Foundations of Islam Series: Session 3 – Part 2
Hamza Yusuf – EP03 – Articles of Faith – Part 2 of 2
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AI: Transcript ©
One clarification that Jeff brought up, because we had talked about this yesterday, and that was about intentions, when I said that actions that you're that you're judged by your intentions, that means an intention related to an action. In other words, what merely occurs to the heart, if it's evil, you're not taken to account for it. But if it's good, you're given a reward for it. So if a person has a good intention, but they don't feel, they don't act it out, there is a reward related to that. Whereas with evil, it's not like somebody cuts you off on the road. And, you know, I'd like to kill that person or something like that. As long as you don't go and do it, you're not taking to
account for that. And unfortunately, people have recently started doing stuff like that. But the now just to relate to the other people, this is probably one of the most misunderstood concepts in the Islamic tradition, I think a lot of Muslims even misunderstand it. But let me relate it to two very important concepts in the Quran. Generally, higher is is understood to be good. And shower is understood to be evil. But from the Islamic cosmological view, this is related to abundance.
And this is related to want.
And the actual moral component in these concepts is played down in a way that it wouldn't be in Christianity. So let me give you an example. I think for a lot of people, they have a hard time with the idea of a God who could create evil. And this is a classic philosophical problem in the West. If God is all good, and he's all powerful, then there shouldn't be evil, because if he was all good, he wouldn't want evil. And if he was all powerful, he could do something about it. And this is a common philosophical problem they call the problem of evil. And it's there have been attempts to resolve it. But from a Muslim point of view, we believe that good and evil are both
from God.
But before we say, you know what you mean, God is evil. Let's look a little deeper at what this means in terms of its philosophical implications. The word sharp
is related to for instance, poverty. Poverty in the Arab tradition is shouter. Why? Because it's a want. There's no moral judgment there. In a poor person. You're not saying a poor person is evil. You're just saying poor poverty is shallow. It's a one there's a lack of something. When we talk about good and evil from a Muslim perspective, good means that there is a divine presence. shatter means there is an absence of the Divine.
When you look at this in terms of a moral action, if a person saves somebody drowning, that would be called higher. But if a person kills somebody, that would be called shutter.
Why? Because if you save the drowning person, there is a quality there is a divine quality that is embodied there, which is Rama. But if you kill a person unjustly, there is the absence of the Divine quality which is justice, you have been unjust. And the Quran says that God is not unjust.
So in the absence of good we have evil. And this is how the Muslims view it, they literally view evil as an absence of good. So to the degree that the divine qualities are not present in the world we have evil and to degree to the degree that the divine qualities are present in the world the imminence is present there, we have good
and this is why there is a hadith that says, the prophets Eliza them said along along them and hierro Vania dache Oh Allah good is in your presence was Sharon a ue like an evil never returns to you.
So while we believe that God has created a world of opposites, abundance, want good evil, we do not believe that evil goes back to God, because evil is the absence of the Divine. In other words, the divine is absent from the act. Now the other problem, when we look in terms of hire and shadow is the Quran says as
Takahashi and
maybe you detest a thing, and it is higher for you, it's good for you. Well, I sent to him pouget and wawasan, Lacan, and maybe you you love a thing, but it's evil for you. And then it says, while Ah, who I don't want, while Oh yeah, I don't want to let that I don't want and God knows and you do not know. So there is an idea here in this concept of good and evil, that we are in a relative situation, we do not have all of the information here that one person is evil is another person's good.
One person is evil is another person's good.
And this happens all over you can see this, somebody loses a job, another person gets the job. So for one person, it was shorter. For another person, it was Eve, it was good. And this is the nature of the world. Now, if you look in terms of the giver of life and the taker of life,
if there was no taking of life, then there couldn't be a continuation of life. This is the nature, we generally relate the taking of life to shower, it's a want, it's a lack of, but in relation to the next world, there is a higher, right, because death in this world means life in the next world. So this is related to we are not putting moral components here, we are not judging things for ourselves. Now, the Koran has given for the Muslims a criterion, it is evil to kill another person unjustly and a person is taken to account for that and killed in relation to the big picture we do not know and we can't make an eternal judgment, we can only make a temporal judgment. We do not
know. In other words, if somebody murders another person, and by all outward appearances, it was an unjustly murder, that person is taken into account and his life is forfeited. Or in certain certain circumstances, what are called the wound as a dumb can forgive him. Islam has an interesting attitude towards the death penalty. The Muslims allow for a family to forgive the person. So you can't the Christian ideal forgiving and the Koran actually says to forgive is higher. So if a person killed another person, the family has the right to say they forgive them. Right, they can do that.
But in terms of highway robbery, brigand DRI there's no that that's anybody that threatens the security of a of a society. In other words, indiscriminant so if there was a fight between two people, and one person killed the other person, then the family could say we don't want to take him to account for it. We're gonna forgive him. They can do that. But if it's somebody who goes in and robs a store and kills somebody, then they forfeited their life by Islamic law. Uh huh.
a fatwa
like Salman Rushdie.
Okay. Yeah, effect was not a death effect was not a death penalty. The legal opinion is not binding either. In other words,
technically, but by Islamic law.
A person can give a legal opinion like I can give an opinion you can come to me if I'm a puppy jurisprudence. You say, what's the punishment for somebody that curses the Prophet Mohammed? And you say death.
Right. So then I say, Well, someone rusty Kirstin. Well, although that book is what what do they call it in literature? Romana, Cliff. So what is who's a
Romana Cliff? Is that what they call? Yeah. So that was a my no literary term, there's a term for something where you hide a historical or a factual thing within a literary. I think it's romantic love. I'm not sure though. Anyway. You know, for somebody who say, Well, he slandered the Prophet Mohammed,
someone who's you say, look, this is a piece of fiction.
by Islamic law, that was completely unacceptable. In other words, you have to take people to trial, you can't just kill somebody.
You know, Muslims have we're not vigilantes. There's actually a procedure, and apostasy has.
It has printed What's that?
difference
is clearly an example of the difference between the sacred
that's one way of looking at it. Yeah. I mean, I think,
you know, the modern West. I think Norman Mailer actually during that time, said, you know, heresy has made us free long of heresy.
In other words, there are a lot of people in the West that see heresy as a good thing. And it's interesting this gets to this whole idea because heresy in Greek and ethical means to choose for yourself. It's it's a, it's a, it's a, it's what they call the Middle Voice. In Greek the verb head on, which is to choose for oneself. So I choose my own way, not going to choose, you know, the way religion tells me or the way God tells me or the way, I choose my own way. And that is the original meaning of a heretic, somebody who chose their own way who did not submit to, and in the West, we certainly have a tradition now a post enlightenment tradition, which is really we have, we don't
have to be subservient and submissive to a church or to some doctrinal authority, some dogma, that the individuals have a right to choose what they believe, to choose what they how they want to worship, or how they don't want to worship. Right. So that's very strong, I think in modern Western tradition, and a lot of Is it a reaction to, to the the abuses of the church during the Middle Ages, and and, you know, the burning of heretics and things like that there was a lot of that that went on now in the Islamic tradition.
Traditionally, heresy, there are laws of Apostasy, it's there, I think they're a lot more difficult to prove. But there is a procedure, you cannot simply condemn somebody as a heretic in Islamic law, they have to be brought to trial, the intention has to be looked at. Do you see? So? But that's a case where you know, politics is being used within a religious context. You know, I really? Oh, very much. So yeah, because the Egyptians had a whole different reaction to it like the Azhar, they had a different reaction. So you know, here was a case where, because I'll tell you something about Muslims, Muslims. Take the problem, humans realize them very seriously. They really do. And it's
interesting that the Iranians also condemned the Greek author who wrote the last.
Yeah, last Last Temptation of Christ, they also condemned him as disparaging a prophet. But that didn't make news. Do you see what I mean? So they were just across the board, you make fun of profits, you're asking for trouble from us. That was their idea. Now, that was true. There are still laws on the books in England apostasy laws, there are laws that in England, but they did not relate to the Islamic religion. Right? They relate to the Christian religion. So technically, there are still in certain countries, there are laws against like in Greece and other places, there are laws against making fun of profits, disparaging profits, things like that. So effect was just a legal
opinion. And it's non binding, it is non binding.
If it rusty, if rusty was in a Muslim country, and he did disperse the province, that by Islamic law, if he is tried and found to be guilty, that the punishment is death. That is a punishment for any Prophet Abraham, Moses. Any of the prophets, not just the Prophet Muhammad?
No, I don't think so. Because I think yeah, I think the Iranians have like they offered a reward and things like that. So I think Yeah, he does fear for his life. You know, uh, personally, I'm not I'm not gonna go out and hunt down roosters and things like that. That's not it's not my business I'm not my understanding of Sonic law is that is not a vigilante law. I can't take the law in my own hands because that leads to anarchy we'll get Let me think about this society if I if I'm with some guy in private and and i for some nice steal all his money blown away and then I tell the judge Well, he curses the Prophet Mohammed Salah gives them good alibi, right? You know, I mean, if you
start thinking about It's crazy, you can't just even I'll give you an example in Islamic law of a man finds his wife in bed with another man. He cannot.
He cannot kill her. Absolutely not. Yes, have four witnesses that see penetration?
pretty impossible, right? And I think you have to be pretty perverse to you know, go into a room and try to, you know, see that Pete if people are under covers, you can do not just on top of one another seriously. And if the only thing he has recourse to his if he does find that immediately, he has to do what's called mula Anna, which is where he goes to a party. He says, I found my wife in bed, and then the wife is brought and they do what's called mula Anna, which is a mutual cursing. Each one swears that the others lying and the fourth, on the fifth time they call the curse of Allah on them. If she does that, then she is absolved, but there's a permanent divorce and the child does
not go to his lineage. The child does not
considered his child, right? If she doesn't, then it's she would be guilty of adultery.
No, because it's related to lineage, that that's the only reason. It's related to lineage. In other words, as long as the patrilineal teaching, so it's one of the five things, and I didn't go into this, but it's very interesting. The five things that the shediac is believed to preserve. The first is religion.
The second is life.
The third is lineage.
The fourth is wealth.
And the fifth is
name honor.
Law. So Muslims believe that these are the five thing every rule in Islam can be related to one of these five things. So the reason prayer is prescribed preservation of religion, the reason the prohibition for fornication, preservation of lineage, that it is a rite of a child to know who their father and mother are, that is a right.
So fornication is prohibited. So in that type situation,
the best thing you're supposed to veil people, right? If a woman accuses the husband of adultery, that does not relate to her lineage, she can ask for a divorce, perfectly permissible. She can go to a party and say I have grounds for divorce. And she can call herself what's called mozzarella, as you say, I want out of this marriage, she is not supposed to say why.
You see, the reason a woman is is because of the the lineage. If she's if she if in other words from the adultery if there's a child as a result of the adultery, then it would be attributed to a man who doesn't it is not the child of that man. And if the and and that is preservation of lineage. So the Shetty says that the man says no, that is definitely not my child, that any has to do it right away. He can't wait like six months later and say, Oh, I don't you know, that's not my child. No, he has to do it from right from the start, or else it doesn't stand up in court.
If he wasn't the adoption, then she has grounds she has grounds for a divorce. But she does not accuse him.
Because it's related to lineage. In other words, accusing somebody of adultery is one of the worst things you can do in Islam. It really is. But the only reason that there is a situation where the man can do it is related to lineage because there is inheritance, a child inherits from the man.
And also the child takes the man's name.
If it is not his child,
then he does not want that child to have his lineage nor his name if he knows that the child is not from his seed. And that's the only time and if she denies that she is not condemned for adultery, but the child does not go to the lineage. She's not punished for adultery, if she denies it. disease.
Yes or No, it's boronic teaching molana. So the idea is simply lineage. It's not you're not making a moral. Do you see what I mean? The woman is not taken to account for something if she denies it. Her denial stands up in court. But the marriages is she separated from the man and the child does not go to the man? Uh huh.
There's no adoption in Islam. there's what's called what Calla which is where you take care of a child, which is highly encouraged, but the child never takes the name ever is prohibited. And this is because one of the things that shadia came to do was preserved lineage, that people should know where they come from. And this is why women it is prohibitive for them to change their names in Islam. A woman does not take the name of her husband.
Because it changes lineage.
Because it relates to within any culture, you have honor that relates to lineage. A bastard in Islam is not the same as a child born in wedlock.
life and life is why a child is not aborted. Even if it's a bastard child. Life is over lineage.
He doesn't bear a stigma. It's not on the child. It's on the parents. The child that says you know, was it always in the no charge, no child bears the wrong actions of the parents and that's why the child is not aborted
in life, if you
was born out of wedlock is definitely she goes on to the category of zania, which is a fornicator.
Definitely.
There's definitely there's definitely stigma within culture by the shediac. The child is not supposed to suffer for it. But there's definitely a human failing here. You do have stigma related to it in Muslim cultures, but there's not supposed to be.
If, if it's if the person is if they're for witnesses, witnessing penetration, and they have to be just witnesses, they have to be people recognizes upright in the community.
It's It's impossible, I guarantee, you
know, then she's punished. And there's, there's a Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad that a woman during his time came to her and confessed to her, and he turned away and then she came here she turned away till she confessed four times. And then he said, Are you with challenge? He said, Yes. He said, Go have your child. She came back, after a year gave birth to a child, she came back, and she said, by hirani, purify me.
And then he said, Go nurse, your child. She went two years, she came back. And then he said, she said, purify me, because there's an idea in Islam, if you do a grave, wrong action, not a minor, wrong action. If you do a grave, wrong action, and you have the HUD punishment in this world, you're not punished for it in the next world. So what she was saying is, I don't want to take chances of being whether Allah forgives me or not, I want to be certain that I don't have this in the next world. She said, purify me, he, the woman was stoned. And one of the companions said,
may a lot cursor and the Prophet said, Don't say that, because if her blood was spread over this city, there wouldn't be a wrong action remaining in the city.
In other words, her tell about her repentance was so great. He was saying that her event was so great that this entire city would be forgiven. Had they gotten a portion of her repentance. Now, there's another thing if a person leaves the pit, then there's no stoning. For a person who confessed if they leave the pit, then you have to cease stoning.
stoning, I guarantee you, it's very rare in the Islamic history, very few cases. Really. It's legal, if they're able to get out. No, if they get out during the process, you have to stop. In other words, a person can can can say, No, no, I changed my mind.
At any time, you know, this has been taken as a substitute persona. No, no. That's unacceptable by Shannon. Yeah, those things happened in Saudi Arabia. You know, this is a gross To me, it's this is a gross breach of Islamic law. What takes place there? Okay. So the deaths out there? Yeah, they do. They do implement that. But it's a gross breach of I mean, you can't shut Yeah, you can't just apply piecemeal shadia. It's a total system. And within a healthy Islamic culture, those things are very rare. For instance, in Islamic law, you don't you don't go alone with a foreign woman just you don't. It's one of the things that that is a condition within the within the society as part of the
social contract. You do not like I would not be alone with a with a woman who is not either a direct relative or a my wife, I would not go alone with her. It's prohibited for me in Islamic law, and vice versa is prohibited for a woman.
So you're saying
when you say go along, it means I cannot be in a room alone. you're traveling.
That's not alone. You're in a company, we can use our mind to get it right off the bat. You know, you're not supposed to be alone with a woman. Absolutely not. And a woman is not supposed to be alone with a man.
And this relates to this relates to protection of honor, so that you are not accused. Because what happens often is your intentions might be perfectly good, but somebody sees you coming out of a room with somebody and they
big problem and I'll tell you something in our culture, this is a major problem, sexual harassment, these type of things. If there are witnesses, you don't have the problem. When there are people that you when it's two people alone together, it's his word against hers. Right? The I believe what was her name? Anita, I believe in Nita, it the you get the society split. Democrats believe in need and Republicans believe what was the other guy
and then the thing about it is the man's honor is tainted.
Now, I'm not saying I tend to probably inclined to believing Anita. But the point is, maybe she wasn't telling you the truth. Maybe she was paid by, by the democrats to despair. I mean, I'm just saying these are possible possibilities, right? In that case, here's a man whose honor is destroyed. Or here's a man who for the rest of his life, people are gonna scratch their head, did he? Or didn't he?
Do you see? So the idea of preserving people's honor is very strong in Islam, that a person has a right it is a fundamental human right, is a divinely given right? That you have your honor in tact, and you do everything you can to preserve that honor. One, you don't lie, you don't steal, you don't cheat. These are all things that disparage your honor. And you become known for which is one of the reasons why in Islamic law, if you see somebody do something wrong, you're told to veil their faults. Because if you expose people in a society, then the impetus for guarding their honor or for making Toba or repentance is diminished. In other words, if, if I become known for lying, then
people even if I start telling the truth, people are going to still remember, oh, you know, that's the liar. So it lessens the the power of the ability of a person to do that and diminishes the impetus. So, and then wealth, preservation of wealth, why there's no stealing things like that. So these are the five things. Now, let me get that was just a digression because somebody asked a question, but
let me ask one more question. If a child is not adopted, but just taken care of when they have them.
They don't inherit Good point. Yeah. an adopted child does not inherit.
What do you mean?
Well, you're supposed to raise them and give them a job, you know, teach them how to provide them. I mean, I did you get in a lot of people don't get inheritance. You know what I mean? The lawyers ate up bars. Because my family kind of gotten to a fight and ended up you know,
which happens that's why it's nice in Islamic law. It's all portioned out. You can't fight over it. Fixed.
It all in here. The wife inherits it. She's one of the inheritors is related, I mean, inheritance laws are related to to the Quran directly. The Quran determines what portions people get, and the wife does get inherit from the husband. Yes.
Not all of it. No, the children have the children have portions as well. The man can give one third of his wealth to whoever he wants. The other two thirds are determined by the Quran.
And it's interesting that a man cannot divorce his wife on his deathbed. If a man has an illness, that is called muddled mahoba, like cancer, where the terminology is, is is probable, it is prohibited for him to divorce his wife, as a way of kind of getting her out of the inheritance or something spiting her it's prohibited.
No, Islam is very strict about inheritance. And one of the things if you look, traditionally, Hudson's points this out in the venture of Islam, that, that Islam actually breaks down monopoly. The inheritance laws are designed so that wealth is not accumulated into one small individual, like in the 19th century, I want to think about, you know, if you read
if you read Jane Austen's novels, I mean, that is a real theme in her novels, this the unjustice of women being completely disinherited in 19th century England. I mean, remember, this is the age of the enlightenment. And here's women in 19th century England being thrown out of their houses, because there was not a male heir to take care of them, they lost all their money or went to somebody, the male, right, this happened very recently in western civilization. In Islam, the woman has a right to she has a right to her husband and her father's wealth, she gets a portion of her father's wealth as well. And this is one of the ways that women became
wealthy in Islam. There are many historically many women who had Ohm Hani is a wonderful example. She's in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Islam, there's a little section on Ohm Hani who she married her husband, and she actually owned a factory. And then the husband claimed that it was his, like community property or something. And it did not hold up in court, according to
the judge said, No, it's her property. So and that was, you know, for 13th century.
So
I mean, that's a whole other thing. I'm we're actually on email, because that's really related to shediac. And what I'll do inshallah is, when we do this section on the last video, I'll open it up to talking about some things about Shinya because I think should he is definitely one of the areas where as a lot of misunderstandings, misconceptions in this culture, people see it as very primitive.
Law and and so I, you know, I can talk about that and open it up to things. And another thing about the Islamic law is that there are many different opinions in the law that that the actual things that are clearly there's no debate about are not that many many of the situations there is an allowance for the intellect to understand and interpret the tradition.
But if we go back to this idea higher and sharp
human beings are taken to account for the good they do and the evil they do. The Quran says lamb cassava, for the soul is the good that it earned what la ham accessible and against the soul is the evil that it has acquired. So we are taking into account for good and evil that we do in the world, the Muslims, the Quran is emphasizing the doing of good actions. Now one of the words that it uses for this is has an ad.
And the opposite is say yet
has an ad, the root word is beauty.
In other words, there's an idea that a good action is a congruence action, it is a harmonic action, that a bad action is
it is a statically unpleasing it is cacophony it is ugly, that the human being by nature recognizes beauty and recognize is good. And this is the idea in the Quran, it says well had a now who knows Dane, we guided the human being to the two rows of good and evil that there is something inherent within the human being now if you look at this in terms of the animal kingdom, if when when when animals do something we do not put moral judgment on it if a snake bites and kills a child, we do not say it's an evil snake. I mean, people might do that metaphorically, you know, but they don't. It's there's not a moral component there. It's simply being its itself and there's Rumi tells a
story about the the turtle and the scorpion and the frog right there at the side of the river. And the scorpion asked the frog give me a ride across the river so I don't have to walk around or across the lake the frog says I'm not stupid. If I give you a ride, you're staying late. And the scorpion says you know that's ridiculous. Think about this. If I sting you will both sink and drown. So the frog says that makes sense takes him across halfway across the scorpion stings the frog, the frog says Why'd you do that? He says my nature right? So the idea then is that there is within the animal world natures that they cannot change. If a lion is hungry and it sees you it sees lunch it does not
see you as I'm going to do something really evil today. I'm gonna go eat this poor person. It's just doing fulfilling its nature when a human being eats another human being right like that guy dour or whatever his name was.
Yeah, dahmer there's something we say that is sick. Why? What is the difference between the lion eating the human being and and this guy eating the human being the moral component.
We say he should know better. That's a breach of the social contract. The person has gone out of its boundaries. And this is very important because in the Quran, there is an idea of who dude have boundaries, and that the human being is morally bound to stay within the boundaries and not transgress them. And the word in Arabic for an evildoer is fast cept, which comes from a root word when the seed splits and it comes out of the shell. So the facet the evildoer is the one that splits the protective boundaries of the Hadoop. Now these are seen the Hadoop of Allah, which are the shediac, the sacred law. These are seen as not simply arbitrary laws. Don't do this don't do that.
They are protective laws from the Muslim perspective. These are laws designed to maintain integrity within the society. When the Quran says that Sakuraba Xena do not go near fornication. Why? It says because it's a fascia it's a perversion was sad Sabina and it leads down a terrible road. So the idea is that look, this is not simply an arbitrary law, there are consequences that are related to this transgression that will have wretched effects in your culture and in your civilization.
Homosexuality
How do you counter the very nature
of people that are born as children, you see them
acting feminine, their boys? femininity, choice.
femininity is not there's there's nothing, it's not encouraged for a male but a boon is mentioned in the books of phip. a feminine person, somebody who acts a feminine is mentioned that it's, it's it's undesirable that he leads the prayer. But there's no there's no moral stigma there, you're not saying that this person is bad or evil, when that person makes a choice to transgress boundary? Now, see, the thing is here, the idea of impulse.
You know, I don't I don't know, because I haven't been, you know, I that's not my experience of the world, right? I i've been attracted to the opposite *. That does not mean that I don't recognize a handsome man, if I see them. I think it's, it's natural for us to recognize beauty. Right? There's an attraction to
two beautiful people, whether it's a male or female, I think that's quite normal.
The from the Islamic perspective, if there is an impulse, then what is demanded of the individual is that they suppress that.
So for from the Muslim point of view, if a person does have homosexual impulses or desires, which obviously there are people that have that the Muslims would say that that is the same as having somebody having an impulse to steal, that they like something, they want it, and they desire to steal it, they have to say, No, I will not transgress the boundaries, that there are implications and the implications. There's an idea within Western culture, that modern Western culture that as long as I don't harm anybody else, it's okay. From the Muslim point of view, there is a harm when this becomes when it emerges into the public space. In other words, as far as the Muslims are
concerned, what people do behind their closed doors is their own business. That is not my area of judgment. If I see an effeminate man, I should not assume that he's a homosexual by Islamic law. That's not my place. If somebody is openly doing these things, that is what becomes condemned. When there's an open breach. The same with alcohol, somebody that makes wine in their house and drink wine that's between them and God, the minute they step out into the public space, then that is where the Sharia says no. Right? So in terms of Islamic law, what applies to them in this world is only what moves into the public space, not what's in the private space. But in terms of the next world,
we believe that God takes people to account for the public and the private space.
So that's really the way I think the Muslims would look at it. And the Prophet said that, from my community, there will be different types of homosexuality. He said, there will be homosexuality of the glance, and homosexuality of touch, and then homosexuality of the action.
It's in the heavy Yeah. And it's also considered one of the signs at the end of time that and I'm going to talk about when we get to homosexuality and lesbianism become very prevalent, according to the Prophet Mohammed. It is one of the signs of Anton and he actually said that men would marry men and women would marry women, that is in one of the Hadees.
Now,
in terms of, do we, you know, are we pre determined to *? Or are we pre determined, which is obviously a question that your students are going to ask you, from the Muslim point of view, no one gets to paradise with their actions, but no one gets there without their actions.
In other words,
there is an idea that we cannot be grateful enough for the gift of life or the gift of sight, speech, hearing, power, volition, all of these things, and therefore anything that we do is still a shortcoming. In relation to what we owe God there is that idea. So there is definitely an idea like in the Christian religion of grace, that you are saved by grace, the Christians would see it as through the blood of Christ, the Muslims would see it as through the grace of God, right by the Rama, the mercy of God. But the Quran very clearly says, Lisa did in San Diego lomasa man, the human being only has what they strive for.
So you will see your actions and your actions you are taken to account for your actions. And this relates now to the next. The last and final thing which is the day of judgment. This is the sixth article of faith.
Human beings are full
accountable for their actions.
According to the Islamic tradition, there is a day in which all of the souls are resurrected. Now also just to relate this in terms of what were the accountability comes in. According to the platonic view, human beings were brought into the presence of God and God's had less to bear or become m&r your Lord. And all of the souls answered in affirmation. And this is the proof. And so what happens in this world is the soul is to be reminded of this, it's the parents challenge to remind the child until it becomes firmly rooted in them that God is their Lord, and they should submit to God. If not, then prophets come and they tell people and they should submit to them.
The Day of Judgment is a day when the debts fall due that is how it's called in the Quran. Yo, Medina, the day the debts fall due the day the debts
yoma. Dean, yeah, it's very similar in the Hebrew have that as well, your Medina,
the day that debts fall due, so there is an idea that we are going to be taken into account. Now the problem Mohammed said, has he will come down to a hassle take yourself to account before you are taken into account. So there is an idea that the human being can take themselves to account in this world, and and is encouraged as a spiritual practice before you go to sleep, to go through your day and to ask forgiveness for the wrongs you did and ask for acceptance for the rights you did. That is a highly encouraged spiritual practice within the Islamic tradition. And if one does that, with perseverance and sincerity, then that is in a sense, a lesser reckoning, it is a way of facilitating
the Day of Judgment. Now there's an idea I'll just go through the after life experience in the Islamic tradition. What happens here?
The very first thing, there is a pre worldly existence.
And this is the existence of the spirits, the souls before we came into this world.
The next stage is the worldly existence.
And this is called dunya.
Now it's interesting in the Arabic language dunya.
In Arabic means the lowest.
In other words, this is the lowest we're at the lowest level, what is above us is hierarchy. The highest level is the presence of God. Dunya is the lowest level. This is the life of this world in the Quran is called higher to dunya. The root word of dunya
is one of the meanings is grapes, like the famous Fox and Aesop's Fables, the grapes are just out of reach.
And that is the nature of this world. There is an element in this world that the soul will never be content, as long as it is in this world. But it will attempt to satiate its desires through the world. This is like in Hinduism, they have the idea of the sensual or even Kierkegaard system, the idea of the aesthete, the person who spends their life in central experiences, these are attempts at a swaging this turbulence within the human soul. From the Muslim point of view, this is few dial, the soul will never be at peace, as long as it is attempting to fill the vacuum or the emptiness through worldly experience.
One of the things that I think is happening in this culture now
is human beings have become very jaded in their experiences. There's a need for continual and more extreme stimulation. It relates to the I think a lot of it relates to the stimulation that people have with television, murders, violence, sexual stimulation, all of this stimulation is taking place within the brain. MTV is a very, I think, a powerful example of this of just massive stimulation. What's happening even I think Sesame Street which is, is in a lot of ways he is very positive thing. I think for teachers, it's a disaster, because you're competing with with entertainment, a child begins to think that, you know, you have to be entertained to learn, there has to be these cartoons
coming in.
And, and, and this and that it all has to be fast. You know, there's a cartoon of a little boy sitting in front of a forest and asking his father, what's the plot? Right?
So there's this idea, you know, I've really just this culture has become massive stimulation. You know, at toddlers, the fast world, there's a beautiful film called
Polonica. kotze. Power. katzie
is the second one power kotze wonderful film by a local filmmaker. And one of the things that he does in there is he's got the the the third world in slow motion.
Right. So you see people like farming and in Brazil and things traditional form is all in slow motion. But then when he switches to the, you know, America, it's all fast motion. And it's, it's interesting what he's trying, you know, what he's juxtaposed like, you show people eating and fast food restaurants really fast. And it's very, very strong to watch it. But the point being is that we are in a hyper stimulatory state. What happens when you reach thresholds, you want more stimulation. Now, there are people now that go out and do things to taste the moment that become very extreme and violent. gang bangers. You see, adrenaline junkies, when I worked in I was in an intensive care
unit, I used to go down to the ers sometime and, and in the ER room, it's really interesting that a lot what a lot of the nurses that work in ers and doctors do on the weekends, jump out of airplanes,
hang gliding, bonga you know, these jumping, bungee jumping. Because if you work in, you know, intensive cares, crack a chest open, you know, cardiac massage, very intense. They really get into the rush of adrenaline and things. And then on the weekend, it's like, you know,
what's there to do?
less interesting phenomenon. Really, it really is. Adrenaline is a very powerful drug. And we forget that there really is an adrenaline, you know, it's a very high drug. Right. And one of the things that happens when people when they, when they see things that they shouldn't see, you'll get the heart begins to beat faster, right? For instance, people that I mean, they've done studies with people that watch * and things like that stimulation, rapid heartbeat, adrenaline rushes, things like that initially, but then more stimulation, they need more stimulation, right. And the end result is a snuff film or something like that. Really, there's people that that's what they need
to be stimulated. These are very serious from an Islamic worldview, very serious ways of attempting to assuage this emptiness, to feel alive.
Now for the Muslim,
the goal in life is to reach a type of tranquility, not the stimulation, it is to reach a point where the stimulation is not needed for one to feel alive. That what one feels alive through a peace and inner peace, which is achieved through worship,
through through, you know, prayer and these things. So the dunya is the worldly existence. And the dunya also has seven stages.
The first stage is the infantile stage. Now it's interesting. The word in Arabic for the child is lamb. The first stage of dunya is Hunan. Which means lusty.
That's what it means the whole map to last. And this is the infantile state. There's a lust there's a desire.
And then it moves into the young adulthood, that whole lamb goes to about 15 years of age from birth to 15 years. And then young adulthood,
which is where hopefully, the child has been humanized in that first 15 years of life to where they become their safe to the society and their safety to themselves. The next then it moves to what's called the car or the middle aged person, sensational versus less. The second is, the second is it would be like a moving into what's called Shabaab, and it relates to fire. The second is Shabaab and it comes from a root word which means fire.
So this is where you have the fire of life.
The first would be
Spring, the second would be like summer, there's a fire, it's heat, it's intensity, there's a lot of energy to do things. The third stage is reaching the kahaan,
which is related to
maturity.
It's,
it's related to productivity where the person now the the fire has been used usefully, right? So there's something cooked there has been something cooked and it's something worthwhile, now there's a benefit to be had. And then you go into the fourth, which is the adulthood which is arousal, or Emre,
which is full, and this begins at 40. Right, this begins at about 35, small window here. So youth is from about 15, to 35. This is one to 1540 isn't a very important year in the Islamic view, because it's when the The human being is at their full maturity, the intellect is fully mature, the body has reached its full maturity.
And now, from this point,
you go into the next the fifth one is
where you reach out about 60.
And you go into what's called the share period,
where the person is now like an elder, somebody who they have wisdom, they have a type of presence within the society that is beneficial.
Share, SHAI, kh.
And then,
I mean, there's actually there's a stage here that's broken up, which would lead to seven, which is the sabi which is the infant first five years of first seven years. But the last and final stage is called adoos. And it's interesting that the male and the female are the same, there's no differentiation, it's a male, the word for I use applies to the male and the female. And this is beyond. This is where they've entered like 7580 years of age, there's a transcendence of the gender at this point. There's a type of, you know, in fact, in the Islamic culture, traditionally, at about 60, the woman will begin to she's she's there, there's open mixing. In, in many, many cultures.
Traditionally, as the woman enters into that, that period of life, there's there, she's considered like, there's a wisdom that she should be present that she should be,
she should be in that environment. And then I use is that last phase now death is the third stage. Now the Quran says some people die early and others, Allah gives them extend their life.
If a person dies before puberty, they're not taken into account at all. And they're considered for paradise. Generally, that is the majority view. If they die after puberty, they're taken to account for their actions.
So death is the next Now, just to give you a scenario, what the Muslims believe happens at death. At the initial point of death, it is believed that the Spirit leaves the body and hovers above the body. Now, if you look at the word for spirit, in Arabic, it is blue, which comes from a word, ad. Now, spirituals in Latin also comes from a word that means when the idea is that the wind is not something you see, but you feel its effects, you see its effects, you see the leaves moving. So the rule is not something we can see, but we feel the effects of the soul.
The soul is powerful, when the soul departs from the body, if you if you've and one of the things highly encouraged in Islam is to wash dead bodies. Right? Because you prepared for the prayer. It's very powerful, especially if you know the person because you're in the presence. You see the absence of the soul.
You see the absence of the soul, the body is there, but it is not the soul is missing. That is not the same person that you knew in your life.
Let me figure out how does one account for
We're experiencing phenomenon.
Because animals have sold as well, according to Islam. Yes, definitely. All things in the world are animated by spirit, everything, including rocks.
The Muslims believe that all the way down that there is a penetration of this
divine substance that Allah has animated the world with.
That's why everything is a sign of God. If not, you know, if there wasn't this spiritual element within creation, then it would not be a sign of God, it would be absence it would be death and other.
So that not so good point. And we and Muslims believe that animals are raised up as well on the Day of Judgment. And Muslims believe that animals bear witness against people that abuse them.
humanely humane societies kind of have the Hadith there, right?
There's actually a hadith that the whole earth is raised up. And there's a hadith that people that oppressed the earth will have seven Earths around their neck, on the day of judgment. The Prophet said, Whoever pollutes our rivers, you know, it's like their curse to do something like that to spoil something. He cursed anyone that took hunting as a sport. In other words, they didn't eat the food, they just went out and hunted animals. And he said that there's a reward in showing kindness to anything that has spirit.
So at the point of death, the body the soul hovers over, and according to the Muslims, the soul says I do and I did only hasten this process. Because this disengagement is is very difficult for the soul to be separate from the body. And then when the person is placed, they're washed. They're wrapped in a funeral shroud of white cloth, males washed males, women washed women, unless it's husband and wife. But generally males wash males, women, wash women, and then the the body is put into the grave. The grave is dirt. Muslims are not buried in in coffins, you're buried in dirt. And it's going back to our back to the earth. Now there is a Huddy, there's a store that has Intel's in
his tafsir Allah annum and concerning its validity, but it's told that it's an interesting story, that God sent the
set off to which is set off in the Bible, to go down and get earth to in which Adam would be made from. And the earth refused, which is kind of the nature of the earth, wanting to maintain the integrity, refused. And then so another angel went down, Earth refused. And then the third angel, which is as the Angel of Death went down, and said, If you give this to me, I promise I'll return it to you.
And so the earth was given and the province said that Adam, that the first soul which contain all of creation, the first soul was created from all the Earths of the world, from the White, the black, the red, the the difficult, the easy, the fertile, the in fertile, all of this, the topsoil and add them in Arabic. I mean, in Hebrew, one of the means is that from blood, but one of the words in Arabic is Tawny, and from the top soil of the earth. So the idea is that the, the human beings from this top soil, and so as an eel returns the separates the soul from the body and returns the earth back, and you can look in terms of clay, man being created from clay, you know, scientifically,
secondarily, because everything that makes up our body, our bodies about 70% water, and, and the rest of it is coming from the earth, through the animals and the vegetables that we eat. Right. So we are literally made of Earth, and we go back to Earth, creation.
It's unaccepted in Islam, yes, although there is an interesting Hadees, which is a very sound Hadees of which a man according to the Prophet Mohammed, a man cremated himself, and God's still brought all of his
parts together. And then he asked the man why he did it. And the man said that he was so afraid of the Day of Judgment, he was hoping that he wouldn't be resurrected. And so the coins of Mohammed God forgave him for that.
There was no no embalming No, goes right back into the earth and preferably the first day. At the point it enters into the grave. The next stage is the grave.
It enters into what's called a barossa, which is an inner space and now it's no longer in a time space continuum that we are in
And the soul is reunited with the body. I mean, it's not coming back to life. If you dig up the grave, you know this is gonna be a dead person there. But the soul is reunited with the body and consciousness is there. And then the grave is either a place in which a window is open to the garden or a window is open to the fire, depending on the individual.
And then there is a questioning in the grave. There are two angels Moncada and nicaea that come to the grave, and question the people. The first question is, who is your Lord?
And the second question is, who is your prophet? And the third question is, what is your religion?
The fifth
is the, what's called the Nef.
Which is that is Sarah Thiel is the angel that is assigned to resurrection, the first Nef cup, which is like it means literally blowing, the first blowing is all of the souls die, all of them. So there is an idea that life will stop. And the Quran says that, just as the universe was expanded, it will be contracted at the end.
In scientific terms, kind of like the Big Crunch, right? That it all comes back. And there is an idea of heat melt down as well, because it says the oceans boil over the mountains melt everything is if there's a heat death, that's the Quran definitely gives an idea of a heat death at the end of time.
And then the second, of course, is the resurrection, that there is a resurrection of the souls and everybody is brought to a plane,
which is similar to alpha, and then that the AMA takes place, which is the day of standing. Now the Prophet Muhammad said that this is a day in which people literally will be some people will be up to here in their own sweat. It's a very intense day of accountability. And everybody says enough's enough. See, everybody says Me, me. And there's a hadith that a child will go to the the parent and say, help me and the parent says me me, that this is a day in which everybody is concerned with their own souls.
And then this The next stage is what is called the reckoning. According to the Islamic tradition, your entire life will be placed before you, you will see all of your actions, and you will be called to account and asked to defend yourself.
And according to the Islamic tradition, it says you'll know when your excuses are lame.
It says in that insana, infc boss era wallow era, on that day, the human being knows very clearly all of his. In other words, if you want to look at it in psychological terms, all of your defense mechanisms are suddenly removed, your projection, your denial, all of these psychological mechanisms that we've used very well, in this world to justify our actions are taken away from us. And it says in sort of the path, that on that day, the veil is removed from your eyes, and your eyesight is piercing.
So you will see things very clear. And there is an idea that we all know In truth, if we will reflect what we're up to. So each person is taken into account.
And the Prophet Muhammad said that every people will be behind their prophet.
So the people of Moses will be behind Moses, the people of Jesus behind Jesus, people, Mohammed behind Muhammad, the people of Karl Marx, behind Karl Marx, everybody's going to be behind. They're the one they took, as their example in this world.
And it's interesting because the Quran says that the oppressed will say to the oppressors, you got us here. And the oppressors will say,
we didn't do anything you followed us. And so there's this kind of conflict between them and each one will say, I don't want anything to do with you.
In the next world, so there's an idea of really everybody awakens to their, to the truth of their own souls to the truth of their own cells. And then it said that you there is after the reckoning, there's a
The weighing in the balance once everything has been shown, then actions are put into scales. And the scholars say Allah knows best what they you know their reality. And if the right actions outweigh the bad, then you you are given a book in your right hand and is the book of your actions. And if the wrong actions outweigh, then you're given a book in your left hand. At that point, then you go to what is called a set up
which is the plane
it is a bridge over which the Valley of denim is
and that the the bridge in the tradition says that it's more Pierce, it's more sharp than a sword. And everybody will have to go across this bridge, everyone.
And there are angels on the bridge that shout to people.
And the Prophet Mohammed said that the people who there are people that will go like light, they'll go the speed of light across the bridge, he said Kabak, like like a lightning, they go right across it. There's other people who said there will go like a wind. There's other people he said that will go running, there's other people that will go walking, there's other people who go crawling, and then there's other people that will not make it across,
into the pit.
And then at the other side of the, the, the Sirat there is what's called a held in the hold is a huge basin. And according to the tradition, anyone who drinks from it will never have thirst after that. And there is also a tradition that on that day, the the
death is brought before everybody in the
in the form of a lamb and is slaughtered.
And so there's no death after that.
Thirsty Thursday, one of that's one of the ideas that that only only God can quench the thirst. And if one was attempting to quench the thirst in this world by other than God, then they failed in what their task was, which was to be quenched through closeness and not distance. So it goes back to this idea of Rama, mercy and wrath, that you bring wrath upon yourself. That that's really the idea that God is not God is not punishing people to punish them. The people literally take themselves to their final destinies that's very strong in the tradition. Now some people will only they will not abide in there are people that leave it.
There's a there's an interesting tradition. I mean, this is just a story. But there's an interesting tradition because the Prophet Muhammad said, how people died. That's how they're raised up and how they're raised up is how they're judged. And there's a story of a woman. They tell that she never did one kind deed, except once
she was going into her house. And so carrot dropped, and a cat came and took the carrot. And this is based on Hadith that the Prophet said there will be people punished because they did not feed animals that were in their responsibility, that they're actually punished for that. It's like a responsibility. And so this person
was going to go get the care. And that just decided, no, I'll let the cat habit. And so they're in this the pit of fire and a carrot comes down. And so they they get they hold on to the carrot and the carrot, they start getting pulled up out of the fire on this carrot. But then she looks down and there's other people coming out holding on to her. So before you know it, there's a whole string of people getting pulled out of the fire because of this one carrot. And then she starts saying no, this is my carrot. And she slips and falls back in. So just giving you an idea of the you know that people how they are in this world, it's going to be confirmed in the next world, that they're
Muslims. Now there is a Hadith, that a prostitute in a society that a prostitute went to a well and got water up from the well. And she saw a hungry, thirsty dog. And she said, This dog is thirsty like I am. So she put her shoe down and brought water up and quench the thirst of the dog and the Prophet said for that she was forgiven. And given paradise. There's another tradition that says that a man he used to loan money and he would tell his, his agents go out and ask to be repaid. And if they don't have the money, tell them don't not to worry about it. And so the Prophet said that when that man is brought before God, God says I'm more generous than this man and forgiving his debtors,
and he forgives him. So if you look in the Islamic tradition, there's very, very strong emphasis on
forgiveness and Rama. But there's also an emphasis on wrath. there's a there's a balance here, even though the Muslim say God's Rama is over his wrath. And there's a tradition that says that God's mercy is 99 parts, and only one part that he sent down to the earth and by that part of mercy, a mother shows mercy to her child, a foal raises its leg, the mare raises its leg from stepping on the fall. So the idea is that every all of the mercy in this world that we see is only one small portion of the mercy of God. So there is a strong emphasis on God's mercy. But there's also a strong emphasis on the wrath
of your citizens in my country causes
problems.
Right.
I think there's definitely accountability on on all levels. Most Muslims believe in accountability, that complacency is the Prophet said, being silent about something is showing contentment with it. So if you're silent about a thing, it means that you're you're complicit in the action. So unless to speak out against would endanger your life. So there is there is an idea that people who feel that I can't, you know, if I speak out, they're going to kill me or something like that. They're forgiven, although the Prophet said the greatest jihad is to speak the truth in front of an unjust ruler, that that is the greatest jihad.
So there is definitely an idea of responsibility in one's actions and in what does you know, and politics is a problem. You know, Henry Thoreau, he got arrested for not paying his taxes, because he felt, you know, government support slavery, and he didn't want to support a government. And they say that Emerson went there, visit him in the jail. And he said, Henry, what are you doing in there? and Henry said, the question is, what are you doing out there?
that we do have a social responsibility?
Yes. And I'll tell you something really interesting about that. There's a book called life after life by Raymond Moody. And there's a section in there about suicide, in which he mentions a woman who committed suicide she was actually declared dead but then she was brought back to life after blood transfusions. And he asked her he interviewed her and asked her what happened, she said, she found herself doing it over and over again. And the Heidi the coins. The problem, Hammad said anyone who commits suicide will continue to do that with the same intensity until the day of judgment.
Although it is not considered,
it is not considered a kafir. In other words, the person is not a Muslim committed suicide, that they're still Muslim, they're buried as a Muslim. But it's it's one of the worst things that you can do.
If no, absolutely if somebody is, is anybody who is out of their mind is not held held to account by Sharia, right? Half the 20th century.
You need to know, in other words, if if somebody was
clinically depressed to the point where they were non functional, you know, the accountable, it's hard for the accountability to be, you know, I mean, those things, it's just difficult, there are gray areas, but the idea is that if somebody if they really are not functioning, you know, that the that accountability is based on sound intellect, that that is part of accountability. And this again, like in Islam, you have somebody who's all their life, they've been punished. You know, since their time they were born, beaten as a child and all these things, they become sociopathic, or
from an Islamic point of view, when they reach adulthood, they're accountable from in real terms, we would say a low animal is going to happen on the Day of Judgment, because the Prophet said many people, many parents will be taken to account for what they did to their children.
You see, because the it is the parents respect, it's a trust. That's why parent Parenthood is so strong in Islam. You know, it's because it's a divine trust. Children are trust in the hands of the parents. And if they betray the trust, then that can destroy the children.
Any I'm open up to question discussion.
Period.
According to the tradition, according to the tradition,
Abraham takes care of the children who die. The children whose parents are for paradise, Abraham takes care of those children in his house, Donna, what's called Habana
He can't forgive. Yeah, it's not like you know, I mean, there in the Christian tradition, there's some verses that would indicate like Jesus said, Go and sin no more, you know, for you're forgiven. And that was seen as kind of a blasphemy to the Jews. From the Muslim point of view, they would say, Allahu Allah, if that is a true account of of Jesus, they would say that that is not Jesus forgiving, but rather God revealing to him that the woman's actions were forgiven, because the Prophet did tell people they were forgiven, but he does not forgive the Prophet does not absolve people's sins, it is God alone, who forgives.
The Prophet is seen as a human being, he's a man, he does not have divine.
There's, he is a human being, like the rest of us in his human nature, but not like the rest of us in that he's a prophet. So some of them said, you know, a Ruby is is, you know, is a rock, but it's not like other rocks. It's a mineral, but it's not like other minerals.
I'm having a tough time trying to reconcile the issue of slandering a prophet for the death sentence is out of love with some of the things you just said, ie that prophets are, are merely men. And also something else that I think I've heard
that people find out in your own time.
16, this person ages four years of age?
That's true.
Well, there would be no, because there, I mean, if you slander another human being, you're whipped
in Islam. In other words, if I accuse somebody in here of adultery,
the Islamic punishment is that I'm whipped.
Because that is prohibited to do that. And there's very severe consequences for it, because of its impact on society.
If you do something to a prophet,
it's very serious with the idea that the prophets are impeccable in their character, that there are people that have only brought good for human beings. And if you do want to say something about them, then you say it, not in the public space, in the private space. In other words, that's again, between you and God. But if you bring that out into the public space, then it creates a type of tension in the society that is very serious according to the Muslims.
Job, he forgave Absolutely.
Yeah, he forgave them. They paid themselves and he forgave them. Absolutely. Yeah. No, if it was a non Muslim, who did it? See? That's a very different if it's a non Muslim who did it? It goes under a different category than a Muslim. Did
you see what I mean? In other words, it's this law relates to Muslims who say bad things about the prophets a lot is that
what you said before about
the place in Islamic setting is a pretty important piece of paper understanding how that could possibly be a reality. But
it's not. It's not like some one of us here with glasses, the proper
punishment.
Maybe? Yeah, that's the point.
Know, it's prohibited in Islamic law for a person to do that to glaspie any profit, right? But for a Muslim,
it's, it's a death penalty for a non Muslim. They, they are tried, and they if they become Muslim, right, if it was towards the Prophet Mohammed, then it's not if they don't, and they can, and they say, you know that they adhere to that, because it's prohibited for the Muslims even to curse false gods in the Koran says let the superlinear deployment do that for you. Subala I don't get it and do not curse the false gods of other people. And that came later Initially, the Muslims were saying bad things about the gods. So even for a Muslim, they're not supposed to make fun of Hindu objects of worship.
Right, like laugh about Krishna or Vishnu or Shiva.
She we're not supposed to do that. If it's in the private space, that's another matter but public guy should not do that. I should not disparage the what other people hold sacred.
To bring it back to you.
Society. That is not is it maybe Muslims who are completely getting wrong
stopped at the Muslim
West Bank last week. Pictures of Muhammad Reza came around.
I didn't know about that. But I think somebody mentioned it. I'm Jewish. She's from Russia. She's been under she's in jail in Israel for fomenting religious discord, right? Is
there a fatwa put out against her?
Oh, I don't know what's going on there. I mean, the problem is, for me personally, for me, personally, there is no now in the in the Muslim world, there is not any government that is implementing Islamic law, not one. None. Zero. Sudan. I don't know. I mean, I'm not there. And I don't know. But
I'd be amazed if they were.
Here, you know, before she got
lost, she would meet in a Muslim country if that happened, she would be taken to there would be a trial. You know, that it that is it goes against the you know, it's it's like a blasphemy goes under those laws, right. Laws, Muslim, Muslim countries have contended they are implementing? A some do some don't, most of them will say that it is the law of the Constitution or the state. But none of them do. I think probably the only ones that would claim to is Arabia, like what they call Saudi Arabia, now, Sudan, and maybe Afghanistan will probably claim that they do also and Iran, Iran.
But I'm going to get into when when I talk about the end of time, and how the Muslims view I'm going to get into that really discussing really how the Muslims view this period of time, traditionally, so is it 12 now?
Okay, well, thank you very much and