Gateway to God’s Book #1

Bismillah R Rahman Rahim wa Salatu was Salam O Allah, Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam to steamer, a subtle mighty Kumara Antalya Baraka to Alhamdulillah Muhammad Allah subhana wa tada when to stop? when to stop Pharaoh who want to stay in or who will not only Billahi min surely fusino on say the AMA de la mejor de la, manga de la for who for one martyred woman you call for the head, Yella

and hamdulillah. First of all, welcome to everybody that's come online to join us and Ramadan Mubarak. May Allah subhanho wa Taala give you a blessed Ramadan. This is a very interesting Ramadan for all of us. We I think these are unprecedented circumstances we find ourselves in.

I don't think ever in the history of our species have the vast majority of people on the planet been put into a type of house arrest basically. So it's a very unusual situation. And because it's Ramadan, it's particularly difficult for a lot of Muslims because

we've been deprived of the masjid and also even just gatherings and things like that in many places. So despite that fact, there's always a silver lining in the cloud, and we should see the blessing also being

exempt from public haunt as Shakespeare says, you know, there's a,

the ducks in your in the in the play as you like it. He's his brother takes over his kingdom, and he exiles him to the forest. But instead of seeing it as a

collector calamity, he actually sees the blessings in it. And and that's where the famous line sweet are the uses of adversity, that even in adversity, there are benefits uses here means profits or benefits. So he says sweeter the uses of adversity, which like the toad, ugly and venomous, whereas yet a precious jewel in his head. And this our life exempt from public haunt, finds, tongues, in trees, books, in running books, sermons in stones, and good and everything. So even though he's exiled, he sees that actually, that he's he's got an opportunity to get back to this authentic life in nature. So we should see the blessings of that are hidden within the tribulations. Allah subhanho

wa Taala throughout the Oregon tells us that he's going to try us and in fact, it's one of the reasons for our existence, or I hope it is behind he gives these different reasons that Allah subhana wa tada created us based on a platonic understanding. And one of them is if Tila which in Arabic means test trial tribulation, but it's fundamental meaning Bella is a is a trial or tribulation. So we're tested and this is obviously a test for Muslims. So because it's Ramadan, it's always a blessing. If you're if you've been away from the Koran to come back to the Quran, if you've been with the Quran throughout the year to intensify your relationship with the Quran, but it is a

time of coming back to the Quran. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us towards the latter days, he said when things get difficult, he said you spell Halima? harana, that, even the sagacious one the intelligent one, the forbearing one, somebody who is not, is not unsettled easily. The prophets Allah is him said that he would become confused. So this part of the nature of that time, so Satan Allah when he heard that out of the line, he asked him, mahalo so yummy, then how do we get out of those circumstances? In other words, how do we get out of the confusion, and the prophets allies, Adam said keytab will law, the Book of Allah, and then is a beautiful Hadith which

is related in a few different narrations, but you Mama tirmidhi, and others related, but he goes on just to talk about how everything is in the Koran. And so one of the things that a lot of people because the Quran is not a linear book, in the way that For instance, if you open the Bible, it begins in Genesis, it literally begins in the beginning. And and then then you have a narrative you have the Jewish people

as a central part of that narrative,

but it's really It begins with the story of humanity but the first mother and father of all of us, Adam and Hauer,

and then it it gives you the five books of the XR which is the what we call the Torah.

Then there's a linear sequence. And then you have the New Testament. According to the Christian tradition, the Jewish tradition doesn't really like the idea of the New Testament, because they don't see it as an Old Testament. There's no abrogation for them. And so,

but with the Christians, they have the New Testament, which is, is also a narrative. If you look at it, in fact, some people have pointed out that it actually follows like, a traditional Greek play in its in its sequence. And then you have in the, in the latter part of it, you have

these remarkable letters. The Paul writes to different peoples and Luke and others, the Acts of the Apostles. I mean, there's quite extraordinary things in there. And it ends with revelation, which is john of Patmos, has this revelation in exile on this island in Greece, and sees this kind of end of time scenario. So it begins in the beginning and ends with the book of Revelation, which is when everything unfolds at the end. So the Quran when when the Quran was revealed, and we see it as Muslims who see it as the last testament, it comes as a final testament from Allah, the last dispensation for humanity, and that in our understanding, and our tradition, it abrogates the

previous ones, it doesn't negate the truths that are in them. But it says that this is the final testament for for humanity. And then it calls everybody to it, allowing them the option to stay outside of it. So because it's a nonlinear book, for many people, especially Western people, when they go into it, they find it very confusing. And this is we find this in Carlisle's when he did heroes and hero worship in Victorian England, he chose as a hero, the prophet Mohammed Salim, which was scandalous at the time, because he didn't chose choose Jesus, for instance. But in there, he talks about how difficult it was for him to read the Quran.

And he said, if this is this remarkable book, where do we put the Iliad or the Odyssey? In other words,

it doesn't follow any patterns. Well, that's, I think, partly a testimony to the truth of the Quran that it is not like any other book, because it is uniquely amongst the revealed books, it is the one that is directly from God. So even Jews and Christians understand that the Bible and the New Testament are inspired works. So they, they're, they're inspired by God. So there's a Ye, but but it's human beings, that it's transmitted through them. That's why they find discrepancies and other things in them that don't really bother them from that perspective, because they understand that the scribes can make mistakes and things like that. So they don't have the same understanding that we

have, whereas the Quran itself comes directly from God to the prophesize. And the Prophet is merely a conduit for this revelation. So it's coming through him to us. And and so if we define the Quran, according to the holy scholars, and there's two types of also in our tradition, there's also the dean and also the solo Dean is related to a pizza or creed or what we believe, and an art in our tradition, the Koran in the Sunni tradition, the Quran is mad Lula love the movie that in that, so it's, it's the middle. In other words, it's the indications of this,

that, that that that the utterances convey that is eternal with a law so that that is a very difficult part of Calum or the tradition of dialectical theology that I'm not going to go into. So that's one way to interpret it. But the way that phoca interpreted and this is from Seattle, I will algebra him one of the great Mauritanian also the scholars, he said love his he said that the poron

was loved on Muna zona mohammedi, the as little jazzy will attack booty. So that's the definition in fact of the Quran. It is a an utterance that was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed Salah said him in order to incapacitate creation, in other words to as a miraculous book that could not be replicated and as a as a as a means of devotion to abode. Now,

one of the interesting things about taboo is that the the word in Arabic to recite the Quran, which is how we do devotions.

With the Quran is to our like yeah to Luna Kitab Allah He right that those who recite the book right to our is we recite the book and then hapa Tila with E they do it with the with its do and so for the Mojo with the person who's doing tissue weed that means like to give a thought only half and a half to who wants to hop over like they'll say to give every letter it's do and then it's circumstantial do so like it the harm is a circumstantial do not not every situation though Wow, you have it the bomb in in the letters of assimilation like your Mandarin. So, so for the Mojo word, that's what that means, but for the the, the the T Lau also means to follow. So it means to recite,

but it also means to follow or to, you know, to do what what the Quran is telling you to do, what comedy that tell ah ha so why the moon when it follows the sun, so to our means to recite and to follow. So when you get Sedona guitar play hot potato, when you're reciting the book of Allah as it should be recite. It means you're also following it. So it's not just simply following it, but reciting it, but it's falling. So you're reciting it with your tongue, you're believing it in your heart, and you're acting according to it with your AR con. Right? So it's to our to an elderly son, Adam fujinon. Will Amnon bill or can so this is this is how the law now, because it's a nonlinear

book. And I'll just give you one example of something very fascinating about the poor on the the Jews have a lot of stories in their book. It's a very, in fact, the Bible is read as literature. Now, there are many people that will read the Bible as literature not even believing that it's a revelation. But it's a fascinating book, with great stories,

the, the Koran and when when some of the Sahaba came and complained about not having stories, like the Jews have stories in sort of the 12th surah in the Quran use of his revealed use of his like a biblical story. It's it's, it's a completely intact narrative in the Quran, the only chapter in the entire Quran that is, is similar. And it says if To me, it's as if God was saying, I can do that, like I can do a book like that I've already done that. But this is different. Like this book is different. So the

the extraordinary aspect of the Quran to me is that there is a verse in the Quran where Allah subhanho wa Taala says the opposite will be more up in the June when no hold up a small note Anna Mona, I'll be in the Quran and carry that I swear by the moapa in the June This is in sort of terroir para I swear by the the positions of the stars. And this is a vast oath if you bought new.

And this is a generous Quran.

When when I lived in the Sahara Desert, I used to go every night would look up in the sky, and they had the most clear skies in the world, because there's no light pollution. And you could the the number of stars that you can see was just astronomical.

And, and it was so extraordinary to look up at the at the night sky. But for if you don't know anything about the stars, it just looks like a jumble of lights up in the heavens. And it doesn't look like there's any order. They just look like. But there was a man there that I lived with who used to teach me the stars. So he showed me at night, they'd say this is, you know, 30 Yeah, and this is Al Jabbar. And this is Jaffe and he would show me and then he would say this one emerges on this date on the horizon, and this one on this date. And this one indicates this season, he had a complete knowledge of the night sky. And over time, I got to understand the night sky in a

completely different way. Because most people grow up in environments where there's no stars anymore, they might see a few stars but they don't see stars anymore. The Quran is like that. If you look at it the way Thomas Carlyle looked at it, it's just a jumble of lights and stuff it'll offer even saying that, but that's what it appears to be to people it appears as if it's just a jumble of these amazing, you know, lights that are flashing without any cohesion.

But if you have the time, the patience and the wherewithal to study the book, you will begin to see these incredibly deep patterns in the book. So it's very much the opposite of in the Western tradition where

books have an outward cohesion but as you begin to study them deeper, they often fall apart. That's what deconstruction is all about. And the Quran is the opposite outwardly, it looks like it's it doesn't have a cohesion. But the deeper you study it, the more clear the order comes. And so what I wanted to do in this short series of lectures is look at through the lens of one of the great Andrew Sian acts, it's Ivins's al Calvin. And I'm going to talk also a little bit about Mr. Marquez daddy's theory of adjoa here, because the mama daddy also has a very interesting theory of the Quran to help people understand the the, the the nature of the Quran, the deep structure of the Quran. But all,

I'll give you an example, somebody recently told me that, you know, they found the repetition of the Quran

a little trying on them, because they were reading the Quran, they found the repetition, a little trying. And one of the things about the repetition upon is that there is no repetition, no Quran, I mean, this idea that,

that the,

and I'll get into that, I'm going to deal with that on one one of these sessions, the Quran, when when it does use the same stories, very often you will see either it's embedded in a very different sequence for a purpose, and then you will see just changes in the words that are very subtle, because of the secret that sequence that it's in. And this is why traditionally, our scholars understood that the miracle of the Quran is not a scientific miracle, there are some interesting scientific facts in the Quran, that's fine. But it is not the miracle. The miracle of the Quran is rhetorical. It is it is, it is a miracle of language. And we're in a civilization that privileges

science over. And by that I mean the material sciences over other aspects. But the single most interesting thing about our species is not science is language. We are

creatures of language, and this is what makes us unique. And the Quran is ultimately a linguistic miracle, it's a miracle of language, and language is what separates us from the rest of creation. All creation has certain types of languages and codes and everything, but we are that uniquely this species that is endowed with the gift of, of the logos of reason. And, and, and language by its very nature is reasonable, it is logical, and that's why it has a grammar it has a deep structure, and that grammar can only be understood by studying it. And the same is true for the Quran. So

I just I'm going to quickly go over the

the so looking at these major themes from Isaiah and just a little bit about Mohammed Mohammed. bin Mohammed.

Bin Zayed Al kalbi, he is always from Benny calld. Yemeni tribe

on RT, so he's from he was from Granada. And you can see there that's at the last stage of the Muslim presence in Spain when they were down to a very small Kingdom in the south. Before they were finally defeated by the Aragon and the Castilian Alliance.

And, and it's interesting because we, the year America was discovered as a year and receive falls, he so he was born in Granada, which is a amazing city that has the famous Alhambra palace, but he also

he died in the battle defending the Muslim land. So he's a Shaheed he's one of the great martyr shades of our tradition. And, and he he actually died as the Muslims were fleeing from the battlefield.

He was seeing calling them back

and to maintain their positions and ended up being killed. His books are some of my favorite books. And this the book that we're going to be looking at the introduction is in the tafsir tradition, but one of my teachers chef Mohammed Al Amina shinpei, Chef, Mohammed Matata, Shin Katie, who was the son of the great Mufasa, who died recently.

And he did a beautiful

a critical edition of one of today's books on also he told me that the reason his books are so

I think loved by people who fall into his

his world is because he wrote them for his son. So all of his books were written for his son Mohamed.

He wanted to give him the zip de like the cream of our tradition and so all of his books are

are very short, but they're packed with an incredible amount of information. And the TCL

which is the book that we're going to be looking at this is a manuscript of it, it's called a test helium 10 zeal, making easy or the facilitation of the sciences of Revelation. So he intended it, to make it

to make the Koran accessible to people. And that's part of the beauty of this book, because we're in an age where people need more accessible knowledge. I mean, during our periods of great civilizational flourishing knowledge were very rarefied. If people know the English term, gibberish, gibberish comes from Java benhayon. Because he was so confusing when the Europeans translated into Latin, most of them couldn't understand it. So they called it gibberish as true story. So it's, there's a nice four volume edition, which I really want to get, I didn't realize this was available, but I have three different editions, they're all reasonably good, they tend to be better. So

looking, I want to do the first thing of just looking at the major themes of the Quran, and then we're gonna I think, and soon

This means when he looks at the

I'll do the summation, then

he basically says that if you really want to sum up the entire Quran, he says

that the minute Illuminati Tada, Manohar, Koran, he said, we're going to speak to them in summation. And in Tafseer, Amal Joomla, too, as for the summation of the Quran, you know, the comprehensive explanation Phantom and unlock super foreign, the real purpose of the Quran is

that will help you learn about the Tila, he waited the hoody fee.

So it is an invitation to allows creation, to enter to believe in him, right to come to him, and to worship Him, and then to enter into a transaction with him. And this is why the human being

is, you know, if we, if we define a human being and the definition of a human being is not that easy. But if we define it, like our students, here is a tuna study logic. And one of the ways that you define something in logic, ladies,

how do we what's how do we get a definition in logic,

the genus

and the species, right? Well, the genus and the difference, which gives us a species. So the when we when we look at a genus, you're looking at something that that all the things in that group share, right? So for us, it's animality. So the, and this is the way the Greeks defined it, so that we're under the genus of animal that we're a living being, that we have animality. And but then what's our difference? that separates us as a species from all the other animals?

Yeah, that we have reason we have, we're rational. So we are the rational animal that's, that's, that's a logical definition of the human being. So for the Greeks, the definition of a human being is, is a person, the human being is a rational animal whose supreme dignity is in his intelligence, like that is the supreme dignity of the human being is in his intelligence, but for the Jew and for the Muslim, a human being, is a free individual, created by God, that has a personal relationship with God, and has the ability to enter into a covenant with God, and his supreme righteousness is in obeying and submitting to the commandments of God. This is the Jewish definition. And and and we

would concur with that definition for the Christians. The definition of the human being, would be a fallen creature, wounded through sin,

and whose supreme dignity is, is in accepting grace, you know, the the salvific grace of God through a sacrifice in their understanding. And I mean, we would acknowledge that we are wounded in sin kulu calm hopped up on the province. Allison said, well, hydro hopper in a tower bone, all of you are sinful, and and the best of the sinners are those who repent. So we know that we have a black dot according to the privatized system, which is not I you know, we don't believe in original sin in the kind of Christian conception of it, but we do recognize that we're fallen as a species and

And fallen man has has has his his struggles. So that is the that is the the summary of the Quran. It's it's down with that

right that would that help in any bad luck

with the hold up Dini. So it's it's an it's an invitation. Now the prophesies that I'm said

to add or an inner Khurana

dooba to law.

It's the invitation of God to a banquet. That's how in another rewired says metadata. So they're both sound, and they both metadata is the place where you learn.

And if we look at saying, okay, but our passes

is understanding of our human crisis, especially in the Muslim world. He says that the human crisis is from a confusion about knowledge, which led to a loss of adab, which led to the rise of false leadership, which

leads to more confusion in knowledge, more loss of identity. And so this is the cycle that human beings find themselves in. And so that was a very important concept in our tradition, which, in essence, is it's a hierarchical by nature.

Islam has a very interesting understanding of the relationship between the egalitarian nature of the of the of human dignity that everybody is equal in human dignity, but also recognizing the hierarchical nature of human accomplishment and human positioning.

So it's only through hierarchy that really can manifest so when you when you lose hierarchy,

all of these horrible things arise. And part of the modern condition is to eliminate this idea of hierarchy that people that know or above people that don't know, or the Quran clearly states that and then we have deference to people of knowledge and to their expertise. So

you know, Allah says in the Quran ma for rot method keytab, Eman Shea, right. We didn't, we didn't leave anything out of this book. And an Orientals once asked a Syrian scholar, you know, do you really believe that? And he said, Absolutely. And he said, Well, can can you find out? Like, how many loaves of bread in a bag of wheat in the Quran said absolutely. That I have that very hard time believing that. So he told one of the students, he said, Go get so and so.

And he went, and he brought this man. And he said, How many bags of how many loaves of bread in a bag of wheat? And he said, Well, in the, in his small bag, I can get 10 if it's if it's a medium bag and get 15 if it's a large bag, I get 20. And then the Oriental said to them, I don't understand. He said, this is our local Baker. And he said, Well, that's not in the pot on his Yes it is. Allah says Festo Allah decree in quantum law known as the people who know if you don't know, and I lost as ferrovie hubiera. Like ask the experts. So he's the expert, so I asked him

any questions?

First question, how can non Arab speakers approach learning the language to understand the Quran inshallah? And what can we do? before learning mastering Arabic to understand the Quran?

They said they're using multiple kind of trends, right? I'm gonna I'm going to have a, I'm going to talk about Arabic in one of the later classes, so I'll defer part of the question to it. One, I would say in some ways Arabs are disadvantaged in knowing Arabic modern Arabic because there cannot be a kind of compounded ignorance.

To understand the Arabic of the Quran takes many years of,

of hard work, I mean, this idea that you can learn the language of the Quran in a year is just a very dangerous concept in my in my estimation, the Quran is a profoundly subtle book. It

it lends itself to multiple possibilities.

And and it takes a really long time. Now you can get obviously the core messages of the Quran, like if allows a tupple La Habra. toccata he any Arab, that nose Arabic today would basically understand what that means. I mean, you might not understand that taqwa is, is a very specifically defined type of words.

Or he might not understand the, the derivation of the word from, you know, Lucky yuppie with Thai which is prevention. And the topo is a must or and,

and

those aspects of it, but, but they'll get the general meaning of that, but to really understand where you get into a deep understanding of the Quran, it takes a lot of work and and there's a reason why it's Valley cat keytab because that it goes for Tallinn, you know, and one of the things I learned early on, I was in when I was very young, I was in Mauritania, and I was studying and, and, and I was reading the Quran and and I had this what I thought was an insight into a thing and I remember I was going to tell one to one of my teachers, you know, I had this insight into the aura and he just stopped me and said, You know, like, you're not ready to do that. Don't you know, he

just said it's tequila tabula. And when they asked that Omar what was you know, in the in the in sort of the lab as you know, is a is a word and that is and he said, you know, you are then to Coronavirus, a mountain to eliminate that the Kalam to fakie tabula rasa IE, you know, like what Earth would hold me up and what what heaven would cover me if I spoke about the book of Allah without knowledge. So we have to have a type of all for the book of our law. And just be very careful. The what the Agim has direct access to is that the bad of T Dawa. And whether you can understand the Quran or not, t Lau has a profound effect on your heart. And this is just a fact. So

if you do too, and and there's something very pleasurable about the Koran, about t Dawa. It takes some time to get there. Like, if you look at the body just as an analogy,

you know, exercise is difficult, but once you actually start doing it, it becomes very pleasurable. So people that exercise on a regular basis, they feel bad on the days they don't exercise. The Quran is like that if you get into a habit of reciting Quran, and we are what we repeatedly do, as the Greeks emphasized constantly, that habit is very important. collusion, Adda will lower a better, everything is habitual, even even devotion. And so you have to get into the habit. And so I would say, you know, in terms of learning the Arabic, it's a really important thing. And I really encourage it to everybody, it's one of the most rewarding things that I've ever done in my life,

just having access to this incredible legacy of of knowledge, and over and above all else, having access to the book of Solomon sooner, but my own experience, and I and I guarantee there are many times when I've read the Quran, and I thought I understood it. When I went to the Tafseer there was a completely different meaning than what I was getting from just the Arabic. And so and somebody asked me, I was in Malaysia last year, and really, really wonderful Singaporean

person there asked me, they had been troubled about the idea that the Quran had lacunae, they had taken a course at the university. And they said, you know, in the course, they pointed out that the Quran can only be understood with Tafseer. And they couldn't understand how the revelation of God could be how it couldn't stand on its own that it would it would need to have sia

and

while the Quran definitely does stand on its own as the book of Allah, it does need commentary. And the reason it needs commentary is because Allah has made it

absolutely necessary to have a transmission. In the Quran, Allah says in the Quran, Lakota tomika. It is a reminder for you and for your people. Mr. Malik said, that verse means a man saying I heard from my father who heard from his grandfather, that this is a transmitted book. And this is why even to this day, when you learn the Quran, you learn it through his snad if you're learning it properly, so you study with somebody who studied with somebody all the way back to the prophets lies them and so you have chains. Every party has a chain back to the profit slice and if they learned it properly, and and so that's that's part of the nature of our religion is that it's

It's transmitted. Next question.

Okay. Thank you for that. Next question. This one's from Vimeo and then we'll take one more from Facebook in sha Allah assalamu Aleikum when reciting the Quran How do you differentiate between quote unquote singing and quote unquote reciting melodiously when it when the former is advised against okay the it's that's a good question the the Quran traditionally is is chanted we would say it's chanted now what's the difference between that and singing

the

we don't out of edit to the Quran we don't talk about like music like moussaka out of added to the Quran but but the the great Quran reciters learned the mahkumat which are musical modes and and this is why in Egypt for instance the great Quran reciters learn the the what are called the mahkamah which are studied in in in in musical conservatories. And this is why some of the great Egyptian singers were actually originally a Quran reciters people don't know that uncle Thome Her father was one of the great Quran reciters of Egypt and she learned the Quran early on she could recite the Quran and Allah Muhammad and and that's where she learned a lot of these things in traditional

Arabic music. So but but but so we don't sing the Quran in that way we chant the Quran and the prophets I Sam said in a hadith lays them in Malaya oven poron is not from us who doesn't, you know, it's a bit of Quran. I mean, some of the they say that it's and and the province is and also says that, you know,

they, you know, are put on via Swati Khan, you know, adorn the Quran with your voices, in other words chanted in a melodious way. And the prophet SAW him like to hear it from certain reciters because they recited so beautifully in one of them. He said, you've been given, like the, the, the the pan flute of download, you know, in other words, he was his recitation was so melodious and beautiful. So, so the Quran, we should recite it as best we can. But the most important thing, as long as you obey the rules of Tajweed and don't, I mean, some people go extend the the med more than like a meta lesson, which is the longest med, you know,

the photodynamic

purandara dakila mad, you know, like

that So, so that the meta lesson, what a Barney that has six Hanukkah, but if you go on and extend it beyond that, then then you You're, you're altering the book of Allah, so you can't do that. So,

but that I mean, that's a whole science of that, that the great Quran reciters learn, and believe it or not, the really, truly masters of this tradition, they will recite the macom, that's most appropriate for the type of a a so we're going to get into the different types of ayah. But they will actually recite for the type of eyes. So if it's, if it's an idea that were that should be, you should feel some grief, or sadness, they'll recite in a macom that engender sadness in the listener. And if it's a if it's something that is happening would be that it could

be marriage matter. If it's something with joy or something, then they'll recite in a mahkamah mahkamah rust or something that will actually elevate the Spirit. And so that's why great honor ciders, because of their mastery of this science, they can have an incredible effect on the listeners, because they, they're, they're using these, these these these modes.

That it

one last one, because we're gonna have to break our fast pretty soon.

We're here in California, on the west coast, other people in other places have already broken their fastmail law accepted from all of you to Allah pray for is a tuna. I do need to. I really hope people will support the college. I've got the students here some of the students that got stuck here, some of our international students may Allah protect them. But you know, hamdulillah we founded this college, we're actually in one of the auditoriums in the college and we just we need your support.

I know it's a difficult time and some people are having a difficult time male ha, make that easy for you. But I really hope that some of you will find in your heart to support an institution, that right now we're just caretakers, we're all passing through. We're doing this in order that other people won't have to do it. I would have loved to have come back to the United States and already had institutions built that I could have just gone into into I'd much rather be teaching now I'm doing a lot of administrative work and fundraising, but I'm doing it so people after me won't have to do it inshallah. So we're just caretakers, we're stewards right now and will be gone. Soon enough

and other people inshallah will be here, but

we need your support. So I hope people will find some support. Go ahead, CD, Harun. Thank you. This one is from here. from the east coast. Mashallah. You mentioned about science in the Koran. And we live in a world obsessed with science. How are we supposed to balance the truth of science? And its imposition on all other knowledges? What? Okay, you know, I would say, look, science is important. And I would never, in any way denigrate science as such. However,

a lot of science, if you read, I had to read a book when I was in college,

by Thomas Kuhn about paradigms and, and and he shows in that book, how science always has these anomalies. And and, and, and the, the anomalies often will create problems for scientific theories, and then a new theory will emerge. And so it's very difficult to latch on to something like science as an absolute. because much of science is what in logic we call saving appearances.

For centuries, people were absolutely convinced that the the sun went around the earth. And and that's certainly how we experience it. Nobody talks about an earth turn. Like they don't say, Oh, what a beautiful earth turn, we still talk about a sunrise and a sun set. So that's the fitrah. Right. And and, and, but when when Ptolemy wrote his book, The Christians actually believed that it was an addictive proof that that it was actually a boron copy. There was an absolute proof for that truth. Well, when Copernicus came along with the heliocentric theory, he kind of undermined that, but even the heliocentric theory has its problems. It's not like these are absolute. It's just, it's

the best explanation. It's the simplest using outcomes razor to explain something.

But it doesn't mean that Ptolemaic doesn't. It's, it's not also a valid theory. It is a valid theory is just no longer the dominant scientific theory. But people that study the atomic theory know that, okay, now I understand why people for 1000 years believe that theory because he does prove his things he had to create epicycles and all these things to explain retrograde activity and things. I mean, the students here study that it's a tuna. So

how do I view it? I think they're both true. I think experientially, we're in a Ptolemaic world. But I think in reality, it's a Copernicus

is right. So this is like Shetty and happy. I don't have a problem with two I can grapple with the both. I don't think they're contradictory. They're there. They're there. They're, I mean, they're contradictory at, you know, in their, in their basic assumptions about

the nature of the sun. Is it? Is it stationary? And we're going around it, or is it going around us and we're stationary. But experientially, I can understand how one is true phenomenologically to use a big word, and how the other is true.

in that, in that it

explains a lot of things also. So

I just that's my feeling about putting too many scientific eggs in the Quranic basket, I think is very dangerous.

Because down the road, they realize oh, that's not true. And then Oh, so what is the Quran? Not true. So and, you know, if God wanted, I mean, he could have, you know, revealed equals mc squared and then 1000 years later people say, Oh my god, they got that way before Einstein and and actually there is a

An argument from a Turkish physicist that the theory of relativity is in the pylons I don't know I am not that adept at theoretical physics so

alright, so botica logical melas except your prayers and

inshallah May Allah subhana wa tada forgive us any of our sins and transgressions all of our slips of the tongue May Allah forgive us. May Allah forgive us to speak in the book of Allah without the requisite knowledge May Allah Subhana Dada inshallah

bless our physicians and nurses and all the people that are risking their lives for the well being of our community and for the greater community and less behind without to protect them Muslims unite our hearts, protect our tongues against backbiting and against all those things that we're particularly sensitive to in Ramadan May Allah make us sensitive, sensitive to them throughout the year and a lot less and give peace in prayers upon our beloved prophets a lot is no and we ask Allah to make the Quran probably a poodle Vina vajilla A Hmong you know, Mina, sha Allah Sharla somehow not got a bit as a damn my OC phone was settlement animals sending 100 in the army.