Hamza Yusuf – Islam And The Western World – Part 6

global warming and other things that are happening, they're probably, you know, there's a lot of credibility to what they're saying, you know, maybe it was a big mistake to start using fossil fuels as ways of,

you know, it could be the end of our species. So who knows, but my point is that extremism, everybody's looking from a vantage point, and whoever defines those parameters. In the United Kingdom, the Guardian magazine would be considered extreme left in the United States to a lot of people, whereas in the United Kingdom, the guardians, it's left, it's not extreme left. So you know, who just decides those parameters, I think violence is a major problem. Violence in the name of religion is a particular problem. Because violence in the name of religion enables normally good people to do very heinous things, because of doctrinal beliefs, because they actually think that

they're doing something that is good and exclusive as religion is very dangerous. And as somebody who's been through a religious evolution in my life, and and I can understand where people are, at certain stages in their religious evolution, exclusivist ours are people that I think you can work with many of them to, to move them into a position of understanding. So that was my point, you know, I'm not saying and I, I believe in self change, as well. I mean, I don't, but I think that that's part of the balance, also being able to work on yourself and also being able to work on your environment, your sphere of influence is very important.

That's a great question.

I look at it this way I can remember in high school, I came across a quote by Senator George ache and instead of blue to wake up one morning, and find we're all the same race, creed nationality, we find out some other reason to hate each other by noon.

And I think that speaks to the dilemma we have. And I feel like part of the fabric, Christian kind of analysis of the human being is this, which to me helps enormously and understanding kind of how to navigate in this world. One as it says, We are really depraved. It's like Mark, I remember when I met

Mother Teresa, she said I'm capable, any sin, any problems. So there's a, there's a flawed side of our humanity. But there's also we're stamped with this incredible image of God. So we're capable of starting the Peace Corps of laying down our lives for people of loving our enemies forgiving. So I think these two things are brilliant. They inform the way I look at the whole world, because on the one hand, you can be naive if you don't understand the nature of man that is capable of great evil. On the other hand, you can become as a mindset cynical, if you really don't keep believing that there is the capacity and every human being to be great if you can challenge that.

Well, show me right here. 30 minute time check, Holly, can we go?

Okay, that's fine. Give me a ride over here. And let's try to get around, we want to try to get a lot of dialogue go.

Like religion needs to be filtered by men of piety and medical understanding. We live in a time of like, I just came back from India. And what in my short trip there I experienced two bombs in my hometown. And then just recently, I was at in trying to augment the major saints of India and Obama there right before the World War II, or the end of Ramadan. And we live in America, and I believe American Muslims have a big impact. I mean, if you were here from South Asia, and it's unnatural for South Asians, that

everyone felt very shocked by this thing. And I feel that I deal with a lot of people here.

And we have educational companies that do Sunday school, kids, Muslim kids, and what they tell me about non Muslim, and when they tell me about their religion, I don't recognize that. I know where that comes from. And it may be the modernity that we live in and the fate that they're being taught by Sheikh Hamza or even for you to comment on how is it that we can educate and the breakdown of our traditional religion when we valued people like apostle said, if you don't have

any sense of gratitude towards people, you don't have gratitude towards God? And so why is it that young people, and I know that we have like a kind of extremism that's built in us as Americans, we go and we have bravado. But why can't it be that our leaders should be more definite than what is Islam and what is not as smart as it could be abroad? Islam, there's no doubt about that, but more definite about how you can interpret this religion, you can play around with it. This is becoming a silly toy for children. I mean, we're literally intellectual children, playing with God's religion, and this is a very dangerous thing. And I know that they

For your

step they use the for education.

Well, just what I was saying is that religion is very dangerous scripture is very dangerous. And there's a lot of ways to read Scripture. I, when I was working as a nurse, I did a rotation in a bipolar clinic. And there was a man there who didn't sleep for about eight days and went on. He went on, he went into psychotic episode, he was manic depressive. And,

you know, I asked him why and he said, because the the, the Bible says, Be vigilant and don't sleep.

And I told him, you know, that that's, that's allegorical, you know, it means don't don't

and, and he's really you think it is and and he was, you know, but this is somebody who just read something and took it literally and and literalism is a is a is a major danger in religion, to take versus literally is can be very dangerous. If you take the Bible, literally, you can end up smashing babies up against the rocks of

Zion. So I think it's very important to have that magisterium, you have to have an interpretive group of people. And even the Protestants have understood that and worked out I mean, the Baptists, who are traditionally people that read the Bible directly still have created ways of having interpretive magisterium. So all religions have to arrive at that. But to just leave a scripture that people actually believe is directly from God out in the open for every Tom, Dick and Harry to interpret, I think, is probably the single most dangerous thing in the world. Let me jump in on this because I think this is right at the heart of everything. I think people look at models, models,

transform lives. In other words, you know, Henry Ford was able to mass produce ford motor cars, because he made one more I think what the world is looking for people in this country around the world are people that are different, who love each other, who come out of different traditions. So I'd say you get back with the congressman was saying, you know, it'd be great if you started hanging out spending time with Christians with Jews, and all of a sudden, people are gonna notice that and they're gonna say, they're gonna ask me questions, how can you have those kind of friends and how can you do this thing? So I, I think one of the most powerful things we're doing here today is just

being together. People are drawn to health. People are want to be a part of wholeness and health. And health comes when different people start to connect and realize, hey, we're different, but boy, there's about 80% that work kind of together on