Hamza Yusuf – Opinion Of People – Part 1

Hamza Yusuf
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The speakers discuss the concept of "good" or "good enough" in social science, with the latter being considered difficult to attain. They touch on the theory that young people cause school strikes and behave like children, while adults are treated like children, and emphasize the importance of personal one. They also mention a recent meeting with someone who they do not know, and discuss the importance of avoiding negative opinions on people.

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			Because this science is based on has not been built there, what has not been very bad the law, the
good opinion of our law, and the good opinion of the servants of our law, that's something that and
that's something that we've we've lost our community, we often assume the worst about people, if
somebody is late, the assumption is, they could care less about the appointment, what the prophet
said, one of the hallmarks of believers, el tema, said, My dear, they look for excuses for people.
		
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			And the monastic is always looking to find faults in people. So it's something central to believe,
is that people who believe have a good opinion of other people. Now, one of the things that in
social sciences, is that when you have expectations of people, they often will respond to your
expectation. And I'll give you an example of that. There was a study done, they took a group of
students that were all D students, and they put them in a class and they they told the teacher that
these were the best students that they had last year, this was actually done in the US. And the
teacher thought that they were all like gates, students gifted children.
		
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			That class ended up all becoming a students.
		
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			Because the teachers expectation was so high. And what often happens is when teachers look at
students,
		
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			how they behaved previously, they make the assumption This is a C student, there's a kind of bell
curve assumption about classes, almost every teacher now because the bell curve is such a, an an
idle in our culture. So there's an assumption that you're going to have a certain amount of A's, a
certain amount of B's, a certain amount of C's, and a certain amount of DS and a certain amount of
F's. It's an assumption. And sure enough, every year, the tests and everything, predict that now,
when I took statistics at the university, I asked the professor, have they ever done a bell curve on
the teachers?
		
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			To see if there were more A's in excellent teachers?
		
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			You know, like, is the bell curve just confirming that C teachers have a majority of see students?
		
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			So? And he said, Yeah, that's a really good idea, you know, because people don't think of things
from other dimensions. But generally, what's found is student teachers, excellent. teachers often
inspire students in classes, so they become better students. Because there's more motivation.
		
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			And that's why having a good opinion of people is very important. There's a recent book that I
think, I mean, this is something I've known intuitively. And I've also known from the center. And I
really believe in it, and it's the way I've tried to raise my children. But the book is called a
case against adolescence by Robert Epstein. And he's a psychiatrist. And what he did is he studied
the phenomenon of
		
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			adolescent rebellion.
		
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			And in looking at the social sciences, what he found is in countries where there really isn't an
adolescence, when people reach puberty, they begin to be treated like adults, they don't have the
phenomenon of teenage rebellion. And so he's come up with a theory that Robert Ellis who is a well
known I'm not particularly like his School of Psychology, but he's very well respected. In emotive
behavioral therapy. He's a very well respected psycho, but he said it was the most revolutionary
book he'd ever read. And what this man is arguing is, is that the reason young people are rebelling
is because they're still being treated like children. JOHN Taylor Gatto told me about a group of
		
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			students that were in Harlem, and these were the worst students in this school.
		
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			And they came in, they were all anti social, they rebellious had no respect for the teacher.
		
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			And so what this teacher did is he made a deal with the principal of the school that he would teach
his class at the junior college. And so these high school students would go to junior college and he
told them I'm putting you guys in college.
		
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			JOHN Taylor Gatto told me that their behavior, the change in these young people just amazed this
teacher. It was like an overnight suddenly they wanted to behave like adults. They were in college.
		
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			They didn't want to behave like punks anymore, because they wanted to, to behave like the other
college students. And so much of what's going on is just that assumption. If you expect these people
to rebel and behave like children and behave like children, and you treat them with those
assumptions, they respond in turn. Whereas if you have adult expectations of a 15 year old, you're,
you'll be surprised. So there's so much in what we assume about other people. And that's why he's
beginning this book like that. He is making the assumption that you are sincere in your love of God.
		
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			It's,
		
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			you know, it's just, it's beautiful. What what false teachers do is they keep people down, they
don't. A true teacher wants his students even surpass him or her. That's a true teacher, they want
the student to be better than they are. They want them to master the subject better than they've
mastered it. That's their real desire. But false teachers want to keep people in a state of
dependency on them, and a type of servitude.
		
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			And that's why eventually you, you outgrow your teacher if you're a serious student. And it doesn't
mean that you don't have respect for them anymore. It's just that he's freed you by that education
that you've gotten. So you're no longer dependent on that teacher like Imam Shafi was a student of
Imam Malik. But at a certain point, he started disagreeing with Monique.
		
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			Why because Monique had done his job. He freed his mind to think for himself. But false teachers
want want to keep people trapped in their own thoughts, cycles.
		
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			They don't want them to go against them or to disagree with them. On the other hand, ignorant
students tend to go against their teachers before they even have mastered the science.
		
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			They just disagree. That's another problem. So it goes it goes both ways.
		
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			The principle of personal one, which is very hard to to apply, in, it's just a difficult principle.
It's a beautiful principle. I'll give you an example. I was over in in at the Oberoi, we were having
a meeting and I was speaking with Ayesha, she was there.
		
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			She's not here now. I was speaking with her aside came up. And he said Salaam Alaikum. And I didn't
even hear it. Because when I talk to people, I it's almost like everything else kind of just
disappears. That's just the way I my wife knows that people that are close to me know that. I've had
several people think that they came up to me and said saddam to me. And I just ignored them and
actually say that and tell people that. Like, he's arrogant. I went up to him and I said sit on my
nickel right to his face. And he just ignored I'd never do that to anybody. First of all, legally,
I'm obliged to say even if I didn't want to say Salaam Alaikum. It's a it's a watch. So I'm not
		
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			going to do something. That's Gino. You have to say it. I mean, I wouldn't do that just because it's
my Dean. But and I wouldn't do it humanly because I don't like to do that. Try not to treat people
like that. But when I realized that I said was there. You know, I said, Oh, excuse me. I didn't you
know I why they come son. I didn't mean to annoy her. I know she you know, cuz he knows me. But he
doesn't have one is to assume. Like, he's preoccupied. He didn't hear me. Sue Yvonne is the thing.
He just ignored me as easy. So the thing about is, maybe the person did ignore you. That's possible.
Maybe they are arrogant. That's possible, but maybe they're not. And so the idea is that you err on
		
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			the side of goodness, that's the essential difference between the Sunni and the Shia. The Shia, have
a bad Not all of them. But but some of them have a bad opinion of bubble bucket. And Omar. They
actually think that you serve the and then they have a bad opinion of Malia American and
		
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			we what we say we believe, like Maria was wrong. That's our opinion, but we believe that he had a
sincere intention. That's our assumption about maybe it's wrong.
		
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			Do you know maybe it is maybe on the omokri Anima. Maybe it's wrong. Maybe more Alia, had a bad
intention. But we don't believe that. Because Allah knows the hearts. What we're saying is he's so
happy. The prophets eyes and spoke well of him.
		
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			That he came late. There's no doubt about that. He's not from the hood of our
		
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			She didn't matter at the end, he made mistakes. He started the dynasty in Islam, he did certain
things. But nonetheless, we believe he was a good man, that his Islam was a true Islam, he wasn't a
hypocrite, and that he made the best of the situation. That's our opinion, that's personal one or
		
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			the other opinions, they know he was bad, his intentions were bad. That's why he did it. It's a
completely different methodology. And so when you have personal one, as a principal in communities,
it's, it's so much better to live in a community like that. It's a lot less psychologically taxing,
because one of the most draining things in life is dealing with psycho dramas.
		
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			It just drains you of energy, when people have all these dramas, and he said, and she said, and I
know that they did it on purpose. And I know that they just were trying to spite me, and I know, and
just think of how much energy you've wasted in your life. On conversations like that, it's just and
there's too much work to do. There's orphans to take care of. There's widows to take care of.
There's poor people that need food on their plates, there's injured people that need to be cared
for, there's ignorant people that need to be taught, there's thirsty people that need to be given
drink. I mean, there's lots to do in the world, you just don't have that kind of time to expend all
		
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			that human energy, because that's energy is a gift from God, to have energy to do things and to
waste that energy. In in these kind of, whereas if you just have a good opinion of people, it's just
such an extraordinary thing. And so that's why it's very important not to speak ill of people,
because it generates bad feelings and bad thoughts about people. It generates them.
		
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			So the Prophet was asked when he said that, what about if you mentioned it, and it's true? And he
said, that is Reba if it's not true, it's Bhutan. Bhutan is what they said about Maryam
		
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			and, and bats, you know, is to be totally shocked. See, if you speak ill of person, like if you say
so and so drinks wine, and then you go up to so and so. And he does drink wine. And you say, you
know, Bella said he said, You drink.
		
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			He's might be upset that he said that, but he's not shocked. Because he knows he drinks. Whereas if
he doesn't drink, and somebody says, Oh, so and so said, You drink
		
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			you know, that's both time. And that's what they said about Marian, that she was, you know,
prostitute.
		
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			That's what they said about I shot all day long. That's what she got sick. She was a month she
almost died. She couldn't eat. Because she just she was she was a young girl. When she came into the
profits house. She was nine years old. She she she,
		
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			you know, just couldn't even imagine that it wasn't even in her frame of reference. You know, she
was just a pure girl. And it wasn't in her frame of reference to even to think of something like
that. So when it was said to her, you know, and then when it was mentioned Misra, who was related,
you know, no, he would never say that. She couldn't believe it. That's both tan so Heba is to say
something that's true about the person. And the reason it's insidious, is because the person is not
there and they don't have the ability to defend themselves. If they were there, they might explain
to you why they have