Lecture Islam – The Rational Belief
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Channel: Hamza Tzortzis
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AI Generated Summary ©
The history and meaning behind the Arabic language in the writing process are discussed, including its use in court and media, its flawed definition of "igrams," and its importance in Christian faith. The speakers stress the need for a scientific approach to understanding the universe and the importance of perception and knowledge for avoiding false conclusions. They also touch on the flawed theory of knowledge and the need for a scientific approach to measuring realities.AI Generated Transcript ©
Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim in Alhamdulillah wa Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah to proceed. Brothers, sisters, friends,
respected guests,
scholars, arena.
Everybody, I greet you the woman is I'm a greetings of peace. Assalamu alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu.
Please basically means for those who don't know me the Peace and blessings of God be upon every single one of you.
Islam, the most rational belief. Now this for many would seem an absurd assertion, because in the 21st century, we see an array a myriad of intellectual movements and groups that actually are stating the opposite. You have the new atheist movement, which is quite successful.
You have them saying that religion, and particularly Islam is backward, immoral, unjustified, can't verify itself is without an intellectual grounding or foundation. For example, you have one of the spokesman of the new atheist movement, Richard Dawkins, he would point the finger at Islam, even though he admits that he hasn't read the book of Islam, which is the Quran itself. You have the likes of Professor Lawrence Krauss, who is now an upcoming figure in the atheist movement, he is the well respected cosmologists and physicist and an advisor to Obama concerning science. And he says, Islam must be belittled intellectually from its own foundation. So you have these types of movements
that won't agree with this assertion. And it's not just the atheist movement, you'd have, for example, the Christian movement, the evangelical movement, who would disagree with some of the assertions that Islam makes, then you have the humanist movement, which I would call friendly atheists, because humanists, they're nice people, they have human value, they respect lots of different traditions, but the the atheist, so you have the humanist movement that's quite successful. Also, in the West, especially in Northern Europe, and parts of western Europe, you have this movement, trying to articulate a case that you can lead a good life. without religion, you
can't lead a good life without God.
And we have another movement, which relates to the atheist and the humanist movement, which we'll call the secularist movement, which is attempting to secularize nations, from a political perspective, is trying to divorce the idea of religion, or the divine reality from public, or the political social sphere. So this is just a taste of some counter movements to the Islamic movement, which are basically saying that actually is slom is not a rational belief. It's an irrational belief. So how do we solve this competition in the marketplace of competitive ideologies, worldviews, ideas and concepts. How do we deal with this, I would argue we have to use the rational
method. And what I mean by the rational method is not science. And we have to be very clear with this. So we don't end up making the same mistakes that we make regularly. Do not conflate the scientific method, and the philosophy of science with reason. They're not equivalent. They're not mirror images, they're not exactly the same thing. And I think we need to have a little bit of a discussion concerning the scientific method and the philosophy of science to actually show how reason differs from these things, because we live in the age of scientism. And I think this is why the new atheist movement has become quite successful, because scientism is based on two things.
There's a social aspect of scientism, and a philosophical aspect. Now what is scientism? scientism is the assertion that all truths are propositions. All facts can only be established using the scientific method. I repeat, scientism is the philosophical metaphysical assertion that all truths must be established using the scientific method. And this itself is as a result of
Have a social perspective and a philosophical one. The social perspective is based on the layman. science works.
I go to hospital, you have technology.
I have the iPhone, the iPad, science works must be true.
So there's the social aspect concerning this view on scientism, that science is the only way to form conclusions about man life, and the entire cosmos. The philosophical one is what I would call a very crude type of empiricism or, and Logical Empiricism, or a type of logical positivism, which is basically that, you know, all assertions, all assertions, or truthful claims, or claims that we believe to be true, must be backed scientifically. Now, the big problem with this from a philosophical perspective to think about this, is that statement itself is self defeating. It's the equivalent of me saying, there are no sentences in the English language longer than three words.
But I've just spoken a sentence in the English language longer than three words, or it's the equivalent of me saying, I don't know how to speak one word of the English language.
It's a self defeating
construct, because I just spoken a word of the English language, a couple of words. And that's what scientism is, this assertion is self defeating, because the assertion that science is the only way to form conclusions about things cannot be proven by sciences.
issued this open the book.
So let me repeat. So you get this in your mind, the assertion that science is the only way to form conclusions about things cannot be proven by science.
That's the first
error. The second one is that science cannot prove a necessary truth, like logical mathematics. What's one plus one?
A collective two. Yeah.
Two is not three is not five. It's two. These are logical, necessary truths. And they're not just mere empirical generalizations. And to prove this, let me give you a test. What is one Fufu law class one Fufu law,
what an Earth is the Fufu law,
you have no empirical justification for Fufu law, but you know from an abstract logical perspective, one something plus another something is going to be to have that thing. So he shows his non empirical justification, it is necessary before you have empirical justifications. So science cannot prove that which is necessary for science to occur, which is a logical, necessary truth.
Another reason why the claim that finds the only way to form conclusions about things why that claim is wrong, is that science cannot prove moral truths, or aesthetic truths. Imagine going to your wife and saying, honey bunny.
I really love you. And then she replies, shut up.
Don't have those chemicals firing in your brain.
You reduce love to this reductionist perspective.
What about moral truths? Science generally tells us what is it doesn't tell us what ought to be. And you can't get an order from an end. Although we know one of the new atheist, grandfather's Sam Harris, he wrote a book the moral landscape. But in a very humble way, I'm saying this in a humble way, somehow he's not a philosopher. He's actually not very intelligent guy, in my humble opinion, because he read his book even makes the conclusion that, you know, my argument is not very strong, because he tries to say that morals can be grounded in science. But that's not true at all. Because he tried to say that well being is equal to morality, because he talks about the moral landscape,
you have the peaks, and the troughs, and on the peaks, you have well being which is equal to morality, good morals, and on the trough. You have evil, which is equivalent to moral evil. Say that There you go. Science justifies morality, but there's a huge problem. If you could show someone immoral, having well being his whole landscape reduces to a rubble.
And that's what happens because if you look into some aspects of pedophilia, consensual pedophilia or
If you look as someone who has stolen from a billionaire or millionaire, these immoral acts, give them well being, and doesn't necessarily affect the well being of the victim. So therefore, you can have well being and do an immoral Act, which concludes that his moral landscape is no longer more or landscape. It's a pile of rubble. And that's very easy. There's no point writing a 200 page book concerning this. So morals can't rather science can't justify morality. Significantly, science cannot justify other epistemic routes, what do we mean by epistemic routes, we mean, other methods to knowledge, other methods to truths? Because there are other methods I remember speaking with
Professor Lawrence Krauss on this, and Professor Lawrence Krauss was almost laughing at me. I said, Look, sir, science is not the gospel truth, don't mind the pun. Science is not, you know, the only way to form conclusions about life. You have other roots to knowledge. And I said, like, authentic testimony. And he went, Oh, my goodness, oh, my goodness, you believe in testimony. I said, Wait a minute. Just be careful here. Look, I just do the science. And I said, fair enough. We'll do this science then. And I said to him,
Do you believe in evolution? He said, Yes. He said, Have you done all the experiments? No. So you believe in testimony.
And brothers and sisters, I know I come across quite arrogant. Yeah. And by God, I don't mean it that way. It's just my Greek Miss coming up. By the way. I'm Greek. By the way, I'm Greek. I look thoroughly Pakistani, but I'm Greek.
So the point is brothers and sisters and friends. He admitted that you have to use testimony for some things. If you go to the Berklee website on the scientific method, a key part of the scientific method is believing and trusting in the seesaw of other scientists. This is why we have consensus in the scientific community. So there is a thing called authentic invited testimony. Let me just prove this to you. Put your hand up if you believe the world is round.
Okay, everybody believes the world is round. Good. Very good. Stand up sir. Only because you have a cheeky smile
What's your name? Celine. Celine good the very sound name Silly me sound like
right I want you to prove to me that the world is round brother Salim is taking up the intellectual challenge to prove the world is round
to the world his own Salim
hasn't seen it. He hasn't seen it.
Google.
Prove to me it's round though. I want empirical scientific justification that the world is round just like your beautiful face.
Masha, Allah
can't. But you believe the world is round. Why?
testimony? Well, you've done my job for me. Thank you. It is so true. Many of us don't know the math. We don't know the geology. All we have are pictures. And we have to rely on someone see, so that that's really Earth and it's round. Many of us have never gone to a mountaintop and seen the curvature of the earth. Many of us don't know the science, we just believe what he just told us. And this is the irony. This is the irony, that many of unknown truths is based on testimony.
I remember I was having a discussion with a particular fellow who left the religion of Islam. And generally people who leave the religion of Islam in my humble, limited experience. They have a psychological problem. Something happened at home, Mom and Dad, they don't have a good relationship. So I tried to address that. It was working but then he got a little bit arrogant saying your book. The Quran is a backwards, stupid book. It says the world is flat. And I was like, Do I have time for this? Do I really have time for this? So I was like, okay, yes, this is the vote is flat. It doesn't By the way, by I agreed with him just for a moment. you prove to me it's round.
I think the one is right. You say do you prove to me is round, going? I'm telling you. He changed all colors. He went from blue to green to red. And he was trying to find an argument. He was throwing everything at me, Google
testimony.
The scientists say so testimony. And everything was based on testimonial evidence. I want proof, sir. He was getting so agitated and so frustrated, he said, you know what the alternation of the night and day?
What is the currency in the automation of the night and day,
a science for people who reflect His face was open, his mouth is open for a while. And I like using this example because it brings it personal, that testimony is actually an established route to knowledge. So if you read the works of Professor Keith Nehra, he's an emeritus professor, he read the book, The epistemology of testimony, you see that authentic and validated testimony can be a source of knowledge. If you read the work of Professor CJ Cody, who wrote the book testimony, a philosophical discussion, it was a landmark book, but opened up this discussion on epistemology, which is the study of knowledge. So does everybody agree now at least that science is not the only
way to form conclusions about things? Good. And if you disagree, we could continue in the q&a. So what do we mean by reason, we mean now, using foundational truths as well, that are not contingent on empirical realities. For example, like causality. No matter what I experienced in the universe, I can never deny causality, because to deny causality would be to deny your own experience. And then you can't the philosopher.
In his critique of human reason, he was actually discussing this. And he said, Look, and I'm paraphrasing his analogy, I have a choice to see the first roll, I can see the fifth row, I can see all the way in the back. And I can reverse that perception.
However, if the lady with the camera was running towards the front, I could only see her front before I see her back. And I could never reverse that perception. the very reason that I know when I can order my perceptions, and when I can't order my perceptions, and when I can reverse my perceptions and when I can't reverse my perceptions. The reason I know this, is because of the innate concept of causality.
Perception presumes causal links. To deny causality based on perception will be equivalent of denying your own perceptions. This is what you would call a priori in philosophy, which means knowledge, independent of experience, some foundational truths that are undeniable, regardless of empirical justification. So reason is not just empiricism of science. Reason is the combination of the senses, and all the intellect and the innate truths. So when we become reasonable, I think without a shadow of a doubt, we can show that Islam is indeed irrational belief. And the way I'm going to do this in three ways. Number one, show good reasons for the existence of the Divine
reality. Number two, show good reasons that the Quranic discourse, the book of humanity, that Muslims to believe, to be from God, is from the divine reality, it is a miracle. Number three, the truthfulness of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, which means May the peace and blessings of God be upon him, these three intellectual pillars of the Islamic discourse, if we can show them to be rational, then whatever they say is rational, is the premise the foundation of a worldview is true, then what manifests from that worldview is going to be true.
And once you understand this, whether you're Muslim or non Muslim, you would appreciate the worldview, the lenses that the Muslim put on his face to see the entire world and will have a far more empathic relationship, a relationship where we can empathize with each other's perspectives, because there's no point me wearing green tinted glasses, and you're wearing yellow tinted glasses, and we're talking to each other. I'm going to be saying, Look at the wall, it's green, you're gonna say, no, it's yellow. And then we're going to be having an argument if it's green or yellow. The only way for us to understand each other is to do what exchange glosses. So this whole discussion
today is an attempt to exchange our lenses or glasses in which we see the whole world. So let's start with the first one, the existence of the Divine reality. You know, frankly, I don't know why we've been discussing this as human beings for 1000s of years. It's a dumb debate. It's a done deal. Honestly, I really believe that. I don't believe that there is an atheist movement. I mean, for me, that's an ad
The region of reason, I'm not saying this arrogantly, I'm really sincerely, I really, I just find it crazy. I just don't get it. It's like saying the world is flat. How can we have an atheist movement in the 21st century? It just doesn't make any sense to me. I think atheism is the most irrational perspective in the world, you need far more faith to be an atheist than to be a religious man, honestly, and we're going to show you this. It's like, it's like a new trend. I was in Pakistan in Lahore last year. And even in Lahore with the atheist movement. It's like smoking is like, you know, I'm cool to kill me. Honestly, it's like a trend, I don't think has anything to do with rationality
in any way, shape, or form. I mean, you know, I like to think that this is my kind of field. And when I speak to people, especially the layman, atheist, is this become another religion? You must read Richard Dawkins book on page 235.
I'm like, Whoa, is like, you know, it's like another religion. Christopher Hitchens said,
I'm like, Okay, what do you say? What's your view? And it'd be so interesting to find out when you do a survey on atheist belief, you see that they don't have reasons for their belief. It's just the belief for some of them. I was looking at some interviews of the group in Australia, that the atheist movement, the group here, they had a conference recently, and some of the thinkers so could think of who say, I'm an atheist because it's my belief when I just
said, like, whoa, whoa, that's interesting. And you can see the parallels now of the atheist movement, religious movements. You have leader figures, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Dan Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Professor Lawrence Krauss, you have books, The God Delusion, God is not great a universe from nothing left to Christian nation, interfaith? Yeah, all of these books. And he has people following the blog blogosphere, I remember I was at the world in his convention Island a few years ago. And you would see everyone around Richard Dawkins as if he was a saint.
Honestly, it was like worship like, trust me, we have a documentary coming out on this very soon. And you see if we saw empirical evidence, yeah.
Yeah, please sign my underwear or something.
You see this You don't believe me? You don't believe me? You're gonna see this. It's, it's a you know what? The atheist movement is proof of God. Do you know why? Because this the sanctification instinct coming out the instinct the need to worship, so they remove God and they just worship something else. Anyway, enough of the rhetoric Yeah.
So the existence of the Divine reality. I would argue that when we look into the Quran, the Quran gives us an amazing argument for the existence of God. And interestingly, the Quran doesn't really entertain atheism much because the Quran acknowledges that atheism is a psychological aberration is not an intellectual perspective, because humanity based upon the innate disposition, which we call fitrah, in Islam, acknowledges, acknowledges that the divine reality is not a concept. It's a precept. It's a necessary truth and undeniable truth is like saying all human beings are equal, do you really have to prove that?
Isn't that a self evident truth? like your mother is your mother, like your mother gave birth to you? That's the type of evidence is an axiomatic verified, established? preset. So it gives a few arguments. One particular argument, I think is very profound, is for example, Chapter 52, verse 35, to 36. And the Quran talks about the emergence of the human being. And the Quran says, Do you think you came from nothing? Did you create yourself? Did you create the heavens in the earth?
Bell lair, you know, indeed, you don't have any faith any perspective.
Now that Quranic exegesis which means the scholars that develop principles from the verses of the Quran,
they discussed for logical possibilities for the emergence of the universe, four logical possibilities for the emergence of the universe, and there is no other possibility. Number one, the universe came from a via nothing. Number two, the universe created itself. Number three, the universe was created by somebody else created or the universe was created or brought into being by some
One thing that was not created or not brought in to be, and I know the word created has religious undertones, but you could change it for other synonyms like brought into being. So let me repeat the four logical possibilities for the emergence of the universe. Number one, the universe came from a vine, nothing. Number two, it created itself. Number three, it was brought into being or created by something else that was created or brought into being number four, it was created or brought into being by something that was not brought into being or not created. These are the four logical possibilities for the emergence of the universe. But there is an assumption we need to prove that
actually the universe did emerge, the universe didn't begin to exist, because if the universe was always here, then you can't apply these principles. These principles only work if the universe began, as even taymiyah, one of the classical philosophers and thinkers said that everything apart from Allah is Mark, Luke, Mark, Luke, meaning created, it's my death, my death in Islamic thought means it emerged after its existence, even illegally in his defatted, to have a philosopher in his refutation of the philosophers, he talks about the emergence of the universe is not pre eternal, is not eternal doesn't have an eternal path. I think we have a deductive, strong argument to show that
the universe actually did begin to exist. And we don't have to consult cosmology or science because it comes from the inductive method. And if you study the inductive method, induction doesn't give you necessary truths. Induction gives you probabilities. Because induction is a method of thinking that you start with a limited set of data, and you generalize, or you make conclusions for the entire set. For example, if I were to go to Kiwi land, your neighbors, New Zealand, and I wanted to establish what the color of sheep were, and I count 100 sheep. And therefore, I stopped my experiment. 100 pieces of data are not, I conclude that sheep are what color white. But is that
true? There are also black sheep. I'm the black sheep of the family.
So we see that the inductive method doesn't give you necessary truth, it gives you a probability ranging from zero to 99%. Now, this doesn't mean we're going to jump out the window because gravity is based on induction, only someone stupid, reject 99% truths. But generally inside, especially in cosmology, it never reaches 99%, not even 80%. Just consult Professor Lawrence Krauss his book on cosmology, a universe from nothing, he tried to establish how the universe can come from nothing. But his nothing is something and we could discuss that later. But he even says, however, my conclusions are speculative, we don't have enough empirical information. So it's all basically
fanciful science. But let's talk about things that we know for real. If the universe never emerged, if the universe never began to exist, it means it's eternal. If the universe is eternal, it means that the history of the universe is in finite. It's infinitely long. But the question is, can you have an infinite history of past events?
You could summarize the question in this way, can you have an infinite number of anything real.
And the type of infinite we're talking about is the quantitative infinite, not the qualitative infinite. We're not talking about the relationship between the circumference and the diameter, which you have pi 3.14, and it continues ad infinitum.
That's not the type of infinites we're talking about real material infinite. And we know this type of infinity if you go to the philosophy of maths doesn't exist in the real world. For example, if we had an infinite number of bottles in this room, and I took five bottles away, how many bottles do we have left? infinity, According to Professor over here,
either to say infinity minus five. Now in a mathematical realm of discussion, based on certain assumptions, it makes sense. But in reality, if you've taken five away from another set, which is an infinite set, you must have less than that set, but you will never be able to count. Now how many bottles you have in this room, there's no quantifiable number. Let me give another example. Take the distance between myself and the cameraman. I could potentially split this distance into infinite parts, potentially, but we keep on splitting up but I can actually traverse
An actual finite the actual distance. That's why I restored to the Greek philosopher, he said the infinite, his potential is never actualized.
never actually. So in this real world, we can't have an infinite. And this is why when we apply this to the past of the universe, we know the past of the universe cannot be infinite. So therefore, it must be
finite. And if it's finite, it began to exist. If it's finite, it emerged. So it's a very simple proof that you could show that the universe began to exist. So if that's the case, let's now talk about the four logical possibilities. Let's start with the first one. Let's do this together. Number one, could the universe come from nothing or via nothing? Now, this is metaphysically. absurd, even states such a thing that being can come from non being, this is impossible. You can this mathematically with zero plus zero plus zero, plus a
professor says zero. So zero plus zero plus zero is not going to be free, it's going to be zero. So when you do with nothing, which means the absence of that thing in question, you're never going to have that thing in question, because it's the absence of it. So the absence of something plus the absence of something plus the absence of something, you're going to have the absence of something. Now here we have Professor Krauss coming from left field, in his book, a universe from nothing, the amount of atheists have come up to me saying, we won, we can show the universe comes from nothing. I'm like, Oh, my God. So Professor Krauss wrote a book a universe from nothing. His nothing is
something even mentioned in Australian television program. My nothing is something physical.
So he's nothing is something so he plays with words, he's changing the question, because he doesn't like the answer. Because he's nothing is not nothing, which is a universal negation. It's actually something.
And it's equivalent, me saying, you know, I was outside earlier, and I met nobody, and they gave me directions to this hole.
And last night, I had an amazing dinner. It was nothing.
Nothing tastes great with a bit of whipped cream.
So he's changing the meaning of words. He doesn't make the correct philosophical, conceptual distinction. Now, his nothing does mean no time and space. But it does mean something physical concerning
a quantum reality. And you can see this in his book, he even establishes that nothing is actually something so he's not answering any questions.
So we're happy to say that the universe can come from nothing. However, there is another physicist or atheistic contention, which is, in the quantum vacuum, you have some subatomic events that appear from it. And therefore, something can come from nothing, because they equate the quantum vacuum with nothing. But what is the quantum vacuum? It is something it's a sea of fluctuating energy. It's a rich structure, he obeys the laws of the universe. So it's something so the universe can come from nothing. Second option, since the universe emerged, maybe created itself. But this is where we have to start laughing. How could something that came off there is non existence actually created itself?
Wouldn't it imply that something exists and doesn't exist at the same time? Can you exist and not exist at the same time?
Can your mother give birth to herself?
One ugly thought?
It's impossible. The universe can itself create, because we've deductively shown the universe began it began it means it was once non existent. If it was one month, once non existence it came into existence, how can it come into existence, by its own self, when in order for you to exist when you want didn't exist, but yet, create yourself so you can exist means that you existed before you existed? Oh, my God, I don't have a heart attack isn't absurd.
So we know the universe can create itself, but there is a biological contention. And I had a debate at the University of Birmingham in England, in the UK.
With the head of the British Humanist Association at the moment is Andrew Thompson. And he said, You're wrong. The universe can create itself.
asexual reproduction.
And I couldn't stop laughing no out of arrogance because his analogy proved my point. In asexual reproduction. You have a pre existing cell and then it splits right
How does he do that? It requires energy from outside of itself. Just like the universe requires something outside of it. So for it to appear, then that energy was flawed because it assumed the universe always existed for it to self replicate in the first place. And also it was flawed because it requires something outside of itself for it to replicate. So the analogy was in support of our thesis.
Let's go to the third option now. Could the universe emerge or be as a result of something else that was created or emerged?
Well as
the philosopher and thinker, Dr. Jeffery Idris, who's quite unwell at the moment make a prayer for him.
Dr. Jaffer Idris he basically says that if that was the case, this universe was as a result, something else that was created like another universe. So if the universe one was as a result of universe two, and the universe choose as a result, universe three, and universe three with as a result, universe four and that went on forever. Would you ever have universe one? No. This is why he quotes even to me and he says, all you would have is a state of non existence. Let me give an example practically. dominoes. We have dominoes that goes beyond the horizon. But we know the dominoes that we can see have fallen. What does it mean about the domino chain? Is the infinite or
is it finite?
Something began the whole process. Okay.
Give you another example. Say I'm a marine. And I want to shoot this brother. Not through Yeah, it's a water gun right? I will water pistol on a sprays face. In order for me to do that. I have to ask permission from this brother. But this permission given continues forever. Would I ever shoot him in the face? No. Say I came into this room and all I could hear is Hamza Hamza Hamza and echoed my name. I'm gonna assume that echo was continuing ad infinitum or it started by something outside of that noise, if you like, exactly something started, so he shows the absurdity of the infinite regress, that there must be something outside a temporal chain.
So it must be uncreated by definition. So this way, leads us to the fourth logical possibility, which is the truthful and the most accurate, and the most philosophically and rationally sound conclusion that the universe came as a result into being via something that was
not created, or didn't come into being. Now the philosopher, the philosopher and thinker, Abraham Varghese, in the appendix to Professor Anthony flues book there is a God, he makes an interesting point. He says, she is an atheist both agree on something, that something must be eternal, so that the universe, or what created the universe, so something must be eternal, they can't be the universe because it began. And whether it begins to exist has a cause. Therefore, it must be what created the universe, is the most simplest explanation. By the way, we haven't proven God exists. We've just proven
there's a cause that's uncaused.
But continuing with our rational faculties, with our reason, without logic, which I call conceptual analysis, we can come to some striking conclusions. Number one, is uncreated, must be eternal. Number two, if you created the whole universe, it must be powerful.
If you split an atom, what happens?
You have an explosion. We have billions of atoms in the universe, which were created by the divine reality by this cause, therefore, it must be powerful. Number three, it must be perpetually knowing if it's eternal, and it created establish rules in the universe. Something that creates a law is the law giver. A law giver implies knowledge and intelligence.
Number four, it must be transcendent. What I mean by transcendent as even taymiyah said that the Creator is distinct and destroying from creation. For example, if I were to create this table, do I become the table? No, I'm distinct and destroying from the table. Number five, this uncreated creator must have a will, in Islamic thought, this is a rather a will. Why am I saying this is because if this cause is eternal, and brought into existence, the universe that began at a point in time, it must have chosen the universe to come into existence, because material causes exist with the effect. For example, if we had 100 degrees Celsius for eternity past, you will have boiling
water for eternity past. The physical cause exists with its physical effect. But since it's transcendent
And it brought into existence a universe that began a point in time you must have made it chose the universe to come into existence. And choice indicates a will.
sixth and final point, the creator, the uncreated creator, must be one as the Quran says, could who were long I had, say God is uniquely one. Why am I saying this?
There are so many reasons for the oneness of the Divine reality. Let me just give you a rational principle which is called Occam's razor. Occam's razor. Some people think it means the simplest explanation No, Occam's razor is the simplest, plus the most comprehensive explanation because you can increase the complexity of the explanation. If it increases its comprehensiveness meaning it has greater explanatory scope. It answers more questions then it gives questions. Interestingly, Professor Lawrence Krauss didn't understand our constraints and even in his book he doesn't understand and he said, I know the best explanation. Zero God, Occam's razor would say there are
zero gods. I was like, This is ridiculous. How does zero have any comprehensive explanation? Zero doesn't explain anything. So Occam's razor is not only the simplest explanation, but the most comprehensive for example, if we said the three Gods is not relatively simple compared to one God, and notice that it's not very comprehensive. Why?
Because it creates more questions than it solves the answers. How do three coeternal beings created coexist? You can never answer that question.
But when you say there is one divine reality, not only is it simple, it remains as comprehensive power its explanatory scope, because the answers are the questions isn't create more questions.
This is why the Quran would say that polytheism is irrational. And you could use this principle as an example. So look what we've done. We've concluded using our rational faculties what the Quran concluded 1400 years ago
when the Quran says who Allah who I had, Allah who said lamea lead Well, um you lead well me akula, who when I had, say God is uniquely one, he is self subsisting eternal, he begets not noise he forgotten, there is nothing like unto him
20 minutes, the only 2000 years, give me 20 minutes.
There is another contention, though, oh, this is God of the gaps is the what I call an atheistic cliche.
And the God of the gaps is this. You don't know nothing about the universe is unexplained. So you squeeze God in as an explanation. This is a mis applied contention. We haven't started with a question. We haven't
kept silent and not try to answer it. We looked at the universe, we'll come to some conclusions about its finite nature. Since its finite, there are four possible conclusions we've come to the conclusion must be an uncreated creator, continuing the rational process, we've concluded some attributes, which are in line with the divine reality. Where's the good of the gaps here? We haven't said, Oh, you know, I don't know God did it. There's a big difference.
So I think we're going to healthily conclude that a divine reality exists an uncreated creator with these attributes, powerful, knowing transcendent has the will, is one and is eternal.
Sounds like God to me. So Let's now move to the Quranic discourse. So we've established the divine reality is rational. What about revelation? You know, some people think this is where we have the problem. Revelation is stupid. It's a seventh century book is backward. What's the matter with you guys? How can you follow seventh century philosophy? You want to take us back to the golden the camel? Yeah.
That's not true.
The Quranic discourse has been described by Western and Eastern thinkers, as a very intrusive text. It was to intrude in the inner dimensions of man in his Aachen in Arabic, his intellect, in his nasiha is in his internal disposition. And the way the Quran achieves this is by asking profound questions, making you think
Appala young buena 11. He came from Kolkata, Have you not seen the camel and how it was formed and how it was created?
Rafi unphysical muffaletta Tootsie rune and in themselves, do they not see? What can they can do? fasudil at the calming effect Calhoun and thus to explain our signs in detail. For those who reflect yet perfect karoon you know the word in Arabic language to reflect doesn't mean just be any type of reflection, like your desert romantic
The sun, looking at the stars, writing poetry to your loved one and drinking a pint of milk
just to make it Islamic.
Rather, the thing that you're reflecting upon, you must inquire deeply about the implications. What does it mean that there's a beginning to the universe? What does it mean that we have a consciousness that a conscious reality emerged from an unconscious reality? How can that be? So the Quran is telling you to think deeply? It is no wonder, the scholar and Professor Malik buggery in his book, contemplation, a psycho spiritual study, he says that reflection and thinking in the Islamic tradition is a neglected ritual practice is a neglected act of worship. Yes, brothers and sisters, thinking is an act of worship. But these days, and I'm talking to the Muslims specifically,
we don't think anymore. We don't think.
And it's a shame. The Quran is an existential book that is telling you to forget about your social conditioning, it says, Are you going to follow your forefathers, even if they were wrong?
That's very existential to me.
Don't be a product of your social biological engineering.
Something to think about? So you may think for a seventh century book, that's a quite interesting thing. But the crime goes even further than than this and intellectually challenges the whole of mankind. The Quran says in the second chapter, the chapter of the cow Surah Baqarah, verse 23, it says, we're in quantum theory the amendment is in
fact to be sort of a myth. He was also had acumen dunlea in quantum saw the pain. And if you are in doubt, talking to those that doubt, atheist, agnostic, Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, everybody, people who doubt even you talk to everybody. If you're in doubt about this book, we have sent down to our sermon, referring to the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, bring one chapter like it, calling your witnesses and your supporters besides God, in confirm, saw the pain if you're truthful in your claim, is challenging you. You call yourselves intellectuals. I'm an atheist, I'm an intellectual but even science. I'm acutely humanist, I believe in the post enlightenment movement.
Yeah, challenge the Quran is talking to you intellectually. It's saying challenge me. And this opens a whole array, a window of different types of arguments, linguistic, historical, natural, phenomenal, so many arguments that we can use to verify that the Quran is indeed a miracle, which means it's a signpost to the divine, a signpost to the supernatural. But in order for us to understand this, we have to understand what a miracle is. Because somebody will say, a miracle is a violation of natural law, which is wrong. That was the David Hume perspective, the Scottish skeptic. He wrote in his inquiry, that a miracle is a violation of natural law. But this country, Islamic
thought is wrong. Because what follows? laws are this pattern that we perceive in the universe. If something goes against that pattern, it doesn't mean it's a miracle. Maybe it's an exception. Maybe you haven't been looking hard enough because it's built based on induction.
So therefore, we need to have a coherent view in miracles. And this how the Quran is very unique, because not only does the Quran give us stories of the Prophet, stories of spirituality, and edifying lessons to teach us about reality, but it also gives us philosophy. Take the story of Moses, Musa alayhis salam, and Pharaoh around the moronic character, Moses, go to the court of Pharaoh. And he has he just has a stone or wood, piece of wood. And his
counterpart, if you like, the magician's of the time, they had illusionary magic, and they would have these snakes that appeared of snakes, but there were illusions. God told Moses to throw his stuff down, and he threw stuff down and he turned into a snake,
a piece of wood turn into a snake. Now, there's no edifying lessons from this. But what about considering that philosophy of miracles was showing us that a miracle is not just a violation of natural law? A miracle is an act of impossibility, meaning that when you glows naturalistic explanation, there are no naturalistic explanations, because how can a piece of wood turn into a snake? You didn't add anything? Because what's in the snake is not in the word. You have to add more things to the staff in order to even come close to create a snake. But you didn't you just throw it on the floor and it turned into a snake. So the snake bite definitely
Mission is an act of impossibility.
Or in the philosophical language, it is a miraculous event that lies outside the productive capacity of the staff. Because no matter what you do to the stock, you'll never create a snake. So from this perspective, the Quranic view in miracles is an act of impossibility, or an event that lies outside the productive scope, the productive capacity of the nature of the event. So how does the Quran apply to this? Well, there are a whole array of arguments. Number one, we have a linguistic argument. The Quran has been described as a illimitable, much less linguistic genre or literary form. in that category, Arabic language, you have some categories of literary forms, you have prose
and poetry, and they split further down into other types of categories. You have sagia, which is writing prose, Marisol, which is straightforward speech, you have mahkamah, which is a combination of prose and poetry, you have poetry, which is defined as having an end rhyme, and it conforms to 16 rhythmical patterns called the L behalf, which comes from the word baja sea. So the waves of the sea and there are 16 rhythmical patterns, codified by the eighth century, Killeen, even Achmad, after hearing the sound of the blacksmith.
So To cut a long technical story short, you had these literary forms, and every utterance in the classical tradition can be defined into these categories. But the Quran is a literary form in its own right. It's not such it's not. It's not mahkamah is no poetry. the totality of every chapter doesn't have for example, a conformity to the 16 rhythmical patterns or poetry. the totality of every chapter doesn't conform to the definitions of sajer the definition of such by the scholar Devon G. Stewart, in the Encyclopedia of the Quran and various other essays. He says that such is defined in the following way has an EN Ryan has an accent based with moko pattern, not based on
length of syllables like that. I'll be hard by an accent based with Nuka pattern based on intonation, like nursery rhymes, Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
social engineering for you there? I made you sing a song that you never seen. So yes, sir. Yes sir three bags full. The intonation is based on the accent, not the length of syllables. And also he has a concentrated use of rhetorical devices. The Quran doesn't conform to this for so many reasons. It's a unique fusion of prose and poetry that's unlike mahkamah. It also has far more rhetorical devices than any other known type of writing prose. The point here is that the crown is unique as the famous orientalist and arabist. AJ augury in his introduction to the translation of the Quran. He said, The Quran is a unique is neither prose, no poetry, but a unique fusion of both.
So from this perspective, we see that the Quran cannot fit into any of the literary forms. And this is quite interesting, because every time you combine letters and words from the classical tradition, it's always going to
categorize or fall into one of the categories of the known literary forms for the crime, the scopes any of this.
And interestingly, when you exhaust the 20 letters of the Arabic language, the finer grammatical rules, the finite word, you have those combination, you can never produce the unique literary form of the Quranic discourse.
That to me is a miracle by definition, because the Quran is a miraculous event is a, an event that lies outside the productive capacity of the Arabic language, for the crown is made of the Arabic language. Let's go to the Arabic language, combine all 28 letters, rules, classical rules, classical grammar, a gruesome you can never produce the Quran, but yet still made of the Arabic language, which means it's an event that lies outside the productive capacity of his own nature, which by definition, is an act of impossibility. It's assigned to the divine. It is no wonder Professor Bruce Lawrence, from Duke University in his book, The Khurana biography on page number eight. He said
Quranic verses, as tangible signs are expressive of inexhaustible truth. They signify meaning laid within meaning light upon light, miracle after miracle. You also have promise and Martin Zammit from the Netherlands. He said, Not withstanding pre Islamic poetry. The Quran is the most eminent written manifestation of the Arabic language.
And it continues and continues. Now you may think, wow, I don't know the Arabic language. So how on earth can I even acknowledge this? Well, let me give you another similar argument. Do you remember our discussion on testimony
survived source of knowledge.
I could use a wicked use logical deduction to conclude the Quran is a miracle without even knowing how to write one letter of the Arabic alphabet.
a logical deduction is a thinking process where you take a universally accepted statement, and you draw logical conclusions. And why is the universal accepted statement Christian in the Quran that no one has been able to match his literary form, even though we exhaust all the tools in the Arabic language.
That's a universal acceptance statement, just like the world is round. So to deny the crap you're going to see at the end is the equivalent of denying that the world is round.
So if that's a universally accepted statement, we could draw logical conclusions. Number one, did it come from an Arab? Number two, did it come from a non Arab? Number three, did it come from Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam? Or number four? Did it come from the divine reality? We know it couldn't come from an IRA because they were challenged and they failed to change the Quran, even though they had political and emotional and ideological driving force to change the Quran. The Quran disturbed this society ideologically from a worldview, those injustice, Quran what justice there was no distributive justice, the crown brought distributive justice, there was oppression of women, the
Quran liberated women, there was all of these things, the crown went against the grain, they claim agreeing that society but they couldn't challenge the Quran to the point we wanted the best linguists of the time, while it even elmyra he said, By Allah by God, this cannot come from a human being, I know the language better than you No way, Jose.
This cannot come from any human being. This is why even the best I'm not even claim that it came from Mohammed upon me peace.
And you have to understand the context here because the Arabs of that time, according to scholarship, Western and Eastern were the best expressing themselves in the Arabic tongue. As the historian even rasik says that the aisle to celebrate on two things, birth of a boy, and when a point rose amongst them, so there's a socialization of the use of language at that time.
Say can't really come from an Arab orefield
What about a non Arab?
Well, this is ridiculous. Because even the Quran says
the person that you're pointing to that is the author of this Quran so called
his tongue is no Arabic is a non Arab tongue. But this book is Arabic movie is pure Arabic.
And that's why even considered one of the extra G's of Islam said, this is a absurd argument.
So could it be from Mohammed upon bpce sallallahu alayhi wa sallam? No, because Muhammad himself was an Arab and all Arabs failed. He was not known to go to the Oscars fair, and challenge the poets with oratory and prose and poetry. He didn't have the he didn't cultivate the skills.
Also Mohammed upon to be peace
was a human being like all human beings and human expression. If the blueprint exists today, can always be emulated and imitated. Take Picasso, take post impressionist art, take money, take all the famous art pieces I've been replicated, you have the blueprint, the original, we know where the brushstrokes are, we know the texture, we know the canvas, we know the type of paint that was used the type of brush, we can imitate it, that's what you have expensive imitation. But the Quran is an expression that can be imitated, although you have the blueprint today, we know where the words are, we know where the rhythm is, we know where the accent is, we know the grammar, but we can't use the
blueprint of the Quran to create something like it like is the true form.
But if it was human expression, you should be able to imitate it.
So therefore, it's from the divine and you don't even need to know one letter of the Arabic language. You just have to accept based on authentic testimony that this book has not been successfully challenged. Therefore, they come from an Arab, do they come from a non Arab? Did it come from Mohammed upon bpce? Or do they come from the divine? It's rational.
Now there are some contentions without Shakespeare. Oh Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? denied I father and denied I name
all this make it bit cultural. Oh, Abdullah Abdullah, deny thy mother deny they try to have as many of us in the Muslim community.
Shakespeare is not unique from a structural features perspective.
Many of his work was in the I am big pentameter, intro cake verse, and in blank verse used by many other literary tools like Christopher Marlowe and others. So he's not unique structurally. And it's not based on subjective appreciation. Because people think it's a subjective exercise. No, we're not talking about the rhetorical features of the language and how great it sounds. We're talking about frequency, we're talking about structural features, which are observable and therefore objective.
So this is one miracle of the Quranic discourse. And there are many more that we could discuss in the q&a. Now, finally, in my last 10 minutes.
Let's talk about the third intellectual pillar now. Now this shouldn't be enough for a rational human being to adopt the Islamic perspective, or to even show that there's some veracity to Islam. The final one is the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, his claim to Prophethood. Now we know the problem Mohammed upon VPS, he had a claim to Prophethood he said, I am the messenger of God. Now, in order to assess this claim, we have some logical possibilities. He was lying.
He was deluded. He was both lying and deluded, or he was speaking the truth, for logical possibilities. He was lying. He was deluded. He was both lying and deluded, I was speaking the truth.
Let's assess these together by looking at the historical narratives in his life.
Could Mohammed upon would be peace be a liar?
This is untenable. rationally, why? Number one, the prophet Mohammed appointed me peace was caused by his enemies as the trustworthy
even his enemies and trusted him with their possessions.
Number two, the problem of having an appointment be peace did not make this claim for a worldly gain, no fame, no fortune. He was offered money, power, riches, women, he rejected the old just for people to adopt the message. His concern was people to understand and adopt La Ilaha Illa. Allah there is no divine reality worthy of worship, but Allah but the divine reality.
Number three,
we know he wasn't a man of fame. When the conquest of Mecca happened, there was no bloodshed, by the way, when he was walking, rather, is riding his animal into Mecca. Where was his head, almost on the neck of the beast has arisen and he was so humbled by this victory that the peace and justice of Islam entered Mecca.
And we know he wasn't a man of fame. When people came up to him. I remember there was shaking, because if it was a great king and amazing leader, he'll say, don't worry. I'm just the son of a crazy woman that used to eat dried meats. This was humility. Another adult came to see him and they went, he went into the crowd. He said, Where's Mohammed?
What does that mean? He didn't look different.
He was like everybody else. He got his hands dirty. He fixed the mosque. He built the trench. He was a man like everybody else.
I think well, number four. Number four. His psychological profile is not in line with a liar. Well lie he by God, to claim he lied is to claim no one has ever spoken the truth. It would undermine every philosophy, every epistemic science every epistemology
because trust is the basis for most knowledge. Because a psychological profile, he was so hungry at a tie two stones to stomach he was boycotted from his beloved city. He saw his companions been tortured and passed away. To me the first month of Islam. She had a spear through her private part out through her neck.
His son passed away early age his wife passed away Khadija radi Allahu Allah, may Allah be pleased with her.
He was stoned, in di F in a city by children, people that he loved. He was stoned for hours with a blood was rushing down his legs. His standard was stuck to the sand, all of this rely
all of this rely. No one sacrifices is just based on a lie. So the psychological profile is not in tune with a liar.
Significantly he was so brave in the Battle of her name. When the 1000s of arrows were coming in some of the companions had to retreat. He was too much important. What did he say? He said, I am not Elia I am the messenger of God
to claim
He's a liar. Go to your mom and say she's not your mother. Honestly, you go far more good reasons to believe that he was a messenger than your mother is your mom.
Stand up again.
I want you to prove to me how your mom gave birth to you that she gave birth to you.
me
one second he said DNA. Wait.
cuyama
I want you to say to her mum, we haven't made a DNA test. So I don't believe you that you gave birth to me. Because if that's proof that your mother's your mother, you don't have a DNA test. Call us She's not your mother. So it's not proof is it? Why do you believe she's your mother now, bro?
Cuz she told you Yeah.
Fair enough.
Anything else?
Say essentially, we have this testimony. We have our father's testimony was sometimes not trustworthy. Anyway. We have our mothers, we have the doctor, the midwife the birth certificate, we may even have a video. But that's still testimonial, because you didn't come out the way you come out now is it? So someone had to tell you that was you. So the point is all testimonial. I only like five six chains of narration. But with the Brother Mohammed appointed with these, we have 1000s of narrations concerning his reality, which are truthful variations. So to reject him with the kind of rejecting your own mother. I'm telling you, philosophically, you will get this woman rejecting this
man. If wise it is true, then please pick up the phone and reject your own mum.
That's cognitive dissonance fi. So
he couldn't be lying. So maybe he was diluted. He was a liar. Well, he was deluded, which means that he thinks he was speaking the truth was based on a false hood. Or we could annihilate this argument very simple way. Number one, there are various instances in his life, which a deluded man would use to support his delusion. You know, sometimes
don't watch TV but as as used as an example. I don't like TVs. This is a social tool. It's not very nice. Yeah. And if you have children, don't have TV prevents creativity. And cognitive development. According to neuroscience at the moment, I'm not mad Manila rejecting TV, I watch the news for God's sake. But you know, let's be newest.
Now
he's worse neighbors.
Neighbors. Everybody's gonna Yeah, we used to watch when we're little right. They sometimes you'd have the women you know, she reads like the guy. And the guy who was accidentally just the did this year.
He looked at me. Yeah. Because sometimes, you know, in those kind of soap operas, it's like, women could be seen as diluted. Yeah, not that we believe they are. But in those soap operas, this is quite anti feminist, actually. A lot of movies. Yeah.
And that's a delusion, isn't it? Oh, I must be the one. Yeah. Now, similarly, a deluded person would use instances in his life to support his delusion. But the problem we're having upon movies never did so. Quite the opposite. For example, His son Ibrahim passed away, and there was a solar eclipse. Everyone thought that solar eclipse happened at the same time of the death of your son, because he is a prophet. If he was deluded, he would have said yes, I am the chosen one. Yeah, isn't it the case? Why is it No, the sun has his own course. The moon has his own course.
And the eclipse happens for nobody's there. And there are many instances in his life that he could have used to support delusion he did it.
Also, if we look at his teachings, we know he's not a deluded person. Just take economics as example, His geopolitical view. We have capitalism destroying and killing the whole world at the moment. 20 million children die every few years, just just because of a laissez faire economic system. Go to the UNDP report. Go check them yourself. Human Being download the report. You see millions of children dying because there's no food because there's no food people.
And it's based on the capitalist geopolitical myth that there are too many needs no enough resources, which is wrong, go to the Food and Agricultural Organization. And you see that on a geopolitical study. There's enough food on this planet to feed three planets. The problem is not resources distribution.
And the Prophet Mohammed upon receipt came to solve that problem the distribution of wealth. In a prophetic tradition compiled by Timothy, he said the son of Adam needs food, shelter and clothing. He defined essential limited needs, which creates a economic philosophy of distribution, not one of excessive competition.
And it's in line with reality, whereas capitalism is not in line with reality.
And this is a small taste of the amazing, profound economic model emanating from the revelation of the prophetic traditions and the Quran itself. I'm telling you, mark my words, if Islam is going to do anything in the next 100 years, is going to save humanity from economic destruction based upon its timeless economic principles.
Trust me, read it for yourself. Read the economic system for yourself in an objective abstract way. stability, SOS poverty, read your history. Under Islam, it was the only time with state boundaries. Everyone had food, shelter and clothing. Everyone say that to the 90,000 homeless families in the UK.
Go to even Turkey, modern day Turkey. You go to Istanbul and you see the mosques, the Ottoman mosques, they have these kind of baskets that were full of gold coins. The historians say it was for the poor people, they didn't have any money to take and get their welfare for the day, their history and say it was always fun.
It is no wonder in Philip Mansell's book, the historian, Constantinople. He said, Well, actually, he cites a primary source from a Jewish rabbi, and the in 1453. And he says come to the land of the rich or the fruits of the earth when a person with heavy taxes is no wonder one of the kailis of Islam, Omar Abdullah, as he said, All people grow wheat on the top of the mountains. So people don't say that the birds were hungry.
And here we are.
complaining about why mom cooked rice last night.
Anyway, so we see that even from his teachers, he couldn't be diluted person. Or maybe he was both he was lying and diluted to four things don't make something right.
So that option is false. So there will be conclude he was speaking their truth. Let me tell you something. This is the strongest argument for Islam, in my humble opinion, because it has only one counter argument. Because if everything as it is true, you can't deny it, you'd have to be absurd, stupid and irrational to do so.
But there's one counter argument.
It's all legendary. The historical narrative you're talking about are fake, they don't exist. But let me just say something brave.
We have an amazing science of history.
It's called animal Hadeeth. The science of prophetic traditions. And in the science of Vedic traditions,
the the scholars preserved the chain of narration meaning every person in that narrative, who is transferring that narrative, a toad B and B, Toad See, not only does it preserve the chain, but they preserve the biographical data for every person in that chain. We have 10,000 pieces of biographical data for people who knew or met prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam, namely five people of Obama, five people have Gandhi even named me the disciples by full name of Jesus, we don't even know the second name.
There's no one in history that has been written about so much to the extent that even 10,000 of his followers, we have biographical data, if they were trustworthy, if they had a nickname, what job they did, where they lived, how they live, where the pious did they ever lie. This is unprecedented historically. So we have preserved each person in that chain of narration, which is good that is not in the Arabic tradition. Then we have the mutton which is the text itself. And both have criteria for authenticity, robust criteria.
For example, concerning the chain of narration, the people in the chain must have had the possibility of meeting each other. Also,
even if they lied in a joke, they would not be taken seriously. They won't be accepted in the chain.
If they lied in a joke or tricked the animal.
If they weren't seen to be pious enough, they won't be accepted.
If he was too old that his memory was decaying if you like, he wouldn't be accepted. And we have similar criteria for mutton for the text is good modern criticism. This is a robust historical science.
If you were to apply this to any document of late antiquity of antiquity, you could new never believe any of the historical works, you would even have to reject the existence of Plato, the goods are restored to the existence of Hitler, you would have to reject even Australian history, because it all came from these narratives. And we have a robust science to do so. So to reject these narratives is the equivalent of rejecting non historical truth, which leads to absurdities. That's how you deal with this contention.
Now there are other contingent containing the science, they say, this science is biased, because only Muslims narrated these traditions. But when you look at the philosophy of history, when you look at bias, for example, the onus of proof is the one who claimed bias.
And also, when we look at the narratives we know, strongly we know
that they can't be any bias because these narratives went against the Arab culture. For example, there is a prophetic tradition that says, The Prophet Mohammed upon a piece of felt of his writing animal full stop. That was embarrassing for an Arab to write that about your so called leader, he went against the grain of the cultural norm. Also, we had women going up to the Prophet Mohammed upon VPS, and showing them his signage, their sanitary towels,
to show if they're on menses or not, can we start praying now? Do we have to have the spiritual mark
this one against the culture green of the time, so you can't claim bias? from a historical perspective? Where's the proof?
Also, there's another claim, they say these chains of narration are made up. This is false, because we have chains of narration at the time of the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi wasallam, we had even physical manuscripts.
And they're preserved in B routes, and in other places in Europe.
They also say that, since you have fabricated traditions, because the science was so robust, he knew what was false. And he could tell what was accurate, or sound. They say, since you have fabricated prophetic traditions, we can't trust any of it. But that's a joke. It actually shows how robust the sciences because they could tell you what's right and it was wrong. If everything was sound, or traditions or narrations that someone attribute to the Prophet Mohammed upon, you'd be pleased. If all of them were so accurate, then you should be asking questions because the process itself doesn't differentiate horsford from truth. So these are some of the Orientals, contingent quite old now by
thought I mentioned them to show that we have answers to these questions. So to conclude, brothers, and friends, look what we've done. We discussed that science is different from reason. We discussed the absurdity of scientism, which is science is the only way to form conclusions about life. We discussed the existence of God using a Quranic argument since the universe and nerds and we could justify this, based upon the absurdity of the actual infinite in the quantifiable materialistic sense. The universe must have began if it began with you the Quranic narrative, did it come from nothing? Did it create yourself? was it created by something on created? Was it critical, something
created was a critical, something uncreated. And then we use conceptual analysis to understand that this uncreated creator must be the divine reality. Then we spoke about the Quran, it makes you think, by also intellectually, challenges mankind, and he has a whole array of miracles, one we discussed was the linguistic uniquely to reform. And we could justify this by the philosophy of miracles, as per the narrative of Moses and Pharaoh, but also we could discuss this using logical deduction, which is using any universally accepted statement and drawing logical conclusions. Could it be from an Arab? Could it be from a non Arab? Could it be from both?
Or was it from the Prophet Mohammed upon his VPS? Or was it from God? And finally, we spoke about the claim of Prophet of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and we know just by looking at his life and authentic traditions, authentic history, we know he couldn't be liar. He couldn't be diluted. He couldn't be both he must speak, he must have been speaking the truth.
Islam is rational people. It does require study. It requires us to divorce our drama from our reality. Because many of us in this room, we had our drama going on. I call it your internal radio. We all had that radio, that noise in our minds when we're trying to listen to people. Is that judgment? Oh, look at him. He thinks he's so clever.
He looks much fatter on YouTube.
I don't believe he's Greek. He looks Pakistani.
Yeah, we your I don't believe he's a Muslim Muslim is supposed to be stupid. Yeah, that's our internal radio. And it's based upon our past experiences or perceptions, and we superimpose it on the present.
And human beings are always like that we have three filing cabinets, the filing cabinet of the past, of the present and the future. All we do is we take the filing cabinet, what's inside the filing cabinet of the past, and we'll keep on putting into the future. So we're living the past, thinking that we're shaping our future, but we're never even living the present happens all the time. We allow our drama to affect our engagement with others. And I'm speaking to Muslims and non Muslims here. Let me do a test before we end.
If the non Muslim are brave enough,
when I say the word, I can just do the other way Muslims. Be honest. I'm going to give you a word now. I want you to tell me, subconsciously and consciously what comes to mind.
atheist 300. What comes to mind? Quickly? Yes. No, God
shouldn't polytheism Yes. Richard Dawkins.
Sorry.
arrogant, does
nothing.
Yes, brother.
Yes, brother.
diluted, anything else?
well educated or educated.
Anything else?
irrational, misguided people, irrational.
Anyone else?
Can't think for themselves.
Now listen to me.
pugnacious attitude,
shame on all of you. Know, I'm not kidding here.
I'm not kidding. Because when it comes to normal human beings, we should never do this. We've superimposed our limited perceptions on a human being. So when you meet, for example, john, the atheist, hello, john, the atheist? When you discuss with him now? Are you going to be engaging with your judgment or engaging with him?
you're engaging with the judgment. And you will never know that the reason is an atheist because his mom died when he was three, and he doesn't have an answer.
Shame on us.
If I did this exercise with non Muslims, I said when you hear the word Muslim, what will come to mind? You'd have things like terrorists backwards, smelly, whatever.
And this is exactly the point look at look at our humanity, our human construct. So now is the time whether you're atheist or Muslim, to remove your drama and tried to engage with each other in a profound way. If you understood this point from today, I think it's enough. It's hard. It's not easy, but it's prophetic. Because the problem I have in appointing VPS he would tell his companions, don't talk to me about anybody. I want to engage with them how they should be engaged with, I'm not going to judge them or engage with my judgment of them. I want to engage with the person no my idea of the person and we both fail atheists and Muslims. Hopefully Today was a milestone to correct that
may God bless you, preserve you and love you. subhanak Allahumma will be humbucker
in Atlanta was talking to Blake Salam aleikum. wa rahmatullah.
We will make
a q&a. So what I'm gonna do is
we're gonna have
the mics aren't that strong, so you won't have to shout out.
And basically our last question
and we'll take
questions
is a question
as well, maybe
Ice cream Ice cream. Think of it as an ice cream and you don't lick it?
Thank you very much.
Very scholarly. Very interesting.
My question is, I mean,
need you to revert to Islam.
ignore it. Western world thinks that Islam is a religion of terrorism. And our
Muslims are terrorists.
Why you lead the life of irrational belief? To irrational?
Well, the easiest way to ask the answer that question is basically to say that the reason I adopted the worldview, Islam was for two reasons, intellectual reasons and emotional reasons, okay? Because human beings are not just intellectual robots. Okay?
The intellectual reasons were all the reasons I spoke about today. Okay. The emotional reasons were that Islam made sense, existentially. Meaning, what does it mean to exist? Who am I? Who's on my? Why am I Where am I? For whom am I all these questions that we have to answer? The Quran answers, that's why the Christ says phenotype, baboon, and where are you going? And he provides these answers to these fundamental questions. And it makes it very coherent, coupled with all the intellectual stuff I was talking about.
Thank you. I try to be short, the answer is because I do appreciate the maybe many questions.
I did an Arabic before now. I'm still learning Arabic now.
Sorry.
No, I didn't know.
How does that relate to the topic?
Think you know, appreciate this.
Yes.
Before you actually start learning,
that's a better question. I mean, you don't have to know Arabic to be a Muslim. You don't have to know Arabic, as I spoke about today to appreciate that the foundations of Islam a true, namely God's existence, the truthfulness of Mohammed upon who isn't even the miracle of the Quran, you don't even know need to know one letter of the Arabic language to establish that the basis of Islam is true. So that's not a problem. You don't have to know Arabic to become a Muslim. But to become a scholar over Islam, and to have a deeper appreciation of his teachings are because a prerequisite but to understand Islam, Arabic is not a prerequisite because the truth of Islam are quite universal, like
the oneness of the Divine, worshiping the divine right, you're not worshiping your ego, no worshiping the social construct with a social norm. So there are some fundamental truths that don't require Arabic at all, you just need the meaning of the message. Rather, the language of the message is a big difference. But to be a scholar, the prerequisite is you need to know Arabic.
Okay, can you Yes?
Yes, a very good question.
This is what you would call the problem of evil. Now, the problem of evil can be summarized in a logical form in the following way. Number one, a good, all powerful God exists. Number two, this gratuitous evil, injustice and suffering. Number three, therefore good and all powerful. God can't exist. As David Hume wrote about this, in his inquiry, he was basically saying, look, if God is good, he should stop it. If he's powerful. If he doesn't stop it, maybe he means he's not good or he's not powerful in the first place.
There are two hidden assumptions to this logic. The Chilean assumptions are that God is only good and only all powerful, which is a huge straw man, misrepresentation of who God is in the Islamic narrative. God is also the just the wise the loving, the Merciful, and Latif the subtle. So we know for instance, that things that happen in the universe happened as a result of his wisdom, because he is the wise. Now you may argue, but I can't see the wisdom. But that's irrational. you're arguing from ignorance is a logical fallacy argumentum ad exoneration, you're arguing from ignorance. And because of the definition of God, he transcends you, you will never know what his wisdom anyway. But
the point is, him being wise and there is one wisdom behind these evil acts shows that actually the logical form of the proper evil fails. Interestingly, even taymiyah wrote about this at length. And he said, everything that happens is based upon the totality of God's knowledge, which is a derivative of His justice, and his good, wise purpose.
We don't believe in an abstract kind of robotic God, that just things for No, for no purposes, his will manifest itself and it's in line with his nature. Our perception of evil is a non absolute his perception of evil. Because we have particular knowledge, we don't have the totality of knowledge, but the totality of things are in the end for good, wise purpose. So that undermines the first point. The second assumption is that God hasn't given us any good reason why it's permitted evil. And as far as he has, God said, we're here to be tested
to have a party. Boogie, yeah.
That's paradise.
Okay, we're booking in paradise people.
And I would argue that that question itself is proof of God's existence. So he's paradise. He says subconsciously that atheists are saying, I want my paradise now.
Also, we have a whole range of different aspects in the crowd and the prophetic traditions that show us that why there why God has created evil in the first place. So the argument fails from a logical perspective. Because if you do the two assumptions that rests on that God is only good and all powerful and that he hasn't given us any good reason why evil exists in the first place. You break those down, the whole argument breaks.
We have a good feel to see. A good academic book to read is called Ibn Timmy is theodicy of perpetual optimism, published by Brill Academic Press, written by the scholar and Professor john Hoover, and with the book in my hotel room, okay, but you can't have it.
It's about 100 is $110. hardback, but you could find a soft back by the even Timmy is theodicy of perpetual optimism, an interesting year, but even to me, everyone thinks that he belongs to like a fundamentalist form of Islam. everybody owns even taymiyah in the Islamic community here, even to me, it was a genius, you when you start reading his work, just like Alan has early, both of these key pillars of Islamic thought. very profound, you know what they agreed on so much. You be so shocked, they agreed, especially on
the optimism of the world, that this world is the most perfect conception of creation, based on the wisdom of the Divine reality, I think, is really believe in this. So that even taymiyah very, these are good people to think about and to read about in our tradition.
All right.
Hello, hello. Yes, I can use the
big brother speak
that you're on
top of the tone of your voice.
Go for it. I'm kidding.
It's not possible for
the right. No.
Yes. The reason that's not entirely true.
What I would say is, no one has been able, although they have exhausted all the tools that allow them to, to bring something like the literary form of the Quranic discourse, that's the more correct way of saying it
is possible for humans in the future. So then
that's exactly my point, if you understand the logic of the argument, although they are beginning the tools at the disposal, and they have exhausted them, for example, once you exhaust all the tools, you've exhausted all the tools, so a future possibility is not an argument from that perspective.
Also, think of it rationally. The Arabs with the best to express themselves in Arabic tongue
came from a relatively homogeneous linguistic society the language very pure. Today is Arabic linguistics, society has suffered linguistic degeneration is very heterogeneous means love, linguistic, boring, and the linguistic boring hasn't been naturalized into the Arabic language. I give an example go to Egypt. And you say
telephone is telephone
or television? Yeah.
So they've
messed up the language linguistic degeneration, for example. That's why you have root words. You have words in Arabic language don't have any root structure anymore. The foreign words from that perspective, he has been naturalized. So if someone did try and claim the Chinese, the Quran, I won't even look at their claim. Because look where they've come from. They come from a linguistic degenerated society. So it's impossible from that perspective. hope that clarifies.
Because it really
is
about the possibilities of the universe starting to use inductive reasoning as
what has been reason enough.
deductive Yeah.
Okay, good. So you need to explain why the universe must have began because it's finite. Yeah. Okay. Basically, in summary, the universe can't have an infinite history of past events. Because the infinite in a real material sense within this universe cannot exist. If it cannot exist. Therefore, the universe is history can be infinite, it must be finite. If something is finite, it began.
Yeah, infine can't exist in the material. So
can we just stop the mumbling? So we just respect everybody speaking if that's all right, thanks, guys.
used to say?
Why is it that despite the fact that they use rational arguments that they ended up with?
Yes, well, in fairness, they don't use this particular argument, because it's the Quranic form of the argument. But they do use a cosmological argument, which they took from the Muslims.
Now, interestingly, the reason they now stick to the Christian narrative is because they've only done 1/3 of the step.
They don't really talk about revelation, because when it comes to Biblical sense, it's very hard to justify that the Bible is a supernatural document, it came from a divine reality. It's more of an assumption. It's an axiom that the Christians use, because current Christian scholarship says that we don't believe in the inerrancy of the Bible anymore. The Bible can be an error. But generally, it's the words of God inspired is the is the is the words of man inspired by God. But they don't really have proof of that. They say this is an axiom, you know, it relates to history, we think you will make sense. So there you go. So the reason they justify a Christian narrative is because they
probably haven't looked into the Quran. And they believe the Bible is the word for word of God. And I don't think they really have any good reasons for that, in my humble opinion. However, they stick to the Trinity. And the reason is strict to the Trinity, is not because of rationality, they choose the Trinity, because it's dogma.
And that's what dogma does. You just believe in dogma. But the unique thing about Islam, Allah says, no, that his one
Allah says, trust to know that his one, but the Christian God, does he know that his three, because we don't even understand the Trinity, either the Trinity is this. Even Christians don't know the Trinity is.
In their creed, the general universal creed of the Trinity belief is that God is one essence, almost yours in the Greek language. What was yours? Nia Hosea, one essence, as one essence, but three distinct persons sharing the same essence. The only good example I have seen is from the philosopher William Lane, Craig. And he said, God is like the three headed dog.
I'm not joking. That's what he said. That's the only example. And it's a Greek mythology that there was one dog with one consciousness bad three heads.
There you go. I mean, that kiss close. Yeah. So Trinity is very hard to fathom. However,
Trinity itself, I would humbly believe was a later day invention anyway, because when you look at the Judeo narrative is all oneness of the Divine reality, even the Christian narrative, then all of a sudden, you have this Trinity in the second or third century, because even the early church fathers, there was hardly the word Trinity route is more. It was more bioterrorism than trinitarianism, that it was two gods, the Father and the Holy Ghost of the Father and the Son. And he was a lady the invention, but the point is,
I would not even discuss Trinity from a rational perspective. Anyway, I would rush I would rationalize the basis. Where has the Trinity come from? They would say the Bible fine. Is the Bible a worthy document historically, no.
No way. Any sides of history will show you that you can't trust the Bible. Read the words of Bruce Metzger, Professor Bruce Metzger, Dr. Bart Ehrman and others you see physical physical manuscript
We have nearly 11,000 Greek testaments New Testaments from around 280 onwards, not one of them fully agree with each other. We don't even have the surname of some of these writings.
And they all are reduced to one document that was found around 80 years after the so called Death of Esau Jesus alayhi salam. So I can you trust this? Now you can say that it's a product of the early Christian community. I agree. But can you say definitively that this is the word of God? No way. Impossible. I would even say someone to claim such a thing is cuckoo land. And I'm not saying that in an arrogant way. I'm saying, if you know your stuff, if you learn the history, you know, the variants of the Bible, you know, how it was compiled and transmitted the compilation, for example? Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. I don't like that. You know.
I mean, on whose authority a bunch of men sat together on a table, and their assumption is the Holy Spirit worked through them. But the irony is, the Holy Spirit is a concept in the Bible, and you're using it to justify the Bible as a circular argument. So it's a sad case of affairs. Really, that's why lots of people are leaving Christianity for Islam, in my humble opinion, because there's so many similarities between us anyway, we love Jesus. Jesus mentioned 25 times in the Quran, Mohammed only mentioned four or five times in the Quran, sallallahu alayhi, wa sallam, Jesus, he has amazing names. cunnamulla, the Word of God, Allah, the Spirit of God. If we don't love Jesus, you can't be
Muslim.
So the way I would describe it is that we're not going to be arrogant. We don't have a monopoly on the truth. You have truths as well, but we have an unbroken chain of narration.
So join the family, that that's how I would see it. And that's how we should explain it to others. Because there is no difference really. creed from a creek perspective, you have a moral perspective, no. Change your creed, do love Jesus, come back home is like you have Windows 98 or Windows seven, which one you're going to choose? iPhone one iPhone five.
There you go.
And then
we freshened up according to size.
In order to make
sure that you mentioned the phrase things we should not consider that you're really hoping to basically recite completed.
No actually think your question is a misunderstanding. Miss application Miss comprehension of my argument today, named me one piece of scientific evidence I mentioned today.
One, if you could mention one piece of evidence, I'll give you my shoes.
Now, an argument for my beliefs, told me one piece of inductive argument I use for my beliefs. scientific argument, named me one.
No, that's your assumption. We in the beginning, I spend at least 20 minutes decomposing the idea that science does not equate to rationality or reason.
We hear Okay, good. Now, the reason being because science essentially relies heavily on what you call a theory of knowledge called empiricism. And empiricism is a theory of knowledge, that the knowledge of something or the concept of knowledge of something cannot be known other than through direct or indirect observation. That's empiricism. empiricism is a theory of knowledge is flawed in some cases. For example, if you read the philosophy of science, Alex Rosenberg, Elliot sober and others, you would see for example, if we take that definition, we have to reject the following. If I have a white cat, and there's a snowstorm, the white cat escapes my house and goes into the
snowstorm. Where is the cat? According to a crude version of empiricism? There is no cattiness. soulstone or we don't know, by using a reason, you know, there's a white kind of snowstorm is camouflaged. So from that perspective, there's a difference between empiricism empirical science, and reason, because some forms of empirical science will even deny causality because empirical science
solely rests upon a poster a perspective, which means knowledge is dependent just on experience. But that's flawed because your experiences can never deny causality because causal links are necessary for you to experience in the first place. So these few examples show that a mainstream view of science is different from reason itself. So we're not using science to justify tradition. We're actually using basic graphs.
principles that were used for 1000s of years. It's not a modern phenomena. And yes, maybe if they're recycled arguments, maybe they are, but deal with them provide an alternative, or say why they're wrong. I mean, to say that recycle doesn't mean anything. It's like saying democracy is really rubbish, because you took it from a 3000 year old book, or we took it from Plato's Republic. I mean, that doesn't mean normal quizzes is wrong, just because he's old, or it's recycled.
That's not an argument in fairness. I mean, I hope you would appreciate that right.
Thank you, sir.
We're gonna go with the last question.
You can see outside I see him hanging out.
You want me to hang out? Yeah.
How Islamic
Don't you think he gave a really good talk in the beginning though? Yeah, it was excellent.
Mashallah, I was sitting with a brother said we could just talk q&a now.
What is limited? unlimited creative, blah, blah, blah is really good.
Mashallah.
Just
put your name.
Cali, where you from?
You don't look Australian
ethnically from like,
you speak Mandarin.
He
was young.
I just said he's very pretty.
Young. So I said I'm really pretty.
is a Friday destroyed in the rooms a Freudian slip?
argument? How does coffee?
infinity coffee? Real? Yes.
I was just wondering, I could be elaborate on the reasoning for that, because
that our perceptions are finite. But reality is real.
So our percentages are finite. But it may be that the infinite Israel
isn't that critical, saying?
We don't know.
Isn't that isn't the case. But this is slightly different. We're not saying we're agreeing that infinity can exist in a mathematical realm of discussion and discourse. For example, what is pie?
Is the ratio between the circumference and diameter?
And that goes ad infinitum? It's an irrational number. But it's quantitative, because it's a number from that perspective. But is it real in the sense that it's practically manifest in reality? No.
You could actually measure the circumference in a finite way and actually measure the diameter. Similarly, you can have an infinite if you were to split the distance, which you mean you to infinite parts, potentially. But you'll never get there. But actually, it's finite. So we're not denying the infinite per se. We're denying a form of the infinite, which I call the quantitative infinite in mathematics, but philosophically meaning, can we explore the idea in real things? Essentially, can we have an infinite number of real things? That's the point.
That depends on
you, but our perception is necessary for reason. So that's what we're saying. Is it rational?
theology? Yeah, of course.
He just said, Okay, do you do Do you have an alternative view on reality? But that's the point. So the point is, we're saying there are some assumptions to our thinking process, that part of rationality is that you need sensing your senses. You need some a priori knowledge, you need previous experience. You have that together to have reason. Okay? If you take out perception,
you're being irrational.
Yeah. So basically, you don't have a posterior explanation, or your assumption that infinity is zero.
No, you know, the examples suffice.
I give an example in an argue when you make an assertion,
you say, do you have good evidence for my assertion? So I'll give you some examples. So it grounds
assertion for you to break that assertion down. You have to break down the argument, just merely posing a question thing, or maybe it can exist is actually not an argument because I could say, for example, maybe I'm actually a woman.
It's possible,
isn't it?
Money be possible. Yeah. Maybe.
I'm really Pakistani, I'm faking to be great.
Maybe my mother's on my mother, but she was an alien Born on Pluto, and she flew here in a giant feather.
We can always have these maybes. But does it make you irrational? That's the point. And for that you have to define what rationality is. And an essential part of it, bro, is using some of your senses, plus a prior knowledge plus previous experience. So to remove that and say, Well, maybe our perceptions are wrong is almost tantamount to saying, Let's not be rational anymore. I'm not saying
that our conceptions of limited, yes, the entire reality.
caught by
that reality. Okay, which is what you just just assume, just assume that the argument is not definite, just assume we have good reason to believe the universe began. It's still a rational argument.
Because just questioning that it might be wrong, doesn't necessarily make it wrong. For example, no, it? No, it does, because rationality is what like David Hume said, The wise man proportions, his belief to the weight of evidence, just we have a question, too, because it might be wrong. It doesn't mean it's like, for example, saying, I know gravity is 99%. Right? Because based on induction, by you know what, I'm going to jump out the window, because it might be wrong.
That's it?
Of course, otherwise, you're advocating a very extremist view and skepticism, which is there are no truths.
In your body of knowledge,
infinity product? Yes.
No, no, no, you we do know, cuz we've given examples. So the examples show that up doesn't exist. Your argument should be, I know that it can exist. Here's my argument. If you don't have one, you just have a question is not really an argument is it?
I give an example. If I said to you, I am a man. Right? I managed to find by x y, Zed, I fulfill that criteria. So I'm the man. I'm thinking through the kind of just because of x, y, and Zed. Can you just say infinity can exist in a real material sense, you would have to show me an example on how that's the case, just by merely saying that I could be wrong is not an argument.
It's not a positive assertion.
It's just a very crude form of skepticism. It's like saying, How do we know we've been real? Maybe we live in the matrix man.
During the red pill, the blue pill?
Do you see my point?
If I just said, The universe is finite in that state with no justification, then yes, you're very grounded to say, well, you base your whole entire worldview and this assumption, but I didn't I've made an assertion and backed it with some examples and evidence. So that's, I think would be your epistemic duty, your duty to knowledge to say, Well, you know, I think that could be wrong. Because here's an example with infinite doesn't make sense in the real world. And I'm still waiting for such an example.