Fahad Tasleem – Peace, Love & Jihad Understanding the Prophet Model for Change
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Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh Bismillah al Rahman al
Rahim, Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa Salatu was Salam, ala
Rasulillah and cream Abad. So welcome to this Sapiens Institute
live stream live session, I am falling asleep in Sharla, we're
going to be covering a topic that I find very interesting. And in
fact, after having kind of gone through it, I realized that we can
actually do a series of live streams on this particular topic.
Now the topic is entitled, peace, love and Jihad understanding the
prophetic model for change. Now, the thing is, like I mentioned
that we could actually do a number of live streams on this topic, but
we're going to be focusing on a certain area. Now, before we get
into what I'll be covering in this live stream, I think it's very
important that we understand a few are making a few disclaimers here.
First of all, because of the nature of the topic, because we're
mentioning the term jihad in the title, and we will be talking
about issues of war and peace. It's very important that we
understand that according to the Islamic framework, that we are,
according to orthodox Islam, we are very, very clear and specific
that there is supposed to be no extremism within the Islamic
framework. And this comes not just because we're saying it, or just
because, you know, of the current climate that we're in, it's part
and parcel of our tradition. So for instance, the Quran itself,
Allah subhanho wa Taala himself says lots of Luffy Dini comb, do
not go to extremes in your deen. And as we're going to see in a
little bit by Dean here, it's not only just religion, in fact, we're
going to see that that can be expanded to include worldviews in
general. But more on that later. At this point, we understand that
we as Muslims, as someone who holds the Islamic world view as to
be true, absolutely true. We understand that extremism is not
part of that. And yet, there is a reality that Muslims do go to
extremes in their religion, yet, part and parcel of the teachings
of Islam specifically and clearly, unequivocally show and demonstrate
that extremes are not to be not to be not not to be partaken in. In
other words, you find that things that are outside of the Islamic
framework, those in fact, are defined as extremes. And so when
people go into extremes, that's actually an against the Islamic
paradigm. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam mentioned beware
of extremism in your religion. Here, the term is Dean, and we're
gonna get into that in a little bit. Because the only thing that
destroyed those before you was extremism in religion in Deen here
specifically. So first disclaimer is that we are not people. And
we're in our tradition is not one that encourages towards extremism,
whether we're talking about extremism in matters of our
religion, in the sense of acts of worship, or when we talk about
issues of warfare and things like that.
In addition to that, we see that from the prophetic tradition, the
overriding, overarching principle of the Islamic paradigm is that
the Muslim who adopts this paradigm as a worldview that is
true and absolutely true, is committed to the wellness and good
ping of all people. And so, like I said, because of the nature of the
topic, we're going to be talking about war when talking about
peace. That's not, you know, problematic. But when we do speak
about war, and we are speaking about briefly, we will briefly
mention jihad, get into that more in the later livestream. But
because of the nature of these topics, it's really important that
we understand this. And again, this is not to capitulate based on
a certain circumstance that we find ourselves in within the
modern world, but rather it is deeply rooted within our
tradition. So for instance, the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him
Says law, you know, I had a comb had you hit barley or he might you
heavily enough see, none of you will truly believe and here what's
very interesting is that it's as if the prophet Muhammad is
negating belief Eman by saying La Umino Hadoken. Right, that none of
you will truly believe none of you will have Eman in its true form
until you love for your brother, what you love for yourself right
in another narration until he allows for his neighbor what he
loves for himself. And of course, this you know, this is not just,
you know, empty platitudes. But we see this in the example of the
life
of the Prophet Muhammad himself sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. One
example that comes to mind is when the young man comes to the Prophet
Muhammad, and he says, I want to commit adultery. I want to commit
Zina. And so give me permission to do that. Now the Prophet peace be
upon him. Interestingly enough, he didn't say, Oh, well don't do
that. That's, that's haram, that's forbidden. That's not allowed in
our tradition. Because God does not allow that. Rather, he posed
that young man a question, would you want that for your sister, for
your mother, in essence, what he was doing was exemplifying and
trying to
trying to introduce this young man to the concept of love for your
love for your love for your brother, which you love for
yourself. And so we see that that's not they're not just empty
platitudes, but rather they are being taught in a way to actualize
them. Similarly, the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam he says, love for the people, leanness, what you love
for yourself. So the overarching idea, again, because of the
nature, the sensitive nature of the topic, is that the Islamic
paradigm and the prophetic tradition, at the Paramount the
main focus here is that we are committed the Islamic tradition is
committed to the well being goodness and guidance of all
people, this term guidance is going to be very important later
on as well. So with that disclaimer, made, let us start
with in earnest. And what we're going to do is we're going to look
at what we're going to be covering today. So the first thing we're
going to do is we're going to present the central thesis, and
here, it's what I would what I call the insider and outsider
problem. In fact, I don't call it that. But we'll get into that. And
the thesis will expound upon that, then we will have a brief
discussion on the prophethood of the Prophet Mohammed Salah Salem,
in other words, who was the prophet Muhammad.
And we'll talk about how one can interpret who are the status or
the personality, the shock, sia and all of that of the Prophet
Muhammad, if they are outside of the Islamic framework, and hence,
you know, the thesis, you know, we'll get into that in a second.
The second part, we're going to be looking at who was the prophet
Mohammed, so Selim, then what we're going to see is we're going
to see that, in fact, when someone wants to make an interpretation of
who the Prophet Muhammad is, and they are not within the Islamic
framework, they will have to resort to something known as
special pleading, and we'll speak about that as well. And the end of
this presentation, in fact, this is why I'm saying that this
presentation should be should in fact be a series is that we're
going to be looking at the purpose of prophethood. In other words,
we're going to be looking at, you know, whenever a person sets out
to do something, they have a certain goal or certain purpose in
mind, generally. And so specifically when it comes to
Prophet Muhammad, if the idea is that, you know, that that that
people have purposes in what they do, we're going to be looking at
the purpose of prophethood. And we're going to be looking at that
from by juxtaposing two verses of the Quran. One of these are from
Sudha to SFX, which is 6190. The other one is 5725. And we're going
to be looking at this in terms of the purpose of prophethood as the
Prophet Muhammad being the final prophet and messenger, as compared
to prophets and messengers that came before the Prophet Muhammad.
And then we're going to be looking at that in the context of a case
study, then that case study is going to have is going to be
related to what's known as the Treaty of who they be, or the
soul, labia. Okay, now, I've said a lot. And maybe some of this
makes sense. Maybe some of it doesn't. But let's go and start in
earnest with the central thesis. The central thesis is as follows.
The Insider slash outsider Muslim approach is the only way to make
sense of peace and war in the Sita, Sita here being the life
story or the life history of the Prophet Muhammad.
So the insider slash emotional approach is the only way to make
sense of peace and war incidents of when the Prophet Muhammad chose
peace. And when he chose to go to war Salallahu Alaihe Salam in his
life story. The only way to understand that that makes sense,
is the insider Muslim approach,
without resorting to special pleading, and we'll talk about
what special pleading is in a bit when you compare the insider
Muslim approach, and we'll define that in a minute as well. And you
compare that to the outsider approach someone who's outside of
the summit paradigm or this outside the Islamic worldview, you
find that this leads to more problems and questions when trying
to interpret the choice of going to war or, or or having relations
of peace, that those choices of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu
Sallam because the outsider Western approach, you by
necessity,
have to resort to special pleading, and we'll get into what
That means in just a second. So
let's now move on. And like I said, I will talk about insider
outsider approach. And what we mean by Special Pleading in a
second, but we want to start off this discussion and ask a certain
question. The question was, who was or the question is, who is the
Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam? In other words, was he an
ambassador of peace? In the sense that the main mission of the
Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu sallam was peace? And p by peace? We mean
that there should be no warfare? Was he a pacifist, that preferred
peace in all circumstances, in all conditions at all times? Or was he
a war monger? Someone who, you know, just preferred violence and
war, and you know, bloodshed, and killing, and so on and so forth?
Now, the thing is, there's some hyperbole in this question.
Meaning that, you know, obviously, you're going to have shades in
between each of these. But if someone wants to now paint a
picture of the Prophet SAW Selim being an ambassador of peace, in
the sense that his entire mission sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was
just on the concept of being something like a pacifist, you
could find evidence for that, within the Islamic tradition.
On the flip side of that, if someone wanted to say that the
Prophet Muhammad SAW someone was a warmonger, in other words, that
he, by his, by his by his message, and his purpose was all just
violence and warfare, you could potentially find evidence for
that. Although I would argue that when it comes to the personality
of the Prophet Muhammad, you'd be very hard pressed to find evidence
for that, the main evidence for that you would find in the fact
that there were battles and warfare that were engaged in,
within the CETA, of the Prophet Muhammad. So when we ask this
question, we can look at it from the, from the point of view of his
personality, his show, ocsea
SallAllahu sallam, or we could look at it from the the life
history of the Prophet Muhammad, right. And so here we're talking
about the CETA. In other words, when we analyze the choices of
going to war versus peace, and so on, and so forth. And we look at
it across the timeline, from the beginning of what the Muslims have
called the beginning of revelation to the death of the Prophet
Muhammad, when we analyze this, you could find evidence whether
you want to say he was an ambassador of peace in the sort of
absolute pacifistic way, or, and so and he encouraged a type of
pluralism, religious pluralism, to some sort of extreme degree, or he
was a war monger, there's a type of evidence you could potentially
find relate to his personality, so Salem and related to his way to
the CETA of the Prophet Muhammad, so Salam, okay, so let's take a
look at his personality. If someone said that he was a war
monger, then no doubt within the CETA literature, you have examples
of his personality, while he was in a state of war, while he was in
the battlefield. So for instance, during the Battle of her name,
which is a very fierce battle, but all reports that he says by Allah
if the fighting became hot, meaning became difficult and it
was it was rough, we would seek a barrier or protection. The word
that he uses here is not debate right, which for the Muslims who
are listening to this, it's comes from Taqwa that they have a
barrier of protection. And we will seek we would not ducky in the
Prophet, so Salah, we would seek a barrier and protection, the
process of meaning. The Prophet sallallahu sallam was, you know,
what's being signified here is that he was a person that led from
the front in terms of being a military commander, tactician
strategist, it was some of that leading from the front. It's not
like, you know, he's sitting in a room and just doing all the plans
and everyone else is fighting. He's got this, this Schutze and
this personality that he is leading from the front, putting
himself in harm's way, even before everyone else and is showing this
type of shujaa this type of bravery, which exemplifies his
personality. And such. Al Bara is saying that when it became too
difficult, the fighting became too difficult, we would find ourselves
behind the process alone, because he would be in front. And he said
that the most brave amongst us meaning amongst the Sahaba was the
one who stood next to the prophesy Salem. So most people, if the
fighting got too hot, too vicious, too, too difficult, they would
find shelter in the process of them, whereas the brave ones would
be next to the process of them. So in terms of a personality, no
doubt the process alone partook in battles and took particular parts
of in warfare. So if someone wanted to say that said, look, he
part took, you know, he was part of this battle, and in fact, his
bravery, and his being a military commander and tactician and so
forth, is exemplified in narrations like this, which
reflect someone could argue
His personality, again, I would say that the argument is very
weak. Nevertheless, someone could make an argument like that. Okay?
Now let's look at the opposite side. And what I'm saying here is
that if we, if someone was to say that the sole mission of the
Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu sallam was one of an ambassador of peace,
and the hyperbole here, and the extreme here is what we're saying
is that the Prophet Muhammad, chose peace in all places, all
circumstances, again, we know factually, from the Islamic
tradition and the Islamic narrative that that's not true.
But if someone wants to make that as a claim, then they could look
at aspects of his personality. And in fact, you have so many, that
there you can, you would lose count about the personality of the
Prophet Muhammad being one of a prophet of mercy, of peace, of
caring, of love, of compassion. In fact, the Quran itself, you know,
Allah Himself subhanho wa Taala says that we have sent you as a
parameter, Lil Alameen, we have sent you as a mercy to all of
humanity. So if we're looking at his personality, Abu Huraira, holy
Allah on reports that Accra inhabits saw the process Salam,
and Salah Salem kissing his grandson, Al Hassan. So this just
as a background, this person
of crime and habits he's he's a Bedouin, so he's kind of more of a
a desert dweller who's coming from a very rough background, right? So
the desert conditions, you know, you kind of tend to tend to tend
to tend to be influenced by that and kind of that environment. That
rough desert environment has an effect on you. And it has an
effect on your emotion and how you are. So this Bedouin comes to the
Prophet Muhammad, and he sees the process of kissing his grandson,
Al Asad, about the yellow one. And this Bedouin says, I have 10
children, and I don't kiss any of them. Right? Because from his
perspective, he's seeing this type of compassion and mercy to be a
type of weakness. The Prophet Muhammad hours, is is remember, he
is Ramadan, Lil Alameen, he is the, you know, he was his mercy to
all of mankind. So he says, Verily, whoever does not show
mercy will not receive mercy. So if we're looking at the
perspective to say that, okay, the Prophet Muhammad was someone who
peace for the sake of peace, right? This was how, you know, we
can interpret his life and interpret his personality. Again,
you would find evidence, and you would find ample evidence, almost
overbearing evidence to show that that would be the case. Okay. Now,
what about from the CETA itself? So we looked at the personality to
say, Okay, can we find evidence if we want to take a type of extreme
view of him being a more war monger, now, the biller or an
ambassador of peace, right, in the sense that that was the only
purpose that was just peace. So you can find it not only in his
personality, but in the CETA literature as well. So when you
look at the CETA literature,
him in terms of being a let's say, a war monger, now the biller,
you can find that, that this image of Muslims in general, being
people who are just violent by their nature, because of some sort
of basis for this in their religion, it's not a new
phenomenon. In fact, you can we can trace it back in terms of a
polemic that's used against Islam, meaning the idea that Muslims by
nature, because of their traditional religion, are violent,
all the way back to John of Damascus, you can say he was the
first one, to publish a polemic.
And this and who died in 749, you can say that he is the kind of the
source of your modern day anti Muslim bigotry. Right. And John of
Damascus, he focuses his critique of Islam. Right. So remember, he
said, the first polemics against Islam can be traced back to John
of Damascus, 749. He was actually he had a position in the Muslim
government at the time. So he was he was familiar with the Arabic
language and so on and so forth. And he was a Christian. Now, one
of the things before I kind of mentioned, the kind of the four
areas of critique that John of Damascus put forth, what we have
to understand is that when John Damascus being a Christian is
putting this together, his understanding of what a prophet
is, and much like the Christian world, the Byzantium empire. So
remember, the Muslims are now kind of overtaking lands within the
Byzantium empire, who are by and large Christian. So when they see
this, and the Muslims are coming in, and they're you know, taking
over lands and so on and so forth. They are asking the question,
okay, well, well, what where did the Where did these people come
from, first of all, right? They were, you know, these people who
people, you know, no one really paid much attention to these
desert dweller.
Is that you know, Alexander the Great pass them by all these
people just pass them by because what value and all of a sudden,
it's like they're coming out of the desert? Why are they what is
the purpose? Why are they coming? So when it when when the Muslims
would say, Well, this is something that's part and parcel of our
religion in the sense that, that we are coming to bring you to a
higher state of spirituality and love and connection with the
Creator. And that this is based upon the the prophetic advice is
to bring people to this higher state. And sometimes when it comes
to the time and age that they're living in, that this has to do
with, you know, expanding the Muslim territory, right? What they
would interpret this to say like, wait a minute, our view of what a
prophet is, is one of Jesus, peace be upon him. And so, from that
perspective, when you look at the biblical narrative of who Jesus
was, you find that Jesus, according to the biblical
narrative, is someone who is an ambassador of peace, someone who
if you know, someone, you know, slaps you on one cheek, given the
other cheek, if someone wants your lower garment, given the upper
garment or something to this effect. And so the entire idea of
someone coming in and that their that warfare, or battles, or you
know, these type of things would be anything to do with religion,
or spirituality was completely outside of the purview of someone
who's coming with this view of what prophethood is, even though
the Bible itself has examples of this. And you would have to negate
some of those examples. So one clear example David and Goliath.
Obviously, there is a battle, there's warfare, there is violence
that's being done. And so putting that aside, you'd have to
basically put that aside and say, Okay, well, you know, David, and
Goliath has nothing to do with God or spirituality or anything like
that, again, because of this worldview, that they're coming
from in terms of what is a prophet, they now have to give an
explanation. And so Jonathan mascus is the first one to come
with this polemic or this explanation. And he focuses on
four areas. Number one, when it comes to the Prophet Muhammad
Sallallahu sallam, who was he? Well, he was the first area that
he focused on, he was an imposter and opportunist. In other words,
it wasn't about a true message. But it's about expanding the
Muslim territory because of power, prestige, and money. And the all
the other objectives of war, which we'll talk about in a second. So
that's number one. Number two, that his message was stolen. In
fact, John, Damascus didn't view Islam as a separate religion,
right. And religion is a loaded term. Like I said, we're gonna
talk about the term religion in detail a bit later, but didn't
view it as a separate religion, or let's say worldview. But he viewed
it as an aberration of Christianity. In other words, it
was a type of, you know, piecemeal Christianity, that someone had
used to, you know, increase in his power and his prestige, and so on
and so forth. So from that we see Point number two is that he brings
this idea of that the message was stolen. In fact, it was copied
from Judeo Christian sources. Number three, the third area of
polemic that he that, that he that he expounds upon, is that because
of the nature of let's say, how Muslims conduct or we're able to
get married, because as you know, one of the, the highest areas are
the highest spiritual concepts within Christianity, not of today.
But you know, in early Christianity you would find is
that this idea of being an aesthetic where you would not
engage in marriage and * and sexual relations were considered
very taboo and unethical and wrong. And so even to this day,
you find, you know, Catholics, you know, Catholic priests and things
like they don't get married for that reason. So when you have a
tradition that encourages marriage, and multiple marriages,
you find that John damask interprets this to say, Okay,
well, there's a sexual deviancy here, and there's just, they're
just lustful, by their nature, maybe they're coming out of the
desert. And so therefore, they just, that's how they're, they
are. The fourth point, and this is the point that I wanted to
highlight is that, because in their tradition, and the idea of
what they deem as a prophet should be, again, using Jesus as the
archetype or the biblical Jesus of the archetype of that, they said
that this prophet and this message, the people of this
message, basically their violent fanatics, violence is part and
parcel of their message. Okay. So what is the evidence for that?
Well, the fact that there were wars, that warfare happened, the
fact that, you know, the Prophet Muhammad, so sort of went to war.
Now, again, this is a very myopic view of the CETA and the
personality, but nevertheless, if that's the case, one wants to
build this is how evidence can be brought forth and John of Damascus
indeed, does try to do that. And to this day, that you know, a lot
of that
but instead John Damascus initially came up with in any one
of these areas. So, you know, number three the sexual deviance
slash lustful, the example he gives in from the setup of the
Prophet Muhammad. So Salam is the the issue of zayde and Zeno, if
you know about this, about this issue that he highlights this.
Interestingly enough, he doesn't highlight the marriage age of
Aisha, because that came up much later around 1918 or something
when age became an issue, but anyhow. So in other words,
evidence is then taken from the CETA. And so for that fourth
point, you know, that idea of violence being part and parcel of
the Islamic paradigm, evidence was presented for that and what was
the evidence? Well, the fact that Muslims engaged in warfare, okay.
So if one wants to find evidence for that, they can do that by
citing battles, you can cite the battle above that the battle of
conduct, you can say the battles are heard, and so on, and so on,
and so forth. Okay. So, so from the A, the perspective of saying
he was a war monger, Salah Salem, that that you could find evidence
for that. Now, if you wanted to take the opposite, and here we're
talking about the CETA, if you wanted to take the opposite of
that seems Ambassador a piece from the CETA. Remember, we were
talking earlier about personality, which there's overwhelming, kind
of, you know, evidence if someone wanted to make the case that he
was a pacifist, ambassador of peace. And that was the only thing
that was the only reason why, you know, his his very purpose for his
existence, you could do that by way of personality. You could also
do that by way of the CETA. And by way of the life history of the
Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu sallam, obviously, one of those
areas would be
one of those areas, or hold on a second. So one of those areas
would be the hosting of the Christians from Nigeria. And so
one area that we could look at in the life history of the Prophet
Muhammad, so Salaam is the fact that he, when the Christians of
Nigeria on came, they stayed and they had discussions with the
Prophet Muhammad, so salaam, and he invited them to pray because
they had to pray, he said it pray in the mosque. Now, this is not a
mosque, that's, you know, in your neighborhood, this is the most of
the Nabhi right, this is the machine of the process. Now, we'll
get into a little more details about the Christian and then junan
We say that one could say that look, you know, a only a person
who is interested in religious pluralism would have made such a
gesture that to allow a foreign religion, let's say one that
you've had a disagreement with, to allow them to pray in the mosque.
Now, by the way, this is true the promises of did allow them to pray
in the mosque. And this says volumes upon his character, and
upon the fact that he you know, that he had these discussions, so
Salem, so one could look at that and say, Alright, so indeed, peace
was his main objective. And that in some sort of absolute ideal
there, also, the fact that he sent many of the Sahaba early on in the
second phase to Abyssinia. So, as you may or may not know, within
the within the second phase,
during the time of, you know, during the time when the Muslims
are being persecuted in Mecca.
The Prophet says some sent some of them to the king of Abyssinia and
the Joshi. And he sent them there. And someone could then argue, well
look, because the Prophet Muhammad believed in religious pluralism,
that, you know, he was an ambassador of peace, he wanted
just religious plurality in the sense, you know, maybe even
someone could extend that and say, this type of religious
perennialism you know, you know, doesn't matter what you believe,
but you'll enter Paradise, whatever someone wants to make
that argument. They could cite this action of the Prophet
Muhammad in his Sita, where he sends some of the Sahaba because
of the persecution to the king of Abyssinia because of how, you
know, you know what he understands about the king of Abyssinia what
he understands about the Christian king of Abyssinia here being the
Joshi. Finally, the last point that I'll mention here in terms of
evidence from the Sita is that if you know if we just define the
promises Salam as a warmonger, how does one explain the Treaty of who
they be. And we'll get into some more details about this, but just
very briefly, the Treaty of who they BIA was one that was put into
effect when the Muslims were you could say at the apex of their
power in the Arabian Peninsula or very close to it. Right. And the
treaty was signed. So someone who was saying, Okay, well, if if
peace is the, you know, kind of absolute here, this is why the
treaty with who they deal with signed, okay. However,
when someone wants to categorize you know, the Prophet Muhammad
says salam and you know, in his mission and that okay, he was a
war monger or they were
are categorized into some sort of absolute quality of peace,
pluralism, and
this type of, you know, religious pluralism. And that's it, and
limited to that
they would have to make certain concessions. Now, before we get to
those certain concessions, let's look at on the side of war. What
are the objectives of war typically. So, you know, theorists
have said that, you know, when it comes to war, and you think of
when you analyze, you know, wars across history, you find that
there are certain motivations that come about for warfare, one of
them has to do with money or property. So, when we look at, for
instance, the two superpowers at the time, when Islam came onto the
scene, which was the Byzantium Empire, and the Persian Empire,
you find that a lot of this had to do with an expansion of territory,
and money and property, basically. And so, you know, you had these
two massive civilization super powers of the age, and each one is
trying to expand its territory, okay? Now, a lot of that has to do
with the idea that the more territory you have, the more you
can tax the people of that territory, the more money you can
make, and so on, and so forth. So money and property, you know,
expanding the territory, that can be one of the motivations for war,
it's there. In other words, it's financial, even to this day, many
would argue that modern warfare has to do with the bottom line,
the the agenda, the financial agenda of those who are partaking
in war, a second objective, or might be just the sheer expansion
of power and dominance. When you're able to have sway over a
community over a people, then you can, again, maybe this is related
to the first point, you know, extract from them money, finances,
and so forth. But aside from that, an expansion of power dominance
related to that is the idea of an expansion of a worldview. So, for
instance, if one has dominance over a people, by way of a
physical dominance, that can translate to having an effect on
people's worldview, how they understand concepts of reality,
what is good, what is fair, what is unjust, and so on, so forth.
And this can have implications on when someone wants to expand their
worldview, when they want to expand a certain religious idea,
or philosophical idea, ideas of law and justice, and so on, and so
forth. Finally, the last one might have to do with ego and honor. And
in fact, I would say many battles that were done, and start at the
concept of ego and honor. So tribes and nations fighting each
other happen sometimes. And in fact, the Islamic paradigm, one of
the interesting aspects of this is that when we look at the term for
for the time before Islam, it is J Lea.
That's what it's called. So j. So typically, when you ask someone,
what do you what is the term Jahaz? mean? What is what is
Johal? Right? Well, what does this mean? This it means ignorance. So
you have ignorance and then you have knowledge. So the the antonym
to the, to the word Jah hill or Jay Lea, Joel, Joel, is N. But in
fact, what we find is that there's not only one antonym to the word
gehad. In fact, that word what we say ignorance in English as two
antonyms, one is knowledge and, and one is health. Which means
what what helped means is forbearance, the ability where you
can hold yourself back and not let someone push your buttons. And so
when we talk about the days before Islam, they say those are a yam l
Janelia, the days of Janelia, the days of gel, and the days after
Islam are the days that follow that the days of Islam, Islam
comes with knowledge, and help encouraging people to transcend
their egos, such that it's not about my tribe, my race, my people
versus your people, but to transcend that. And so hilum has
to do with that. So the very Islamic project has to do with
doing away with one's ego and going to war because, you know,
when Islam comes to seem the Arabian Peninsula, people would
fight over the smallest of matters based on their tribe, and these
would last for generations. So anyhow, the objectives of war one
of them could be and is, in fact, ego and honor whether it's related
to your tribe, your people, your nation, your culture, your race,
whatever it might be, alright, what are the objectives of peace?
Because we are talking about peace and war here? Well, any human
being prefers peace, prefer stability, they prefer comfort and
tranquility. Nobody, you know, you'd be very rare to find, or you
it would seem an aberration it would seem something outside of
the the idea of a, you know, human normativity to say that someone
prefers war for
versus going out to battle prefers putting their life on the line and
dying. Rather, human beings by nature prefer a state of
tranquility, and peace and comfort. So, one could say that
the objectives of peace is just that maintain maintenance of human
comfort, tranquility, and peace and stability. Okay, so now that's
objectives in brief. Let's come back to how do we understand the
Sido? Right? We're going to tie all this together in just a
second. I know it may seem a bit piecemeal, but just bear with me
inshallah. So how do we understand the CETA? Well, taking kind of a
bird's eye view, you find that if you look at the life, history of
the Prophet Muhammad, specifically from when he started, his
preaching, sallAllahu Sallam started the message, started his
profited from the Muslim worldview to his death, you can say that,
that spans about 23 years, right? So from his age of 40, to 63, this
is about 23 years, the Meccan phase. In other words, this is
before the Prophet Muhammad makes migration to Medina, this is
what's known as the second phase and this last 13 years. Now, in
these 13 years, you do not find any sort of warfare. In fact, the
Quran makes it clear that even if you are being tortured and
persecuted, and, you know, put to the sword, or whatever it is, you
are just you're not supposed to retaliate, Khufu ADEA called like,
Hold back your hands, there's no sort of concept of, you know, this
is a passive resistance, you have a message, but you cannot raise
your hands and you cannot fight back basically can't fight. So
this lasts for 13 years, then the Prophet Muhammad, so Salam makes
higit up or migrates to Medina. And here's where you find that
now, you have a Muslim army, that comes to the fore, you have
battles that are being that are being taken that are that are
being partook in. And so you have like brother and or hood and hunt,
duck, and so on, and so forth. Now, the thing is a simple, you
know, a simple analysis, if someone were to cast the process
them as a war monger would be like mech and phase, well, they were
being tortured and persecuted and they were weak. So obviously,
you're not going to go to war, the medina phase, now they have power,
now they can just start going to start going to war. But there are
instances within the medina phase, which kind of throw a monkey
wrench in this narrative, right, which kind of caused this
narrative to take a take a turn. And one of those incidences is the
Treaty of who they be. We're in the midst of all of this. So
you're talking about the medina phase being 10 years after the
Battle of butter, which was won by the Muslims then or heard, which,
you know, the, you know, that was not one of the most venue of 100
and 100 was, was a major battle, in which, you know, it's victory
was something that, you know, the the Arabs of the Arabian
Peninsula, heard about far and wide. At the almost you can say,
at the pinnacle of power for the Muslims, you have this treaty
that's signed, which is just an anomaly. If you think about the
objectives of war, and you know, that then you would keep moving,
you'd keep this momentum. And then you sign a peace treaty in the
midst of, of your apex of power. It seems like an anomaly. So how
do we how are we supposed to understand that anomaly? Well,
first of all,
what we need to understand is that this anomaly can only be explained
from an insider framework. Now what do I mean by that? Now let's
have a brief discussion on insider and outsider framework.
Insider, what we're referring to here is a framework that is the
Islamic worldview or the Islamic paradigm. And just as a reference
here, our some of our sapien thoughts series that we talked
about worldviews and their importance and how everyone has a
worldview. So I'll refer you or refer you to those sapien thoughts
series to have a good understanding of worldview and
paradigms. But here's specifically when we're talking about an
insider versus outsider framework and insider framework is someone
that adopts the Islamic worldview. And what does that mean? It means
that a person adopts a worldview, that there is a God, there is a
Creator, this creator is should be worshipped alone, that there is a
prophet and the prophet Muhammad is the last and final prophet,
that there is a day of judgment, there's accountability, and a
person's purpose in this life is to worship, submit and love the
Creator of the heavens in the earth. So this is a worldview.
Now, that's the insight or framework when we're speaking
about the looking at the CETA and understanding
that, you know, kind of, you know, anomalies that occur within that
second phase of the CETA. So there's an insider framework, then
there's an outsider framework, someone that does not adopt this
worldview, they can adopt a worldview of let's say, secularism
But modernism post modernism, Christianity, but outside of this
worldview, someone has to then give an interpretation of the
incidents and those anomalies like the Treaty of who they be. Okay.
So again, when we're talking about the thesis, the insider slash
Muslim approach is the only way to make sense of peace and war in the
CETA without resorting, special pleading, whereas the outsider
Western approach only presents more problems and questions. If
the Prophet Muhammad is not a prophet,
then explaining things like the treaty, who they BIA become, I
want to say actually, they are basically impossible, right, you
can try to give an explanation of anomalies like that, but it
becomes very difficult. And the only way to do that is by way of
special pleading. Now, what do I mean by special pleading? Well,
special pleading, what special pleading is, is that when you make
when you want to present a certain case, and you want to substantiate
a certain thesis or certain argument, you present evidence,
but you present just enough evidence to substantiate your
case. So you don't give the entire evidence. But you give just enough
to make your case render to render your case as being true or
seemingly true. This is what's known as special pleading, so you
give just enough information, without presenting all the
information to bolster your case. And to make it true, right, this
is what we call special pleading. So what my argument here is that
when we look at the seed of the Prophet Muhammad SAW Salam that
and when we look at events within the cedar and specifically in
relation to war and peace, you will find that, you know, times
and elements and instances like the treaty with a BIA, unless you
resort to special pleading, you cannot explain them, right. In
other words, an outsider approach. So an outsider, or slash Western
approach is by default, or you can say not by default, but is you
know, it that you by necessity have to resort to special special
pleading, if you want to make a case for who the prophesy Selim
was outside of the Islamic framework. Okay. So in other
words, if you want to say that the process was a warmonger that
Islamic religious violence, and so on, so forth, you have to resort
to special pleading, you have to present evidence, just say, Look,
you went to war here, and so on, and so forth. And you don't
present the evidence of the personality processing and being
merciful, and, you know, good to human beings and animals and all
these other things, you have to negate all of that. On the flip
side, if the process is only an ambassador of peace and peace, and
religious plurality, and perhaps religious perennialism, in the
sense that, you know, no matter what your religion is, you will
enter Paradise, this perennial, this type of perennialism, if you
want to present this, you also have to resort to special
pleading, in other words, you present evidence and focus on
evidence without giving all the evidence, if someone wants to take
into consideration all the evidence, and for all of the
evidence to make sense, you have to take an insider approach. And
you have to say that the process was none other than a profit.
Right. So that's basically the thesis and the argument that I'm
trying to present here in today's session. So let's take a look at
the outside of framework. And we're looking at it from the point
of view of religious pluralism, and peace. And then we'll also
look at perennialism. So Dr. Craig Constantine, and by the way, these
authors that I'm presenting, I don't mean any, you know, I don't
know what they present, I'm not assuming that they're doing it, I
have some sort of Mal intent. You know, for as far as I can tell,
Dr. Constantine is a good individual. And, you know, I'd
love to have a conversation with him one day, I think it would be
my honor. But, you know, frankly, he lives in Houston. So maybe in
sha Allah, but anyhow, so I don't mean any sort of, I don't mean
that this is done on purpose or some sort of Mal intent.
Nevertheless, when presenting a view of the process Salam as being
a religious pluralist, or religious pluralism, and that, you
know, the the main idea is not that there's some sort of absolute
truth to the prophethood of the Prophet Muhammad, but rather, it
has more to do with working for things like racial equality and
economic justice and things like this.
The idea that's presented is that there are examples that are given
to show how the process is
imbued religious pluralism. Okay. And so Dr. Constantine mentioned,
he says, going beyond religious tolerance, the Prophet in fact,
advocated for religious pluralism. Now, there's a definition of four
point definition that he gives. I'm not gonna expound upon that
you can check that out and in the book itself, if you like, but he
talks about religious pluralism. Now the evidence that he gives for
that is the Christians of the John as we mentioned earlier, so what
you find is that the prof
Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam writes a letter to the the
world leaders, right? So he writes letter letters to the Byzantium
empire, to the Christians of the North Africa, to the Sassanid
Empire, the Persian Empire, and of course, the Christians and the
giran, who were in the south of Yemen or Yemen, basically south of
Arabia. Now, the Christians have mentioned on they get this letter,
and they consult with each other, what should we do, and they are
convinced to actually go and meet the prophesy Salaam. And so when
they go, they they take a trip and their leaders, and there's a large
entourage that actually goes with them, right, maybe, you know,
3040 5060 people, and they're all decked out in their religious garb
and just looking very erudite, very proper, very religious, very
ornate. And so they come to Medina. And they, they, you know,
they approach the process of loving the Sahaba, the companions
of Prophet Muhammad are, you know, almost taken aback like there,
there's this kind of like, clearly there they are, you know, so much
to be contended with, in a sense, because of how they're portraying
themselves how they've come. Now, the Prophet Muhammad, you know,
greets them, and they have discussions about, you know,
certain elements about who SLA Salam was who Jesus was, they have
certain discussions about that. The point that Dr. Constantine
mentions is that, after that,
that the Prophet Muhammad invited them to pray in the mosque. And
this is true, right that the Prophet Muhammad, you know,
invited them, like they said, We have to pray. And he said, You
don't have to leave and you just you can pray here in the mosque,
right.
Which by some narration, some of the Sahaba may have also been
surprised at this, right. But the point is, is that in order to give
evidence for religious pluralism, this narration is cited.
Now, I was talking about special pleading, but what's left out in
the book is what follows. So once you have all of these discussions
that happen, and the image that's given is that they were done in a
very,
that that that discussions happen and and the Christians prayed in
the mosque.
Discussions didn't just finish there, though the story actually
continues. And in fact, the Quran,
you know, in Surah Al Imran mentions what kind of happens
after that. And that's what's known as the MOBA Hala. In other
words, the Prophet Muhammad has these discussions, and they're not
easy discussions. They're thiol philosophical discussions about
the nature of Jesus nature of God, you know, the afterlife, original
sin, so on and so forth. There's many, you know, it's outside the
scope of this presentation, those discussions happen. But in the
end, the prophesy ism doesn't just leave it there. So we talked about
religious pluralism. And we say that we're just going to leave it
there. And let's say by extension, we're talking about,
you know, the idea of perennialism that your religion is good, my
religion is good, and we're all good and nothing really matters.
The next step, which again, was left out when Dr. Constantine
mentions this story in his book is The MOBA Hala, which which the AI
estates in Surah Al Imran that whoever argues with with you about
it, after this knowledge has come to you say, So here Allah subhanho
wa Taala is telling the province of Salem and much of the ayat in
Surah Al Imran are sent down during this discussion right with
the Christians and the John.
So after these discussions happen after the Christian, the John pray
in the mosque,
it's not this is what's left out. And that is the mobile Hola. So
what is this? Basically Allah subhanho wa Taala tells the
Prophet Muhammad to say, to tell the Christians, these Christian
dignitaries that have come the bishops and the leaders of the
Christians of Nigeria and he says, Come let us call our sons in your
son's da Hello, right. Let's now let's now so it says vocal the
Arlo drew a banana a banana, okay. All right. So let us call our
sons, our children and your children, when he sat in one when
he sat and now when he sat, when is when he said oh called, let's
call our women and your women, right? What and full circle sorry,
one full Santa one full circle, and let's call our selves and
yourselves.
And then what we should do is let us then supplicate earnestly,
right. So we call all of these people you call your family
members, we'll call our family members. And so let us then
supplicate earnestly and this is what the kind of the harshness
kind of comes in, in you know, from from a certain viewpoint, let
us then have the invoke the curse of Allah upon the liars amongst
us. Okay. So again, if the idea was just religious pluralism,
then, you know, this kind of this kind of negates that idea of
perennialism or pluralism that's trying to be presented. You have a
type of case of
Special Pleading here, you're presenting evidence but not all
the evidence because at the tail end, this happens. And what's
happened after this is that the Prophet Muhammad the next morning,
brings his family brings his wives, children, so on and so
forth. And then said, Okay, let's do it. The Christians and the
junan, when they see this, they have an internal discussion to
say, Okay, this is we're talking about the curse of Allah. We don't
want engage with this, we'll just agree to pay the Jizya. Tax,
right. And so because the Prophet SAW Selim basically said, like,
look, you can either pay the Jizya tax, you can accept the message of
Islam, pray, pay the Jizya tax, or we'll have to love to fight you,
you know. And after all those discussions, there is a concept
that's now being put forth. Again, when it comes to the idea of Dawa.
However. And just to go back to my disclaimer, the idea wasn't just
because, you know, we're going to have the curse of God, that's not
the that's not the starting point of the discussion. The starting
point of discussion is the compassion of the Prophet
Muhammad. So Salem, in the sense that if these people if they're
not true to themselves, and they know that this is the truth, and
if they die in that state, they could enter the Hellfire forever,
because of that compassionate nature of the process that doesn't
want to see them enter the fire of *, this some, sometimes a kind
of a harsh stance is taken, right. But this is not the beginning of
the Tao. This is kind of at the end, anyhow. So we find that if
one wants to say that there's a religious pluralism or a
religious, you know, perennialism, that you'd have to have special
pleading, you have to present some information and not all
information, okay.
Similarly, Juan Cole, he writes, you know, the Quran insist on
liberty of conscious and forbearance towards enemies, which
is true, it prohibits unprovoked, aggressive warfare, it promises
salvation to all righteous monotheists, and not just
followers of the Prophet Muhammad. Now, this is true from one
perspective, but totally false. Another perspective, it's true in
the perspective that whoever followed, like, historically, when
you had prophets and messengers that came, and whoever followed
his prophets and messengers that came,
you know, like the people of Moses, the people of Jesus, and so
on whoever followed them, they were true monotheists and that
they would have salvation. But when we talk about true
monotheistic, outside the scope of Islam, and someone that's heard
about Islam, knows about it, and then rejects it. And they claim to
be monotheist. This doesn't apply to that that category of people
because they have, in effect, rejected that monotheism. And part
of that rejection has to do with rejecting the Prophet Muhammad
Sallallahu wasallam. So any sort of concept of of salvific
exclusivity when it comes to what happens when a person dies, is
completely negated in this in this type of statement, because the
picture that's trying to be presented is this type of
perennialism. No matter what you believe, you can enter paradise.
Again, this has a degree of truth to it, in the sense that if a
person doesn't have knowledge about Islam, and they're never
presented with Islam, their fate in the Hereafter, there's a
different there's a different ID and a different context behind
that. But someone that's been presented with Islam that get it
has been given all the information and they begin the opportunity to
accept it. That's a different paradigm. That's a different
context. And that's a different idea that that wouldn't, we
wouldn't really consider the outside people righteous,
monotheistic, however, if one is to push this narrative forward,
again, you'd have to refer to special pleading, presenting
evidence, but not all of the evidence. Okay. So
and the same is true for a presentation or to present the
proof system as a warmonger again, like I said, you could present
some evidence just by the fact that he went to war. But then
you'd have to negate all of the instances of the Mercy,
generosity, nature of the prophesy Salam, right. The province of
Salem, they said, can agitate the nurse, he was the most generous of
people. You know, this is a man who had literally nothing. And yet
any sort of money or anything like that, he would just give it away
to the poor on every single instance, all the way to his
death. I shadow the law that says that, you know, the fire in our
house was not lit for two or three consecutive months. And we only
survived on the two black things, right? In other words, water
because it wasn't clear like we have nowadays in a tap, which was
black in color, and dates. So they won't even have like meat or a
meal, they will just survive on dates and water for months,
because of the idea of the generosity of the Prophet Muhammad
sai Salam. And again, we're talking about generosity, mercy,
love, compassion, racial equality, economic justice, all of those
things you'd have to put on the side in order to cast that so
again, there's special pleading, whichever case you're going to
make. So let's review the thesis now. The Insider slash Muslim
approach is the only way to make sense of the Seto.
without resorting to special pleading, if you're going to take
an outsider approach, whether it's one of benevolence to say, okay,
the Prophet Muhammad was peaceful, and so on and so forth, or it's
one of antagonism, to say that the process was a war monger, etc,
either one of those approaches, you have to resort to special
pleading, okay. And this is very true when it comes to the truth of
who they be. Now,
that being said, let's now understand the insider approach
with a little more detail. And what I mean by this is, you know,
when we say that there's no way that an insider approach does not
one does not need to resort to special pleading, because when one
understands what the purpose of prophethood is, then all of kind
of the the CETA, the character, the choice of war, and peace all
makes sense. Only if one considers the Islamic paradigm, right
outside of that, again, you're going to run into problems and
questions and issues. So
now, when we want to present the the purpose of prophethood,
there's a couple of assumptions we're going to make. And these are
based upon one adopting an insider approach or an Islamic worldview.
The first assumption is that we're going to take a teleological view
of history. Now here, what I'm talking about, is not what's known
as Whig history, and Whig history, that's a bit has a bit different,
has a bit as a different connotation. So typically, when
you talk about a teleological view of history, what we mean here is
that teleology in a historical graphical sense, is a form of
historical inquiry, which attempts to construct a narrative view of
history as a progressive march in one direction, towards an
inevitable endpoint. So teleology has to do with purpose. And so
when we look at history, and we look at kind of, you know, time
flowing and things like that, what we're seeing is a teleological
view of history is a view in a direction of progression. So you
have people kind of starting from a point which is lower, and
they're progressing upwards to a better society, a better
community, better technology, whatever it might be. Now, one of
the issues that historians pointed out was that the one who
introduced this concept of a teleological view of history was a
man by the name of Herbert Butterfield. And he brings this
idea forth in his what's known as the Whig interpretation of history
in 1931. And, but the reason why this is critiqued, and many
historians don't accept he logical view of history. Well, there's a
number of reasons why. One of the reasons is because his view of the
teleological view of history is that we are making progress to
reach the utopia of liberal democracy. Right? So the sense
that that is the apex, that is the where we're progressing towards.
Now, obviously, that gets debunked by, you know, post modernists that
gets there because, you know, in many different areas. And so, that
sort of concept of a teleological view becomes problematic, because
that, that means a liberal democracy is the apex of
progress, which is problematic for the Samick worldview. And so
hence, Muslims don't accept that, or rather, the Islamic worldview
doesn't accept that.
Another problem with the teleological view of history is
that there's a purpose. And when one kind of understands ontology
in terms of like, what exists and what doesn't exist, what is what
is not.
And one adopts a worldview that is, let's say, a worldview that's
based upon,
let's say, secularism, or evolution and evolutionary
worldview.
The idea is that processes happen in a random fashion, to say that
there's a historical purpose, the gates that worldview, right? The
gates that ontological
that ontological idea, right, that there is
or rather teleological idea that there is a purpose. So if there's
because how can we say there's a purpose to history when there's no
purpose even to how physical functioning happens, right, which
is very problematic, by the way, because even in terms of
biological functions, if you don't assume a teleology, a purpose in
your organs, you can't make medical progress. So but that's a
separate issue. So our first assumption here when I say
teleological view of history, is that there is a progress and in
terms of the historical narrative, you know, how human beings started
and where they end up. Okay, so that's my first assumption. The
second assumption, when we're looking at an insight or approach
is that the Quran is a source of knowledge. In fact, the Quran and
the Sunnah and the Hadith are sources of knowledge, right? An
outsider approach does not accept this right outsider approach says
there's only one source of knowledge and that is the natural
world. For the insider approach, source of knowledge include the
quote
On the Sunnah, basically revelation and the natural world.
So we don't negate the natural world, but we're saying, you know,
one of the assumptions we're making being an insider is that
the Quran is a source of knowledge. So let me talk about
the teleological view of history just for a second here, and give a
little more detail related to that.
When we say a teleological view of history, what we're saying is that
from the Quranic narrative, we find that there is a first man and
the first woman, right, Adam and Eve are Adam and howa, and this is
quite clear in the Quran, and then you have, from there, human beings
start to expand, right. And so you have a population growth. Now,
even today, you can measure population growth, population is
growing, even as a statistical reality, you have, you know, more
people exist today that existed, let's say 50 years ago, and so on,
so forth. So this is a kind of a clear reality that we can find.
Now, that being the case, from an Islamic worldview, or Islamic
paradigm, you find that when you had early societies, you had less
people, right. In fact, you remember, if you're looking at
Islamic narrative, Samick worldview, you had two people,
then you had, you know, a few children, and so on, and so forth.
And so, when it comes to a type of
sociological progress, you find that as the population grows, it,
you know, the human beings, by necessity, need to grow in a type
of in the stage at which they're at, okay, so let's take this as
an, let's give an analogy. If we understand the human project, and
compare it to like a child, right, that grows up to become a full
grown adult, you find that a child in their early stages, doesn't
have the intellectual maturity to understand certain things. So if
you wanted to teach a child,
you know, let's say, some sort of complex area of, I don't know, I'm
gonna throw something else in multivariable calculus, right?
That child will not be able to understand that they don't have
the means to be able to understand that, right, because of the
context that they're in, because of the reality of their, their
intellectual maturity, and so on and so forth. It's only when they
become intellectually mature enough to understand things like
algebra, precalculus, calculus, you know, variable, you know, and
eventually, they can get to multivariable calculus, right. But
that takes a progression. So just like that, human beings and the
human project have a progression like this, and that's necessitated
by a number of things. First, the intellectual maturity, having to
deal with situations when the population is, is less, you're not
going to have the same degree of having to deal with things when
populations are, you know, you know, 66 million, 6 billion,
right? It's two different dynamics. And so you find that
even within the human project, the collective intelligence grows or
progresses over time. Okay. And that's has to do when we talk
about collective intelligence relate to society. So society is
formed. Once you have, let's say, you have a family structure, you
have a husband and a wife, or a male and a female, and children,
and then you have two of them, and then three, and so now they come
together, they form a type of tribe. But then you have other
tribes that are formed on certain based on certain other bases, and
bases. And so once you have tribes that come together, now you have
nations, and between those nations, they have to come to some
sort of some sort of agreement, how we're going to function,
right? One of the things that we can just go to war the entire
time, or we set down rules and regulations, right. And so those
rules or regulations, the more population expands, the more you
know, greater tribes and greater nations that are built and so on
and so forth, that has become more sophisticated. So looking at this
sort of teleological view of history, we see that there's a
collective intelligence that, you know, is progressing over time
based on society based on economics based on just sheer
numbers and so on. That grows over time. With this view, what we find
is that when we talk about prophethood, that Allah is sending
profits, to guide people back to certain ontological realities,
right, certain spiritual realities. And so those spiritual
realities based on the community at the time period they're at,
they're going to be given certain information, and they may not be
given other information, because they are not collectively
intellectually mature enough. So for example, if we look at the
time of Moses, you have room
rules and regulations, you have the 10 commandments, you have very
distinct, a distinctive law that that is sent down, right in a very
legalistic tradition. Why? Because if you think about a child that's
growing up, and this child is is maturing, in the beginning, they
may not understand why certain why you want them to do certain
things, not to other things. So you set down rules for them to
follow, right? They may not understand, like, you know, why is
it that you don't touch the stove, right? And unless they burn
themselves, then they'll know immediately, right? But as a rule
is don't touch the stove, don't touch the iron, and things like
that. They may not understand it. But for you, it's it's your
responsibility to set down rules. So in the beginning, you find
these type of rule based, this kind of rule based revelation
that's coming down. In a sense, it's not complete, because the
human project is not complete, right, in terms of complete
revelation. But anyway, so as prophets are being sent down in
certain epochs of time, and specific places, each prophet
based on the context, the maturity level of the society and the
community they're in, they're sent to specific people in a specific
time.
Now, if we take this to logical view of history, we find that
human beings mature up to a level where now that they've become
fully matured. And so now the time is ripe for a final prophet and
messenger. Okay. So when I talked about the teleological view of
history, when he talked to talk about making sense of why you have
prophets and messengers that were sent at specific epochs, to
specific peoples, this is what we call the teleological view of
history. This is what I'm talking about. All right, so we talked
about the teleological view of history. We talked about the Quran
as a source of knowledge. Now, let's dig in a bit deeper and
juxtapose two verses of the Quran to expound upon this. Let's see
how we're doing on time. Okay, not not too bad, okay.
All right.
Okay, so these two verses one of them is in, in the 61st chapter,
Allah subhanho wa Taala says, who will lead the Ursula Sula, who
Bill hada, where dean will help the youth who are lead in equally
one oh carry * Bucha goon, it is he who is sent down he
referring to Allah this he was sent His Messenger with guidance
alHuda and the religion of truth to manifest it over all religion,
although those who associate others with Allah dislike it here,
it's mostly goon, which refers to those who do shake. Now, in the 57
chapter, Allah subhanho wa Taala says, Lacan or sell now Rousseau
Luna will be not 100 Ma, who will keytab a while me Zan, Leah
Coleman, Nas Bill Christ, we have already sent Our Messengers with
clear evidences and sent down with them the Scripture, the balance,
that the people may maintain their affairs and justice. So remember,
when we were talking about a teleological view of history, you
find that the second verse there 50, from the 57th chapter, the
25th verse is speaking about the sending of messengers, and that
these messengers they've been sent down with, here, the verse
mentions will be not clear evidences,
and a scripture a book, and Amazon and the scale, right, and what's
the purpose of the scale is so that people can maintain justice.
So, from this viewpoint, throughout history, you find that
justice in based on the, the collective intellectual maturity
of the society has to be maintained. And so Prophets and
Messengers would bring a revelation, a book, right? And
they would bring a standard by which to know like, Okay, how do
you know what is right now what is how is wrong it means on a scale a
balance. Now, this idea has two messengers in the past, right?
When it comes to the final message of the Prophet Muhammad, you find
that that's being referred to in the 61st chapter in the ninth
ayah, which, who will lead the Ursula Sula, who will hada with
the the hawk youth hero al de Nikoli. So, when we juxtapose both
of these, you find that there are some things we can see that are
interesting. All right, first of all, when Allah speaks about
sending down the Prophet Muhammad, first of all, the sending down
with the Prophet Mohammed here who will lead the out of Salah Rasool
rasuluh, Rasul Allah who he is he will sit down his Messenger
with guidance, all right, Rasul Allah, who when you go when you
spend the Quran and this is an interesting feature of the Quran,
is that the term Rasul Allah who was truly he Rasul Allah who all
of these refer to the Prophet Muhammad, his messenger, just like
when you look at the term OB do, right I do
Now right up Dina, and so on. My slave is specifically referring to
the Prophet Muhammad. When it comes to other messengers, those
have different referential points. Now this is just an interesting
feature of the Quran, that when you look at the term Rasul Allah,
who Rosalie he or Sula, who, with the pronoun attached His
Messenger, it's always referring to the Prophet Muhammad. And we
know that from context and so on and so forth. I think this term
occurs
a number of times, I believe it's at three times in the Quran, with
the attached pronoun. Nevertheless, it occurs at three
times and each one of those times is referring to the Prophet
Muhammad, just an interesting feature of the Quran. Again Rasul
Allah, so he is the one who sent down His Messenger with guidance,
Bill Hooda. And this Aloha here, which is, as opposed to just
Hooda. Here, we're talking about guidance. And guidance, the term
in Arabic is hedaya. Now there's because of the structure of how
the word has been put forth, it's here in this context, it is Allah
Hooda, as opposed to just Hooda, the English equivalent would be
saying the guidance versus a guidance. Okay, so the Alif lab or
the URL here, is gives you in the sense of a definitive and like
when you when you're comparing an English language, that which is
definite, which is versus that, which is indefinite, or when you
look at it from the viewpoint of a taxonomy, like categorizing
category a, you know, people and you say, the human being, versus a
human being, right, the human beings referring to, you know,
like the archetype human being, versus a human being, it's just
kind of any human being, right. And so similarly, when you're
talking about a loader versus Hooda, you had Hooda. In the past,
you had guidance in the past, but you don't have alojado, you don't
have the guidance, right. And so here, it's as if there's a
reference to guidance being completed. Now, that doesn't mean
that the messengers of the past had some sort of deficiency, but
based on their context, they had the guidance that they needed a
guidance to that specific people and that specific place, whereas
when it refers to the Prophet Muhammad, and we're talking about
the Quran being a source of knowledge here, the fact that
Allah Hooda is mentioned, is significant, because Allahu does
referring to the guidance, any sort and this is an ancient
another interesting feature of, of how we understand the Quran, any
sort of blessing namah that comes from Allah, without guidance is
not what we call a near Mamata luck, an absolute blessing, right?
So you could have money or children, all of these things, but
if there's no guidance, there's no hedaya, then that's not really an
absolute blessing. Yes, from from a, let's say, a naturalistic
materialistic worldview, maybe it's a blessing from one
perspective, but without hedaya nothing actually has value from
that sort of absolute perspective. So the fact that you have Allah
Hooda, in this case, is referring to this sort of completion of that
guidance. Now, this alhaja here, you can say it's referring to a
number of different things. Number one, it could be referring to the
messenger himself, Allah Hooda and he's referred to you know as as
guidance himself, but more specifically, is referring to the
Quran. numerous places in the Quran itself, the Quran is
referred to as a given the term Hooda. So just as an example, if I
can pull it up here, for instance, when the Quran was being referred
to in the second chapter of the Quran, valley, Kalki tabula Rai
Buffy who that who that led led with tapping that this is the book
where there's no doubt a guidance for those who are bootstrapping.
So the idea that the Quran is Hooda is you know, exemplified
there. Similarly when when Allah talks about in again this the
second chapter again, chaperone Ramadan and let the unzila fee
Hill Quran holiness. So he sent down in the month of Ramadan is
the month in which was revealed the Quran a guidance for human
beings. Other texts are referred to that as well the Torah the
Injeel as Hooda
again with the Quran, in the huddle Quran Yeah, the little lady
here accountable, right? Indeed this Quran guides that which is
most suitable. So the Quran being labeled as Hooda is very
significant here, okay. Okay. So the first term is a herder then.
So he is the one who sent down His messenger. The Prophet Muhammad
says salam with a Hooda. So I've highlighted the term guidance.
What Dean and Huck so when we talk about the term, Dean oops,
We talked about the term Deen. I know it's translated as the
religion of truth. But the term itself is actually much more
expansive than that. So, the term it when we look at the etymology
of the term Deen itself, we find that it's trying literal root
is, is DOL ya dude. In other words, it's, it's, it refers to
what you can say is like an exchange, right a bundle. So Dean
is can mean judgment.
It can mean that sort of system by which you understand a reward and
punishment. It can refer to, for instance, in the Quran.
Allah mentions the idea of Maliki Yomi Deen, the Master of the Day
of and is translated as judgment. Because if the purpose of life is
to submit onto Allah, via love, and submission, and so on, and so
forth, there has to be some sort of a standard by which you're
judged. And that standard is what you call your deed. It could also
be referring to a worldview. But the but but the term Deen itself,
when you look at its try literal route, it's referring to this idea
of exchange. And that's why with the same trailer root, you get the
word deed, which means debt, you can compare the term debt with
sadaqa with charity. So when you have Dean, or sorry, when you have
data, when you have debt, there's an expectation of return. Right?
So there's a two way concept here, where as when you give charity,
it's a one way process. So that is called Dane, the same trade
trilateral route. And so the idea is, is that there is a type of
like rebounding like you do good deeds, you're rewarded for that.
Right. And this has a very broad perspective, because in the Quran,
it's also mentioned that it can be a system by which you have like a
governmental system basically, right. And so in the story of
Joseph or use of in the Quran, at the end of that story, Allah
mentions that Luca ki Denali you use of and thus the we plan for
Joseph, he could not have taken his brother, my carnality are here
who, li, li, sorry, Lee, aka aku, aku, that ha ha who fit Dean ill
Malik. So he could not have taken his brother with a dean without
the dean of his Mullick. In other words, Joseph or use of is not the
is not the king, he's not the Sovereign King. And so without
submitting to the rules and regulations of the that the dean
of the of the of the king, that he couldn't just take his brother
from there, right? Here, Dean is not referring to the religion of
the king, it's referring to the fact that the king is sovereign,
and that he establishes rules and regulations that if you submit to
those rules, you get rewarded. If not, then you can be punished if
you go if you run antagonists to those rules. So here, Dean is not
referring to religion, it's referring to a system of, you
know, a reward and punishment. And so, that being the case, when we
talk about religion, we can say that it is tied to the concept of
a worldview. Because in one's worldview, why do people do
things, people do things, because there is a concept of I will have
some sort of benefit. And if I don't do something, there'll be a
type of, you know, a non benefit or a you know, or I'll get
punished in some sort of way, right like this. So I'll have a
negative consequences to my actions, but actions having
results, there's this idea of reward and punishment. When you
take that from a thiol philosophical viewpoint and the
Islamic worldview, that reward and punishment has to do with the
afterlife actions that you do and actually that you don't do right?
There all have to do reward and punishment so that when we called
Dean, we can say that that is the a worldview.
And for more on this you can check out the sapien thoughts
you know, series that we did on worldviews, because we talked
about the components of a worldview, the fact that there's
ontology, epistemology, teleology, and so on, so forth, we go through
all those and then eventually, you have a legal system based on a
moral code, that moral code again, that where you get a legal system
is based on the idea that reward and punishment Dean In other
words, right so
here so he is the one who sent His Messenger with guidance and the
religion of truth, the true the the true worldview, okay? To make
manifest over all religions, that's now we're talking about the
Prophet Muhammad. Let's compare that to the next verse that I
talked about. So we have looked at our cell now Rasulullah will be
not one Zelner Mr. Holman, keytab while me Zahn, The Omen Nashville
fest. We've already sent Our Messengers here referring to
messengers of the past with clear evidences built by you that you
sit down with them, right what Zell now Mara home, and sit down
with them, Al Kitab and Amazon, okay? And the balance so that
people will maintain their affairs and justice, clear evidences. When
we look at the prophets of the past and the messengers of the
past, what you find is that in order to establish the veracity of
their message, that they were indeed messengers from God, that
what they're bringing about worshiping God alone and
submitting onto him, and that they're they have a correct
worldview, and that worldview being one of truth. How did they
do that? They did that by way of miracles, and miracles in the
particular context that they were in. So if we think as an example,
the the time of Moses, what was prevalent at the time of Moses was
the idea of magic. magicians were very, you know, were very well
known. And they could they could, they could they could, they have,
they could basically use their magic in order to, you know, sway
people and things like that. So magic was at its, you know, was at
his heyday at the time of Moses. So when it comes with a miracle,
it completely stumped the other magicians, and here I'm talking
about the staff, he throws the staff down to becomes an actual
snake as opposed to magicians who are using perhaps optical
illusions or something like that. And their snakes can't and so his
staff becoming a snake and, you know, devouring the other. You
know, staffs are snakes on the other magicians, you find the
Quranic narrative says that the magicians recognize that, and they
immediately immediately submitted and said, We believe in the Lord
of Moses. Again, here, there's a, there's a Bayona, there's a clear
sign. This is a clear sign from Moses. And there's other miracles
that are mentioned, at the time of Moses, similarly, with Jesus, at
his time, you had the idea of medicine being quite widespread.
People, you know, were healers and things like that. So he comes with
a miracle where he's, you know, able to give life to a bird, for
instance, you know, you know, by the permission of Allah, and so on
and so forth. So these are being are these are evidences that we're
talking about people of the past.
Now, in addition to that, when you think about messengers, they're
sent down with the Scripture. So Moses is sent with the Torah. And
it's not just the Torah in terms of information about, you know,
who is a law and so on and so forth, but also with rules and
regulations, and then how do you implement those rules and
regulations, right. So that being the case, you have these miracles,
you have a book, and then you have a Mazon, a standard by which you
know, truth and falsehood. Okay, this is the second verse. When we
juxtapose both of these verses, what you'll find is that when it
comes to Allah Hooda it's referring to the Quran. But the
Quran is not only a scripture, it's not only a book that's
telling you do this, and don't do that, right, or a book that's
telling you about, you know, people in the past, but it's also
a miracle. So it's combining Albay, Nat and Al Kitab into one.
That's why when you're juxtaposing them, Elijah is clear evidence and
plus scripture, because why the final messenger is the one that
needs a miracle that's going to
that's going to that's going to be able to last across time, right if
he's last and final messenger. And so here, the linguistic feature is
that it's only a Hoda that's mentioned, which is the Quran,
where in essence, it is the beta naught plus al Kitab. Right? And
then, of course, we juxtapose the religion of truth with the balance
on Amazon, and so on and so forth, in the sense that Islam being true
has been true from the very getgo. Okay, now, that's just a quick
reference. And there's more that we can say about this, but we're
kind of running out of time. So I don't want to kind of clarify. So
what is the purpose of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu sallam, in
essence, that he is the last and final messenger. So we looked at
evidences from the Quran linguistic evidence from the
Quran, we looked at the narrative directly, the idea that that's
part of the Islamic paradigm, we looked at a teleological view of
history to say why we have messengers at certain points, and
then that culminate and that final perfection of that message comes
with the Prophet Muhammad. And if that's the case, it's only from
the viewpoint, that he is the final messenger to all of
humanity, from God with the religion of truth, the worldview,
that can that is part of that salvation, that salvific
exclusivity, that salvation that can save people. Then when you
look at the Sita, you can make sense of that. Why? Because it's
when the Prophet Muhammad is coming with a message and he's
coming with a purpose.
The purpose is now understood. It's to guide people to the truth.
It's to encourage people to reach higher spiritual states by way of
adopting the true dealhack. The true worldview, okay? Sometimes
that happens, and that is at its apex and that it's best achieved
by way of peace. Sometimes when there is oppression in the land
and that religion of truth, and that ledge that there's injustice
that's runs antagonists to detail, Huck, because it comes Dino Dolman
it's like a, an oppressive legal system or oppressive system by
which people are measuring things, and that certain people get
oppressed. And certain ideas become more prevalent that cause
more economic, social and spiritual injustice, that
sometimes that requires warfare, just to be very blunt. So let's
take a look at our question. When we start off initially, the second
phase 13 years, you take a worldview to say or a viewpoint
that's an outsider approach to say, okay, the prophet ism was
just a warmonger. How do you explain who they be? It becomes
difficult. Similarly, if it was just peace, for the sake of peace,
because there's some sort of
perennialism that, you know, religion really doesn't matter.
And it's just about, you know, relations and peace is the only
reason again, who they be it doesn't doesn't really fit into
the, this kind of this kind of bifurcation of times of peace in
times of war. Why is that? Because when we look at who they BIA, when
you look at the Treaty of who they be, what we find is that it is
occurring after battles have occurred where Muslims are
establishing their supremacy. Now, how this is established, is that
one night the Prophet Muhammad has a dream, and from the Islamic
framework from Islamic paradigm, the you know that Muslims believe
that the dreams of prophets are true. So he has a dream that he's
going to make ombre means he's going to go for the minor
pilgrimage to Mecca. Now, it's been, you know, over, you know,
let's say, you know, 1520 years, since the people that were that
had left Mecca,
are able to go back to Mecca now, because he had this dream, and
that they should now go back and do this pilgrimage, because they
had been effectively they had leave their homeland. Similarly,
for the people who are residents of Medina, the ocean has an edge,
this is exciting. And this is something really, this is good
news for them. Because now they can actually go and do this
religious obligation or this religious act. And they can do it
with the Prophet Muhammad. So there is a lot of excitement. I'm
sorry about that. There's a lot of excitement that's around this idea
that now we're going to go back and and go to Mecca. Now, however,
they're not going to go into Mecca to attack Mecca, but they're going
to simply go there and go there and to make the pilgrimage. Now,
one of the things one of the customs of that time, was that you
generally couldn't stop people from making the pilgrimage. But
because of the animosity, because of the, you know, the Mexicans and
their defeats, and so on, and so forth. When they to make a long
story short, when they get close to Mecca, the Meccans, the
polytheist mechanism, which should have been a mecca of Mecca, excuse
me, come out and say that you're not, we're not going to do that
we're gonna allow that. Now, if you think about in terms of power,
Muslims are at the apex of their power at this point, they could
easily just say, Well, too bad, we're gonna come in, and we're
going to basically attack and we're going to just do all we want
to do. What ends up happening, though, is that a treaty a peace
treaty is signed, which again, makes no sense when just looking
at it from, you know, a strategic warfare point of view, like why
not just overtake Mecca, and call it a day. So you have this treaty
that's signed, and it's a peace treaty. And not only that the
treaty itself seemed very lopsided, meaning it wasn't just
okay, we'll have peace. And that's it. But you had certain parts of
this treaty that seemed very unfair, right, in the sense that
it was unfair to the Muslims, even though they were the ones that
were at their kind of apex of power. So for instance, one of the
aspects of the treaty was, was that if someone
if a person in Mecca, converts to Islam, and runs away and goes to
Medina, that the people of Medina, the Muslims have to return the
person back to Mecca. Now, when this person goes back to Mecca,
it's basically torture and punishment and you know, they're
not going to be in a safe state, but that was part of the of the
peace treaty. However, the converse isn't true. If someone
was to renege on their faith and leave Islam and run away to Mecca,
the Meccans did not have to send the person back to Medina. Again,
it seems very lopsided. Second aspect here was all of this
excitement that's being built up that they can now finally make
ombre they can finally visit their homes for some of them and now the
Mecca
say you can't make ombre you have to come back next year. Again,
this seems unfair, we're in a position of power. And it was so
much so that it affected one of the companions who was very close
to the Prophet Muhammad Ahmed kebab, that he couldn't understand
it. So he goes to the Prophet Muhammad, he says, or messenger of
Allah, aren't we upon the truth, and they're upon falsehood,
meeting the Mushrikeen. The policy is the mecca. And the Prophet
says, Yes. He said, Aren't you the Messenger of Allah? And the
Prophet says, Yes, he goes, so then why are we agreeing to these
terms? And the Prophet Muhammad simply says, I will not do that
which is against Allah. Right? Meaning that this is from Allah.
This is revelation, this is coming. This is not just a simple
human endeavor here. Interestingly enough, I'm going to make up top
goes to another companion. Abubaker Radi Allahu Anhu was very
close to Prophet Muhammad. And he gets the same response that the
Prophet Muhammad gave that the Prophet Muhammad is not going to
do something that's going against Allah. So and this was a very
arduous, difficult time, this treaty. When this treaty has been
signed for a number of different reasons, one of the Muslims had
escaped Mecca and ended up in the place of who they be up. And just
before the treaty signed
the Prophet Muhammad says okay, just let him go because remember
if someone runs away, but the the one who had been sent from the
Quran from the from the Mecca and said, No, we're going to start
with him. This is before the treaty is signed. So it's very
difficult. The prophets of salaam had to accept it. But he didn't
have to accept it right there at the apex of power. So why did he
accept it? What was the benefit? What what happens? Well, when
they're on their way back to Medina, revelation comes down and
part of this revelation. It's enough at that Malika Fatone
movie. Indeed, we've given you a clear manifest victory. Now, how
does one consider that a victory, right? How they consider a victory
is as follows. And this is one of the commentators Isaak mentions,
no previous victory in Islam was greater than this really, no
previous victory, you're talking about the Battle of both of the
Battle of the Battle
of hudec, the you know, all of these battles, no previous
victory. No previous victory to Psalm was greater than this, why?
There was nothing but battle when men met. In other words, before
this time period, there's just warfare battle back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth. But when there was an armistice,
there is a peace treaty. And war was abolished. And men met in
safety and consulted together. None talked about Islam
intelligently without entering it. And so the benefit here of this
peace treaty at this time, doesn't have to do with just peace. It has
to do with the idea of Islam being accepted. And so you have you find
images Kalani another scholar. I'm not sure if I have all the slides
here. But if it has, it is Kalani mentions. You know, he's another
scholar. And he writes factor in factual body. He says that when
you find the the number of Muslims who went to who they be, right,
numbered around 13, or 1400. But when after a few years, the
Muslims overtook Mecca, their numbers swelled to 10,000. Why?
Because if you're thinking about it, 14 1500, and you're talking
about, you know, 15 years, let's say, of this Islamic paradigm
being, you know, put forth, and there's war and so on, so forth.
But in this, you know, these few short years, it swells to 10,000.
Why? Well, he mentions much like him in a sock mentions is that
because there was a victory, what was the victory, because before
when people were at war, they didn't have a chance to peacefully
speak about Islam. And now there's a time for peace, they can
intellectually, rationally, peacefully engage in conversation,
and no one that was presented with Islam could help accept but accept
Islam, not by force. But just because they have the peace of
mind the security so that Islam and the Dawa can move forward. So
peace in and of itself is not the objective, but peace for the
objective of bringing people to a higher spiritual state to give
them a chance at salvation. And to bring them into the fold is what
is the victory here? And so it's only when one understands us from
this point of view, that the treaty makes sense, because after
the Treaty was broken, I was Soufiane, one of the people are
Koresh went to Medina to reestablish it, but the Prophet
says some did it. Right. And obviously, there was a wisdom
behind that their wisdom having to do with the prophethood of the
Prophet Muhammad, not a type of a type of kind of black and white
peace or war. And that's all we're going to look at. That's all we're
going to compare it to. Now, if you remember, I was speaking about
the objectives of war. And we said is money power dominance? It's an
interesting point and I'm going to conclude on this use of Canada.
Are we he mentioned that in his book on flickers of thought, which
was actually his, his dissertation PhD dissertation, he mentioned
that it shouldn't be pointing out for the first time, and here we're
talking about after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, you had many
tribes in the Arabian Peninsula, who had reneged on their faith,
who had, who had done what's known as Linda or who had who had left
Islam and Abu Bakr start to fight them. Okay, now, one of those
tribes said, we're not going to pay that God, we're not going to
pay the poor do the arms tax that supports the poor, right. And so
aboubaker had to basically fight them. So what use of Canada we
mentioned, it should be pointed out, that for the first time in
the history of humanity, a state that is under Abu Bakar, fought
for the purpose of protecting the rights of the poor and the weak
sectors of society. Why? Well, because remember, that's the God
that those funds don't come to our bucket. They go from the rich of
that tribe, to the poor of that tribe. And that was the the, the
reason why Abu Bakar fought them, right, because they gave up that
God. So here, you're gonna die, always mentioning that fought for
the purpose of protecting the rights of the poor and the weak
sector of society. Most states stand in support of the rich, and
the strong. So when we think about concepts of war, and peace, and so
on, and so forth, it's really important to now kind of transcend
those simple dichotomies and say, you know, this is how one piece
happens. Because if you don't, you're left to special pleading.
And, you know, you basically have to present a section of the
information that you have, but in order to understand the totality
of information, you have to now look at the insider approach of
who the Prophet sallallahu Sallam is. So with that said, that's kind
of the end of what I want to speak about insha Allah
so if you guys have any questions, we can take some of them
and if not, then we can call it a day inshallah. So does anyone have
any questions?
And I haven't been checking the messages so.
So no questions. I don't really see any.
Let's see here. I scroll up
so that
let's see here.
See, here Did you do well?
Okay, got that. Got that. Thank you. All right. Okay. Well,
okay, here's a question.
So I didn't understand the distinction between Allah hada for
the message and harden for the Quran. Okay, so Allah Hooda what I
was referring to is that this is referring to the Quran. Whereas
when you look at hooded in general, it can refer to the Quran
and it can refer to previous previous scriptures, right? So if
we're talking about the Torah, the Injeel Zaboo, so of Ibrahim, etc,
those would be considered hudon or Hoda, right? Allah Hoda is
specifically for the Quran. And so why is that the case is because it
is a complete, it's like a completion of the Human Project,
right? Not that other times and other messengers had some sort of
defects in them. They were appropriate for their time and
their place. And that revelation that they were given was for their
time in their place, doesn't mean it was deficient, but in the
entire teleology if we have this worldview, we just said that Allah
Quran refers to the completion of that favor, and in fact, Allah
subhanaw taala even mentioned that in the Quran, I I've completed my
favor upon you and chosen for you, Al Islam, as your deen as your
worldview as your as your dean. Allah knows best. So
I hope that answered that. All right. Can you relate similarity,
a worldview and the meaning of Dean, right. So there was so we
did a session
in sapient thoughts, and they were actually a couple of sessions on
the concept of worldview. But just very briefly, when we look at the
term Dean and I may have gone through that a bit a bit quick,
just because I noticed the time when we look at the term Dean,
usually it's translated as religion. The problem with just
making a simple translation as religion is that when we think
about the concept of religion,
you know, many authors write that the concept of religion doesn't
actually
come about until you until the enlightenment, in fact, where you
have the concept of the secular and the religious right? And so
even if you were to take the dichotomy of something that's not
religious and religious are part of religion and part of, you know,
one's world or one's you know, habits or whatever, that
dichotomy, you don't really find it
before the enlightenment, so, you know, after the Enlightenment you
have, okay, well, this is religion, and this is the secular
and so before the enlightenment, what you know, some commentators
say is that religion is what gave the secular, its borders and its
limits. Okay. Whereas after the Enlightenment after you have
secularism, secularism gives religion its borders and its
limits. Okay? So that's why the categorize the term Deen only to
mean religion is problematic. From a, you know, it may even be
considered anachronistic from a certain point of view, to say
that, you know, that it just means religion. So from that point of
view, but even from the Quranic narrative, the term deen is not
just what we would consider religion. So like I mentioned,
Dino Malik. It's not the religion of the king, but rather it is the
system of the King, the governance of the king, right. And when we're
talking about Surah, Yusuf, similarly Maliki omit D, the Day
of Judgment. So it's more apt to apply the concept of Deen to
worldview because the components of a worldview eventually come to
a system a some sort of a moral or ethical system, a moral ethical
system where you should do something or you shouldn't do
something. But that has to have an ontological source otherwise
becomes meaningless. What do I mean? Like if I said, You should
be merciful? Okay, well, why should you be merciful? Like,
what's the point? Okay, well, you should be merciful just because,
but why? If there's no sort of give and take, there's no Deen,
then why be merciful it renders the idea or the goodness of mercy,
as meaningless, right? Unless you have an objective standard, that
being Allah, that being Islam and a worldview that attaches
something that's outside of the human being, then it can actually
have meaning. And that's only done when you have the concept of Deen
referring to rewards and punishments. So I don't know if
that
if that that helped in that area.
But I'd recommend checking out the sapient thoughts series on
worldviews. It'll get into the components of worldview and so on
and so forth. And Allah knows best. All right, maybe a little
off topic and unrelated, but can what is there between a Nabi and
Rasool Oh, it is off topic. But So generally when we think about a
Rasul and unabIe, and if you've gone to Sabbath School, Sunday
school, whatever it might be, typically the definition is that a
Rasul
is a is someone that sent by Allah that has a Kitab, or that has a
Sharia, or that has a law, right a scripture of some sort. And a
nubby is someone who follows a Rasul, but they don't have a, a
new Sharia or a new scripture or a new law, okay? That's typically
how it's defined. The problem is, is that not all messengers fit
into that simple dichotomy, that simple categorization. Okay? So
for instance, Yusuf Ali Salam is a messenger. But he did not come
with a new Sharia or a new scripture. In fact, he was upon
the scripture or the sort of, of Ibrahim Ali Salam. And so, the
definition, a more apt definition or a more appropriate definition
is that a a Rasul is someone who is sent to a disbelieving people,
whereas a Nabhi is sent to a believing people, right? And
therefore, all results are Anbiya or Debbie's, but not all newbies
are results. Okay? So not so every messenger is a prophet, but not
every prophet is a messenger. So a prophet is sent to believing
people to guide them to do is Islam and so on and so forth. But
this person is not so.
And so but unabIe is not sent to a disbelieving people. A Rasul is
sent to both a disbelieving and unbelieving people. And so when we
think about you know, Musa Ali salaam he center for our own who's
a disbeliever. When we think about new Ali Salam he sent to also
disbelievers at the church, of course, the prophets of Salaam. We
know the Prophet Muhammad says salaam he's also a soul and unabIe
whereas Hassan Ali Salam is just unabIe why? Because he's not
addressing for own he's not addressed. He's not the primary
person that's addressing for own rather He is there to guide
buddies right, who are believing people right now, a contention
that comes
is up is to say well he sadly Salam is Rasool but he didn't his,
his his, you know his address was Rasul Allah may Allah Bani Israel
that he was a messenger to Bani Israel. And so he didn't address a
disbelieving people. So how does that how does your definition
work? And the reality is because we understand that they said Assad
is coming back. Right, we don't believe He died. So because he's
coming back and one of the category of people that he'll be
speaking to or dressing are the disbelieving people. And so the
definition still fits. So a Rasul a messenger is someone who is sent
to a disbelieving people and the believing people a Nabi is someone
who sent only to a believing people to rectify their affairs
and so on and so forth. And Allah knows best.
Any other questions?
If not, we can call it a day
all right.
Okay, so I think
I think that's good in sha Allah, may Allah subhanho wa Taala bless
all of you. May He accept from all of you, all of your all of your
deeds. I appreciate you coming out listening in my apologies for the,
for the for the postponement we were supposed to do this
yesterday, I was a bit ill. So I appreciate your patience in that.
May Allah bless all of you may Allah subhanaw taala accept from
all of you, and may He all make us people who are calling towards the
goodness and the righteousness and in the positive aspects
of life. And of course, that means Islam itself. So with that said a
lot to conclude here JazakAllah head Subhanak Allahumma will be
having a shadow a La ilaha illa and a stockbroker or two way Lake
wa salam aleikum wa rahmatullah.