Hamza Tzortzis – Is Life Just A Game? Examining The Intellectual Foundation Of Islam

Hamza Tzortzis

In this comprehensive lecture Hamza articulates the reasonableness of the need and truth of an ultimate purpose, the existence of God and the literary and linguistic miracle of the Qur’an. Hamza also responds to major contentions.

Share Page

AI: Summary ©

The speakers emphasize the importance of learning to bring about change and the need for a culture of freedom, specifically in Christian faith. They also discuss the history and characteristics of the Arabic language, including its cultural significance and usage in media, as well as its origin and popularity. The segment provides background information on the origin of the phrase and its popularity.

AI: Summary ©

00:00:00 --> 00:00:19
			I'm going to start with Muslims do in the name of God in the name of Allah, in a human dilemma was
said to us, and obviously the to proceed and greet you with the warmest Islamic greetings of peace
as salaam alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
		
00:00:22 --> 00:00:30
			As the brother previously said, this means May the peace and blessings of God be upon you all.
		
00:00:31 --> 00:01:04
			Today's topic is life, just again, are we here just to play? Are we here to be born, and have no
choice in your birth, and have no choice in your socio economic upbringing, have no choice in your
siblings, have no choice in your parents, and don't even have a choice about your own gender. And
frankly, you didn't even have a choice about the color of your eyes, or even Where you from?
		
00:01:06 --> 00:01:31
			You had no choice, we had absolutely zero choice concerning our reality, things like your gender,
your ethnicity, your own parents, the color of your eyes, the color of your skin, all of these
things, we have absolutely no choice whatsoever. So the human being from the onset is a slave.
		
00:01:33 --> 00:01:47
			Forget this absolute freedom stuff we listen to on the media, and in various outlets of the Western
ideological discourse. There is no absolute freedom. You didn't even choose your brother.
		
00:01:48 --> 00:02:40
			You didn't choose your mother. We have no choice in these things. We are a slave to context and
circumstance. This is why the existential philosophers like caca God and Heidegger, they raised some
profound points. So what did they say? They talked about a concept called thoroughness that you just
thrown in reality, and you had no choice. In order to liberate yourself from this slavery of
context, then you have to learn how to react to the context in a positive way. We had some issues,
though, we have the likes of john Paul Sartre, who essentially was talking about the concept of
nothingness. And even your context that you're thrown in, has no true meaning. It's nothing,
		
00:02:40 --> 00:03:02
			therefore gives you a whole new realm and space to attribute meaning to your life. But I think
that's a delusion. How can you attribute some form of meaning to your life, when the very basis of
your existence is meaningless? Isn't that like saying, Let us pretend to have meaning. It's like a
self delusion.
		
00:03:03 --> 00:03:23
			And I'm gonna argue today, that the Islamic narrative, the Islamic worldview, based upon strong
intellectual foundations, is the only tradition, the only philosophy, the only theology, the only
worldview, that actually can liberate you from this slavery.
		
00:03:25 --> 00:03:26
			This is true liberty.
		
00:03:29 --> 00:03:35
			This is true liberty, because the Islamic scholarly tradition, for example, we have the scholar
		
00:03:36 --> 00:03:42
			in the title, he basically said that human beings are in a state of slavery,
		
00:03:43 --> 00:03:46
			we are enslaved to our carnal desires,
		
00:03:48 --> 00:04:20
			the beast to aspects or realities of the human being, we're a slave to our ego, which relates to the
beast two aspects of the human being over a slave to social pressure, the expectations and the wants
and needs of society. And by the way, the Muslim community suffers from this in such a crazy way.
Just go to any winning and you see, there will be blasphemy for the sister, or the mother or RTG, to
wear the same shoes that she did at the engagement.
		
00:04:21 --> 00:04:22
			You know.
		
00:04:25 --> 00:04:31
			So we have these issues in our community, which is a shame because we should be freed from these
social burdens.
		
00:04:32 --> 00:04:48
			So we have these types of slavery. And what Islam says if you want that true liberty, that true
freedom in essence, it can only be found in going back to your nature, which is the worship of the
true reality, which is
		
00:04:49 --> 00:04:59
			which is good, by the way, a lot of meaning. And ILA some of the Arabic linguists, they said, Allah
means and Illa which basically means that
		
00:05:00 --> 00:05:18
			dating. And this is not an alien term because even in the Christian tradition, if you can read
Aramaic and read the Aramaic Bible, what does the Bible say for God? It says, Allah, Allah. So we're
referring to the date he does well in worship.
		
00:05:19 --> 00:05:41
			So true freedom from the game of life from the slavery of life only comes through the worship of the
Divine, because it breaks the shackles, from the worship of your own ego, and yourself and your
carnal desires, and you break the shackles to social pressure. Because your reference is something
which transcends all of that.
		
00:05:42 --> 00:06:23
			This is why I really believe that our sisters are Muslim women in general, when they try to wear the
attire of the Islamic tradition, that they should not only feel liberated, but they should have a
positive discourse, that they shouldn't go out there in the public domain and saying, well, it's my
free choice. Because in reality, that's not true. That's following a neoliberal narrative, which is
not representative of our discourse. Our discourse is obedience to the divine reality. Now, you
know, I'm going to work today. And tomorrow, I'm going to pray today. And tomorrow, we don't have
that kind of reality. And I'm going to explain why. Now, the reason I'm mentioning sisters of women
		
00:06:23 --> 00:06:32
			in general, is because I would argue that women, Muslim women are far more liberated, then any other
woman.
		
00:06:33 --> 00:06:49
			And this is a claim, I'm going to try and justify why. Because for the Muslim woman, the reason she
wears what she wears is not because of a husband, or because of their father, or because of social
pressure, or because of L'Oreal, because on Wednesday, yeah.
		
00:06:51 --> 00:07:37
			It's not because of these things. It's because she has understood reality, that my desires and ego
is not worthy of worship, their perspectives, and the media and the celebrity culture and the bling
bling is not worthy of worship, what's worthy of worship is a divine reality, and are free from
these things. So the actual manifestation of the Islamic garb or attire, especially from a female
perspective, is a liberating, is a liberating act is an act of emancipation. So Muslim women, even
from this perspective, to look at the public domain and say, I'm the one who's truly free, because
I'm not worshipping other people's expectations anymore. I'm not worshiping even man, because the
		
00:07:37 --> 00:08:05
			feminist tradition in the western discourse actually failed. Don't get me wrong, today's feminism I
quite agree with to be honest. If you studied Of course, in political theory, you have the likes of
Marilyn Friedman and others who have a positive discourse of society that disagrees liberal
individualism, but that's a different topic. But the old type of feminism was actually a reaction to
the oppression of man. So what was the kind of reaction it was what we would have been like, man?
What happened?
		
00:08:06 --> 00:08:14
			They didn't feed themselves, they just change this theory. Because now, the yardstick why would man
be the yardstick?
		
00:08:15 --> 00:08:19
			Do you see the subtle point here, it's a very subtle point.
		
00:08:20 --> 00:08:23
			So when we link this when we,
		
00:08:24 --> 00:08:56
			when we link, when we link this perspective, to what I'm talking about freedom, and true liberation,
which is worshiping God, or worshiping the kind of desires in society, we could take any aspect of
the Muslim practicality of the Muslim life or the Muslim attire or the manifestation of Islamic
life. And we could show Actually, these are acts of liberation. And that's why I use the example of
women just to highlight that example. And it's very empowering. If you say from this perspective,
		
00:08:58 --> 00:09:13
			it is no wonder brothers, sisters and friends that an American writer once wrote that being born is
like being kidnapped and sold into slavery. Because you remember, we mentioned you can choose your
ethnicity or your eye color, your gender, your parents, or your social background.
		
00:09:14 --> 00:09:16
			But in light of this,
		
00:09:17 --> 00:09:37
			we treat life like a big game. Because although we have no choice in these things, it's as if we
were thrown into this factory, and the windows are closed. So the doors and when we wake up, and
what we see is people working in his dream, the day to day things and they're working in this
factory.
		
00:09:39 --> 00:09:59
			The way we act especially as human beings in a Western environment because we have so many other
kind of outlets or distractions that prevent us from having critical thinking, namely, iPhone iPad
experts, we gained power clubbing
		
00:10:00 --> 00:10:17
			All this stuff, talking about passing advantage over these things, but I'm saying, We live in an age
of entertainment. And even the news is entertainment, as one scholar said, is called infotainment.
Because it's literally sound bites. I mean, if you were to write it down
		
00:10:18 --> 00:11:01
			on the screen, you got some code that you're taking it seriously. So we have all these distractions
and other outlets that distract us and vailable, this essential questioning that we have. And what
we do in this factory is that we don't ask how did I get here? And we don't ask, Where am I going?
And we don't ask what's going to happen to me, if I get out of this factory. We don't ask these
critical questions, we actually suspend these essential existential questions about my life and the
whole universe. It reminds me when I went to Canada once and I gave a similar presentation, and a
70. Something old man, nice gentleman, very friendly, typical, the Canadian culture said to me,
		
00:11:01 --> 00:11:09
			Well, I'm happy I believe in God, I deny everything you say. And I try to explain to him that your
happiness is deluded?
		
00:11:10 --> 00:11:20
			Because you haven't answered the critical questions. And often these questions and he didn't answer
them. And then he felt slightly confused or disoriented.
		
00:11:21 --> 00:11:29
			He's like the penny dropped. This is why there was a I believe it was a Time magazine study that
basically took professionals and,
		
00:11:31 --> 00:11:36
			and made him think about the political questions. And the majority of them broke down.
		
00:11:38 --> 00:11:38
			They broke down.
		
00:11:39 --> 00:11:54
			So this is why we need to be very careful about our life. And when we're in this, if you like, the
metaphor of the factory, that we don't just join him with the work. And then you die. Rather you
question? What am I doing in the first place?
		
00:11:55 --> 00:11:59
			Am I just gonna follow everyone else like sheep, like a herd of sheep?
		
00:12:00 --> 00:12:11
			To ask some important questions, any rational human being would do that. And this is what Islam
demands the human being, to think in a very profound way for a minute
		
00:12:12 --> 00:12:13
			or less as it
		
00:12:15 --> 00:12:18
			was in the book of the Muslims, and where are you going,
		
00:12:19 --> 00:12:20
			waffling on
		
00:12:21 --> 00:12:49
			to zero and in themselves? Do they not see, I will admit the effect of forcing him to reflect within
themselves the physiological, neurochemical neurobiological dimension, including the psychological,
spiritual, and what we call the self. These are the critical questions. And the perhaps from this
perspective is an existential vote. It wants to make you think about your own existence. Where are
you going? Who are you?
		
00:12:51 --> 00:12:52
			Who are you?
		
00:12:53 --> 00:12:56
			And why are you? And for whom are you?
		
00:12:57 --> 00:13:00
			You answer these questions, you attract a human being in my opinion.
		
00:13:03 --> 00:13:24
			So are we going to be the people that wake up in this factory and don't ask the questions and start
working away blindly? Or are we going to be the rational human being? And when we're thrown into
this type of existence, we first ask the essential questions. And hopefully today, we could go and
take a journey together to answer some of these questions.
		
00:13:27 --> 00:14:04
			And I believe that is our discourse has sponsored them. And the way I've done that is actually
providing rational foundations for his worldview. What I mean by rational is not abstract thinking
about human thinking, logic, reason, reasonableness, common sense, depth of understanding,
meditating upon reality. And when we do that, we come to some conclusions, which are, the divine
reality indeed exists to reject the divine reality is equivalent of rejecting your own self.
		
00:14:06 --> 00:14:22
			And we have this book a revelation to the Quran, and to reject this book, and listen very carefully.
And this will hopefully make you stay to the end. To reject this book is the equivalent of rejecting
that your mother is your mother.
		
00:14:25 --> 00:14:30
			And someone still rejects the Quran after today's session, take my mobile phone and call your mom.
		
00:14:31 --> 00:14:35
			Explain why in a very interesting
		
00:14:36 --> 00:14:42
			type of philosophical way that would hopefully that any drug so
		
00:14:43 --> 00:14:59
			the Quran has answers the questions Islam has answered the questions and Islam has given us a
rational foundation for these answers. But before we do this, I would like to introduce the concept
of God in a very unique way. And I want to do by explaining to everybody
		
00:15:00 --> 00:15:33
			That, please suspend your judgments on this topic for one minute. And just try and understand how
life would be without God. And you may be thinking, but I don't believe in God. So he's not in my
life. I don't mean that. I mean, from a perspective of purpose, meaning and value. If we take God
out of that equation, do these things have any validity? For example, take value.
		
00:15:35 --> 00:15:42
			You may think I value things, which is true, I value brotherhood, I value this man. Interesting
beer. Yeah.
		
00:15:44 --> 00:16:00
			I value these things, okay. But that value from a human perspective is subject to myself. It's not
subject to higher transit than to authority. Therefore, my value is subjective. In other words,
almost meaningless for everybody else.
		
00:16:01 --> 00:16:18
			Now take life in general, does life have ultimate value from this perspective? No. Because if you
think about it, without the divine reality, and all other theological implications relating to that,
when we die, we just become one buffet.
		
00:16:20 --> 00:16:30
			That's it. So what difference does it make? If I lived my life as a devil, and you lived your lives
as angels?
		
00:16:31 --> 00:16:32
			I got away with it.
		
00:16:33 --> 00:16:46
			This is why the communist tortures in the prisons in communist Russia when they used to torture the
Christians, they used to say, there's no accountability. There's no divine
		
00:16:49 --> 00:16:53
			might is right, that Nietzschean type of philosophy of life.
		
00:16:55 --> 00:17:06
			So without God as a transcendental transcendental anchor, that really anchored our values as
ultimate and objective, that everything we value is really
		
00:17:08 --> 00:17:17
			that less or subjective, or some people may argue, without any ultimate meaning, or outcome of that.
		
00:17:19 --> 00:17:23
			Take for instance, if I try to spend my whole life to
		
00:17:24 --> 00:17:30
			establish world peace, and you want to become the bio medic, and really find the cure to cancer,
		
00:17:31 --> 00:17:32
			okay, this
		
00:17:34 --> 00:17:43
			was thinking shit people, you know, this universe is gonna die out if you read about the second law
of thermodynamics, we will suffer heat death.
		
00:17:45 --> 00:17:56
			There'll be no more usable energy in the universe. No sun, no stars, no movement is cold. Get a boat
that sank in the ocean
		
00:17:58 --> 00:18:01
			and just sinking in everyone's dead and it's cold.
		
00:18:03 --> 00:18:04
			And you don't even have to fish.
		
00:18:06 --> 00:18:15
			We're on a sinking ship. So what is the point of reshuffling the deck chairs? What's the point? or
giving a glass of milk to the old granny
		
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18
			doesn't make any difference? It's gonna sink.
		
00:18:20 --> 00:19:09
			So have no value from that perspective. Also, there's no value for human life, I would even argue,
honestly, I think that some of the Communist tortures they were philosophically accurate. If they
didn't believe in dialectical materialism and all that there is this matter, then? It doesn't really
matter, does it? Because if you think about it, in absence of the Divine, and all the other
theological implications, you are just carbon plus carbon plus carbon, plus a bit of oxygen, and
some nitrogen, and some hydrogen, and some, etc, etc. So you were just a rearrangement of molecules.
Technically, I don't think you all know human life was so special. That's crap. That's what I would
		
00:19:09 --> 00:19:43
			call sentimentalism. sentimentalism, you know what this means? It means you believe in a reality
that will just matter. We're just carbon and we're just material cause and effect, which is the
reductionist approach of the pseudo scientific community. Why can you any meaningful level value to
these things that's being sentimental? When you reality, seeing something different so under the
woman in Iraq, or there's a bombing anywhere, innocence didn't die. It's just a scattering of
molecules.
		
00:19:45 --> 00:19:46
			Philosophically,
		
00:19:47 --> 00:19:58
			let's try to remove the emotions for one minute. Let's be real here. So an absence of the Divine it
is not up to them. There is value in being sentimental and you
		
00:20:00 --> 00:20:00
			being
		
00:20:01 --> 00:20:04
			emotional. And it's subjective.
		
00:20:06 --> 00:20:28
			without purpose, there's no ultimate purpose. And it's quite interesting and absurd. Because from an
inference perspective, what does it mean? It means reasoning to the best conclusion. When we try and
reason to the best conclusion, we would argue that everything has a purpose, look at every chair,
that is, think about what purpose does it have to
		
00:20:29 --> 00:20:30
			sit on?
		
00:20:32 --> 00:20:32
			To hold your weight?
		
00:20:34 --> 00:20:46
			So something inanimate has a purpose. Also, there's a particular model. And this is courtesy of
David Attenborough, BBC. Yeah, there's a particular model in a particular jungle forest, I don't
remember.
		
00:20:47 --> 00:20:50
			And this model drinks the sap of a particular tree.
		
00:20:52 --> 00:21:01
			And interestingly, the physiology of dysmorphism when he drinks the SAP, in instantaneously,
experience, basically.
		
00:21:07 --> 00:21:08
			It's a cartoon all we need to do.
		
00:21:09 --> 00:21:19
			So it excretes every time a drinks this up instantaneously. So imagine, yeah, okay. We'll think of
that straightaway.
		
00:21:20 --> 00:21:32
			Underneath that most is another mall. Do you know that? Most does? Yes. Right. And drinks to do?
That's his job. And, you know, why does that elapse?
		
00:21:33 --> 00:21:47
			Why? Because if the sap were to trickle from the rear end of that wall, it would leak down the tree
to the floor, and the adults will follow the trail and eat.
		
00:21:48 --> 00:21:52
			So the second one is the first month's insurance policy.
		
00:21:55 --> 00:22:06
			Now, why am I mentioning this, because if there was not a genocide, tomorrow, you wouldn't blink,
you wouldn't care, you would write a petition, millions of months have died.
		
00:22:07 --> 00:22:19
			He wouldn't get you probably didn't know anything about this last three minutes ago. But yet, it has
a purpose. And when you think about your own life, we say there's no purpose.
		
00:22:21 --> 00:22:23
			Philosophically, this is absurd.
		
00:22:25 --> 00:22:27
			Even in biology, he studies biology here.
		
00:22:32 --> 00:22:33
			The only one in the room.
		
00:22:36 --> 00:22:37
			In biology, we have
		
00:22:39 --> 00:23:01
			structure and function right structure and function, for instance. And we'll make inferences which
are more reasonable than this ridiculous idea of what was just there. For example, in your
elementary canal, which is your guts, we have the low interest in the love interest time or we have
we have these things called Villa okay. In this lecture
		
00:23:05 --> 00:23:11
			is belie, we have micro Villa, came to a very small village, okay.
		
00:23:12 --> 00:23:44
			And here we have like the critical room and all this stuff right? Now, the main function of the
longing test time is to absorb fats, lipids, nutrients, etc. So that's his function, to absorb.
Looking at structure, it's been structured to absorb we have these long kind of protruding rely on
top of them microbial life, so increases the surface area, so you could take in more nutrients.
		
00:23:45 --> 00:23:50
			Or you when you see this, you're gonna say, Well, no, there's no purpose to these microbes, Eli.
		
00:23:52 --> 00:24:02
			Of course, we're not because you're not stupid, right? Good. Similarly, when we apply this to life,
or we're gonna say, our own life doesn't have some form of purpose.
		
00:24:03 --> 00:24:17
			I mean, even thinking about it should even make you even raise the question, well, maybe let me
think about purpose. Finally, don't believe it, but even thinking about it in this way, then surely,
then surely, you should investigate about
		
00:24:19 --> 00:24:20
			what is it with this man life?
		
00:24:22 --> 00:24:52
			Does this make sense? Good. So in a so in absence of the Divine, you don't really have an ultimate
purpose from this perspective. It is only with the divine we it gives you an ultimate sense of
purpose. Now the existential philosophers, the postmodern philosophers, they try to answer this
question by saying, well, you create your own purpose for yourself. I'm happy with that you become
an engineer and then peace loving human beings is great, but it doesn't have any ultimate purpose.
Why? Because
		
00:24:54 --> 00:25:00
			you haven't understood your original depth. Your reason of existence, the reason
		
00:25:00 --> 00:25:14
			purpose for your existence. So it's almost like we mentioned earlier of saying, Let's pretend to
have purpose. This is why the philosophers like Arthur Schopenhauer, he wrote an essay on suicide.
		
00:25:15 --> 00:25:19
			So David Hume, by the way, you know, it's cool on suicide.
		
00:25:20 --> 00:25:32
			And many of these philosophers, especially on ethical, moral, moral standpoint, they wrote these
essays, because they asked the greatest question for them, which was, shall we tell ourselves
		
00:25:33 --> 00:25:46
			because when you move out of the picture, you just random, you adjust purpose less ultimately, value
less, ultimately, and meaning less. Ultimately.
		
00:25:49 --> 00:25:55
			This is one of the Schopenhauer said, I wish that the world the universe never existed.
		
00:25:57 --> 00:26:06
			which resonates similarly to what Nietzsche said, about the randomness and chaotic nature of the
universe in the world.
		
00:26:07 --> 00:26:07
			Depression.
		
00:26:09 --> 00:26:19
			So this should make us think there is like just a game, I'm going to be born, get a job study the
subject that I don't want to study, just because my mom told me to study,
		
00:26:21 --> 00:26:24
			marry someone I don't even like, because my dad told me to my
		
00:26:25 --> 00:26:36
			own because L'Oreal is celebrity magazine. And all this kind of social construct has, you know,
embedded in my mind and soul that this is the type of person I need to marry. But in reality, it's
just a shell.
		
00:26:37 --> 00:26:42
			And then you have kids, you may love the first seven years, and they'll disobey you for the next 70
years.
		
00:26:44 --> 00:27:01
			And you have a job that you hate nine to five, which is the current of slavery, capitalist sense,
just like chickens, laying eggs, nine to five in the office, and you get all this money to do what?
She got a nice retire, pass up on the beach, and drink a nice glass of milk.
		
00:27:02 --> 00:27:21
			When in reality, the third world already doing that. Don't do they have no money, and they're
already doing what you're what you've been spending your whole life to achieve. Which is the irony.
Have you heard the famous story, they will tell you the story. An amazing man from New York, went to
the beaches of Mexico, Mexico. And he saw this man
		
00:27:23 --> 00:27:49
			enjoying his family sipping on some wine, and spending all the nights on the beach with his friends
every day. And this Mexican man was a poor fisherman. And the business American capitalist from New
York said, right? We can increase your business, get you in a boat, if I give you a loan, and you
give it back to me in a few years. He's thinking about this. And then Mexico says, Okay,
		
00:27:53 --> 00:28:16
			what else? And then from Cuba, football's boats, you can basically buy the bigger boats to get more
fish. And then you'd be working a few more hours, though, but then you'd have to get office in New
York, then you could retire at 70. And then what amigo then you could play on the beach with your
children play guitar, have some wine, and enjoy the likes of your friends on the beach. He's already
doing it.
		
00:28:17 --> 00:28:28
			You see, the point is your life's gonna be like that. Like almost like an animal instinctive. Eat,
drink, sleep, procreate die, great life.
		
00:28:30 --> 00:28:31
			But that's life isn't it.
		
00:28:33 --> 00:28:52
			That's how you can sum up your entire existence. You were born, I had no choice in it. You have
parents, either. You grew up in a certain way didn't have a choice. And then you studied something
you didn't really want to do, then you got a job, then you go back.
		
00:28:53 --> 00:28:54
			Sometimes
		
00:29:02 --> 00:29:13
			what happens is you you're in this job for your life, then you get the pension that could have you
picked your mortgage. And then you get all these houses. And you give them to your first son.
		
00:29:14 --> 00:29:27
			Parentheses Kashmiri close parenthesis. So opposite Pakistani culture, no Pakistani culture.
stereotypes are useful because they're like patterns. I mean, if you deny stereotypes, you deny
natural rules
		
00:29:29 --> 00:29:30
			based on patterns,
		
00:29:31 --> 00:29:31
			anyway.
		
00:29:35 --> 00:29:59
			So the point is, that's your life, that is your existence, and that goes with anything. So what is
my point? My point is to to create that emotional intellectual environment so we could discuss the
two key issues if we could show them rationally with reason, then it provides the foundation for all
the answers because if the divine reality exists,
		
00:30:00 --> 00:30:18
			And he announced himself to mankind via this book. And we have good reasons to believe in this and
rejecting this is the equivalent of rejecting your mother, then surely what it says is going to be
true because as a philosophical, rational principle, whatever comes from truth is true.
		
00:30:20 --> 00:30:31
			Especially if it came from the divine reality. So God's existence, one of the biggest questions that
human beings have faced ever, human beings,
		
00:30:32 --> 00:31:08
			why does something exists rather than nothing? Why are we here? What is the very purpose of
existence? was their Creator? Is there such a thing as this attempt to be? Well, many atheists
significantly, Bertrand Russell in a radio program in the 1960s. When he said, he said, Whoa, the
universe is just a brute fact, get over thinking about it, its origins. If there are any origins to
the universe's probably eternal perspective, then then stop thinking about it. Thinking about you're
gonna get depressed.
		
00:31:11 --> 00:31:23
			But I would argue that the Islamic theological, intellectual philosophical approach is very
profound. And you can find it in the Quran itself. In the book of the Muslims,
		
00:31:24 --> 00:32:00
			Chapter 52, verses 35, to 36, the amazing principles to apply or logical possibilities to apply to
things that have a beginning, things that began in existence, things that were given birth to things
that emerged, for instance, the Quran says, and do you think you came from nothing? Did you create
yourself? Or did you create the heavens and the earth, Ben lair, you know, Ben named, indeed, you
have no firm conviction.
		
00:32:01 --> 00:32:18
			Now the Quranic exegesis, basically the scholars who interpret the Quran, you can find full
principles for logical possibilities to apply to things that emerge to find a valid rational
conclusion. And what is principles, the very simple
		
00:32:19 --> 00:32:23
			things come via nothing or from nothing
		
00:32:26 --> 00:32:28
			that the self creates,
		
00:32:33 --> 00:32:39
			that the ultimately created by something else that's created, so created
		
00:32:41 --> 00:32:43
			by something else
		
00:32:49 --> 00:32:51
			created, something was created.
		
00:32:52 --> 00:32:55
			And the final option is that it was created
		
00:33:00 --> 00:33:02
			by something uncreated.
		
00:33:06 --> 00:33:15
			These are the explicit assumptions of the Quran, and the implicit assumptions, if you analyze this
verse,
		
00:33:16 --> 00:33:46
			it's pertaining to these logical possibilities of things that begin to exist. And it doesn't just
relate to the human being, it can relate to anything that started. So we can apply this to anything
that began. And when we do that, we come to the most rational conclusion that was ultimately created
by something uncreated. But there is an assumption, the assumption is that the universe actually
began. Because you can't apply this to something that was always there.
		
00:33:47 --> 00:34:04
			Because you can't see that come from nothing because it has always been there, then that question
doesn't apply. If it was always there is no such thing as being so creative. Everyone always there,
they don't have to discuss it was created by some ingredient, or created by something uncreated,
because it itself is uncreated.
		
00:34:05 --> 00:34:46
			And this was the big debate between the atheist and the theists in the days, and the philosophers in
Europe. And even in Islamic tradition, we had the duck, the duck, the duck career, where the
naturalist were the people who didn't really believe in a metaphysical spiritual reality that
brought the universe into existence. They were naturalist, which basically means that if there's
anything outside of the universe, it doesn't affect the universe. And everything that there is, is,
which is just the universe itself, which is matter. So, we have to justify that in order to apply
this to the entire cosmos, which is the universe, we have to prove that the universe actually began.
		
00:34:47 --> 00:34:53
			And it's very easy to do that element in two ways. We can show the universe began
		
00:34:54 --> 00:34:59
			by referring to philosophical and scientific arguments. Then we talk about the philosophical
		
00:35:00 --> 00:35:08
			Think about this brothers and sisters. If the universe never began, what does it mean? It means it
was always there.
		
00:35:09 --> 00:35:19
			If it was always there, it means it's a channel. If it's a turtle, it means the parts of the
universe is infinite.
		
00:35:21 --> 00:35:27
			But the question is, can we have an infinite? Anything in the real world?
		
00:35:28 --> 00:35:41
			Can we have an infinite anything in the real physical world? Of course not. Let me give you some
examples. Imagine the right infinite number of bearded men in this room.
		
00:35:42 --> 00:35:47
			And I take five bearded men away. How many beaded men? Do we have that?
		
00:35:48 --> 00:35:50
			infinity minus five,
		
00:35:52 --> 00:35:56
			minus five. Practically, if we removed
		
00:35:57 --> 00:36:38
			a number from a set, it should be that we should be able to count practically how many bearded men
there are in this room because we remove something less. But we can at least two practical
absurdities and paradoxes. Let me give you another example. Say we had five bananas in this rope.
And every possible moment I added another Banana, banana, six, 7 million 10 million 70 million. And
ciliary and go on and on? Would I ever reach an amount that we can describe as infinite?
		
00:36:40 --> 00:36:49
			No, because n plus one. Any number plus one, we can always plus one, always.
		
00:36:51 --> 00:36:57
			So the infinite is never actualized is this potential. Think about the slide.
		
00:36:58 --> 00:37:08
			This is an actual line, distance A and B, you're very intelligent man. Forgive me this pen because
the flip chart marker. Which means
		
00:37:10 --> 00:37:11
			so let's use this one.
		
00:37:13 --> 00:37:15
			Now we can potentially
		
00:37:18 --> 00:37:25
			we can potentially split this line in half. And then we can split those lines in half
		
00:37:26 --> 00:37:27
			in half,
		
00:37:28 --> 00:37:36
			and then those lines in half. And they can continue. I might ever get to have an infinite number of
parts of this line.
		
00:37:38 --> 00:37:59
			No, because I can always split again. So it's potential the infinite from this perspective is
potential. Never actual but the distance can be actualized. Look, I'm looking at distance I'm
actually traversing that distance. So just like what Aristotle said, he said the infinite is
		
00:38:00 --> 00:38:20
			never actualize always potential. And even the famous German mathematician David Hilbert, he said,
the infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. But past events of the universe, the universe is
reality. So when we apply this concept to the universe, it means could the past be infinite?
		
00:38:22 --> 00:38:47
			No, because it doesn't make sense is there's no infinity in the real world ever. So it simply means
the universe must have had a beginning. It is finite, not in finite, because infinity doesn't make
sense in the real world. As per the examples we discussed, then you another example, and other
proof, which is the scientific or astrophysical evidence to show that the universe started.
		
00:38:48 --> 00:38:58
			And you may learn something new here, because I don't want to use 1980s Big Bang cosmology. I want
to bring it up to up to date 2012. Okay, so let's discuss this.
		
00:39:02 --> 00:39:07
			So I've always had a trick and the trick is if you pull this over it Do
		
00:39:09 --> 00:39:10
			you believe in
		
00:39:11 --> 00:39:13
			watching magic.
		
00:39:20 --> 00:39:21
			Therefore, God exists.
		
00:39:28 --> 00:39:31
			Friedman, Friedman, and lemme
		
00:39:33 --> 00:39:37
			pronouncing his French name properly, but that's how I read it. Friedman. And
		
00:39:38 --> 00:39:52
			they had a model for the universe, which we now call the hot standard model of the universe, okay.
And they have a theoretical model that the universe was actually expanding. Okay.
		
00:39:54 --> 00:39:59
			This was justified empirically by Hubble when he saw distant stars.
		
00:40:00 --> 00:40:34
			could set the red variables that will shifting away towards the redshift. So he concluded that the
universe is actually expanding. Now, when we extrapolate and reverse the time backwards or go
backwards, current cosmologists, according to the Friedman lemma is my model, they claim that the
universe is approaching zero, okay, approaching zero, or what they call infinite density,
		
00:40:36 --> 00:40:51
			or what they call it a singularity. But let's be very honest with this, we don't use science in a
very apologetic, crude way. All we know is that when we bring it back, extrapolate backwards and
reverse backwards, we know that there is
		
00:40:53 --> 00:41:03
			a time or a position of the universe where the laws of physics break down. So we can't really say
there's a single point of the universe.
		
00:41:05 --> 00:41:24
			Scientifically, that would be wrong. Let's be fair. However, the majority of the modern cosmologists
who adopt this view, they claim that although we don't know what happens 10 to the power of
something minus seconds, we can claim that although there may be a point, there is a curvature
		
00:41:25 --> 00:41:27
			at the apex of a comb.
		
00:41:28 --> 00:41:35
			And this will be called a spacio. Temporal boundary,
		
00:41:37 --> 00:41:39
			a spatial temporal boundary,
		
00:41:41 --> 00:41:42
			which
		
00:41:43 --> 00:41:51
			indicates that the universe is projected like because everything has a space, your temporal
boundary,
		
00:41:52 --> 00:42:15
			all objects and openings are created. So it as if the universe is almost finite, like an object like
because there's a spatial temporal boundary. This is why even atheists like Lawrence Krauss,
Professor Lawrence Krauss, the physicist who wrote the famous book, I think, is called why there is
something rather than nothing.
		
00:42:17 --> 00:42:33
			He claims that t is equal to zero, because of the spatial temporal boundary. Even Alexander
vilenkin. At his lecture in Cambridge recently, relatively recently, he said we can't run away from
a cosmic beginning, the universe began.
		
00:42:35 --> 00:43:08
			So there is always a consensus, according to the Friedman model of the Big Bang, and hold
philosophical evidence consider infinite, they can't be applied into the real world in necessitates
the universe began. By the way, there are other models of the Big Bang, that try and claim the
universe is eternal. I just want to mention one just to show that they are all incoherent.
Philosophically, there is one called the quantum fluctuation model. Okay, one term fluctuation.
		
00:43:11 --> 00:43:12
			By the way, if you don't get any of this, it doesn't matter.
		
00:43:13 --> 00:43:18
			The reason being is going to motivate you to learn. There is a book is called How to Read a book.
		
00:43:23 --> 00:43:26
			And in this book, it says,
		
00:43:27 --> 00:43:31
			when you pick up a book, and it's over your head, don't put it down. The whole point is to
		
00:43:32 --> 00:43:34
			work with it. So
		
00:43:35 --> 00:43:40
			if you're going to read nursery rhyme, boy life, then what are you going to be talking about what
your life
		
00:43:43 --> 00:43:46
			have you many will, which we're going to mention later, but we're
		
00:43:48 --> 00:44:07
			gonna release the Quran, right? But the point is, the quantum fluctuation model is basically you
have the quantum vacuum, this represents the quantum vacuum, and you have quantum fluctuations,
okay? these quantum fluctuations can be responsible for the entire universe. So Richard Dawkins told
me anyway.
		
00:44:09 --> 00:44:51
			Now, the argument here is, theoretically, there should be universes that are colliding. But we don't
experience that. So the way around it is that they said, well, the quantum vacuum itself is
expanding. But then people argue it's expanding, reverse it back in time that it must have began. So
the comment away from the beginning, it's a crude way of dealing with a quantum fluctuation
fluctuation model. And there's other ones like the alternating model, but the point is, I believe
the Freedman limiter model is the most strongest, it says that the spatial temporal boundary, which
is means is the universe like object like if this object like a museum was created, or it began,
		
00:44:51 --> 00:44:59
			good, so justified with the assumption that the universe began, when it's very simple now. So we now
		
00:45:00 --> 00:45:09
			Let's say that the universe began. Now we can apply the Quranic logical principles and explanations.
Could the universe not come from nothing?
		
00:45:11 --> 00:45:13
			As we say, and who do you think will do?
		
00:45:16 --> 00:45:17
			Nothing.
		
00:45:21 --> 00:45:22
			So,
		
00:45:30 --> 00:45:36
			hey, listen, guys, we are so stupid as a Muslim community that you know what defines us
		
00:45:40 --> 00:45:59
			your punchlines, some colonialist, drew a map, you don't even meet him and he wants to kill you.
Anyway, he met you. And you're defined by that map, you defined by those lines, stupid. So when we
start celebrating the 1971, stock, or 1940s, whatever.
		
00:46:04 --> 00:46:10
			All of that is rubbish, rubbish. And Greek. Let me define myself as a human first.
		
00:46:12 --> 00:46:14
			dictator, I should be a Muslim, which is the ultimate reality.
		
00:46:16 --> 00:46:19
			But many of us know Pakistani.
		
00:46:22 --> 00:46:24
			The irony is even within
		
00:46:28 --> 00:46:31
			Kashmiri Kashmiris, they don't speak out language. Yeah.
		
00:46:35 --> 00:46:40
			We think is a bit crazy what we've done to ourselves, this my copy, man, please
		
00:46:42 --> 00:47:21
			tell your story. But that actually brought me up like this, not to think naturalistically, because
he knew that animals like a lion dealing with this, you know, areas, john will go into my territory.
And he was very adamant like, and I was brought with this philosophy. And I went to Greek school
style, my university weeks on Saturday, and I was a working class kid or middle class people. And I
was nervous. But I used to be a bit, you know, cookie. And you ask everybody, what makes you Greek?
Ever saying Greek is illegitimate through the language? The Greek ethnicity, Christian spirit? Yeah.
That's why the Orthodox priests, they'll say,
		
00:47:22 --> 00:47:27
			and get this DNA Alliance, which means the Greek Christian community.
		
00:47:28 --> 00:47:34
			So they'll be saying all these things, I was near the end, nice to meet you, I will make sure. Well,
to be honest,
		
00:47:35 --> 00:47:36
			I was a
		
00:47:38 --> 00:47:42
			human with almost universal. And he looked at me and
		
00:47:43 --> 00:47:43
			he said,
		
00:47:46 --> 00:47:47
			that's a brief idea.
		
00:47:59 --> 00:48:02
			For us to acknowledge Hey, guys, right?
		
00:48:05 --> 00:48:09
			As you say much thing, the kid's name is a Pakistani saying meaning
		
00:48:10 --> 00:48:11
			you don't have anything.
		
00:48:14 --> 00:48:28
			So could the universe come from nothing? Well, first and foremost, think of his principle as met as
a metaphysical principle can be taught from non being can be come from non being.
		
00:48:29 --> 00:49:16
			The Universe was once in a state of non existence, because it began therefore, before that, it was
not existing. It was once in a state of non existence. How on earth did it come to exist? It could
never come via nothing from nothing. There must have been something. How can we claim the opposite?
Now, let me make you think of it this way. Imagine you have a magic box and there's a magician
showing you how the trick works. And he closes the books. He taps him with his wand, and he pulls
out a rabbit, rabbit. Okay. Now, you know from the empty space, the rabbit didn't appear. The reason
you're impressed because you're thinking, How did he create that illusion? Which shows is so
		
00:49:16 --> 00:49:22
			intuitive that from an emptiness, you don't get something or from not being you don't get being?
		
00:49:23 --> 00:49:31
			This is why PJ is wrote in his publication about time said, if there is anything we could find
inconceivable Is that something could arise from nothing.
		
00:49:33 --> 00:49:38
			Imagine we just say Eskimo village disappeared from nothing. My mom
		
00:49:40 --> 00:49:51
			is nothing. The curry that I eat in the evening with my two hottie and rocky came from nothing. You
don't think your mama mama? You didn't make it? It came from nothing.
		
00:49:55 --> 00:49:59
			So do you see the point However, we do have some critics on this issue.
		
00:50:00 --> 00:50:15
			Believe it or not, and they say, well, things do come from nothing. And they say the quantum vacuum,
you have these fluctuations, you have subatomic events happening in the quantum vacuum. So they say
things can come from nothing. It's a false contention.
		
00:50:16 --> 00:50:19
			Because the quantum vacuum is something
		
00:50:21 --> 00:50:55
			even though to Wikipedia quantum vacuum, all the scientists saying is not nothing is actually co
fluctuating energy. It's a rich structure your ways the laws of the universe, the Christian
philosopher don't Okay, one says the same thing and others, it is something. So these subatomic
events do not occur from nothing. So I suppose contention, so we can say that things, the universe
cannot come from nothing. So we're working our way through this, okay, delete this option. So
created? Can the universe of cream
		
00:50:56 --> 00:51:06
			or philosophically this would mean that something was in existence and not in existence at the same
time? Let me question is, can you exist and not exist at the same time?
		
00:51:08 --> 00:51:08
			No.
		
00:51:10 --> 00:51:13
			Levy can limit your crude by sticking your head for the rest of your life.
		
00:51:14 --> 00:51:16
			Can your mother give birth? So
		
00:51:22 --> 00:51:23
			you must have visual memory that
		
00:51:29 --> 00:51:42
			is impossible, right? Can you give birth to yourself? No, this is an absurd proposition assertion.
However, we still have critics and are too contingent to this. Let me give you the first one. And
this came from
		
00:51:43 --> 00:51:48
			the chairman of the British Humanist Association. His name is Andrew,
		
00:51:49 --> 00:52:01
			depicted in Birmingham University. It's a shame it wasn't filmed because it was hilarious. And he
said, the universe canceled because what we have is single celled organisms and in biology,
		
00:52:03 --> 00:52:05
			they have something called
		
00:52:06 --> 00:52:49
			asexual reproduction, which is like self creation. I was laughing because I thought the stupidity of
the example is justified, who is saying, in order for asexual reproduction to happen, this single
celled organism requires energy from outside of itself to do that, even have the energy in order to
be able to do it. So if you're saying the universe have created, it needed something outside of
itself to do that in the first place, according to analogy, which justifies our point. Second point
is, you're assuming that the universe was always there, you have to have something first before you
have a sexual reproduction that we know the universe wants, wasn't there. So it was a false analogy,
		
00:52:49 --> 00:52:54
			for example, false contention. He changed the subject very quickly.
		
00:52:56 --> 00:53:19
			So the second one is we have Stephen Hawking, don't get me wrong. I don't claim to be more
intelligent Stephen Hawking will think that a physicist or an academic, I'm not, I'm just a Muslim
who thinks and the people think and when you think you come to certain conclusions, unfortunately,
in western educational discourse, sometimes we're not taught to think, to study philosophy, you have
to
		
00:53:20 --> 00:53:23
			remember for David Hume, john Locke, this guy.
		
00:53:26 --> 00:53:36
			Okay, well, he said, let me start from the beginning. But you don't know why. Because in some
aspects of Western educational discourse, they teach you what to think, not how to think,
		
00:53:37 --> 00:54:10
			is the profound difference studying anthropology study, education in history, and you see that we're
in institutions that teach us what to think this is why if you just review the evolution theory,
you've seen as an idiot, or naive creationist, or persona should be dealt with, or given any
validity, this chain. So Stephen Hawking, which I respect, he said in his book, The grand design,
that you can have the universe, self created. And he's assuming two things though, his book number
one,
		
00:54:11 --> 00:54:15
			the quantum vacuum is their number two, gravity.
		
00:54:16 --> 00:54:43
			And this is because of gravity with the quantum vacuum, the universe can damage. He's assuming a few
things that the quantum vacuum is actually there in the beginning of the universe. But we've
discussed according to the Friedman lemma model, which is more coherent, that there is a spatial
temporal boundary possibilities with gravity is a law of attraction between two masses. So you must
assume the semester already.
		
00:54:44 --> 00:54:59
			And the thing is assuming the quantum fluctuation model for the origin of the universe, that the
contractor was always there, which has not validity from his perspective. So we've dealt with this
contention. So we know things concept creep, can you
		
00:55:00 --> 00:55:21
			You better serve now. So that options out the window. We have two left guys, we need to answer the
most fundamental question that you've been debating about for 1000s of years. Okay. It was created
by something else created. It was created, but something was created ultimately. Well, let's think
about if this universe universe one
		
00:55:23 --> 00:55:32
			university and this universe with three rounds forever. Will we ever have universe one?
		
00:55:33 --> 00:55:35
			Thank you. Bye. Thank you.
		
00:55:37 --> 00:55:42
			If I'm a sniper, and I want to shoot the camera, man, yeah, cuz I'm really jealous was beautiful
quick.
		
00:55:46 --> 00:55:47
			You must like got it, bro.
		
00:55:55 --> 00:56:09
			So if I want to show you the counterman permission from the students officer, right? And she says,
You know, I don't know. Is it Paul policy? This Think about it, you know, student rights, UK have
been speaking about.
		
00:56:10 --> 00:56:17
			So we don't really trust him. And should we get enough permission, they'd be lying about him as well
and using outdated cliches.
		
00:56:22 --> 00:56:26
			She says no permission with the system behind her. And the sister says,
		
00:56:28 --> 00:56:29
			You agreed that looks like it.
		
00:56:33 --> 00:56:39
			So she asked mixed permission, if that goes on forever. Am I ever gonna shoot him? No. This is why
		
00:56:40 --> 00:56:42
			classical scholar and elegant.
		
00:56:46 --> 00:57:05
			And you can find this work from academic book published by Bill code ebtb is your co venture
optimism. He says if this was the case, we would have non existence. This is why I said in the
beginning if he denied of existence, you deny yourself Do you think this is going back forever? You
never had the universe in the first place.
		
00:57:06 --> 00:57:07
			Do you see?
		
00:57:08 --> 00:57:55
			Now that Oh, it couldn't be created by something else that was created like another universe. So the
best explanation is what ladies and gentlemen brothers and sisters and friends. It was created by
something uncreated, from irrational necessity perspective, because all the other possibilities are
incoherent, invalid, unsound. Therefore the universe was created by something uncreated. This
doesn't mean is God, Allah, Jesus, Buddha, all the 3800 names, we've been debating about 6000 bc
scenario, we don't know. But when we keep on using our minds, using conceptual analysis is a big
word of just think, yeah. If you just think, then this creator must have at least six attributes.
		
00:57:55 --> 00:57:56
			Number one.
		
00:57:58 --> 00:58:07
			Why? Because it's uncreated. by necessity, if it was created, we have the problem of the infinite
regress as we just discussed, so must be observed.
		
00:58:09 --> 00:58:14
			It must be powerful. Why must it be powerful, because it could be the entire US,
		
00:58:15 --> 00:58:43
			it must be intelligent, or knowing why? Because there are laws in the universe. As Allah says, In
the Quran, that we created everything we measure, and the sun and the moon, they have been created,
and they travel according to calculate and measure the means and the balance the measure. So there
are certain rules in the universe. And it will give a imply that intelligence
		
00:58:54 --> 00:58:55
			must be one
		
00:58:57 --> 00:59:17
			of verses in the Quran could go ahead, say God a lot that data is a What does it mean? Why one means
uniquely, one exclusively? One? Why, if he's powerful, he must have absolute powers and secret the
whole universe? Can you have to accept powerful beings,
		
00:59:19 --> 00:59:29
			it's an impossibility because they have to impose their absolute will. And if that's the case, if
you use the argument for an exclusion, then the issue would be that someone's goal must be
		
00:59:30 --> 00:59:37
			manifested to be absolute. If they both agree to have their own domain, they don't have absolute
wills anymore.
		
00:59:39 --> 00:59:47
			If one overpowers the other, the one has absolute and the other doesn't. So if you go to all the
logical possibilities of this example,
		
00:59:48 --> 01:00:00
			it must be one because you have an old have been also if you use the principle of Occam's razor,
which basically says, Do not multiply entities do necessity or something
		
01:00:00 --> 01:00:30
			simplest and most comprehensive explanation is the best explanation for the origins of the universe
and all powerful the singular, unique being, is has far more explanatory power that singles two or
three, because you you raise more questions, how do they direct with themselves? How can they be
three or more powerful? Do they have absolute will? How do you know there's another one? Do you see
raises follow up questions. So according to this philosophical principle, the simplest and most
comprehensive explanation of the best explanation, there's one
		
01:00:31 --> 01:00:32
			point
		
01:00:35 --> 01:00:36
			it must have a way
		
01:00:38 --> 01:01:14
			for soccer terminology, in a way, and this is significant. Why must they have a will, since it's a
channel and employ to existence the universe that began special type of boundary infinite doesn't
make sense. It's easy to zero. If it was a journal, and you brought to existence something that
began it means it chose the universe to come into existence. And choice indicates a wave and it will
indicate some personality or it can have a conscious relationship with beings in the universe. It
hasn't read a lot and when
		
01:01:17 --> 01:01:18
			I said 16 I
		
01:01:20 --> 01:01:21
			guess the sixth one.
		
01:01:24 --> 01:01:25
			This is my wife
		
01:01:28 --> 01:01:58
			came into my head. The sixth one is it must be immaterial. transcendence of the Quran says LASIK,
committed cliche, there is nothing like going to him. So he's not part of the universe. We don't
believe in pantheism or is made of the universe. This is actually what we should in Islam.
polytheism categorically says, lays the committee he shaved there is nothing. And a good example to
show you this is if I create the chair to I become the chair.
		
01:01:59 --> 01:02:06
			This is why many other scholars said the divine reality is distinct and destroyed from creation
		
01:02:08 --> 01:02:14
			is distinct and distinct from creation. What we just described it using our minds.
		
01:02:15 --> 01:02:21
			Doesn't sound like a spaghetti monster to me. As somebody who say, or the flying people.
		
01:02:22 --> 01:02:24
			This is a lot of a lot
		
01:02:25 --> 01:02:31
			of charter. Good. Who Allahu Ahad en la semana. Let me read whatever you let me
		
01:02:32 --> 01:02:51
			say, God, Nick is one that I know he gets not forgotten. There is nothing I can tell him all the
principles we've just discussed. So how can we deny the existence of God from this perspective, you
would have to not only break down this argument, but provide an alternative, which is in Iran do
today.
		
01:02:53 --> 01:03:06
			So this was existence in the remaining final few minutes, and now we've taken a long time. But it's
been a very nice journey, enormous point asleep, and no one has left the room, which is good,
because he's
		
01:03:08 --> 01:03:08
			close windows.
		
01:03:10 --> 01:03:18
			So let's now talk about revelation. Now, as we said in the beginning, the Quran is a book that makes
you think,
		
01:03:20 --> 01:03:23
			full stop. period is the Arab said
		
01:03:24 --> 01:04:09
			and it makes you think that's why all the verses pertain to my life in the universe, in perfect
Cameroon, for those who reflect these verses are what you would call it comes under the Battle of
the year, in the sciences of the oneness of God, to be against the Lordship or the creative
capacities of the Divine. These verses are always used as a premise for which means to worship the
divine to understand the oneness. They know that to give you the ins and outs of The Big Bang Theory
or to give you specifics of science or to give you how the human body works. Now the job is not to
do that. The Quranic verses are what you would call teleological which means that therefore, certain
		
01:04:09 --> 01:04:13
			purpose to make you think, to make you think
		
01:04:15 --> 01:04:16
			this is why
		
01:04:17 --> 01:04:22
			the Quran transcends this as well, because not only does it make you think,
		
01:04:24 --> 01:04:35
			but it challenges everybody intellectual, that doubt the authorship of the book. The Quran says in
the second chapter, the 23rd verse will include to add meaning
		
01:04:37 --> 01:04:40
			to be sold immediately he was approached
		
01:04:41 --> 01:04:46
			by the team, and if you're in doubt about this book, we are sent out to our server,
		
01:04:48 --> 01:04:50
			referring to the Prophet Mohammed, so all
		
01:04:51 --> 01:04:59
			from the peace, then bring one chapter like you and call new witnesses and supporters besides God,
if you're truthful, this was
		
01:05:00 --> 01:05:11
			As to the linguistic and literary inevitability to Quranic discourse, there is something about the
nature features structure of the Arabic language in the Quran, that makes it a miracle.
		
01:05:13 --> 01:05:32
			And this miracle transcends the scientific miracles that Muslims have been talking about, because
science is limited is time dependent, it changes over time is not going to give you absolute truth
because of this methodology, studied the philosophy of science for you to understand this, the power
of induction, the problem is methodology, etc, etc.
		
01:05:34 --> 01:05:47
			But language is rational. If you say the theory of language, the philosophy of language of the mind,
you read the words of Chomsky from Autobots political works to linguist By the way, who studied
linguistics?
		
01:05:49 --> 01:05:49
			No.
		
01:05:50 --> 01:06:16
			He's a linguist. And he talks about the innate theory of language that we have a concept of
language, which is independent of experience in built, so it's rational. And this argument is more
profound than a scientific argument. Why? Because it's timeless, you're never going to get the 30th
letter of the Arabic language, you're never going to get another grammatical rule, you're never
going to get another word in the classical tradition,
		
01:06:17 --> 01:06:32
			it will find a set of tools because they will is time dependent you have to change them with a big,
you know, keep these variables dependent and have independent variable and hypothesis. No language
is static in the Arabic classical tradition is finite.
		
01:06:33 --> 01:07:02
			And the argument here is, you know, the grand challenge the best people place to meet the challenge,
but they failed, they exhausted the final tools available all the classical Arabic and couldn't
produce the nature structure feature of the crab. This is why Professor of Law, he said he was a
British Orientalism translator he said, although several attempts have been made to change the
Quran, none of it succeeded.
		
01:07:03 --> 01:07:19
			So let's, let's be very specific here. And I want to resist further use of profound arguments. Let's
concentrate on one aspect of the uniqueness of the client language, which is the unique literary
form literary
		
01:07:20 --> 01:07:21
			form.
		
01:07:23 --> 01:07:33
			Now generally, in Arabic language brothers, sisters and friends, we have what you call this the
Arabic language called a here we have pros.
		
01:07:36 --> 01:07:40
			And here we have the broad categories. Okay.
		
01:07:43 --> 01:07:53
			Pro promises further split into what you call set up, which is writing prose and WhatsApp, which is
straightforward speech.
		
01:07:55 --> 01:07:58
			Poetry has 16
		
01:08:00 --> 01:08:23
			which are rhythmical patterns. Okay, the rhythmical patterns approach. Let's define in an objective
way, because one counter argument to this argument is, well, it's all subjective language is
subjective. I'm not talking about this in a chef nouman Ali Khan way, which is fantastic. He has
revived the audience. May Allah bless and represented is the best thing has happened since
		
01:08:25 --> 01:08:29
			sliced bread. Yeah, whatever we say, but may Allah preserve him, okay. I refer to him all the time.
		
01:08:31 --> 01:08:53
			But I'm doing this from a philosophical perspective for a Western audience. So we don't make it
subjective per se, are based on aesthetic reception. All of this will I'm going to talk about is
based on observable features, not on your emotional reaction to the words is based on observable
features, which makes it objective okay. So let's define these properties.
		
01:08:55 --> 01:08:59
			Such an outline code is defined in the following way. Okay.
		
01:09:00 --> 01:09:04
			Number one, it has an accent based rhythmical pattern,
		
01:09:05 --> 01:09:08
			accent based rhythmical pattern.
		
01:09:09 --> 01:09:24
			And for example, accent based compasses are based on the stresses of the sellers of the web. For
instance, Baa baa black sheep, have you any more total Michigan is an accent basically,
		
01:09:25 --> 01:09:27
			it ends with a rhyme
		
01:09:29 --> 01:09:39
			and had a concentrated use of rhetorical devices. Now rhetorical devices in language is language
that intends to please or persuade,
		
01:09:40 --> 01:09:59
			okay language that intends to please or persuade. And you could research all these rhetorical
devices all you have as soon as an iteration and emphasis etc, etc. So, this is a definition and you
could go to the works of Devin j students in the Encyclopedia of the Quran and in other journals
where he discusses the
		
01:10:00 --> 01:10:04
			form of writing prose. Okay. Now,
		
01:10:05 --> 01:10:19
			massage is straightforward speech, just like I'm speaking to you today with no divisions it will
drive or accent, rhythmical pattern or syllabic rhythmical pattern. Poetry is defined the following
way has arrived.
		
01:10:21 --> 01:10:30
			And it has a metrical pattern called the Bihar and these are based on the length of syllables, the
syllabic
		
01:10:31 --> 01:10:39
			rhythmical pattern. So, for example, one record at a time he goes like this, but
		
01:10:42 --> 01:11:03
			shows the long, long, short, long, long, short, long long votes. Yeah. So, that's one of the 16
reciprocal practices codified by can even admin in the eighth century, and there are variations to
these patterns, but they all agree to certain categories. Now, the Quran is none of this.
		
01:11:04 --> 01:11:31
			These scopes Arabic language, transcends it. But every time you speak, the text producer, the orator
always has his language falling into either poetry by prose, or massage or any of the subdivisions
there are many other subdivisions like Cain, etc, etc. But the Quranic discourse, art language, in
many ways, technicalities, but it transcends
		
01:11:32 --> 01:11:38
			right close because even David G. Stewart, the scholar, he said, You can't call the
		
01:11:39 --> 01:12:15
			Quranic set up his own form, literary form, even new new concern, in his book, The mid 20th century
book concerning the history of Arabic literature, he says that, although some people claim Rose is
totally distinct from my prose, they didn't know where to put it. And the reason for that is because
the Quran has a tendency to mono rhyme, whereas in writing prose, it has a variable, right? This is
why the craft over 50% of the craft ends in one letter, the letter
		
01:12:17 --> 01:12:22
			was the new and the English equivalent,
		
01:12:23 --> 01:12:25
			which is an amazing phenomenon.
		
01:12:26 --> 01:13:09
			And also it has a greater use of rhetorical devices knowing that the appreciation of them, but the
frequency, if you take the shortest chapter, the Grand Slam and Tel Aviv is chapter one of 810
words, but over 25 rhetorical devices, unknown in any classical Arabic literature. So it transcends
right falls in this perspective, more rhetorical devices will always go straight for speech, because
its own rhythm is Orion. And its own use of rhetorical features. We know it's called poetry, because
the totality of any chapter in the Quran doesn't agree with the lbr with the syllabic rhythmical
patterns.
		
01:13:11 --> 01:13:11
			So the
		
01:13:13 --> 01:13:15
			the Quran, but every time you try to produce something,
		
01:13:17 --> 01:13:31
			straightforward speech or poetry, it was never unique, the crime always maintained is this distinct
distinction, a disc of the Arabic language? And you may think, well, how does it make it a miracle?
Well, let me discuss what we mean by
		
01:13:32 --> 01:13:41
			American Islamic tradition is an act of impossibility. When we saw Moses, he threw the staff down,
what are they turning to?
		
01:13:42 --> 01:13:43
			And what do they eat?
		
01:13:45 --> 01:13:52
			steak, they ate the other snakes. This is an actual possibility, because a inanimate
		
01:13:53 --> 01:13:59
			object, a cadet piece of wood can never turn into a snake. That's an illusion is an act of
impossibility.
		
01:14:01 --> 01:14:02
			So we'll look at these type of miracles.
		
01:14:04 --> 01:14:11
			A miracle in exotic traditions an active possibility. It's not by the way, it is not, by the way.
		
01:14:12 --> 01:14:53
			Breaking natural law, as David Hume said, Because incoherent because what natural laws, there's
patterns we perceive in the universe. If something breaks that pattern, it doesn't mean it doesn't
mean it's a miracle. Maybe we didn't know the pattern properly, or it's an exception to the data.
No, we haven't been looking hard enough because this inductive generalization is based on the power
of extrapolate that therefore is always going to be like this. So that definition of a miracle is
incoherent, and actually possibilities more coherent. And we see the Quranic act of impossibility.
Why? Because when we go to the nature of the atoms in the Arabic language,
		
01:14:54 --> 01:14:59
			and this is the Quran, we can't explain the Quranic features, because we go we go
		
01:15:00 --> 01:15:10
			Those over 20 letters that are the language the final. The final words are can ever produce the
literary form of the content. That is an act of impulsivity.
		
01:15:11 --> 01:15:48
			Therefore it's a miracle. It is no wonder Professor Bruce Lawrence, from Duke University in his
book, The biography says on page number eight Quranic verses as tangible signs are expressive of an
inexhaustible truth. They signify meaning namely meaning light upon light, miracle after miracle.
Dr. Martin is up from the Netherlands discussing the lexical items of words in the Quran. He says
notwithstanding pre Islamic poetry, the Quran is the most eminent written manifestation of the
Arabic language.
		
01:15:49 --> 01:15:50
			Interestingly,
		
01:15:51 --> 01:15:54
			some people say what about Shakespeare
		
01:15:56 --> 01:16:01
			that Barker, the famous atheist debates in Minnesota, that was his only contention to this argument.
		
01:16:02 --> 01:16:06
			And I said Shakespeare all shot the ball.
		
01:16:08 --> 01:16:17
			He was not unique. Even Google, this is a whole scholarly essay on his phone. Firstly, the likes of
Christopher Marlowe
		
01:16:18 --> 01:16:21
			use the same kind of style of Shakespeare.
		
01:16:22 --> 01:16:28
			Also Shakespeare style for literary form was described as the I am big
		
01:16:29 --> 01:16:30
			pentameter.
		
01:16:33 --> 01:16:37
			Also, he had cake meter.
		
01:16:38 --> 01:16:45
			Also you have blank verse, which is like the heavy protector but without the without the divisions.
		
01:16:47 --> 01:16:55
			That is technical, but you can research this for yourself. For instance, pentameter, you have two
items, like this, for example, explain
		
01:16:56 --> 01:16:57
			10 syllables
		
01:16:59 --> 01:17:13
			1234512345. And then meters like that, okay. And this was used and replicated by many English
scholars. So from this perspective, he's not unique for the Quran is from a literary form
perspective.
		
01:17:14 --> 01:17:53
			Also, another contention is while the Quran was the source of Arabic, that's how Arabic was
developed. So how can you say some miracle is the source of the language in the best place? This is
internet scholars? are atheists running around on the internet, saying 100 Buddhists debunked? Yeah,
or 100? Jesus x bones? Yeah, that's the new atheist narrative and uses mockery and ridicule in a
profound way, just to get the argument across there. But let's just deal with it now. So if you
choose to send it to you, so this is the argument they say the Quranic Arabic language, what is
actually wrong, you've been reading a liberal text of Arabic. Now, if you read the works of chef
		
01:17:54 --> 01:18:12
			Hamza, and if you go to some of his courses on the eloquence of the Quran, what you'd see is that
there was a period of grammar and language in Arabic. It was a few 100 years before the Qur'an, a
few 100 years after she had presented poetry
		
01:18:13 --> 01:18:22
			poses on Poetry and Literature and prose. And they picked this source period. And they said, any
grammatical rule, whether its exception
		
01:18:24 --> 01:18:32
			must exist in all of these forces. Which means if you go to the court and you see a deviation from a
grammatical norm,
		
01:18:33 --> 01:18:42
			and you want to claim that is normal grammar is an exception because of rhetoric, it has to be found
in pre Islamic poetry, or in post Islamic poetry books.
		
01:18:44 --> 01:19:04
			So the crowd was not only the source, if you took the crap outside of the source period, you would
still have the Arabic language this is why in exegesis when you study the Quran, and they go to find
a ladder they're a linguistic term to find this meaning they don't make it up themselves because the
perhaps it's so they go to preside poetry
		
01:19:06 --> 01:19:07
			intimate scholarship,
		
01:19:09 --> 01:19:23
			Chicago students come up to me worried because it's so one of these views of internet thinking, the
crime of America anymore. Shame. So that deals with this contention. Finally, we're gonna finish in
four minutes.
		
01:19:25 --> 01:19:30
			I want to show you now that you don't have to know any of this to prove it's a miracle.
		
01:19:31 --> 01:19:32
			You could stick to your Bangla
		
01:19:34 --> 01:19:37
			or you cashmere, your milk pudding, whatever language you speak.
		
01:19:38 --> 01:19:46
			And remember I said in the beginning, if you reject the crown, you reject your mother. Right? Who is
brave enough to prove to me that their mother is really demo?
		
01:19:54 --> 01:19:56
			Guys, if your mom was here, oh my god.
		
01:20:04 --> 01:20:09
			Oh, what's your name? Ibrahim with such a beautiful name as
		
01:20:11 --> 01:20:15
			queer mama say mama only believe in you because we're gonna have a DNA test tomorrow.
		
01:20:18 --> 01:20:20
			Why do you believe in her now that she's your mother?
		
01:20:22 --> 01:20:23
			Nope. Whose
		
01:20:24 --> 01:20:25
			smell? Yeah.
		
01:20:30 --> 01:20:31
			Cool guys.
		
01:20:33 --> 01:20:36
			She told you did reality and it was make it personal.
		
01:20:38 --> 01:20:53
			I only believe my mother's my mother because of testimony. She told me, midwife told me, my dad told
me three people say there's no physical proof evidence, anything, it's testimony.
		
01:20:55 --> 01:20:58
			Somebody going to argue if you reject the Quran, you reject your mother.
		
01:20:59 --> 01:21:16
			Because this argument is still based on testimony. And this is let me justify why me believers in a
study of knowledge, we have something called authentic, authentic testimony as the morning and
According to Professor,
		
01:21:18 --> 01:21:19
			Professor Cody,
		
01:21:21 --> 01:21:22
			Professor key
		
01:21:23 --> 01:21:24
			later
		
01:21:26 --> 01:21:34
			they discuss that we cannot reject authentic testimony. Because it's like rejecting the world is
round.
		
01:21:36 --> 01:21:39
			who studies geology, physics science
		
01:21:40 --> 01:21:41
			proved to be the gold
		
01:21:43 --> 01:21:44
			standard
		
01:21:51 --> 01:21:52
			whatever.
		
01:21:56 --> 01:21:59
			This way, or that way, you know what I mean?
		
01:22:02 --> 01:22:03
			Yeah.
		
01:22:04 --> 01:22:05
			Oh,
		
01:22:07 --> 01:22:10
			evidence that actually is a diamond.
		
01:22:15 --> 01:22:16
			Diamond.
		
01:22:19 --> 01:22:21
			Just because someone took a photo of something, they said.
		
01:22:24 --> 01:22:25
			Sounds like estimating
		
01:22:32 --> 01:22:34
			the radius? Okay.
		
01:22:37 --> 01:22:37
			Okay, we did it.
		
01:22:39 --> 01:22:40
			Did we do that?
		
01:22:44 --> 01:22:45
			no proof
		
01:22:47 --> 01:22:49
			that you have to make an inference to then prove it.
		
01:22:51 --> 01:22:59
			Because you could say the shadow is that law, or you can prove is that maybe the earth is like this.
		
01:23:02 --> 01:23:04
			You make the rest of the inference.
		
01:23:10 --> 01:23:24
			And you complain about the Christian Flat Earth creationists. And you seem the old irrational, we
kind of improve the waters around, the only proof we have is because of a photo and your geologists
told you and some book told you. And that's it.
		
01:23:27 --> 01:23:31
			You know, I had a discussion with an atheist friendly discussion, but I tend to be mad at the end.
		
01:23:33 --> 01:23:37
			Because he was the same look around
		
01:23:39 --> 01:23:43
			because you can have knowledge he wasn't leading up to
		
01:23:46 --> 01:23:52
			you claiming all these nice claims. You saw it? You could do this. And you
		
01:23:54 --> 01:23:59
			know, you can see the horizon is a little curved round. What
		
01:24:01 --> 01:24:01
			do you
		
01:24:03 --> 01:24:05
			know? So logic seems irrational to
		
01:24:06 --> 01:24:17
			you kind of previous round? And you saw it right? They said, Yes. And you said what you said we
could do the shadows. But you do the experiment? No. So you shouldn't
		
01:24:19 --> 01:24:21
			you do the experiment. Don't believe anyone has a destiny.
		
01:24:24 --> 01:24:52
			And the whole debate was for us And the world is flat. And he gave me the shadow example, the shadow
example to prove the ground. And I want to name our game. And what I mentioned to him, what does the
law say about the alternation of the nine day leave? Which is like putting a turban around something
that's the word to revolve around or turning around. So you just put in the crime. Thank you very
much. I like saying these stories makes me feel really good.
		
01:24:54 --> 01:25:00
			So so your testimony, just like China existing. How do you know China exists?
		
01:25:00 --> 01:25:01
			Please Chinese
		
01:25:05 --> 01:25:06
			niihama
		
01:25:07 --> 01:25:08
			me when
		
01:25:10 --> 01:25:11
			I said He's very handsome.
		
01:25:15 --> 01:25:55
			So he knows he's dead ignore him. For the majority of us. We've never been to China before, never
spoken to a Chinese person before in China never had Chinese food in China. So I know China exists
because of testimony, pictures, videos, other accounts, you don't have direct experience. So we do
have some solid knowledge claims like the voters round your mother's your mother and China exists
based upon authentic testimony. Now, how does it relate to the crown? Well, the authentic testimony
of the crown is that no one has been able to challenge the Quran.
		
01:25:57 --> 01:26:07
			The authenticate test to me by authentic scholars, Western and Eastern Muslim and non Muslim,
Professor Robinson matienzo, Professor, Anthony Jones,
		
01:26:09 --> 01:26:30
			even in the past, who managed to Johnny beat me to be even in consensus in leading consensus in
immunity consensus, that no one has been able to change the Quran. That's the authenticated
testimony. So we have a few possibilities. Did it come from an Arab?
		
01:26:31 --> 01:26:35
			Sea? Since we have this authentic testimony? Did it come from another?
		
01:26:37 --> 01:26:45
			Did it come from himself upon him? VPS? Or did it come from God? We're not going to come from an era
because the best apps fail to change.
		
01:26:46 --> 01:26:56
			And they were linguish par excellence 1400 years ago, this way, why Alamo here are the famous
linguist of the time, he said bytecode this can come from a human being.
		
01:26:58 --> 01:27:09
			It can come from today's Arabic today that has suffered linguistic degeneration. So go to a village
in Iraq and tell them to say what is that thing and above all, you know, that was saying,
		
01:27:10 --> 01:27:11
			this delay
		
01:27:12 --> 01:27:13
			missile when
		
01:27:16 --> 01:27:20
			you go to Egypt and you say, pick up there, to the food
		
01:27:23 --> 01:27:23
			angle.
		
01:27:26 --> 01:27:37
			So that linguistic degeneration can come from not Arabic content from the Prophet Muhammad, peace
because he was allowed to, he didn't cultivate any special signs of political English to
		
01:27:39 --> 01:27:59
			also come from a psycho linguistic perspective, none of the emotions of the life of the Prophet
Muhammad upon peace in the Quran, a remains in the divine voice. We see the conditions are distinct
installed, and itself. We know that any human expression, no matter how genius, if you have the
blueprint, it can be replicated.
		
01:28:00 --> 01:28:25
			That's why Shakespeare, they claim Cusumano this office works when we have art that replicates the
art of post modernism and post Impressionism. It's a good replica, they know the blueprint, the
style structure, the brushstrokes, the colors, the material, but we have the Quran today, the
blueprint is alive 1400 years old, but we can't use it to emulate it.
		
01:28:27 --> 01:28:37
			So it can't be nice. Therefore, the best explanation is from God, we don't even need to know what
this is. What this is.
		
01:28:39 --> 01:28:50
			This is or any lecture in Arabic language, you just have to agree with authentic testimony. Draw the
logical conclusion. And if you reject this not from God, please call your mother
		
01:28:56 --> 01:29:16
			Lake you've been a great audience or lions been I don't know how long an hour May Allah bless you.
We may have q&a depending on our timers run on Evo is because I'm weak, because my village in Greece
could run many interrupts Northwest and you ask the old man and most the time you know what he does?
		
01:29:19 --> 01:29:22
			He transcends time. And goodness you guys sound like
		
01:29:31 --> 01:29:34
			fantastic and entertaining and incorporating