Hamza Yusuf – Learning To Be Human #02

Hamza Yusuf

With Umar Faruq Abd-Allah

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The speakers emphasize the "med component" of the human experience, including the " perfectible human being" and "monster" of technology, while also acknowledging the "monster" of life and the "monster" of technology. They stress the importance of learning the language of nature and the "arouseland" of life for one's health and productivity. They touch on the challenges of finding a natural person and the benefits of technology in achieving personal and spiritual well-being, including architecture in shaping people's minds and perception.

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			First of all, I want to thank you Dr. Amara for
		
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			your talk. I
		
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			mean, the the book that you wrote which I have an Arabic
		
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			about setra, Eman and setra.
		
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			Shambala when they actually read that book and was very impressed with it. The the Hadith that you
quoted
		
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			koulamallah the new era of Al Fatah
		
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			wa Baba whoa whoa whoa we Danny oh you know serani Oh, you met Hassan II
		
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			that
		
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			the Hadith indicates that people are enculturated into customs and beliefs and traditions. But then
he says come to and tegile behemoth, Uber behemoth and jamara just as the animal is created,
complete or whole in its nature held to his Suna behaim in Jeddah. Do you notice any mutilations
that that you do as humans to your animals like cutting their ears and things like that. So it
indicates that the
		
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			filter is it's it's a wholeness in nature that's there. But the Hadees also indicates that there's a
whole set of other possibilities to that, that inherent or principio nature. And one of the things I
think that's very confusing for people in the 20th century, we've seen human nature is denied, like
this idea that we have human nature is denied, and that all peoples
		
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			that anthropology anthropologists, and sociologists, and social scientists have shown that there's
so much diversity in the world, that it's impossible for us to have some type of human nature that
unites us, all, as this hadith would indicate. And there's a very interesting, Herodotus in the
histories has a very interesting section where the dowry is the king brings the Greeks and they
honor their fathers by burning them.
		
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			And he asked them, How much money would it cost to get them to honor them by eating them, and they
said that you could give them all the money in the world they wouldn't eat, they were horrified by
that. And then he brings the Indians and who ate their fathers to honor them. And he says how much
money to burn your father's and they were horrified by that, and Harada just makes this comment
about how customers are so different, even though they were both honoring their, their ancestors. So
just in terms of how do you see this incredible diversity of human expression, and, and, and the
relationship that it has to this idea of a universal nature.
		
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			When we
		
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			talk about the filter,
		
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			in zen, some of the most important verses about it are like sort of this shrimps in Surah 13.
		
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			You know, my the fig and the olive, and so forth by the sun, and the morning brightness. So these
are verse these are chapters in the Quran, which establish that human beings are perfectly created,
and that there's nothing wrong about them at all. But commentators say that one of the reasons why
they're preceded by the oaths is because the oath in Arabic means this is the literal truth. It's
emphatic, it's not metaphorical, it's absolutely so. But it needs that emphasis, because no one
would believe this. And you know, that if you look at what people do, especially the evil they do,
this also takes on so many forms, it's impossible to comprehend. And it is very clear and the other
		
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			heads we just denied, as you know, just looked at a very small part, even the Hadeeth I mentioned, I
left out two thirds of the Hadeeth just for time sake, you know, but
		
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			it's very clear in our tradition, that it is the demonic, more than anything else that alters the
human beings, and they do it 1000 different ways times 1000 different ways.
		
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			If we will look for proofs of the filter, then I think one of the greatest proofs of that in the
20th century is the great Austrian
		
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			anthropologists vilhelm Schmidt, and he wrote a book in German, Osborn, this idea got this got
acedia, the origin of the idea of God never translated into English. And it's 12 volumes. And,
		
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			you know, this book is really amazing because he spent his life
		
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			documenting all the so called primitive religions, primitive religions being what we call micro
religions. They're kinship groups that don't have political structures. Everything is determined by
kinship. And these little groups that we call primitive, they're always very isolated, otherwise,
they wouldn't be that way. And there are many of them, especially in the 20th century, there still
were many that are not there today. And he showed that all of them have the idea of the one God, no
exceptions whatsoever. None of them are polytheistic, in the sense of having pantheons, not a single
one. And he did that also to refute Lubbock and Tyler, who were evolutionist anthropologists who
		
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			didn't do research, by the way, they didn't do good research. And they claim that religion begins
with animism. So he showed that's absolutely not true. And he himself who was a Catholic,
		
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			he believed that this was a proof of ancient prophecy. And we wouldn't necessarily disagree with
him. Because these people are so isolated. And yet they have these amazing similarities that pertain
not just to the belief in the one God, whom they call by Beautiful Names, you know, but also they
believe in morality, they believe that marriage is given to them by God, they believe in heaven and
and how some of them even believe in the sea route, right, the path that takes you to the garden.
And so we would also say that's a manifestation of fitrah. But like, as you said, human beings. No
one has a greater
		
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			spectrum of potentials good and bad than us, right? The Nester Webster, who was regarded before she
went into conspiracy theories, as a historian in one of her books, she she makes that argument that
that unitarianism was the Aboriginal faith of human beings that idolatry was was secondary and not
primary. So she and I'm wondering if she was influenced by that German? Well, Arnold Toynbee was
right. That's one of the main influences on Arnold Toynbee and Arnold Toynbee, who is really a
remarkable thinker. And, you know, historians sometimes are equivocal about whether they want to
accept him or not, because he's, he, he does what historians are not supposed to do, which is to
		
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			tell you what it all means.
		
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			But,
		
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			you know, Toynbee was very deeply influenced by
		
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			Schmidt and by others. And one of the interesting things about Toynbee is it he believed that the
most advanced human beings who ever lived were those of the Paleolithic of the old stone age. And
again, he doesn't say that just off the top of his head. They didn't build cities, like we built
cities, but they were spiritually very far advanced. And he bases that on a lot of things. But
Schmitz one of them. Well, you brought up Toynbee, and I think you were the first one that exposed
me to Arnold Toynbee, that's kind of become
		
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			a very interesting reference that I go back to, at different times, I think some of the students
have actually read at least the abridged version of toybiz studying history. But one of the things
that he talks about he at the outset of the study, he argues for the differences like these
differences in civilizations, and he wants to understand where civilization originated from and what
produces it. And he basically rejects race, this idea that there's racial superiority in some
people's as opposed to others, he categorically rejects that, but he does make an argument that
there are distinct manifestations of civilization and one of the things that again, as human
		
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			expressions, there's such an incredible diversity on the planet, of human behavior and expression.
So would you would you do you see civilization as something that unifies human beings in from from a
fitrah sense that humans by nature begin to create civilization
		
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			in a language is so important, so when we use the words
		
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			Civilization, one of the problems is that defining the term, it comes from the word city. So it's
those great societies that build big cities like Rome, and so forth. And this is where, in our
tradition, we use the word I'm wrong. And I'm wrong to me is a much better word. Because of the fact
that it has nothing to do with cities, it means bringing things to life.
		
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			You know, it could be referred to Bedouins, just as, although we have a Hubble and albedo. But,
		
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			you know, I think that,
		
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			you know, with,
		
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			with Toynbee and, you know, his concept of civilization, this focusing on these civilizations that
are big states and so forth, I think that that's, if we had a broader perspective perspective, it
would be good. Of course, when he talks about
		
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			human beings in the Paleolithic, then he's taking that broader perspective. But Toynbee also
believes very much in what he calls the creative minority. And one of the most important ideas in
Toynbee is that history is always the work of minorities, and therefore, more minorities that are
galvanized, and that have solidarity, they will lead. And they will have great effects. And he
believes that civilizations like those of Egypt and those of Mesopotamia and those of ancient China,
the Yellow River Valley Civilization, the Yellow Emperor, that you know,
		
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			that these begin by creative minorities, and creative minorities are always inclusive. And they're
not oppressive, and they're a great gift to human beings. And in fact, maybe at time B, hence it
this but we could easily say that they're prophetic. And he emphasizes the fact that to do
civilizations, like those of Egypt or Mesopotamia, or the yellow Valley in China, is such an immense
human undertaking, that essentially can't be done without a profit. It's got to be done with
something that can, you know, give us divisions in labor and a whole way, new of way, new way of
living, but then the civilizations usually become civilizations have domineering, or dominant
		
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			minorities. And then they oppress, and they become the they become, you know, the province, they
become the property of the elites. And then they create which time what time because the
proletariat's using that Marxist term, but you have an internal proletariat, which are the oppressed
people in the society, and you have an external proletariat, which are usually Bedouin peoples who
are also oppressed by that civilization, he would regard the pre Islamic Arabs to be the external
proletariat of the Byzantine, and Persian empires, okay, so they have to keep their distance, but
they also learn from them how to use weapons, and usually they can often conquer them as well. But
		
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			I sort of forgot the question. Well, you know,
		
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			okay, it's fine. Let me let me look at something else here that you brought up the idea of moving,
because you spoke very beautifully about the academic nature, and that human beings are these
incredibly honored creatures. But there's also in the Quran
		
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			insan, which is a difficult word to translate.
		
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			You know, it's the intimate being, it's the being that that
		
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			represents the essence it's the aim, you know, the insan is the essence of the of the of the eye,
but the incense is also talked about, put it in Santa Clara, you know, that, that in an incentive?
Holika Hello. You know, the human being was created in angst and anxiety. He's called a jewel in the
Koran. He's hasty. He's He's oppressive, you know, yeah, you harness in them, but you cannot undo
your oppression as against your own self, NASA talking to all humanity. Marvin, I'm now Homer
Economou, Sam Kennedy of the new moon. We didn't oppress them, but they were pressing themselves. So
there's also this other side of the human being that is actually very negative in the Koran. And
		
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			obviously, the Christian tradition deals with that with the idea of the Fallen human being, how
would you address that aspect of the human being so this is also part of the fifth row, that it has
the negative capacity right?
		
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			And it is forgetful. And it has to be forgetful, because then it can use what its fifth row was for,
which is to rediscover it. And when we come into life, we believe that all children until the age of
maturity, or sometime after that, there are saints, you know, because of the fact that they have
this federal, and they're also not morally responsible, they're not moral agency yet,
		
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			you know, but then as the passions develop in us, then these passions, you know, the idle of the
pig, the idle of the dog anger and appetite, you know, they will necessarily veil us from who we
are. So you have this seeming contradiction between koulibaly internal heluva either master who
shall resume with either Mr. Jose Roma new. So we have this, but again, our commentators make it
very clear that this is a particular type of human being, you know, here's the human being who is
not true to his or her football. And
		
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			what was the other part was just, you know, that idea of looking at the human being and all these
negative qualities. So
		
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			what, then human nature if we, if we say, there is a human nature that universal I mean, you'd it's,
our tradition would argue that we would insist,
		
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			but But for us, the nature and from that Hadeeth that began the talk, the nature the human nature is
really a nature of potential realities of his capacities. And so the actualization, and we have the
concept of it in sanel, Carmel, you know, this idea of the perfectible human being, that can move
towards a kind of wholeness, or completeness, which is a restoration of that, of that first being,
is that is that
		
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			is that how do we have that and you know, of course, I'm a convert, this beloved brother is a
convert, many of the people here are converts. And I remember when I became a Muslim, which was
early January, the third 1970.
		
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			And then as I went through that first year,
		
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			there were certain dilemmas I had in my heart, from before I can emptiness, even though I had been
religious, and that was filled. And then, you know, believe it or not, you could actually see your
face changing in the mirror, especially in Ramadan, like, Can I do this? Can I fast this, I've never
done that in my life. And then you just see yourself changing. And so it's this is manifest, I
think, to most people who come into the faith. And I remember when we were in Spain, Sheikh Hamza
was also part of that, that we had a particular person come to us from the mountains. He was from
Madrid, he came from a Stalinist background. he'd become a Buddhist, he was in a black suit, that he
		
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			could sleep in, it would keep him warm. He did his own Buddhism. And then of his bodies joined us.
And he was we later called him Arthur, man, you probably met him. And when he came to us, he was
frightening. In his eyes were like,
		
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			bout to pop out of his head. And we had a madrasa which comes, uh, I met him there. And we had it
was an under Lucien type of school. And, you know, we had a little door that you open for the
window, you know, is like a window to the door to know who's knocking. And when he knocked at the
door,
		
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			the brother who went to open it, shut it just like that. It's like, and then he says, Oh, my God,
like, What if he becomes a Muslim? You know, we've got enough crazies in the community already.
		
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			And he kept knocking. And then finally, we had to let him in. And then in nadie, LA, he were in LA,
he raggio. He took the Shahada, and we thought, oh my god, what are we going to do? And I know my
wife, Samira remembers him really well. And like, within three weeks, you could not recognize him.
And he was also a professional Acrobat. And I would watch him from my office looking over the
garden. And he couldn't take two steps without doing us a big skip. And the way that Acrobat skip is
not the way you skip. And he became he became the most beautiful person in our community, and he
became a person that you know, anything you want to done, even cleaning your house, even doing your
		
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			laundry, means sacrificing a chicken, he would be the one to do it. So, again, one of the most
important things is you can come back to the federal and that's why we say the federal
		
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			can be altered, but it can't be substituted for something else. My wife and I, when we were at
Michigan,
		
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			where I began to teach in 1978.
		
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			You know, we were in student housing because I was an assistant professor who's always poor. And she
was also completing her education. So we were in the graduate housing. And there was a woman there
who was a feminist. She was divorced with a child, she was a law student. And I don't know why. But
she liked us. We liked her. And we always argued, and she's always talking, you can't get in Word
edgewise. And then, you know, one spring day, and she's talking about you know, that, how horrible
religion has been to women. And we say that women are religions, best friends. But religion is not
necessarily their best friend. And, you know, so and one spring day, she was out, we were out in an
		
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			open area, and her son was there. He's about three years old.
		
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			And he was having a big time. And then he got over to where the cars were parked, you know, on a
street, both sides of the street. And there's a car coming down the street really fast. And he's
going out between the cars. And then she notices him. Just at the last moment, what did she say? Oh,
my God.
		
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			So she said, Oh, my God.
		
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			And the car slammed on its brakes, and it screeched, and there was crying and yelling, and he
escaped by an inch of his life. You see? And then and this is what the poor answer is that anyone
who calls upon God in dire need, He will answer their prayer that was St. Agatha, which she did,
which is coming out of what her fitrah. But when the fitrah is veiled over, it only shows itself to
be what it is, in times of great fear. And this was a time of great fear, I can't lose my son, and
also times of great joy. And that can they say there's no disbeliever in the foxhole. So but the
ability at the federal law to come back, this is very hopeful for us, isn't it? And this is one of
		
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			the important things about studying the federal because people can get so far away from it. And
every we can take 1000 different paths. But you can come back to it, actually very easily. Right?
		
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			The, you know about women I like that, that they're the best friends of religion, but religion is
not always their best friend. And that's something for centuries, women were seeing that their
nature was inferior to male nature. Aristotle asserts that and and that was certainly you'll find
that creeping up in both Christian and Muslim texts. And there's a very interesting verse I think
it's in the heart of about
		
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			it says, our, our main unit,
		
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			Philadelphia tea over here suamico movie, and it's it's articulated in the masculine.
		
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			And yet most of them will fester on poverty Mujahed. Most most of them say it's talking about women.
And it uses the mezzanine and mature, you know, that they are enculturated into ornaments, you know,
ornamentation that they're put up as ornaments, women, and then they, if they have an inability to
articulate that, it indicates essentially that it is inculturation that there's a nurturing element.
And then if you remove that, because if we say the woman's nature is inferior, like it has been
asserted by many, many people in the past, then it leaves it.
		
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			It's irremediable. You can't You can't alter that fact. But if it's understood as a nurture thing,
which we clearly see, especially in in, in 20th century where women have been given equal
opportunity to in fact, in many ways, they're exceeding the men now, at a lot of universities, I
think you saw that when you were in teaching in the Middle East and the women were foreign students,
they were the best students. In fact, my whole academic career women are the best students. Right? I
mean, that's that's even as a that's been our experience. I think it's a tuna men, you know, you got
to get to work. We'll see that it gets Elliott and Fs and mata nafi soon, but but that's a clear
		
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			example of where a complete misunderstanding about these differences between male and female led to
oppression even from within religious traditions, and where that was understood to be a nurture
phenomena, which i think that i in the Quran indicates and I think that's why it's put into the
masculine that the same
		
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			would happen to a man who was raised in that environment where he's not allowed to, to have his
intellect nurtured because he's more an ornament. for for for the male.
		
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			Of course when we look at the prophetic history
		
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			there was this clear a cultural difference between the women of Mecca, the Quraysh, and the women of
Medina, where the Prophet went and his migration and the women of Medina were extremely articulate.
And they were warriors on the battlefield. And of course, there are women who live in an agrarian
culture, because Medina was a huge oasis. And usually when women and men are doing the same thing,
then they're extremely compatible. And that's certainly the way it was with a Melanie's women. We
had a Zambia not long ago, just a few weeks ago in Egypt. And we had our sister Miriam, Shay,
Barney, I hope people hope you didn't mind me mentioning her name. But she actually took Hadees,
		
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			about women, and studied them very carefully, and showed how they're often misinterpreted. But
that's not really the valid interpretation. And, you know, so, but the women of Medina were
extremely strong, and very outspoken. And this is a meccan surah that you're referring to. So you
would think will come in my mind is it is talking to the Meccans in terms of their own culture, and
the women of Mecca where they were very different, because also the city lives by
		
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			international trade. And it lives also by the pilgrimage, and other women partook in that. The men
are the ones who really do it. So their women tend to be much more subdued. They could also go on
the battlefield, by the way, but they weren't the kind of warriors that the Melanie's women could
be. So but we do believe that men and women have these perfect natures. And you know that the women
are not debilitated in any way by their nature. And in Islamic law. You know, it is a societal
obligation, that women get knowledge, every type of knowledge, right religious knowledge, just like
men, well, I think even out of it even argue that they have spiritual advantages over men. That's
		
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			what they say, even out of even in one part of the photo had macchia
		
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			he talked about a saint, man saint who spoke to God with with a feminine voice. And I had the honor
of reading that with a Moroccan scholar. And he explained to me that this is very common in that
tradition. That you know, and that, you know, if you don't have that feminine voice, you can't
really attain the highest spiritual level. One of the good books by the way, you know that for
people interested in that is the title of Sachi cammarata right by Murata. It is the first thing she
wrote, she was a Japanese convert to Islam. And it's a very good book, the translations are really
good in Arabic and in Persian. But later on, she would discover Chinese Islam. And then she becomes
		
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			one of the authorities in Chinese Islam. If she had only had that knowledge of Chinese Islam, the
book would have been even more beneficial than it is. But the Tao of Islam is a very, very
		
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			amazing book to read. And it's about the male principle and the female principle you have in, in the
pre modern world, I think, as far as I can tell, most civilizations agree that there was a human
nature, certainly the Islamic did,
		
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			even the Indic and the Buddhist traditions would have understood that as well. And the Buddha nature
was a potential that could be realized in any human being. You also have, certainly in the Christian
tradition, the idea of human nature, they might differ on certain aspects of its potential
realities, but essentially the idea of a unified nature.
		
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			Since the Enlightenment period, people like him who reject human nature and then in the 20th
century, you get like merleau Ponty says something like the only nature that humans share is that
they share no nature. Or you get somebody like Ortega said, who also denies human nature and and i
think modern, there's In fact, pinker, who who's at Harvard, Steven Pinker, wrote a book called the
blank slate
		
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			arguing that that there is a human nature and very troubled by this negation or denial of human
nature. One of the things that we're seeing now is the idea of a fluid nature that human beings
		
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			can can, they might be born into the wrong body, for instance. So I have a feet I'm a female trapped
in a man's body. And instead of seeing that maybe as dysmorphia or some type of mental illness that
needs to be treated, it's now being embraced even in children and children are being encouraged. In
fact, I think in Sweden, they're doing non gender child rearing, where the children wear the same
clothes, the traditional pink and blue for instance, that people would if it was a girl, they would
give at the wedding shower, they would give all these nice girly type things. And this is the
argument that this is simply enculturation that this is nurturer not natural. And that the the
		
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			nature of
		
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			In fact, Crowley, Aleister Crowley in the book of the law, Chapter Two argues over 100 years ago
that the time is coming soon when we will be free of this binary. And we will be able to choose our
own genders. So this is something that we're really seeing happening all over now. And young people
are really encouraged. I actually saw a East Asian man, if you can believe this, I saw Pakistani men
with a nose ring. And I was amazed at that. Because I think in that culture, I think maybe in some
of the Hindu castes or something, I don't know. But in that culture, a man would not wear nose ring,
as far as I know. But the this is kind of the throwing off of cultural decorum. And this idea, how
		
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			would you address that just from this denial of human nature that we're seeing in the 20th century
and the 21st century.
		
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			You know, that
		
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			on the level of the horizontal, which is, you know, if you live in a world where you only explain
things by reference to other things like them, that's like a horizontal universe, then there is no
meaning there. And there, there are no immutables. And there's no truth either. And atheism,
agnosticism, they require a horizontal world. And once you put in the vertical connection, which is
to look up to heaven, and to look to first principles, the law of non contradiction, the excluded
middle law of identity, causality, possibility, necessity and possibility, then you've got a tent,
and then you have a structure, and then you have also meaning. So a lot of the things that we see in
		
00:33:00 --> 00:33:18
			our time, is because of this Cartesian worldview that we have, where we don't even know what's out
there, we don't even know that it is out there. We can't relate to it. And you know, so you have
these, all these social experiments. And most of these social experiments
		
00:33:19 --> 00:33:59
			around gender they go back also is very important to study the genealogy of ideas. So that is a
complex issue. Descartes is the one who gives us the concept of mind, in its modern sense, and his
sexless, which is something we say is a fundamental mistake. But it's also important genderless, but
you have Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, vilhelm reisch, r e, IC H, the sexual revolutions from him, and
he means revolution. He means revolution, and you only win that revolution when * is best.
		
00:34:00 --> 00:34:16
			Okay, it's got to go there. And then you have also Herbert macusa. He was a big deal here in
Berkeley in the 1960s, Eros, and civilization and so forth. And then you have Judith Butler. And of
course, what you're talking about, as you know, Jesus right next door.
		
00:34:17 --> 00:34:59
			She's next door. Yeah, I didn't know that. I thought she was in Israel. No, no, she teaches here at
UC Berkeley. Okay, I didn't know that. But so it's very important to know who gave you this idea?
And where did they get it from? And what are their first principles? And so much of modern thought
doesn't even have first principles. And therefore for us, we want to get our orientation correct.
And we want to know, why do we believe what we believe? Where do we begin? How does the intellect
work? Most people don't even know today what intellect is. intellect doesn't need anything outside
of itself. And of course, you've heard about that and the
		
00:35:00 --> 00:35:48
			debunking of the syllogism and things like that, but that's not true. In any universal statement
like existence and non existence, the syllogism works perfectly, because you have excluded metal,
you distribute the middle term. And, you know, so for us, you know, and I think this is one of the
great things about zaytuna is that we learn our tradition, where we get our ideas and how we know
them. And we also learn that the West is a tradition, right, and that these ideas don't drop out of
the sky. There are certain people that are behind them. And I feel that one of the most eloquent
ways to address these issues and most objective ways, is look at where the ideas come from.
		
00:35:51 --> 00:35:52
			The
		
00:35:55 --> 00:36:25
			the idea of first principles, and again, that's getting to something that is deeply rooted in the
essential nature of the human being the law of non contract that's fitted also for us. You know,
that, you know, the law of non contradiction. You know, the law of excluded middle, you know, the
law of identity, you know, that this shift from the use of this has shaped the law, they're not the
same. I was not like, you are now him. He's now you when I taught logic.
		
00:36:27 --> 00:36:33
			I taught them here that the law of identity was Popeye's law, I yams what I am,
		
00:36:35 --> 00:36:36
			I am what I am.
		
00:36:38 --> 00:37:17
			But these are very important. And if you look at most modern thought, if you look at Stephen
Hawking, you know, you know, the theory of everything, is because everything is a model, right?
Stephen Hawking says, This chair is not a chair. It's probably a molecular structure, probably. And
my model is what makes it a three dimensional brown chair. So this is Cartesian dualism. And
therefore and it's also it's, it's the content, this idea that there's no correspondence, because I
think most we're very much committed to correspondence truth. And that's exactly what the fitna is.
That's why the,
		
00:37:19 --> 00:38:11
			the see the fitrah, it enables you to know the world, right? Because you've got it in you. You know,
we say the critiques of modern science, they say that physics doesn't believe in red apples, okay,
because it just believes there's molecular structures that you make into an apple. And it tastes
sweet and it nourishes you. But it's all about probabilities. And and this leads to a type of
Gnosticism. There there. And I think we're very much in a gnostic world in many ways, even despite
the materialism. There, there's a cult element that's very strong, this, this idea that none of this
is real, that we can't no reality that, that this, this might be just simply a solipsistic worldview
		
00:38:11 --> 00:38:29
			in my head, we've got young people now going in and shooting up people in schools. And it it's a
complete divorce of reality that they're not really inflicting pain on other people, there's
something it's almost like they're in a matrix, and they perceive it as a kind of
		
00:38:30 --> 00:39:20
			a game that they're doing so and that's a very demonic reality. I think that's being a lot of people
are experiencing and I think one of the it's very interesting that it's very related to film and
these games that people are playing where they I mean, the deck a log the the second prohibition the
deck a log, which, and I know you know, this book that in amusing ourselves to death, Neil Postman
really good. Yeah. The second chapter where he talks about what why would a, why would there be a
prohibition on making graven images into this whole idea because we've entered into a completely
image based civilization where the word is, is being moved. And we're even speaking now in icons,
		
00:39:20 --> 00:39:59
			you know, in these, these, these, that once you lose, when you enter into that image based culture,
you lose the ability for abstraction for real abstraction, the ability to to understand essences
like the chair to understand what makes a chair and why, despite the fact that you can have chairs
that are you take a dog, the idea that you can have a chihuahua and a Great Dane and see the dog
Enos that they share is amazing. Like that human beings can do that. And and and seeing the also
human
		
00:40:00 --> 00:40:45
			Nature despite the fact we can look at somebody in the Amazon, or somebody in, in, in an Aboriginal
culture, that are completely different from us in their expression of their humanity, and yet we can
still abstract that essential human nature and see that this too, is a human being. That's being
lost in people. It's, you know, the image based culture where people are divorced and enter into
this. I mean, I see it as with no offense to people afflicted with this, but a kind of autism, that,
you know, the Arabs translated it as toa hood, you know, this idea of going into the, to the
individual self and losing a sense of other.
		
00:40:49 --> 00:41:37
			Yeah. So, you know, we got our humanity, I think, you know, from looking people in the eyes, and
having their companionship from our mothers are great grandmothers, or grandmothers or aunts, from
the men and so forth of our families. And what happens to people who are raised on video games and
iPhones and things like that, and who get there, or Facebook or whatever, I remember, a girl that
was with us in Spain, in auto, Sally's is the daughter of one of our brothers. And really amazing
girl, but it's as if she couldn't even socialize with the other teams that were there. So is her
phone, it's like, if you want to talk to her send her a text. And one of our brothers in Chicago,
		
00:41:37 --> 00:42:21
			who's a neurologist, he told me about this syndromes that they have, you probably know the name of
it, I forgot. But it's like people bump their head today. And they have to go see him. It's like I
have memory loss. And he said they call this some kind of a psychological disorder. Like Munchausen
syndrome. Sorry, Munchausen syndrome, I don't know. But, you know, again, I'm not a neurologist. So
I can't really say anything about what SWAT he's the one who deals with these, well, we grew up in a
very different world. But my belief, this is just an intuition is that they're actually having
memory loss, right? Because it's like, they're extremely weak, they're extremely vulnerable.
		
00:42:22 --> 00:43:08
			Because, you know, whatever strength we have, in my opinion, is because, you know, we were with
human beings, and these human beings gave us our humanity. And they gave us our ability to meet with
trials and tribulations. And, and so this is, you know, one of the things, of course, that we are
conscious of, we need to be very conscious of is, what does this technology do to our primordial
self, because that Prime were more to yourself needs to be nurtured by other human beings who have
that nature. And, you know, so this is very important in our time, and, you know, to learn to use
our technology, very, very intelligently and very wisely, of course, it gives us tremendous
		
00:43:08 --> 00:43:51
			benefits, you know, I'm able to be here because of technology, you're able to hear me because of the
technology, we're being filmed on it. You know, so I don't believe that we think we should be
thankful for it. In a better the same time, we have to know how to use it. And this is one of the
things which one of the great books on technology is Jackie Lu, this was one of our classics back in
the old days. And Jackie little warns about, you know, how technology sets its own rules, it goes
its own direction. I think the jockey news book is a little bit problematic, because we don't want
to make people so pessimistic, you know, that they can't deal with the world they live in. But you
		
00:43:51 --> 00:44:34
			know, we have to end this one things. A Lou says that the massification of society is required for
technology to have its March. So you have to break down significant religious and social groups who
could apply principle, right? And this is why also for us, as people that should be principled, we
want to be principle, then we have to also learn about these things. How do they affect us? How are
we going to use them, and, and to live in a way that's beneficial? How many of our people are
destroyed on social media? Right, Dr. Jackson, who many of you know, he said that social media is
not going to leave us a single leader.
		
00:44:36 --> 00:44:38
			I see a single value a single principle.
		
00:44:41 --> 00:44:49
			Well, that also the one of the one of the problems is this idea of the neutrality of technology. And
I think that's something that
		
00:44:50 --> 00:44:59
			one of the most important influences for me on that because, you know, I've talked a lot about how
I've been talking for years about the problem of
		
00:45:00 --> 00:45:09
			Have image based media and, and long before this, what it's come to now because this was pre
internet.
		
00:45:10 --> 00:45:54
			There's a book that Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote called between two ages, which he wrote in 1969. And
he talks about the introduction of technology because he was aware, they were very aware of the
internet and all these things. The our, our, the US military has technologies that we don't even
know about. And the internet, they were using the internet, in the universities, I think, in 1969,
or 70, was one when when it begins, the actual First, the first transmission was from UCLA, I think,
to Stanford, and it was they were going to put,
		
00:45:55 --> 00:45:55
			like,
		
00:45:57 --> 00:45:57
			log
		
00:45:58 --> 00:46:05
			l o g, and it crashed after ello. So it was like lo and behold,
		
00:46:06 --> 00:46:10
			and, and one of the things I saw Verner hertz awgs,
		
00:46:11 --> 00:46:59
			amazing documentary on the internet. And the first half is all the positive aspects of it, how
amazing it is, which it is, right. I mean, it's just like my dictionary app. I just, I use it all
the time. And it's so cool. So it's just amazing to have it. And then and then to have like all
these Arabic dictionaries, literally, in the palm of your hand. It's unreal. But the second half was
on the dangers of the internet. And one of the things that there's something really floored me was
this lady and I felt like you know, ghazali when the thief tells him, he laughs at him when he says,
You can't steal all my knowledge. I just spent two years right, writing it all down. And the thief
		
00:46:59 --> 00:47:05
			laughed at him and said, what kind of knowledge is it that a thief can steal it from you? And and he
said, on top of hawala,
		
00:47:06 --> 00:47:14
			he knew that God made him say that, and he vowed never to he would always memorize after that
everything that he learned, but
		
00:47:15 --> 00:48:01
			there's a woman in there, it's a family, and it's one of the most depressing parts of this
documentary, but they're all they look very depressed. And the woman, they lost a daughter in a
horrific car accident, and she had her head severed, and it was hanging off her body. But these
looky loos who drove by took pictures of it. And then they posted it on the internet. And then over
time, people kept sending them to her to the family. And she, here's what she said. And it really
floored me when she said it because I felt like I'm a holla she said that I think that the internet
I think the spirit of the Antichrist has descended into the internet and people that are susceptible
		
00:48:01 --> 00:48:51
			to it. It just opens up a kind of vileness. And it's it's just so interesting how vile people are on
I mean, just cruel. There's so much cruelty. You know, one of the things I have, I've been asking
somebody from Silicon Valley, maybe an engineer here, I want a computer program that automatically
erases anything done on the internet that is grammatically incorrect, because it would eliminate
99.9% of the trolls, because they always write in bad grammar. But be that as it may, there's
something I think it's in this this alone, Ian's I'm not sure, I think it's in Second Thessalonians
where Paul talks about the mystery of iniquity
		
00:48:52 --> 00:49:39
			and, and, and the man of lawlessness, the person towards the end of time, you know, and this is
obviously a reference to the Antichrist, but he says the mystery of iniquity is already active in
the world. And we have a tradition in our own tradition where the prophets I send him said that
there's no fitna that has occurred since the beginning of time, except that it's preparing for the
greatest fitna this anti christic period where people completely divert from their nature and and
and the filter is really so perverted, that people lose it. And so this what's happening now with so
many people turning away from faith and godlessness being celebrated, and profanity being celebrated
		
00:49:39 --> 00:49:57
			the idea of mocking religion, which would have been so unacceptable not that long ago, in most
cultures in the world, now it's something it's it's just, it is the bread and butter of comedians.
It's, it's it's it's the Hollywood
		
00:50:00 --> 00:50:03
			You know, everything is just really
		
00:50:06 --> 00:50:42
			just making religion seem like such a dark thing. And there's so many young people now, you know,
they say I'm spiritual but not religious, or they don't want to have anything to do with organized
religions. I was telling him to join Islam because we're the most unorganized religion there is. But
anyway, what what what do you what do you what do you say about that because the Prophet said one of
the signs of the proceeds the Antichrist is people stop talking about the Antichrist. That's why the
men and and it seems like we're in a very anti christic world where
		
00:50:43 --> 00:50:53
			so the, you know, the the word that we use, of course, for the Antichrist is digital. And belief in
him is obligatory.
		
00:50:56 --> 00:51:46
			And it comes from Digital, and digital means to lie to, you know, confuse to turn things up, down
upside down. Some of our scholars say that what the digital does is he overturns the very principles
of knowledge, so that you you no longer know that what is true is true and what is false is false.
And this is the age we live in. Because we don't even like if we look at Descartes, I think
therefore I am. Okay, well, that changes the whole history of human thought, because in traditional
medieval thought, existence comes first. And in our, in our tradition, also existence comes first,
and then epistemology. So now for him epistemology comes first and then we don't really know if we
		
00:51:46 --> 00:51:51
			exist or not. So we should say, I am therefore I should think, yeah.
		
00:51:53 --> 00:52:50
			Some people say I am therefore God exists, but, you know, overturning the what we call immutables
immutables are first principles immutables. Also for us, are the basic principles of prophetic law,
the dispensation, and the basic principles of theological truth, necessary being possible existence,
a change indicates temporality. And then the basic, third bit of su Luke, have the moral path of
self perfection, these don't change, but the digital makes them change. And then you have the
immutables made mutable and this gives you the disasters which are the ugly signs of the end of time
as the Prophet said, you know, the slave girl will give birth to her mistress or her master. And
		
00:52:51 --> 00:53:13
			you'll see barefoot naked, poor shepherds vying for each other sometimes the camel shepherds vying
for with each other in the building of tall buildings. So, you see that but then when we look at it,
we say many people probably most they say that you know, the mother will give birth to a daughter
who would treat her like a slave.
		
00:53:14 --> 00:53:59
			And of course we see that today. And you know, and then you can see the buildings you can go look at
themselves, then yourself. One of the signs of the end of time is either baweja to Mecca either item
moquette or aged, corral them. When you see Mecca guarded with tunnels, and you see tall buildings
over the tops of the mountain the know that the hour has cast a shadow over you, you can go and see
that our doing that right now. The big tower, but they call that border just side they call it the
the Tower of the that's frightening as I went to Mexico the first time in 1973, there wasn't a
single tunnel anywhere. It's like where they come from. But you see, then what happens is why does
		
00:53:59 --> 00:54:47
			the girl treat her mother as a slave or the boy treat his mother as a slave or as a slave that's
mistreated because they were but are gone that they don't have sound belief. They don't know first
principles. They don't have the morality. Okay, so all that and then when that's done, then she will
do whatever she wants to do. And the same thing you look at the shepherds vying with each other and
tall buildings that means certain third wabbit have been overthrown. And among these are a sound
political order, which should put people in power who are capable of leading and who lead us for our
benefit and not their own. And then you have also overthrowing a sound economic system in which
		
00:54:47 --> 00:54:59
			there is distribution of wealth. So you get all this wealth concentrated in the hands of shepherds.
Many of those shepherds are shaped homes and those are very good people. You know, but they're not
		
00:55:00 --> 00:55:16
			The cloth that you make leaders from in a time like this, they can't deal with that. So, the
digital, this is what he does, he takes the rabbit, the immutables and makes them mutable and
changes them in 1000 different ways.
		
00:55:18 --> 00:56:00
			Right? The no Christ said to the woman accused of adultery, you know, where are your accusers
because they all left. And then he said, Go and sin no more. And, and this is an age where it's go,
there isn't do what thou wilt for there is no more sin. You know, this is the idea that the concept
of sin is being removed from the world and anything that I do is my own business, that I am an
autonomous agent that nobody can tell me what as long as I don't, you know, the harm principle, as
long as I don't hurt anybody, then I can do what I want.
		
00:56:01 --> 00:56:14
			I'm, I want to because we're the times coming to a close but I want to the the Quran in the verses
that you quoted, from sorta Rome.
		
00:56:16 --> 00:56:26
			It says that this is the fear of God, the the principio nature that God has created the human being
on.
		
00:56:28 --> 00:56:40
			And, and then it lets you falter on this idea that God has favara He's our Father, you actually
wrote about that in your book about that name, which is very interesting name of God.
		
00:56:41 --> 00:56:43
			And, and
		
00:56:44 --> 00:57:16
			I think it was in my best didn't know what it meant. And he heard the bedwin saying on a fatbar to
her, you know, I dug the well before you so I was the first one so far, is to make it first or the
origin. And I mean, it's interesting, we call abbo originals, you know, from the origin of man, they
have that. But it then it says, led to de la la, de la. And you alluded to the difference of
opinion, but even even Jews a
		
00:57:18 --> 00:58:18
			preferred the opinion that it was the negation there was for prohibition, and not in possibility,
you know, like, learn nephila logins, it wasn't learn if he logins it was learn, do not cheat, it's
a warning to change do not change. And what we're seeing now is an incredible in the West and
increasingly affecting people in the east. What we're seeing now is a real change of this fitrah
that that it's being altered in people and and how what what advice would you give us to protect
that principio nature to nurture it, I mean, we have this idea of Talia, Talia and Tez, Leah, the
emptying out of vicious character, and the feeling of virtuous character in order to experience the
		
00:58:18 --> 00:58:30
			divine. If you look at the Heidi's that are on the Fatah, and I have those in my book, one of the
things we see in them is that there's nothing easier for us than to live according to our natures.
		
00:58:31 --> 00:58:43
			And it's very easy for us to do that. And there are 1000 ways back to your nature. And the
traditional Islamic city was a garden city.
		
00:58:44 --> 00:59:31
			And to be a valid city and Islam according to law, you have to have land, you have to have water on
that land or above it. You have to produce all the food you need for your city in your city. You
can't depend on the outside. Okay, but we were regarding the cities and we had animals and lots of
animals and we have a whole law about green zones and things like that, that enabled us to support
those animals. And we believe in our tradition, I believe, according to my teachers in our
tradition, that without animals, you can't be human. You know, chickens are amazing. And if you do
permaculture you know how amazing they are, you know, and chickens will teach you a lot. All animals
		
00:59:31 --> 00:59:59
			would do that. So I think getting back into the natural world. You know, we you're going to have
this program on permaculture with our brother, Jeremy's can't May the 21st till June the second and
we had one in Spain last summer. And we made soil you can make soil on 18 days. You need three parts
of carbon which can be sticks. You need two parts of nitrogen which can be green grass.
		
01:00:00 --> 01:00:32
			And you need then something else that catalyzes it like manure, okay, one part, and then again,
three to one, three, and you water it properly. So it's not too wet, it's not, it's not too dry. And
it's steaming, in one day, it's full of life, in order to have healthy food, you have to have living
soil, not just nutrients. In it, this is one of the things they learned in the organic movement, and
they learned it from Muslim India, by the way, the organic movement comes out of Muslim India, and,
you know, so,
		
01:00:33 --> 01:01:04
			you know, making soil, you know, you should be a producer, not just a consumer, of course, your
consumer, a lot of beautiful things to consume, you know, but if you're a producer, that's a
revolutionary act, you can do it on your apartment. And I think of all the things we did in that
zoja, making the soil captivated people more than anything else. And, you know, I know of an example
of a young man, in Australia, he's Lebanese,
		
01:01:05 --> 01:01:23
			he came to lava into Australia, because it's a Lebanese Civil War. There are a lot of Lebanese like
that in Australia, Muslim from the north, from Tripoli, and other areas, he felt he was treated
like, you know, by a rat in a very racist way. At least he felt that way. And he
		
01:01:24 --> 01:01:47
			didn't think he owed anything to Australia. And he actually said, I hate this country, even though
it took you in as a refugee. And he was taken out, you know, to learn about the soil, do some
permaculture plant trees, and in the act of planting a tree, you know, he put his hand in the
ground. And he said that
		
01:01:48 --> 01:01:50
			when I put my hand in the ground,
		
01:01:52 --> 01:02:36
			everything changed. And he said, I began to love this country. And I began to feel that I'm part of
it. So contact with the soil contact with animals, contact with nature, contact with each other,
with other human beings, talking, visiting, these are very important. These bring us back to our
nature, there are a lot of things, I would also say, martial arts. And there are all kinds of
martial arts, as I'm sure everybody here knows. But martial arts do something for you. One of the
big problems with males in particular, is that we don't have initiations. In it, whereas in
traditional societies, you have initiation that enables you to move from being a boy, to being a
		
01:02:36 --> 01:02:48
			man, women often don't need that, because their biological changes are so powerful, that they serve
as initiations. But, Nina, getting back to nature.
		
01:02:49 --> 01:02:59
			You know, you should learn the language of nature, the aborigines, who are incredible people,
incredible, incredible culture, you know, they teach children to listen.
		
01:03:00 --> 01:03:43
			And if a child asks a question, they say, Go ask your mother, what do they mean, go listen to
nature. Listen to what nature says about this. So and you can do that here, they have this
incredibly beautiful environment, you can find yourself a sitting spot in the forest. You know,
people even tell you the best ways to do that, learn the language of the forest, learn the language
of the birds, the birds will come to look at you, other animals will come to check you out. So these
things are very good for us in getting in your body. You know, getting out of in dream time for
Aborigines is being in the center brain is not just about dreaming, it's about being out of this
		
01:03:43 --> 01:04:34
			analytical brain. It's always worrying and always analyzing and concerned about stuff, you know, get
into the center brain. So I just think it's very easy to come back the footer, I gave you the
example of our brother, Othman in Spain. And many of us have seen this in our own lives. We look at
Malcolm X, you know how this man changed. so incredibly, after the pilgrimage, his voice was even
different. You know, so we believe in that veteran, this is a belief, it's obligatory for us. And
again, this affects the way we look at the world, that there's no one out there who is foreign to
us. There's no one out there who's alien to us. And, you know, may we benefit, you know, in learning
		
01:04:35 --> 01:04:49
			our tradition, again, one of the great dangers of this time, and this is, you know, one of the
things we have to be very conscious about in secular institutions, is epistemic warfare,
		
01:04:50 --> 01:05:00
			you know, which is warfare, against your epistemology. And that's what they did the aborigines like
you're not even human beings. You're not
		
01:05:00 --> 01:05:43
			Even animals, you're like plants, you can cut down the plant, you can take away its sibling, you can
take away the little plants. That's what they did. You know, but the average and epistemic warfare
means your tradition cannot generate knowledge. I spent hours with the aborigines in Australia, and
with ones who are like, basically spirit doctors, everything they say is knowledge. You know, for
example, they don't have a word for health, they have a word for healing. And that's because you
have to heal yourself every day. You have to get that negativity out of you. You know, that's, it's
just incredible. But also, you know, when we defend our tradition, it's not because shouldn't be
		
01:05:43 --> 01:06:26
			because we're romantic, not because we lament a loss pass. No, it's because I know and this man
knows, and you know, that our tradition generates knowledge. Okay, so we can't allow other people
who don't even know our tradition, to say it doesn't. You belong in a museum, we'll give you a nice
place in the museum, you did produce beautiful things. And, you know, epistemic warfare is
imperialism. And a lot of our institutions are that way that they say they're liberal, but they're
not liberal, to anything that doesn't agree with our the, with the epistemic tradition that they
have. And you're very blessed to be in this wonderful place, in this wonderful environment,
		
01:06:27 --> 01:07:12
			some of the best libraries and minds in the world. And I really hope that this institution succeeds.
And I believe it will, I'm amazed, because the last time I was here, I don't know how many years
ago, it was maybe five or seven. But I remember coming into this place, and it wasn't even used yet.
But I mean, you know, this is a great gift that has been given to you. And you have great teachers,
you know, many of whom I'm looking at right now. And may we continue to do this. And I believe
myself, that we are here to save humanity. You know, quantum higher on quantum higher on Latino
collegiate leaders, you are the best community brought forth for human beings. emammal Bukhari says,
		
01:07:12 --> 01:08:01
			hiring nurses and nurse, you must be the best of all people to our people. And people today, they
really, you know, how long will this last? How long will this last? You know that, you know, like we
have schools in Naperville right now, that one class has in it three suicides. And that was
unthinkable in the old days, suicide was virtually unthinkable. You have one school that has 30
suicides. This is not right. In here, these are vital signs that are being lost. And you know, we
have to bring ourselves to life, but we have to be life givers as well. And when we do that, we'll
find that a lot of good people in this society, Christians and Jews and others, you know, who are on
		
01:08:01 --> 01:08:18
			the same page that we're on in that and inshallah we work together in this. It's very important. And
you know, when we do the right things like permaculture, to me, it's a win win. You know, and not
only is it Win win that you then find that some of the best people in the world
		
01:08:19 --> 01:08:36
			you know, you you get to know them. And that benefits us a lot. Mashallah, you know, I just when I
when I was in Mauritania, there was a sheriff there, his name was Muhammad, Al amin, they call him
meaner.
		
01:08:37 --> 01:09:03
			And when I visited him, I was staying in shear hub that he would wave his house, and I think it was
22 or three. And we used to go visit him. His Vicar was the his son at Halcyon. He used to recite it
every single day by memory, the whole thing and his do I was making for the oma much like that.
That's what he did was you. He was I think, in his 80s at the time, and he told me,
		
01:09:04 --> 01:09:40
			I've never wished for anything to be different than the way it was. But today, I wish I was a young
man, so I could go with you tomorrow. I had to study and then he picked up some earth. And he said,
No, I'll see what the liquor let peptide man had he had he omocha Marshall, he said, My advice to
you don't get far away from this. This is your mother, the earth. And I think one of the things that
technology is doing is it's really distancing people from just being with
		
01:09:42 --> 01:09:53
			with the earth and we're fortunate to be in an incredibly beautiful environment here. There's a lot
of places to go. So I think that's really good advice just about
		
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			being in in nature and we know the profits are lies around here.
		
01:10:00 --> 01:10:05
			He was very deeply connected to the natural world and that natural world spoke to him.
		
01:10:06 --> 01:10:12
			And and he spoke back. He's with jevin. ahead, Deborah in your head one hour. No hippo.
		
01:10:14 --> 01:10:33
			walk barefoot in the grass. Yeah, it's incredible. It's incredible. But it's not too cold. I'm sure.
Amanda do one show her fat and say now Omar said that remind yourself be like mad, even Adnan and
walk barefoot sometimes, right? Yeah, I said, not Omar said, even you know, I mean,
		
01:10:34 --> 01:10:48
			even when you wear your shoes, you can imagine that you're walking barefoot, you're feeling the
earth underneath you. These things are all very, very valuable to us. They're also very good for our
health, and getting rooted. And
		
01:10:50 --> 01:11:07
			learning to be human beings again, right? That's one of the things we have to do. But I just
emphasize, it's easy to do that. It's not difficult, even though it might seem to impossible. But
this is one of the easiest things to do. There's also God's mercy, it's so easy to come back.
		
01:11:08 --> 01:11:34
			And it's very difficult to astray to go astray. Because the point where we're at right now, there
was a lot of work put into that, over a lot of generations. It didn't just happen overnight. You
know, and there's a lot of money invested in that as well. And it's very easy to come back. And to
be yourself and to be natural. And you know, our religion is a religion of service and love
		
01:11:35 --> 01:11:37
			and service and love heal everything.
		
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			One last point in question to you. You talked also about beauty and the importance of beauty. The
the profits are lies to them when the man asked him about was wearing nice clothes and a good Santa.
Was that from arrogance? And he said no, it's, it's, it's a lot loves beauty. And, and, and one of
the things that that I find really notable about pre modern people is that they they adorned things
they, they didn't have a lot of things generally. But what they did have they always made beautiful.
And
		
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			when I was in Mauritania, they started using Bic pens.
		
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			Their traditional pen was a bamboo pen, but they started using Bic pens, but the women would adorn
them with leather, and make them very beautiful. So they would actually take the plastic and they
would just do a design on it and then put little frills at the end of it. And the students would
write with these pens and when I asked one of the women why they did that she said it's so ugly
		
01:12:48 --> 01:13:23
			you know the big man you know and and what is it? What is that thing in humans? That why'd not just
have a functional carpet? Why put the tree of life on the carpet? Why not just have functional
walls? Why put wainscotting with designs on the on the I mean, what is that and how do we restore
that because Muslims they dressed beautifully even peasants dressed you know the African embroidery
and and the the suburbia that the Egyptian fella wears with the striped what people really have
become
		
01:13:24 --> 01:13:38
			they don't you don't see the the the the caliphate of God in that in that human being anymore. And
how is that restored? You know, traditional societies, you should tell me any traditional society
that was not beautiful.
		
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			You know, look at the first nations of this land. I mean, look at the Inuit you know the Eskimos,
who were really a civilization, that I'm wrong. That's a good example of a moron that doesn't have
cities. But everything they did was beautiful. Look at the aborigines. You can't believe how
beautiful everything they, they make is, and we were like that too. We were a highly skilled
society. We were a society of crafts and everything, guilds. And everything we made was beautiful.
And that's because God is beautiful. And he loves beauty. Beauty is the splendor of truth. You know,
and that means God doesn't love ugliness. And ugliness is the mark of falsehood.
		
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			ugliness means you've gone astray. So
		
01:14:32 --> 01:14:59
			you know, getting this back. Again, I believe it's going to be easy. And again, if we look at
zaytuna and we look at many of the brothers and sisters that are dear to us, look at the beauty they
they create. You know, so God is beautiful. If you love God, you become beautiful. You become
internally beautiful. That's the universal routing. And then what you produce is graceful and
beautiful, even the way you walk. Even the way you talk, even the word you use
		
01:15:00 --> 01:15:37
			Because you want to use beautiful words, you want to know what your words mean. So, this is very
important to get back this beauty and everything. And that makes us human. You know that Alma to
redo who is one of our great theologians, he talks about how God holds us back from evil. By putting
us in a natural setting, we still do evil, but the natural setting is telling us this is wrong, this
is wrong, this is wrong. What happens However, when you put people in an ugly setting of broken
windows, you know, you know,
		
01:15:39 --> 01:16:25
			broken glass, in a graffiti, you know, rats. So for that you can't believe there's such a thing as
truth anymore. You can't believe that there's no such a thing as goodness anymore. And that's what
beautification is something we have to do to ourselves and mean Islamic art, I believe the highest
form of art is architecture, architect and an art tradition, architecture is what generates so many
other forms of incredible art. You know, but our art according to some It begins with clothing. Some
would say it begins with the Maha Rob, the recitation of the Quran, the writing, or Amba. clothing
is one of the first things and we we believe in beautiful clothing and who didn't alter, there's no
		
01:16:25 --> 01:16:49
			people were like that, you know, and it showed their identity, it showed their honor. And it shows
that they believe in who they are, you know, but we wanted clothing, that would be beautiful. We
want a clothing that also we could pray in and not be embarrassed. You know, you look at the aid
prayers in Nigeria, and you can put it in National Geographic, you look at us praying eight prayers,
it's like, please don't take a picture and tell her
		
01:16:50 --> 01:17:03
			sitting up or standing up again. Right, except for the sisters as I want to come off, okay. But you
know, we want to also clothing that would look good clothing that also that we can do ablution with
easily.
		
01:17:04 --> 01:17:51
			And we made beautiful things. And you know, in Pakistan, those of you who have been to Pakistan, or
you're from Pakistan, they haven't row a pindy, this incredible museum called loke versa. And local
varsa in Punjabi means the tradition of the people. And I went to that Museum, the woman who took
me, she was one of the curators, she said, and I was this is a question in my mind. And so she
answered it without me asking it. And it's like she said, this is a museum designed to preserve the
cultures of this land, not to destroy them. Because many people say that, you know, being put in a
museum is like salado janazah. You know, it's this the end of your cultures, they said, We don't
		
01:17:51 --> 01:17:58
			want to do that. And then if you go there, you know, and you look at all these cultures in Pakistan,
in a Punjabi
		
01:17:59 --> 01:18:41
			you know, push tunes. You know, the Cindy's, they're all these different cultures. And they're all
beautiful, and everyone is distinctive. Everyone is distinctive, and they're so beautiful. It's like
beyond words, look at look at what the Indonesians do, what the Malays do. But this is the way we
were, traditionally, you go to a rose, Sally's this beautiful retreat we have in Spain, and you have
a tile, which is, to me one of the most beautiful tiles in the world. It's an andalusi and tile, but
it's called the breath of the Most Merciful and the colors are soft, you know, and then you have
what is called
		
01:18:42 --> 01:19:26
			in a contracting square, which looks like a cross with points. And you have expanding square, which
looks like I guess, an octagon. Okay, inside, and that's the breath is the most merciful, in and
out. And, you know, how did they develop that is so simple, but, and especially I do add decaf there
in the last 10 days of, you know, Ramadan if I can. And, you know, I just like to focus on those
tiles. Because to me, they're spiritually therapeutic. Right? So this is who we were, and this is
who we are. And this is who we must be. And, you know, beauty is our
		
01:19:27 --> 01:19:59
			essence means, right? Beauty, making beauty. And, you know, again, you know, one of our teachers who
studied metaphysics, we talked tonight about my booty and corner we and others, these are the
greatest metaphysicians they are spectacular. You know, this man spent his life studying great
metaphysicians and that's not something that everybody can do. Not everybody can do rocket science.
You know, but this man he was visiting a particular place in Pakistan. I think by
		
01:20:00 --> 01:20:43
			Ma'am, are bullish. Ah, I don't know which one it was. And he's overstayed his time. So he came out,
it was late at night. And he had to be taken to his hotel and his hotel was a long ways away. And
there's nobody there. And then out of the darkness, came this cart, a cart driver. And those of you
who know, or do you know what they call that cart? I always forget. And, you know, the cart driver,
he said, if you looked at him his clothes, you could buy all of them for $1 in the market. And he
was a poor man. And so he's booked them. He didn't know although he knew Persian. He spoke to him in
Persian and said, Could you take me to the hotel? The man answered? Or do he could understand it
		
01:20:43 --> 01:21:34
			because the languages are close. He got on the front seat of the car with this poor man. And the man
who was he, this world is filled with amazing things, began to recite to him from Hafez and Rumi,
and perfect Persian. And he said in those 45 minutes, I learned more about metaphysics than I
learned in 30 years. So beauty is the language of truth also. And that's why, you know, even some of
the things we talked about tonight, because it put in an intellectual vocabulary, not everybody can
understand that. But when you put that into poetry, when you put that into rhyme, when you put that
into art, and into beauty, you know, then everybody gets it. And beauty attracts you then to those
		
01:21:34 --> 01:22:15
			meanings. This is why also our societies were so beautiful. And you know a lot about that I remember
going to one of the great, I think it's the Sally Mia, one of the great, massive cnn in a debney I
think it is, and it's basically red, and I actually couldn't leave that mosque. It's like this is
the story of the whole universe. You see, it's a he's telling it in colors he's telling in symbols,
he's telling a shapes but like what have you done here? You see, so this pulls our souls to the
truth and ugliness does the opposite. And that's why we want to replace the ugliness with beauty.
		
01:22:17 --> 01:22:32
			Thank you On that note, I want to thank you, Dr. Omar on behalf of the community here for coming
this way also had a semirara for coming and supporting you. May you have a blessed trip here.
		
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			The Morris Mauritanian say that robbers in shaba may not see any evil.
		
01:22:41 --> 01:23:19
			I want to thank everybody for coming out tonight. May Allah subhana wa tada bless Dr. Omar Abdullah
farrokh and his family and his loved ones and keep him safe and preserve him. Hello, may we benefit
from what we've heard tonight. And may you all return to your homes safe and sound and have a
blessed sleep with some dream time in Sharla? May you say may you see beautiful things in your
dreams. Tonight's inshallah one of the signs of the end of time is many beautiful dreams that are
true.
		
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			Is it because this is one of the ways that God's merciful to you that you live in a world where so
many people don't believe so he sends you these incredible dreams? So maybe you have beautiful
dreams Sweet dreams, inshallah. La vida Chico Santa Monica.