.

00:24:49 --> 00:24:51

We must attack Salafis.

00:24:52 --> 00:24:54

And I went along with that because I

00:24:54 --> 00:24:55

thought that was part of the deal.

00:24:56 --> 00:24:59

And then some time ago, there was an

00:24:59 --> 00:25:00

incident in my life, which I won't go

00:25:00 --> 00:25:04

into here, where two Salafi brothers came to

00:25:04 --> 00:25:05

my aid, came to my help.

00:25:06 --> 00:25:08

And I learned from them, and these are

00:25:08 --> 00:25:12

well-respected Salafi brothers in England, what they

00:25:12 --> 00:25:15

really thought, what their attitude was, how they

00:25:15 --> 00:25:16

understood Islam.

00:25:16 --> 00:25:21

And that began an appreciation, a positive appreciation

00:25:21 --> 00:25:24

for the Salafi, not madhab, but instead of

00:25:24 --> 00:25:25

methodology.

00:25:26 --> 00:25:28

I know Salafism is complex internally.

00:25:28 --> 00:25:29

There are different groups.

00:25:29 --> 00:25:30

It's a loaded term.

00:25:30 --> 00:25:31

I'm simplifying it.

00:25:32 --> 00:25:33

And of course, they don't support terrorism.

00:25:33 --> 00:25:34

Most of them are quite pacifist.

00:25:35 --> 00:25:36

You know, this is the great irony, you

00:25:36 --> 00:25:36

know.

00:25:38 --> 00:25:41

And so, although I still had a positive

00:25:41 --> 00:25:44

appreciation for Sufism, I then had a positive

00:25:44 --> 00:25:45

appreciation for Salafism.

00:25:45 --> 00:25:49

And then I encountered groups like Hizb ut

00:25:49 --> 00:25:52

-Tahrir, which is, in my country, is now

00:25:52 --> 00:25:55

being prescribed as a terrorist organization.

00:25:55 --> 00:25:58

It's just a political party that campaigns for

00:25:58 --> 00:26:00

the caliphate, restoration of the caliphate.

00:26:02 --> 00:26:04

And I listened to their arguments and looked

00:26:04 --> 00:26:04

into that more.

00:26:04 --> 00:26:05

I thought, yeah, they have a good point.

00:26:05 --> 00:26:08

Yes, the caliphate is part of our deen.

00:26:08 --> 00:26:10

It's part of the restoration of it.

00:26:11 --> 00:26:13

That is mentioned in the hadith, you know.

00:26:14 --> 00:26:16

So I thought, yeah, I can see the

00:26:16 --> 00:26:17

good in that as well.

00:26:18 --> 00:26:19

And then I looked into the Ash'ari,

00:26:19 --> 00:26:21

the Mas'aridi, and the Atheri.

00:26:21 --> 00:26:24

And actually, credit where it's due, I read

00:26:24 --> 00:26:28

Sheikh Yassir Qadhi's doctorate on Ibn Taymiyyah.

00:26:29 --> 00:26:34

And that opened my eyes up to not

00:26:34 --> 00:26:38

just Ibn Taymiyyah's extraordinary epistemology, but also to

00:26:38 --> 00:26:39

the Atheri creed.

00:26:40 --> 00:26:43

And Sheikh Yassir Qadhi argues there, I think,

00:26:44 --> 00:26:47

that the Atheri was the earliest creed, if

00:26:47 --> 00:26:49

you like, rather than the Ash'ari creed

00:26:49 --> 00:26:49

came later.

00:26:50 --> 00:26:52

So I thought, wow, I didn't know that.

00:26:52 --> 00:26:55

And I read another, I read Professor Tubki's

00:26:55 --> 00:26:58

book on Ibn Taymiyyah and he corroborated that.

00:26:58 --> 00:27:01

So I started identifying as an Atheri, and

00:27:01 --> 00:27:02

I still do.

00:27:03 --> 00:27:06

So I'm kind of quite, even though I

00:27:06 --> 00:27:10

identify personally as an Atheri, but I'm not

00:27:10 --> 00:27:12

anti-Sufi.

00:27:13 --> 00:27:15

Some practices are deviant and should be rejected,

00:27:16 --> 00:27:19

but broadly speaking, the emphasis on the spiritual

00:27:19 --> 00:27:20

and the purification and so on is obviously

00:27:20 --> 00:27:21

very good and Islamic.

00:27:23 --> 00:27:26

So I end up seeing good in virtually

00:27:26 --> 00:27:28

all of these approaches, actually.

00:27:29 --> 00:27:30

Which is very good, which is very good.

00:27:30 --> 00:27:33

But I've been told, well, I think so,

00:27:33 --> 00:27:35

I agree, but it feels I'm being incoherent.

00:27:35 --> 00:27:38

People say, well, you can't be pro-Salafi

00:27:38 --> 00:27:42

and for the Caliphate, because Salafis are, oh

00:27:42 --> 00:27:43

no, I think I can.

00:27:45 --> 00:27:48

So I tend to be very eclectic and

00:27:48 --> 00:27:49

affirm a lot of different positions.

00:27:51 --> 00:27:53

I have a line, I have a red

00:27:53 --> 00:27:54

line, by the way.

00:27:55 --> 00:27:59

And that is, I don't identify with kind

00:27:59 --> 00:28:02

of a more liberal Islam or more modernist

00:28:02 --> 00:28:03

Islam at all.

00:28:03 --> 00:28:08

You know, if so-called Muslims start affirming

00:28:08 --> 00:28:09

some of the stuff we see today, then

00:28:09 --> 00:28:11

that is for me completely haram.

00:28:12 --> 00:28:16

So it's definitely traditional orthodox in its various

00:28:16 --> 00:28:17

permutations.

00:28:18 --> 00:28:18

Yeah.

00:28:19 --> 00:28:22

I really like this approach, because when people

00:28:22 --> 00:28:24

revert to Islam, one of the sisters I

00:28:24 --> 00:28:27

remember in my previous community, she converted to

00:28:27 --> 00:28:30

Islam, and I told her just learn about

00:28:30 --> 00:28:32

Islam, keep it easy.

00:28:32 --> 00:28:34

And after two months she came to me

00:28:34 --> 00:28:37

and she said that, Imam Asif, who is

00:28:37 --> 00:28:39

this Salafi and Sufi and Deobandi?

00:28:40 --> 00:28:42

Am I ignorant if I don't know about

00:28:42 --> 00:28:43

them?

00:28:43 --> 00:28:44

I said, sister, if you don't know about

00:28:44 --> 00:28:45

them, you are protected.

00:28:47 --> 00:28:49

But what would be your advice to the,

00:28:51 --> 00:28:53

whether non-Muslims who are reviving Islam and

00:28:53 --> 00:28:57

accept Islam or even generally, a Muslim who

00:28:57 --> 00:28:59

is not well-versed about Islam and then

00:28:59 --> 00:29:02

eventually because of social media information overload, they

00:29:02 --> 00:29:04

were going to be exposed to these different

00:29:04 --> 00:29:06

Islamic movements.

00:29:06 --> 00:29:08

How to have a balanced approach, like take

00:29:08 --> 00:29:10

the good and leave the bad, and have

00:29:10 --> 00:29:13

the traditional guardrails, so that traditional red line.

00:29:14 --> 00:29:15

My journey is my journey.

00:29:15 --> 00:29:16

I'm not saying, by the way, that people

00:29:16 --> 00:29:20

should have my views, this kind of very

00:29:20 --> 00:29:20

eclectic.

00:29:20 --> 00:29:23

I mean, if people want to identify strongly

00:29:23 --> 00:29:25

as Salafi, good for them.

00:29:25 --> 00:29:27

I'm not going to say, well, perhaps you

00:29:27 --> 00:29:28

should be more pro-Sufi.

00:29:28 --> 00:29:29

I mean, it's not my business.

00:29:33 --> 00:29:35

But I suppose more fundamentally, we should stay

00:29:35 --> 00:29:38

in the mainstream of the Sunni, mainstream Sunni

00:29:38 --> 00:29:39

orthodoxy.

00:29:39 --> 00:29:40

So there are four mudhabs.

00:29:41 --> 00:29:42

Yes, you can be Ash'arite.

00:29:42 --> 00:29:43

Yes, you can be a Maturidi.

00:29:43 --> 00:29:44

Yes, you can be Athuri.

00:29:44 --> 00:29:46

It doesn't, in my view as a layman,

00:29:46 --> 00:29:47

it doesn't really matter.

00:29:47 --> 00:29:49

At the end of the day, we're not

00:29:49 --> 00:29:51

going to enter Jannah by our views of.

00:29:52 --> 00:29:55

It's not that, I know I shouldn't say

00:29:55 --> 00:29:57

that, but in my humble opinion as an

00:29:57 --> 00:30:00

ignoramus, it doesn't matter that much, really.

00:30:02 --> 00:30:05

But so I say, don't stress about it

00:30:05 --> 00:30:05

too much.

00:30:06 --> 00:30:07

The things to avoid though, you know, there

00:30:07 --> 00:30:09

are modernists and liberal kind of things which

00:30:09 --> 00:30:12

go under the name of Islam, which we

00:30:12 --> 00:30:13

should avoid, like plague.

00:30:16 --> 00:30:19

I know you love to read books.

00:30:19 --> 00:30:21

And I see, Mashallah, four books in front

00:30:21 --> 00:30:22

of us, Mashallah.

00:30:23 --> 00:30:25

What are you reading these days?

00:30:26 --> 00:30:28

Yeah, I tend to read a lot.

00:30:28 --> 00:30:30

And one of the books I'm reading at

00:30:30 --> 00:30:31

the moment, which I do recommend, is called

00:30:31 --> 00:30:36

The Unintended Reformation, How a Religious Revolution Secularized

00:30:36 --> 00:30:40

Society by Brad Gregory, who is a professor

00:30:40 --> 00:30:42

of early modern European history at the University

00:30:42 --> 00:30:44

of Notre Dame here in the States.

00:30:46 --> 00:30:47

This is an academic work.

00:30:47 --> 00:30:48

It's absolutely brilliant.

00:30:49 --> 00:30:52

He's a Catholic, but he really, I think,

00:30:52 --> 00:30:56

pinpoints some, he's looking into the deep history

00:30:56 --> 00:30:59

of the West and how particularly the Reformation

00:31:00 --> 00:31:04

in the 16th century, in the 1520s, 1530s,

00:31:04 --> 00:31:06

how were people like Martin Luther and John

00:31:06 --> 00:31:11

Calvin and Zwingli and others, how their protest

00:31:11 --> 00:31:13

against the Catholic Church, that's where we get

00:31:13 --> 00:31:16

the word Protestant from, that their protest against

00:31:16 --> 00:31:20

the church had an unintended consequence, which he

00:31:20 --> 00:31:24

looks at, of the secularization of Europe in

00:31:24 --> 00:31:26

France and Germany and England, especially.

00:31:26 --> 00:31:29

And that was exported ultimately to the States

00:31:29 --> 00:31:30

as well.

00:31:31 --> 00:31:33

These guys, he says, would be horrified to

00:31:33 --> 00:31:35

see the world as it is today, where

00:31:35 --> 00:31:39

religion is privatized and secularism rules.

00:31:40 --> 00:31:42

So it's a brilliant academic work about how

00:31:42 --> 00:31:46

the Reformation basically secularized the West.

00:31:46 --> 00:31:48

If you want to understand, you want to

00:31:48 --> 00:31:50

go deeper into why we are, in some

00:31:50 --> 00:31:52

ways, where we are today, this book is

00:31:52 --> 00:31:53

very good.

00:31:53 --> 00:31:56

I haven't finished it, but I'm really, a

00:31:56 --> 00:31:58

number of Muslim academics are reading it at

00:31:58 --> 00:31:59

the moment.

00:31:59 --> 00:32:01

Coincidentally, I noticed on Facebook and Twitter, they're

00:32:01 --> 00:32:05

saying it's Sheikh Hamza, sorry, Hassan Spiker recommends

00:32:05 --> 00:32:06

it highly.

00:32:06 --> 00:32:07

He's read it.

00:32:09 --> 00:32:10

But I tend to be, I tend to

00:32:10 --> 00:32:13

read a handful of books, about five or

00:32:13 --> 00:32:14

six books at the same time.

00:32:14 --> 00:32:16

I can't just focus on one, but in

00:32:16 --> 00:32:18

the States, I'm just reading this one because

00:32:18 --> 00:32:20

I can't do that, read lots of other

00:32:20 --> 00:32:21

books at the same time while I'm here.

00:32:21 --> 00:32:26

And since you're reading the books, and nowadays,

00:32:27 --> 00:32:29

Gen Z are all attached to YouTube and

00:32:29 --> 00:32:33

TikTok, like reading the book, seems like it's

00:32:33 --> 00:32:34

a tradition of the past.

00:32:35 --> 00:32:39

What would be your advice to Muslim youth,

00:32:39 --> 00:32:40

and especially we have an Amal program.

00:32:40 --> 00:32:43

So Amal program is basically an education program

00:32:43 --> 00:32:44

to create more activists.

00:32:45 --> 00:32:48

Activists should know about their religion also before

00:32:48 --> 00:32:48

they are doing activism.

00:32:49 --> 00:32:52

What would be your advice to Muslim educated

00:32:52 --> 00:32:54

youth in this regard?

00:32:54 --> 00:32:55

Yeah, that's a really good question.

00:32:56 --> 00:32:56

Very important question.

00:32:57 --> 00:33:00

I have some very unusual views by today's

00:33:00 --> 00:33:00

status.

00:33:01 --> 00:33:04

I think Muslim youth should read books.

00:33:05 --> 00:33:07

This is, you might have seen this before.

00:33:07 --> 00:33:09

This is a, I didn't get this from

00:33:09 --> 00:33:10

a museum, by the way, I actually purchased

00:33:10 --> 00:33:12

this from a bookshop.

00:33:12 --> 00:33:14

So this is a 3D example of a

00:33:14 --> 00:33:14

book.

00:33:15 --> 00:33:17

No, seriously, you're not going to get this

00:33:17 --> 00:33:22

from TikTok, or YouTube, or whatever.

00:33:22 --> 00:33:23

Not even from blogging theology?

00:33:24 --> 00:33:25

Not even blogging theology.

00:33:25 --> 00:33:27

Although the content there, of course, is excellent.

00:33:27 --> 00:33:29

I do recommend that you read books.

00:33:30 --> 00:33:30

Now what books?

00:33:31 --> 00:33:32

Because there are some crappy books, and there's

00:33:32 --> 00:33:33

some good books.

00:33:33 --> 00:33:38

I would like Muslim youth, Muslim anyone, whatever

00:33:38 --> 00:33:43

age or generation, to learn about the genealogy

00:33:43 --> 00:33:45

of ideas in the West.

00:33:45 --> 00:33:49

By genealogy, I mean the origin, the genesis,

00:33:49 --> 00:33:53

of the ideas that we breathe like oxygen,

00:33:53 --> 00:33:56

as if they're axiomatic, as if they're self

00:33:56 --> 00:33:56

-evident.

00:33:56 --> 00:33:57

They're not self-evident.

00:33:58 --> 00:34:00

They come about, they are the end product,

00:34:00 --> 00:34:04

the consequences of a series of historical and

00:34:04 --> 00:34:08

intellectual movements, which we can identify and map,

00:34:09 --> 00:34:13

like this book does, in very particular ways.

00:34:15 --> 00:34:17

The worldview we have in the West today

00:34:17 --> 00:34:18

is not natural.

00:34:19 --> 00:34:22

It's not universal, although it thinks it is.

00:34:23 --> 00:34:24

It's almost accidental.

00:34:24 --> 00:34:28

It came about as a byproduct in some

00:34:28 --> 00:34:31

of the series of consequences in Europe, mainly.

00:34:32 --> 00:34:35

So I'd like Muslim youth to dig deep

00:34:35 --> 00:34:37

into the history of the Western tradition.

00:34:38 --> 00:34:40

I'd like to see us read Plato.

00:34:41 --> 00:34:43

Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher in the

00:34:43 --> 00:34:47

4th and 5th centuries BC, two and a

00:34:47 --> 00:34:49

half thousand years ago in Athens, in Greece.

00:34:51 --> 00:34:55

One of his pupils was Aristotle, who taught

00:34:55 --> 00:34:56

Alexander the Great, of course.

00:34:57 --> 00:34:58

Read him.

00:34:59 --> 00:35:02

So when I say Plato, read his Republic.

00:35:02 --> 00:35:04

It's a very famous work of his, a

00:35:04 --> 00:35:04

work of philosophy.

00:35:05 --> 00:35:08

Read this stuff, because I know that Plato's

00:35:08 --> 00:35:11

Republic is read today in the Ivy League

00:35:11 --> 00:35:13

universities in the United States.

00:35:13 --> 00:35:15

Undergraduates are reading his work.

00:35:16 --> 00:35:18

This guy who lived two and a half

00:35:18 --> 00:35:19

thousand years ago.

00:35:20 --> 00:35:23

This still forms minds, young minds, that will

00:35:23 --> 00:35:25

end up leading this country.

00:35:25 --> 00:35:27

We've got to understand what's influencing them.

00:35:28 --> 00:35:31

Plato's always been read in the West by

00:35:31 --> 00:35:33

the intelligentsia, by educated people.

00:35:34 --> 00:35:37

So learn about the Western tradition, its philosophy,

00:35:37 --> 00:35:40

its history, its ideas, where these ideas come

00:35:40 --> 00:35:40

from.

00:35:40 --> 00:35:43

Learn it for yourself, and don't do it

00:35:43 --> 00:35:44

through YouTube, do it through books.

00:35:45 --> 00:35:47

So Plato's Republic, he's written lots of books,

00:35:47 --> 00:35:49

but anyway, that's the main, probably the most

00:35:49 --> 00:35:52

significant work he wrote.

00:35:53 --> 00:35:56

Aristotle, he wrote the Nicomachean Ethics, this amazing

00:35:56 --> 00:35:59

book on ethics, which is still hugely influential

00:35:59 --> 00:36:01

today in the West, read everywhere.

00:36:02 --> 00:36:05

Learn this stuff, become acquainted with it, appreciate

00:36:05 --> 00:36:07

it, but also critique it from the Islamic

00:36:07 --> 00:36:08

point of view.

00:36:09 --> 00:36:12

Also Christianity, learn about Christianity.

00:36:12 --> 00:36:15

I don't mean from social media.

00:36:15 --> 00:36:17

There are some common mistakes that even Muslim

00:36:17 --> 00:36:23

scholars routinely make about Christianity, which is embarrassing,

00:36:23 --> 00:36:25

really, because they're quite elementary mistakes.

00:36:25 --> 00:36:28

There's a common idea around the Council of

00:36:28 --> 00:36:30

Nicaea in the 4th century.

00:36:30 --> 00:36:31

So there's a bunch of bishops that met

00:36:31 --> 00:36:33

in what is now Turkey in the 4th

00:36:33 --> 00:36:33

century.

00:36:34 --> 00:36:36

It's called the Council of Nicaea, called by

00:36:36 --> 00:36:40

Constantine, the Roman emperor, to settle a question

00:36:40 --> 00:36:41

about who Jesus really was.

00:36:41 --> 00:36:43

Was he the same as God, like God,

00:36:43 --> 00:36:44

or was he God himself?

00:36:45 --> 00:36:48

So they decided that Jesus was God, basically.

00:36:48 --> 00:36:49

It's a Nicene Creed.

00:36:49 --> 00:36:51

But I keep on hearing this idea that

00:36:51 --> 00:36:53

Nicaea was about the Trinity.

00:36:53 --> 00:36:54

No, he wasn't.

00:36:54 --> 00:36:55

It doesn't mention the Trinity.

00:36:55 --> 00:36:56

Nothing to do with the Trinity.

00:36:56 --> 00:36:57

It never came up.

00:36:57 --> 00:36:59

I also hear that Nicaea was the time

00:36:59 --> 00:37:02

when they decided which books would go into

00:37:02 --> 00:37:04

the Bible or something, or which Gospels would

00:37:04 --> 00:37:05

be chosen.

00:37:05 --> 00:37:07

That's simply not true.

00:37:07 --> 00:37:10

That's a Da Vinci Code Dan Brown myth.

00:37:11 --> 00:37:12

Da Vinci Code is a book that was

00:37:12 --> 00:37:14

written several years ago.

00:37:15 --> 00:37:16

A work of fiction.

00:37:16 --> 00:37:17

He says it was a work of fiction.

00:37:18 --> 00:37:18

It made up stories.

00:37:19 --> 00:37:21

But these ideas have become quite popular.

00:37:21 --> 00:37:24

We need to educate ourselves about what Christianity

00:37:24 --> 00:37:27

really is, and not make these elementary mistakes,

00:37:28 --> 00:37:29

which are often recycled.

00:37:30 --> 00:37:31

I could go on about that.

00:37:31 --> 00:37:34

So learn about real Christianity from good academic

00:37:34 --> 00:37:36

books like The Historical Figure of Jesus by

00:37:36 --> 00:37:38

E.P. Saunders, a professor at Duke.

00:37:39 --> 00:37:41

This is another one of my favorites by

00:37:41 --> 00:37:42

Ahmed Pourkila.

00:37:42 --> 00:37:44

He's a senior fellow at Cambridge University.

00:37:44 --> 00:37:46

He's an English Muslim.

00:37:46 --> 00:37:49

Rethinking Islam and the West, a New Narrative

00:37:49 --> 00:37:50

for the Age of Crises.

00:37:51 --> 00:37:52

He's in his 80s now.

00:37:52 --> 00:37:54

But this is a really well-received book

00:37:54 --> 00:37:57

amongst Muslim educators and instructors.

00:37:58 --> 00:37:58

Very, very good.

00:37:59 --> 00:38:02

Again, going deep into the history of the

00:38:02 --> 00:38:03

West intellectually.

00:38:04 --> 00:38:06

Why we think the way we do now.

00:38:07 --> 00:38:10

Where do these ideas of autonomy, individual autonomy,

00:38:10 --> 00:38:10

come from?

00:38:11 --> 00:38:11

Liberalism.

00:38:12 --> 00:38:15

There are identifiable people like John Locke, the

00:38:15 --> 00:38:16

father of liberalism.

00:38:16 --> 00:38:18

He's actually much better known in the US,

00:38:18 --> 00:38:19

by the way, than he is in England,

00:38:19 --> 00:38:20

where he was from.

00:38:21 --> 00:38:25

He invented this idea of tolerance and secularism.

00:38:25 --> 00:38:27

It's there in his Second Treatise of Government,

00:38:27 --> 00:38:28

which I recommend.

00:38:28 --> 00:38:29

His Letter on Tolerance.

00:38:31 --> 00:38:35

This influenced the American Declaration of Independence, which

00:38:35 --> 00:38:35

quotes him.

00:38:38 --> 00:38:41

He's an English philosopher from the 17th century.

00:38:42 --> 00:38:44

We as Muslims need to know about these

00:38:44 --> 00:38:49

guys so that we're not passively influenced by

00:38:49 --> 00:38:50

the zeitgeist, these ideas.

00:38:50 --> 00:38:54

We can critically resist them, analyze them, and

00:38:54 --> 00:38:56

form our own Islamic tradition.

00:38:56 --> 00:38:59

The second point is to know our Islamic

00:38:59 --> 00:39:00

tradition well.

00:39:01 --> 00:39:04

Great teachers like Sheikh here, but we also

00:39:04 --> 00:39:06

need to read people like Ibn Taymiyyah, al

00:39:06 --> 00:39:06

-Khazali.

00:39:08 --> 00:39:09

This is very long.

00:39:10 --> 00:39:13

We need to educate ourselves in both traditions

00:39:13 --> 00:39:17

so that we can robustly analyze and critique

00:39:17 --> 00:39:20

them, but remain faithful to our own tradition.

00:39:20 --> 00:39:21

Otherwise, we're gonna go under.

00:39:22 --> 00:39:24

We're just gonna end up repeating what Fox

00:39:24 --> 00:39:27

News says and all that rubbish.

00:39:27 --> 00:39:28

Anyway.

00:39:29 --> 00:39:29

Rubbish or garbage?

00:39:30 --> 00:39:31

Garbage, I mean.

00:39:31 --> 00:39:31

Okay.

00:39:32 --> 00:39:33

That's garbage.

00:39:34 --> 00:39:36

I actually like the last point you mentioned.

00:39:36 --> 00:39:37

I didn't, of course.

00:39:37 --> 00:39:38

I like the first one also.

00:39:39 --> 00:39:40

This American humor.

00:39:41 --> 00:39:41

Oh, no, I'm kidding.

00:39:43 --> 00:39:45

Sometimes you have the knowledge of your enemy

00:39:45 --> 00:39:47

more than the knowledge of...

00:39:48 --> 00:39:50

Sometimes you have the knowledge of what you

00:39:50 --> 00:39:51

hate, but not the knowledge of what you

00:39:51 --> 00:39:52

love.

00:39:53 --> 00:39:55

So it is very important to have the

00:39:55 --> 00:39:59

knowledge of Western philosophy to deconstruct these ideologies

00:39:59 --> 00:40:00

and isms and ologies.

00:40:01 --> 00:40:02

But having said that, if you don't have

00:40:02 --> 00:40:05

proper knowledge of the text and the rational

00:40:05 --> 00:40:07

sciences of Islam and textual sciences of Islam,

00:40:07 --> 00:40:11

then eventually you won't have traditional guardrails.

00:40:11 --> 00:40:13

So I'd really like two-point advice.

00:40:13 --> 00:40:16

First is to get well-versed in the

00:40:16 --> 00:40:21

philosophy and the comparative religion, including Christianity.

00:40:22 --> 00:40:23

But have the traditional guardrails.

00:40:24 --> 00:40:25

Because otherwise it's very easy.

00:40:26 --> 00:40:34

Because the philosophy without traditional knowledge can take

00:40:34 --> 00:40:37

you to skepticism route or agnosticism route.

00:40:38 --> 00:40:40

But if you have traditional guardrails, then you

00:40:40 --> 00:40:42

know how to take the good and wise

00:40:42 --> 00:40:46

things and how to critique the problematic things

00:40:46 --> 00:40:47

from an Islamic lens.

00:40:47 --> 00:40:49

I couldn't agree more.

00:40:49 --> 00:40:51

I was assuming someone was well-grounded in

00:40:51 --> 00:40:52

their own tradition.

00:40:52 --> 00:40:52

But you're absolutely right.

00:40:52 --> 00:40:54

We need to identify good scholars.

00:40:54 --> 00:40:56

We need to read their work, follow them,

00:40:56 --> 00:40:57

listen to them.

00:40:57 --> 00:40:59

In England we have people like Abdul-Hakim

00:40:59 --> 00:41:00

Murad, Dr. Tim Winter.

00:41:01 --> 00:41:03

I don't necessarily agree with everything he says,

00:41:03 --> 00:41:05

but I'm just pointing to senior ulama who

00:41:05 --> 00:41:09

are acknowledged and accessible and written a lot.

00:41:10 --> 00:41:11

And we need to be very educated in

00:41:11 --> 00:41:13

our own tradition as well, not just the

00:41:13 --> 00:41:14

opposition's tradition.

00:41:15 --> 00:41:17

So yeah, it's quite a task.

00:41:17 --> 00:41:19

I'm not saying, by the way, that everyone

00:41:19 --> 00:41:19

should do this.

00:41:19 --> 00:41:22

I think it really is quite elitist, what

00:41:22 --> 00:41:23

I'm saying.

00:41:23 --> 00:41:24

I don't think everyone should read philosophy.

00:41:25 --> 00:41:26

It's difficult.

00:41:26 --> 00:41:27

It's demanding.

00:41:28 --> 00:41:29

It's very rewarding.

00:41:29 --> 00:41:30

It's very necessary to read it.

00:41:31 --> 00:41:33

But I'm saying a group of us should

00:41:33 --> 00:41:35

do it and then share that information, perhaps,

00:41:36 --> 00:41:37

in another way with other people.

00:41:38 --> 00:41:39

But I'm not saying everyone should do this,

00:41:39 --> 00:41:40

actually.

00:41:40 --> 00:41:42

And it is elitist.

00:41:42 --> 00:41:44

A very un-American thing to say, I'm

00:41:44 --> 00:41:44

sure.

00:41:44 --> 00:41:45

But anyway.

00:41:46 --> 00:41:47

Or maybe not.

00:41:47 --> 00:41:47

I don't know.

00:41:48 --> 00:41:48

Okay.

00:41:49 --> 00:41:52

Let's conclude this with a final discussion.

00:41:54 --> 00:41:57

I asked this last night, and you briefly

00:41:57 --> 00:41:58

touched it.

00:41:59 --> 00:42:04

Post-October 7th, we have seen our Muslim

00:42:04 --> 00:42:06

community, especially in America but even in European

00:42:06 --> 00:42:11

Muslim community, we were swinging, especially here, swinging

00:42:11 --> 00:42:13

like a pendulum between the left and the

00:42:13 --> 00:42:13

right.

00:42:15 --> 00:42:17

Pre-October 7th, we came a little bit

00:42:17 --> 00:42:22

to the center in our approach, whether it's

00:42:22 --> 00:42:24

the sexuality issues or other issues.

00:42:24 --> 00:42:26

And October 7th happened, and now we are

00:42:26 --> 00:42:29

pushed towards the fences, it seems like.

00:42:30 --> 00:42:34

So are you concerned that this social justice

00:42:34 --> 00:42:38

movement, because this happened to Christianity 100 years

00:42:38 --> 00:42:41

ago, that Christianity just turned into a social

00:42:41 --> 00:42:43

justice movement and it lost its essence.

00:42:44 --> 00:42:46

It became like a Marxist social justice.

00:42:47 --> 00:42:50

Are you concerned that the same thing might

00:42:50 --> 00:42:50

happen?

00:42:51 --> 00:42:54

Or maybe we are smart now how to

00:42:54 --> 00:42:57

basically tackle, because post-9-11 the same

00:42:57 --> 00:42:59

challenge came and we learned from our mistakes.

00:43:00 --> 00:43:02

What is your take on that?

00:43:02 --> 00:43:03

Wow, that's a huge question.

00:43:03 --> 00:43:06

I was in front of the White House

00:43:06 --> 00:43:08

several days ago when we were in Washington,

00:43:09 --> 00:43:12

and there was a Palestinian, a pro-Palestinian

00:43:12 --> 00:43:13

demonstration happening there.

00:43:15 --> 00:43:19

And I think it was led or initiated

00:43:19 --> 00:43:23

by revolutionary socialists as a particular left-wing

00:43:23 --> 00:43:23

party.

00:43:23 --> 00:43:24

I forget who they are, anyway.

00:43:25 --> 00:43:26

But there were Muslims present.

00:43:27 --> 00:43:28

And I think there's the issue of how

00:43:28 --> 00:43:31

we behave in these demonstrations.

00:43:32 --> 00:43:35

What is the adab that Muslims should adopt?

00:43:35 --> 00:43:39

Can we shout and scream at our enemies?

00:43:39 --> 00:43:41

Can we abuse them?

00:43:41 --> 00:43:42

Can we say, oh, you know.

00:43:43 --> 00:43:47

Can we do behavior that leads to our

00:43:47 --> 00:43:48

arrest by the police?

00:43:48 --> 00:43:50

How do we, you know, how should we

00:43:50 --> 00:43:53

behave distinctly Islamically, I mean?

00:43:53 --> 00:43:55

Because the left, some of the left, will

00:43:55 --> 00:43:57

perhaps overstep the mark.

00:43:57 --> 00:44:03

They'll be even violent sometimes, abusive or aggressive

00:44:03 --> 00:44:05

towards the police or whatever.

00:44:05 --> 00:44:06

So I think we need to be much

00:44:06 --> 00:44:09

more aware of how we should behave Islamically

00:44:09 --> 00:44:09

in these.

00:44:09 --> 00:44:11

I'm not saying we shouldn't go on demonstrations.

00:44:11 --> 00:44:13

I'm saying, well, if we do, how we

00:44:13 --> 00:44:17

should behave Islamically and not just adopt the

00:44:17 --> 00:44:20

patterns of behavior of the left.

00:44:21 --> 00:44:22

And of course, the left have their own

00:44:22 --> 00:44:22

agenda.

00:44:22 --> 00:44:27

They have their political, revolutionary, secular agenda, which

00:44:27 --> 00:44:29

is often Marxist, by the way, which is

00:44:29 --> 00:44:32

atheist, explicitly anti-religion.

00:44:32 --> 00:44:34

Although they might keep that a bit quiet

00:44:34 --> 00:44:35

if they've got Muslim allies around.

00:44:39 --> 00:44:43

Some scholars, not from traditional perspective, but let's

00:44:43 --> 00:44:51

say some movement-oriented, how to say, if

00:44:51 --> 00:44:54

not scholars, Moors and Shakers of Muslim community

00:44:54 --> 00:44:57

might say that Marx have the same approach,

00:44:57 --> 00:44:58

even though I agree with you, but I'm

00:44:58 --> 00:45:01

just trying to give you a pushback from

00:45:01 --> 00:45:02

their angle.

00:45:03 --> 00:45:06

They might say that Marx have the clash

00:45:06 --> 00:45:10

between the haves and have-nots, the oppressor

00:45:10 --> 00:45:13

versus oppressor, and Islam talk about this from

00:45:13 --> 00:45:14

a different angle.

00:45:14 --> 00:45:16

So what's wrong with that?

00:45:16 --> 00:45:18

We have our own epistemology.

00:45:18 --> 00:45:20

If something good is coming, we need to

00:45:20 --> 00:45:20

take.

00:45:21 --> 00:45:24

So Marx, one of the scholars 100 years

00:45:24 --> 00:45:26

ago, without taking his name, and he said

00:45:26 --> 00:45:29

that Marx plus Islam is the solution for

00:45:29 --> 00:45:29

the humanity.

00:45:30 --> 00:45:30

Yeah.

00:45:31 --> 00:45:35

And if I'll tell you the name, no,

00:45:35 --> 00:45:35

I can't.

00:45:36 --> 00:45:39

So I'm pretty sure that at that time

00:45:39 --> 00:45:39

it was different.

00:45:40 --> 00:45:41

Now more researches have been done on Marx.

00:45:41 --> 00:45:43

Now scholars won't make this mistake.

00:45:44 --> 00:45:47

But where to identify that Marxist social justice,

00:45:48 --> 00:45:50

and the term social justice in and of

00:45:50 --> 00:45:53

itself, goes against the divine system of justice.

00:45:54 --> 00:45:55

I agree.

00:45:55 --> 00:46:00

I think Marxism is an atheistic, godless, materialist

00:46:00 --> 00:46:01

ideology.

00:46:01 --> 00:46:02

We must be very clear about that.

00:46:02 --> 00:46:06

Now there may be some other aspirations which

00:46:06 --> 00:46:06

are good.

00:46:07 --> 00:46:09

I mean, not everything in national socialism.

00:46:09 --> 00:46:12

He believes in extending the living working wage

00:46:12 --> 00:46:15

to giving workers holiday.

00:46:15 --> 00:46:18

Most ideologies have some good in them, but

00:46:18 --> 00:46:21

we shouldn't necessarily get in bed with them,

00:46:21 --> 00:46:23

so to speak, or form alliances with.

00:46:23 --> 00:46:28

Marxism aims explicitly to the abolition of religion

00:46:28 --> 00:46:29

as such.

00:46:30 --> 00:46:31

It's not just atheists.

00:46:31 --> 00:46:33

It actually wants to abolish religion.

00:46:33 --> 00:46:34

I mean, Marx said so.

00:46:36 --> 00:46:38

These people can't be really our allies.

00:46:38 --> 00:46:41

There might be coincidental overlaps between our agendas,

00:46:43 --> 00:46:44

but that's about it.

00:46:44 --> 00:46:46

So no, Islam can't be combined with anything

00:46:46 --> 00:46:46

else.

00:46:47 --> 00:46:51

It is the divine dispensation for the human

00:46:51 --> 00:46:51

race.

00:46:51 --> 00:46:55

But I think the whole alliance, the Muslim

00:46:55 --> 00:46:56

alliance with the left in general, is highly

00:46:56 --> 00:46:59

problematic, because it often comes at a price

00:46:59 --> 00:47:01

where we have to perhaps either be quiet

00:47:01 --> 00:47:04

about our core Islamic beliefs, say on gender

00:47:04 --> 00:47:06

or marriage or LGBT, whatever.

00:47:07 --> 00:47:09

We either self-censor or we get criticized

00:47:09 --> 00:47:12

by the left for having these views.

00:47:13 --> 00:47:15

And with the right, many of the right,

00:47:15 --> 00:47:17

some Christian right have good values about family

00:47:17 --> 00:47:20

values, for example, that the importance of faith

00:47:20 --> 00:47:23

in life, in public square, there should be

00:47:23 --> 00:47:24

faith in public square, and so on.

00:47:24 --> 00:47:27

But the right often allied with, in this

00:47:27 --> 00:47:32

country anyway, with Zionism and with Islamophobic attitudes

00:47:32 --> 00:47:33

and so on.

00:47:33 --> 00:47:35

So I think maybe we need to form

00:47:35 --> 00:47:40

strategic partnerships or ad hoc alliances, but not

00:47:40 --> 00:47:44

actually have a built-in alliance with, say,

00:47:44 --> 00:47:46

the Labour Party in Britain or the Democrats.

00:47:46 --> 00:47:47

Well, I can't tell you what to do,

00:47:47 --> 00:47:49

but there needs to be more independence, I

00:47:49 --> 00:47:53

think, and critical interaction, and we need to

00:47:53 --> 00:47:56

build up our own base, I think.

00:47:56 --> 00:47:57

Yeah.

00:47:58 --> 00:47:59

Actually, very, very true.

00:48:26 --> 00:48:28

Yeah.

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