Hamza Yusuf – The Jewels of the Qur’an 2022 #01
AI: Summary ©
The title of the Quran is discussed, including its historical significance and potential misunderstandings. It also touches on the use of punctuation in various political settings and events, including the use of a attraction in Western culture. The transcript provides insight into the negative impact of punctuation on children and how it can be a source of stress for parents.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah R Rahman Rahim wa Salatu was Salam ala Sayyidina Muhammad Ali will send you send him to steamer cathedra Alhamdulillah Hara brown Amin
ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada wash Cora whoa and a stain wanna stop Pharaoh who when are the bIllahi min Shuri fusina will say the medina then you had the laugh at our mobile Allah. Amen you further ahead Deanna will Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah 30 Halophila along that in a million phenomenon fan of the matter LinkedIn or was in Nechama Bora visiting the hamdulillah salaam I didn't call Morocco to Allah he will Ricardo who Ramadan Mubarak adeno Eric more items you mean to me and may Allah subhanho tannish Allah bless your Ramadan and want to thank everybody for their support of the college, we're really trying our best to provide for our community, really the best
that we can in sha Allah of our tradition and of the beautiful teachings of our prophets, Elijah them so the month of Ramadan is always a month of going back to the book of Allah for those who have neglected it and neglected it for the other 11 months out of the year.
And for those who actually have a practice, it's a way of increasing it intensifying it. I'll give you an example. Shall Abdullah all the various
Your brother from Arabia who's in the Eastern Province. He has a half as of Quran, and he recites the Quran every month in Ramadan. He'll recite it several times. I know chef, Dr. Abdullah matoke, who's a Kuwaiti scholar, who actually does third 30 hattem, every Ramadan.
And it's not an exaggeration. So
inshallah we should at least if we if we have the practice of doing it once a year, we should at least attempt to do it twice during Ramadan, which was the traditional practice of many, many people that was the average Muslims practice, not the exemplars, but really the average Muslim. So I'll give you an example in the country of Morocco where I was fortunate enough to study which I think has a very beautiful tradition, a tradition that has a great deal of sun that is embedded in it in ways that even the Moroccans are not always aware of a few examples. The yellow the boulevard that they wear the yellow shoes, there's actually a Hadith from Bass about the prophets, yellow sandals.
The fact that the the where the sell ham, which is the reader that prophesize that I'm wore the fact that they pray still on read mats, which according to Mr. Mark, it's a sunnah to pray on something directly on the earth like Adobe, or a read matte, but something that actually comes from the earth. So it was considered in the molecule meth had Medusa to do that.
And now we know things like grounding, you can you can look that up. There's people that are arguing that we actually need to ground on natural earth with our bare skin every day just to stay healthy. So one of the things that the Moroccans do which is quite extraordinary, is that they have a hot them that they do every month and they begin the hot them on the first of the lunar month. So today they would be on either the second or the third juice depending they started on Sunday. There other people started on Saturday. I think Jordan also started on Sunday.
The vast majority the Middle East started on Saturday. People have extraordinary eyesight in some places. But the in America I think most people started on Saturday. So you would start the Jews like they do in terra. We, on that day in Morocco, the Minister of off estimates that they actually do a HUD term of 250,000, just in the masajid alone every month. And I think that's quite extraordinary just in terms of protecting the country, just to have that level of protection. Because they always make these amazing do as at the end when they do the hot them. So if you don't have a practice of Quran, I hope that you'll use this month to establish a practice that you continue on after the
month. Even if it's half a page a day. There. There should be some commitment to the Quran so that you don't fall under the category of when the prophesy says the prophets Allah do send him said other of the nakoma todo Hodder Khurana Majora you know Oh my Lord, My people have abandoned this oran Imam a Saturday in his Tafseer he says that they they don't recite it. They don't practice its teachings
and they don't reflect on it. So we don't want to be people of abandonment of hate Iran and Quran. Want to be people of the Quran, Allah are the people of Quran the prophets Allah Islam said in a sahih, Hadith 100 Quran, Allah Allah, He will have such a hope that the people of the Quran are the the people of God and His elect that the In other words, they're the people that he has chosen to have a special place with him. So what I wanted to do was really continue on
from last year about the jewels of the Quran that Imam Al Ghazali wrote so I'm going to do a brief summary inshallah of last year's
program, and I hope for some of you that did not see it last year that maybe perhaps you could go back because I know it's available. So, the the the Joe I have email Mark Azadi did the, the Jawahar of the Quran
as a
a way of a centralizing the message of the Quran, and we're living in a time where essentialist aspects of things are not promoted. So the essential nature of the self, the essential nature of gender, gender, the essential nature of the human being. These are things that people are discarding. But our Islamic tradition is attrition.
of essences. We believe in though that we believe in Joab. And, and so Imam Al Ghazali wanted to really look at what was the essential message of the book of Allah. And he identified it in in an extraordinarily brief and concise text, but incredibly compelling for anybody who studies it. It's worth a serious study. This is a short book, but it's stunning in its presentation of the essential Quran. So
first of all, just to recap about email America zali Imam Al Ghazali. Our Mohammed is Mohammed bin Mohammed Ahmed Mohammed, his love was a Mohammed that of Azadi. He was born in 450. So he's born in the mid half of the
of the fifth century. And he dies in 505. After his era, which is 1111 in the Christian era, he is arguably after the sell of the single most important Muslim that ever lived. And that is not a hype hyperbolic statement that that is a statement that could be substantiated with a great deal of evidence. Imamura xiety is unfortunately, in the modern era, he's been reduced to a, in, in some circles, a Sufi deviant, which is a really bad sign of the times, because he has
been honored in the last 1000 years by our community as really budgeted. You sit on the proof of Islam. And the reason for that is because he was almost I would argue that it's really it's Matt, that he was the Magette did of that century. And you can see, he's at that, that sixth century of his era. He's considered the magenta, but he is the single identified magenta in our tradition that did touch deed of all three aspects of the faith. So he did touch deed of Eman. He did touch deed of Islam, and he did touch the the SN, and nobody else has that distinction. So the single most important work that he wrote is not the idea. It's it's the Mostafa, and it was actually his last
work. So it's the culmination of his intellectual brilliance of his intellectual journey. And that book is actually a book of jurors of also that
he had the great fortune and distinction of being the best student of one of the most brilliant jurist in Islamic history, the great Shafi scholar, he Muhammad Harmon and Duany as your Wainy introduces really, even though it was understood prior to Mr. Zhu Aney. But he introduces the acid tradition in a way that it really hadn't been introduced before. So there's an identification of the universals of Islam, the preservation of the, of the deen, of life, of reason itself, of property and of, of family, and, and family, they also include human dignity, because dignity comes out of the family.
So that arrow, which was added on later, is really covered in the idea of the nessa or lineage or family. So, he introduces an extraordinary new way of looking at the Quran. And the Sunnah of the Prophet is that, and he introduces many very important technical terms that had not been used before. So he really goes deep into what's called Lehel, which is finding the reasons for rulings, he goes deep into what's called tappi padmanabh, which is an approach to causation in which one determines the Manasa of the appropriateness of the ruling being applied in a given situation, because sometimes, the appropriate ruling is not to apply the normative ruling, but actually to
suspend it. So he developed that and that's where Chef Abdullah bin Beja, who is arguably one of the magenta dean of Seoul, in our time, and is a master of the Ghazali and also the tradition. This is one of the things that he has focused on, because of its importance and centrality to making Islam
always viable and always relevant no matter what the circumstances we find ourselves in. So you might not have Rosaria was born in Central Asia impose and Central Asia is one of those places in in the Islamic tradition and it's still
One of the most important places in the world. In fact, Zbigniew Brzezinski considered it the single most important place in the world. He said whoever controls Central Asia will control the world, which is why there's so much interest in Central Asia. It also happens to be the Saudi Arabia of micro minerals. So there's a great desire to control this place. So they have access like Avalon Stan and places like that. But he was born and loose. He goes to NASA bore and studies only support also to go again which Gorgon was a place near the Caspian Sea that has amazing scholars, a Shetty from Georgia any other and giorgianni. I mean, there's a really stunning scholars that come from
this area. And there's a there's a book that was written in English on the enlightenment of the Central Asian Muslims at the extraordinary output mathematically scientifically astronomically, but also in terms of Quran commentary in so many, many things. He then goes to Baghdad. And he, he becomes part of the coterie of knees, almond milk, and he ends up teaching and becoming the dean at Baghdad at the famous Milania. And this is where the Sunni tradition really begins to solidify and spread.
And then he also has a spiritual crisis. He travels to Damascus, he acts as a janitor in one of the mosques there lives inside a very small room, in the mosque, he goes to Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, he writes a really, really important book in Aqeedah. He then makes his pilgrimage he goes back to Baghdad. And then finally he goes back to Central Asia, where he has a small group of students that he studies with one of the few students that he studied with, that he taught in Baghdad and one of his last students was the great monarchy jurist, and saints of the roebuck it had been an RV. And if you read his regular, his description of coming into the presence of imamo, because it is one of the
most extraordinary descriptions of the meeting of a great master, because of the oval bucket, who was already accomplished scholar by that time, but when he actually goes in to the presence of the moment is that he said it was it as if he had been living in darkness his whole life. And he saw the sun rise before him and dispel all of the darkness of his time prior to that. And it's it's very powerful. When you read it, you can really sense the greatness of the man.
So he wrote so many books, he's got over 70 books that are confirmed and attributed to him and many others that people claim he wrote. But among the books is the July Hill. And so that's the one that we looked at last year.
So 40 years, he actually died relatively young, the
the IMA Mark Azadi project. In other words, what he was attempting to do was one, what we call in the West, the liberal arts, which, and this is my contention. And I think increasingly a lot of Muslims are understanding this and seeing this is that our tradition is rooted in these fundamental arts that enable people to think qualitatively and quantitatively, so he wrote in these arts, he wrote, he has several books in logic, he didn't need to do any grammar books, because there were so many grammar books that had been done at that time. Also, he was living at a time where there was some really great rhetorician so but he really saw the importance of logic as a central art to be
introduced into Calam and into
also ludviq. So he really in his great Mustapha, and he wrote four books in this area, but in his great Mostafa, he actually and by the way, his his crit critic in philosophy that even Russia actually did a summary of the Mostafa, so he had great respect for his his book, then we'll stop. But anyway, Mr. Rosati
in the Mostafa, the first 40 pages
is basically an introduction to into Logic, but he uses vocabulary that people would not see
See it as directly being from logic because there was a lot of animus towards logic. And I have a very interesting anecdote was a true story. The one of my teachers was
Muhammad matar
who was the son of Mohammed that I mean a Shem fealty. He was beautiful man, a brilliant scholar and it will slowly but he told me when I was studying with him in Medina 40 years ago, he told me that his father when he taught also did Fick, he taught from that because Eilean approach. And because the students in Medina university were prohibited from learning logic. He actually wrote a book that he called edible bath when one other, which they accept, but it's a it's a book of logic. So he actually taught them logic without telling them they were learning logic, which I mean, if you don't see the irony in that it's, it's
very interesting. I have the book, it's a good book too. So he man Islamic Yes, and Qalam legal theory, the inner path. And then refutation. So he was most mostly focused on a constructive project, which was to revive the three aspects of Islam in a time where he thought there was a lot of what he called Mutata Seimone. The formulas they were trapped in just the the outward rituals and rites of Assam, and they'd lost that inner dimension. So through that, he writes in qalam, in also and then if Sam, but he also had a deconstructive
project, which was to refute, refute the peripatetic philosophers. So people say, Oh, he was against philosophy, he was actually dealing with one school of philosophy, the methodology of the philosophers he actually appreciated. But he was he looked at these 20 aspects in his book, to have them philosopher Makkasan philosopher he wrote first and then he wrote the tablet, and then the cultists. So he really had a,
a, a focus on the bothnia. These are the ISA terraces that turn Islam into an esoteric religion and see the outward as something negative. That although that's for simple people that don't really understand the truth. So that was his project. in book eight of the idea, he has the etiquette of the Quranic recitation, which I recommend reviewing every once in a while, it's very important until these things become really well established. But he has add up of tidhar with Quran. So the first Bab is the father of Quran, what I had heard the virtues of Quran is folk, and then he looks at the just the outward aspects like wuhou not carrying it unless you're in wudu.
The and then also Vietnam at bottom 50 of the mental test to double and to really be focused. And then also in the fifth one, he looks at understanding the Quran and its tafsir
and he looks at both the Outlander Knakal. So looking at it,
and then he has his criticisms and the dangers also of speaking about the Quran without the requisite knowledge. In his GioI head, he's looking at these jewels, and pearls is what he calls them. So the Quran, he says is like an ocean filled with jewels and valuables. This is what I did last year. So this is the roadmap. And if you look at this, I mean, first of all, the intellect that that that discern, this is just such a formidable and powerful intellect. And so this is really worth getting under your belt, so to speak.
This is the roadmap for him to God, which is what the book of Allah is. It's, you know, one of the things that when you buy technology, they always have a user's manual. So like if you buy a car, nobody ever reads it, and then they get into problems because, or the women read it memento. But but the user's manuals are very useful, because when you assemble something, you should read always the instructions before you assemble it.
Because you'll you'll get into trouble. So God has provided every animal with their Hulk and their Hooda he created the animal and then he guided it to its natural nature and this is why the Bedouin
poet, said
summer at the our Fustat nesto
submitted to
our depo
for sadness to be the the hour, I heard the howl of the wolf. And I felt comfort in hearing the howl of the wolf was so water in San Juan lucky to appear Oh, and then I heard a human voice, and I almost flew out of my skin. So he's traveling in the desert and he hears a wolf. And it's, it's another creature, so he feels some comfort, but then he hears a man's voice, and he's terrified. And the reason for that is with the wolf, you know exactly what you're going to get. But with the man, it could be a demon, or it could be an angel. And you don't know until they reveal themselves. And this is the thing about human nature is if it's not guided, it can go one of the two paths, right?
Allah says that they know nudge, then we guided man to the two paths. So there are two paths in life, the path of righteousness, and the path of viciousness, the path of virtue and the path of vice. And this roadmap is exactly what the Quran is, it is the user's manual for the human being, for the creation of the human being. It gives us the ability to navigate our lives. And, and but it is a map and you have to learn it. And and you have to make it operational. So you can talk about the journey. But if you actually never set out with the map, you'll never arrive. And so life is a journey. It's a path, and we're on that path. The outward path is called Shetty, Shetty, which is in
Arabic a path to water and for the desert. Water, a path to water is a life giving path. And the prophets Allah said him said, My Sahaba come to me yet who do not layer water. They come to me as a word. We are Haruna Adela and the prophets Allah is him said that he was on a ride and he said, a ride like the Buddha Hello, the the RA is the one who goes out in search of water for the Klan, when they're when they need water. And and, and when he finds it, he goes back and tells him so then he becomes a delille. So initially, he's called right but once he finds the water, he's a delille. So the Prophet said the Sahaba were like a robot, they come for him looking for this life giving water
what in the European tradition was called fonds V tie, the water of life, the fountain of life. So they go out looking for that. And then when they find it, they come back, and they can guide others to it. So the shedding is the path to that life giving water, the body of CA is the inner path to that. So the body has to make the journey that's called Shediac. But the soul has to make the journey that's called Budhia. And then, when you arrive, you arrive by the Shetty with the inward journey to the hochkar, which is the reality and these terms are later terms, but they're very useful terms, in the same way that we have grammatical terms that the Sahaba didn't know. So that's
the roadmap the Quran is the roadmap so that Jawahar Quran, the Jews of the Quran, are he divides it into the DeMatha syllabic, the preliminary matters so and then the mocassin the sixth facet of the Quran, and then the lower half the subsequent matters. So the jewels of the Quran relate to the acid of the Quran. So he defines the 763 verses are he calls them jewels. And then he has 741 He calls daughter pearls.
These are the two types of verses that he's identifying that is centralised, the meaning of the book of Allah. The first one is embodied in La Ilaha illa Allah and the second one is embodied in Muhammad Rasool Allah. So all of the Quran can be divided into La Ilaha illa Allah and Muhammad Rasool Allah, La ilaha illa are all the Jawahar that tell you who your Lord is. They tell you his nature, his attributes, His actions,
what he wants from us, what he doesn't want from us what will happen if we do what he wants, what will happen. And so the it tells us about God, the pearls are those that tell us about how to get to God. Now it's very interesting that he chose to use jewels because the jewel is formed in the earth but the pearl
is formed in an animal and the pearl and one of the things she's allowed to you know Rumi says is that the heart
the is he says, It's like encased in the mother of pearl. And the pearl emerges because of sand that gets into the, the oyster. And so the oyster releases this,
to encase the the in the same way that in when you get sick very often, your body will actually put something around the, the what's harmful in the body, to protect the body from it. So it will actually isolate what's dangerous. So what happens with the, this aggravation inside the oyster shell is what creates the pearl. And so what he's saying is that Allah is going to aggravate you with all these trials and tribulations. And if you respond appropriately, you your heart will become like that pearl. That that it's it's the aggravations and the tribulations of life that will actually bring you into that beautiful state. Now you have to dive into the ocean to get the pearls.
So it's the deep dive that he's asking us to take in life not to stay at the shore, not to look at the ocean and say, Oh, it's nice, no to go in. And so that's what what he's doing. So these are like, for instance, just to give you some examples, this is the first one that he uses, about the Joho a Ludhiana Kometa auto Thirassia he made for you the earth. A Faraj, what is a Farage of Faraj is a bad photo. Dina Razi says the earth is neither too hard nor too soft. It's perfect to build on, because if it was too hard, you couldn't build on it. If it was too soft, you couldn't belong. If it was rock, you couldn't build on it. It was sand, you couldn't vote, but he made this perfect.
Like a bed because you don't want a bed that's too hard, you're uncomfortable. You don't want a bed that's too soft. Because you won't, you'll wake up in a bad state. So and then he was Semih abena. And so he made the heaven a canopy, a roof. What does a roof do? It protects you. Now we know that we're getting constantly bombarded with radiation. And we've got Van Allen belts that are protecting we know now that we really do have a roof over the earth. That's protecting us from cosmic radiation. And then unzip them in a summer imagine the life giving water for a Hershey behemoths, Emirati racecar. And then so he brought forth from the habit that he sent down this water and it
brought forth the the provision the fruits of the earth, but it's a local as a provision for you, fella. I know the law he and I don't want to tag them. So do not set up and that the NID is somebody who is equal to God and nobody laser committee Shea.
Let me call the hook of one I had. These eyes are really important. Kula Malhotra be Vatika Allahu dareka. Everything that occurs to your mind, Allah has other than that. And so the need is the opposite. And that's why a man once came to the Prophet and he said something and he said, either sha Allah was Shiva tiara. So Allah, if God wants a new one, he said, Let's it and he made them. They don't put me equal with God, because the WoW makes it like they're equal. So so you're supposed to say, in sha Allah, the mesh editor, you say something that that shows you the separation, the difference, as opposed to a conjunctive approach. And so and then what an tanaman This is a
beautiful this is in Arabic is called a Joomla. Halia is important because people that's associate idols with God out of ignorance unless the message comes to them, that their grandma calpheon according to the dominant school, and so Allah is telling us once you know, don't do that, if you're living in ignorance, then Allah doesn't take people to count until he sends a messenger that says he died, said, You know, my couldn't have been had the Nevada, you know, Rasul Allah, we don't punish them until we send out so the monetization I said it was the app that that the the Mati dia that I shared in the authority, they say, No, it's the Rosu that has to come. And the mercury, they have a
nice nuance about that too, because they do recognize some responsibility with Tommy's and apple.
So, another one is, wait a second there and leave it in the crib. If my service ask about me say I'm near Ouji with that with a daddy I will
Answer the call of the one calling the prayer of the one calling is at the end when he calls me fairly STG Billy, well, you mean OB, the allomi or Shodo. So let them respond to Me. In other words, if you want God to respond to your prayers respond to his call, and the word is the same that law so God calls us and we call God out why should we expect God to answer our prayers if we're not answering his call?
It's even though Allah has Rahman Rahim.
Nonetheless, we should answer his call.
So, and then he says, well, human OB, let them or your mineral, let them believe in me, in order for them to be rightly guided, rushed, which is
kind of intelligence in your behavior. So prudence, you know, being Rashid
and then Shahidullah, and hula, you know, in Whoa, well Malika to woo let me call him the Lucas, the, you know, in the whole ISIS were Hakeem in Dina and the light Islam. So Allah
testify, testifies that there is no God, but who except for God, when melodica and the angels what Allah puts and this is very interesting, because these are moku. So its motto Valley, Allah testifies, the angels testify, and those who have knowledge are a member of this. This is this is uprightness and justice. Law in a low repeated again.
As usual hacking as a Hakama. Allah is Allah Aziz al Hakim in Medina and online Islam. Verily, and this is Tokyo, you know, it's for it's a kid, Allah's asserting, and you do this when somebody might have some doubt about it. That's when you use it. He could have said a dino and Allah Islam, but when he said in the Dena, and the light Islam, it's, it's for anybody has any doubt dispel that doubt. This is God speaking and saying that the religion with God is an Islam. And you know, some translate that as submission, which is true, but it also means the religion that the prophesy Sam gave. So it's not simply submission. It's both submission and this religion that we call the
listener.
And then also another Johore woman DAB button for art. What are pa earring your OB Jenna Hey, Illa OMA moon, um, Thermicon. There is not a creature and dabbas Kalamata in the book. So anything that crawls on the earth is a dhaba. There's not a creature in the earth, nor a, a bird flying with its two wings, except that they are communities like unto you. I mean, now we know this in zoology. I mean, the we, it's amazing the communities of animals, and how they commune with one another how they live. All these things actually have pilgrimages. I wrote a, an essay on this, about all the amazing pilgrimages that animals do to these places, even the butterflies, the monarch butterfly
goes to one place, birds will fly across the ocean, it's quite stunning what they do fly across the ocean. And one of the things about the birds, when they're in flight, they say is that they will literally forego any temptations on the journey. They're completely focused. So even if they see like a fish they would normally get they will focus and not be distracted. Which is why in the great
poem, of the birds, the 30, birds that set out for God, I mean, the Persian poet use the the birds as an analogy of that. And so and then Allah says, Well, my follow up enough it Kitabi Minh Shea, we have not omitted anything from this book, they'll make it out of them your shadow. You know, there's one of this Syrian scholars and oriental has said to him, do you really believe that you know, that God hasn't omitted anything in the book? He said, Absolutely. He said, so you can tell me like how many loaves of bread you could cook in a in a in a bag of flour. And he said, it's in the Quran. He said where he saw and he says, Go get so and so soon gone, and we can. He said, How many loaves in a
bag of flour. He said the little bag, I can get five out of it. The big bag, I can get 20
And he's nice. He said, Well, there's your answer. He said, That's not in the Quran. Is it? Yes, it is. Allah says facility. hubiera Ask an Expert. And he said he's the baker
I have a audience here that's completely signed
permission laugh
that's like you know these poor comedians that say something and then nobody laughs It's a horrible feeling
so and then the another gelato PTR EMA key or the blame that we are somehow apply a well heeled helmet or put the camera was stowed down into the key. The button on the bottom is amazing. This is one of the most extraordinary rhetorically extraordinary verses. It's really a stunning verse. Then it was said or swallow up your water and sky hold back and the water subsided the command was fulfilled the Ark settled on the Mount of Judy. And it was said Gone are those evildoing people.
And then yeah, you had NAS BB adorable Kamala Harris Kamala danamon Kamala under commented upon. This is it now in the pearls, I'm just giving examples from these. So this is now related to the path all those other ones were about God and how and how God operates in the world. This is about the path. This is the very first commandment in the Quran. If Quran is the first commandment linearly, this is the first commandment.
chronologically, this is the first commandment and then early in the book. So this is the very first commandment that Allah gives in his book, telling us to worship our Lord, Who created us while letting him in public home, land Takane. So don't get into door and to sell. So this actually negates don't intercensal Which is amazing, because these are the two problems what they call the chicken and egg problem in philosophy, lambda come to town in order to ward off harm in order to guard yourselves, but also to be mindful to be conscientious. So the allegories of the jewels and the valuables in the Quran. He goes into these symbols. So he has, he has these names, the red stone
activities that are a theory of black bar, and Miska otha will include the aloeswood what he's showing is one of my medical czar. His contentions is everything in creation has a meaning that the physical presence of it is has to be penetrated in order to get to the meaning. So for instance, shiftable Habib in his Diwan he says enamel, kono man in our image of the sewer coolamon ugric ohada Kanima Hello about that. Allah's creation are our meaning setup and images. And whoever understands these meanings is from the people of discernment. And so he's using these to show you that everything is like what is an antidote? Well, an antidote will protect you from SumoMe. But he's
saying that the oran is an antidote.
And so, so this thing that's in the world has a metaphysical reality. What is it communities that are hammer, the red, the red brimstone, or the red sulfur was a an alchemical term that was used for it was a substance that's apparently extremely rare, and whoever finds it is able to transmute lead into gold. And so he uses this as a metaphor for the spiritual path that transmutes the toxic lead of the knifes into the spiritual gold of the rule. And also a miscut of far. So, this is something that
that somebody for instance, ALLAH SubhanA wa Adana, the beauty of it rude, or mask, is that it, this smell comes from it. And so, those righteous people, what he's saying is that it's similar to that is that the, the presence that they have is like fragrant musk, and, and then aloes, it's only when you burn it, that it produces a beautiful smell. And so this is another metaphor that sometimes Allah has to burn you in order to bring forth what's what's beautiful. And so these again, are the trials and tribulations of life. So he uses these as analogies for them, and so he says that aloeswood is smoke rising from the ashes of God's punishment of hypocrites in his enemies brings
great benefit to believers. The fame of a person of knowledge spreads everywhere like mosque even if that person prefers obscurity. So one of the things even ATI Allah says he says that, that that whoever worships you know, wants obscurity is
The whole like, if you want obscurity, then you're a slave of obscurity. If you want fame, you're a slave of fame. And he said Abdullah Sona, Ali and avacado. The servant of God is the same whether he makes him well known or he keeps in in obscurity. And what that has I heard him on several occasions say that Hulu Mattoon or Colonus yet bow what the horror Necmettin Wakulla NASA time and now that obscurity is a great blessing that people refuse. And fame is a great tribulation that people desire. And the Prophet SAW I said him said it's enough for a fitna for a person that people when he walks by, they point at him with their fingers. They oh there go so and so.
And many people that become famous, they, they end up really wishing I mean, there's some people that are addicted to these things, but they wish that they had remained in obscurity. And then he says that the antidote is cures from the poisons of heresy, passions and errors entering the soul. And then the cavities that are that which turns the essence of the soul from the vices of a beast and the air of ignorance to the purity of the angels and their spirituality. So these are all things and then he gives an incredible presentation of a fatty how opening up these eight doors of paradise Bismillah R. Rahman and Rahim according to
the majority of the Korra begins with Bismillah R Rahman Rahim Imam Nafion Emonda. His recitation begins with all right man Rahim Al hamdu lillahi rabbil aalameen or Ramana Rahim again, Medic el Medina automatic Yomi Dean or medic Yama, Dean, there's different iterations of that. He can do what he can to stay in Dino Salatin style team Sirata. Nadine and untidy him Aveda model the ADDIE model donde. So that hum de la those are the
that was a review just of what we did last year in all the sessions. So you, I wanted to bring it back so that we could then look at these and there are a few things that I wanted to the book that I'm going to be using for this is a book based on the Jawahar. So this translation was done by Dr. Thomas Cleary. It's called the essential Quran, the heart of Islam and introductory selection of readings from the Quran. So Dr. Cleary Rahim, Allah, Allah, I think,
did us a great service in this book, because it's an incredibly accessible book for a lot of people to get to the heart of the Quran without having to read the entire Quran. And the the notes that he wrote in the back are really, really quite stunning. But one of the most beautiful aspects of this book is the introduction. And I think that
he really
gave us a a beautiful summation of the purpose of the Quran in that.
So that's the book that I'm going to be using. But I also want to draw your attention. I will on Sunday, I'm going to be talking about this book with the book club before I talk about
the average translation. So this book is by Bruce Lawrence. It's from the lives of great religious books from Princeton University Press. It's called the Koran, K RN, and he distinguishes between Poron which is Arabic and Koran, which is translation. So he actually prefers to keep the old which is the same one that Dr. Cleary used here.
Most Muslims prefer the transliterated, one where you have a L q, you are and then have a
little apostrophe for the the Hamza Quran like that.
But he this is a biography of the Quran in English. And one of the things that is important for us to come to terms with is that English has become a preeminent Islamic language, for whatever reasons. It's my native tongue. It's not my ancestors native tongue. My answers his native tongue was Gaelic, but it is my native tongue now because the English colonized Ireland and Scotland and and cut their tongues out for speaking Gaelic. So 800 years of that, now, the Irish are actually quite eloquent in the English language. In fact, they're noted for their poetry.
So but it is an important language. It's the language of academia. Many people from other countries write in English, most times
papers have to ultimately be published in English to be well read. So it's become a really important religious language. We forget that the South Asians were colonized from 18 From the late 18th century, well into the 20th century 1947. The Indian subcontinent, which is one of the most important lands of Islam was colonized by the British, the British basically instituted English as a formal language in education. The South Asians actually became very, very skilled at English, many of them read English literature. And, and for that reason, some of the best translations of the Quran were actually originally produced by South Asians.
Believe it or not the reason why the Indians and Pakistanis began originally, they're all Indian. But the reason why the Indians
translated the Koran was because they actually wanted to address the Miss translations of the ones that were in English that were translated by
religious, usually Protestants that wanted to proselytize in the Muslim world. So they were responses and one of the main movements against the religious proselytization proselytization of Christianity in India was the Ahmadiyya movement.
So this is how he became famous because he would debate the Christians and one of his students monana Muhammad Ali, did the the hamady Quran, which is published in Ohio, and still can be found in almost any bookstore in the United States because they've been
publishing that put on I think it's in its 50th edition.
There are other great translations of the Quran that come later. You have Marmaduke Pickthall who was influenced by he was at the woking masjid, in
in England, which was nominated masjid so he's actually influenced by the Maulana Muhammad Ali Translation. But he was a very famous
novelist in England and he became Muslim. He's actually one of the most prominent English people to become Muslim. And he wrote, he ended up learning Arabic, the Nizam of Hyderabad, who at the time was the single richest man in the world. He was I don't want to compare, obviously to some of our oligarchs. Just interesting aside here. I kind of was fascinated by the fact that the all the Russian billionaires are called oligarchs, but they don't call our billionaires oligarchs. I mean, that's a very interesting. So the, the, he was a billionaire by today's standards. And he basically was the patron of Marmaduke, Pickthall. He gave him a good salary. And he was able to translate the
Quran in Hyderabad, where he was living at the time, became very important Quran, AJ arbury, who was a professor, he was a student of Dr. Nicholson. He also did what I think is the most eloquent in English of the translations of the Quran, we can debate on these things. And I know there's a lot of debates about that. But I would say that now the other resource that I want to bring to light here is the lights of Revelation. This
this is such an incredible work. And I have to say, Dr. Jabril, and her dad, who is a really brilliant, scholar, incredibly meticulous, and really, really knows the tradition. I know. One of his teachers will share Muhammad Kobe and Shaq Muhammad Jacobi who's a brilliant Arabist and Islamic scholar but really, really deeply steeped in the Arabic language. He really praised him as a student. He said he was really an excellent student, but he has become a chef in his own right. This is a fantastic if you want to take a deep dive into how our great scholars looked at the Quran. This is the first history of the Quran translated it has the Arabic for those that can read Arabic. It
actually has the Arabic in it, but it's it's really a stunning work and the meticulousness I mean the amount of scholarship that went into this this is worth 10 PhDs in my estimation
the
Yeah, so and then the book. This is Arabic. This is a very nice addition of Imam and bulgogi it's a slightly
The abridged edition but EMA met availbale and Imam Ababa we were the two most popular madrasa Tafseer years. The gentlemen was a very basic tafsir and it's very useful and there is an addition that was done by
the translator Ayesha Beulah leaf, who's an American. She actually did her Arabic at University of Berkeley nearby Berkeley University, UC Berkeley, but she lives in England, and she's translated many works, but she actually did a translation for PA publications of the gel Elaine. The gel Elaine is an incredibly useful aid to understanding the Quran because it fills in a lot of the lacunae. And one of the
students that was at a recolor in Singapore, we were actually in Malaysia, but she was from Singapore, really wonderful.
hajima somebody who did a lot of work for the Singapore Muslim community, but she had taken a course at university that really unsettled her and one on one, because one of the things that the professor said, is that the Quran is filled with lacunae. In other words, things that have to be filled in by commentary. And she couldn't understand how a revelation Why would God
give us a book that has these lacunae? And at the time? I don't think I gave her a
the best answer, but it really got me thinking a lot about that. And one of the things that occurred to me was in the eye in which Allah says in the hood, the Kuru, Lakota, comica, this is a reminder for you and your people. Mr. Malik said, it's saying so and so said about the Quran. so and so said about the Quran, so and so said, so it's the isnaad tradition. And one of the really important aspects and something that I focused on for probably 30 years, since I've come back to the United States, is really trying to drive home to our community, the importance of traditional chains of transmission.
One of the few areas where it's really left is in touch weed, because people still do learn to read based on a Senate, metatarsal, but in most of the other sciences, and there's undeniably been a dilution of is not so a lot of people, you know, go collect his nods, and people give them freely. And
so it's not, it's just like, yeah, diploma mills. So are you going to get the doctor who trained at Johns Hopkins, are you going to get the doctor that you know, is a quack and, you know, got got a naturopathic diploma from a,
you know, an online course they did for six weeks. I mean, there are people that do that, you know, it's quite, and that's not to say because naturopathic, there are naturopathic colleges that are are reputable.
Like the one in Portland, I think Harvard actually has now a naturopathic program. So that that's the difference. So it's very important to know that
you know, the importance of chains of transmission. And,
and that's why I think there are lacuna is because Allah
has forced us to be reliant on transmission, that the Quran has to be transmitted in that way. The Prophet explained the Quran to his people, his life was an explanation of it. And in any,
in any case, those are just some initial reflections.
So, the first question comes in how much of the Quran is literal and how much is metaphorical ambiguous? Can we rely on one particular approach and understand the Quran? Or should we apply different approaches? There are
the Quran has there are very few actual hazy verses in the Quran that are problematic, but there are many things in the Quran that can be taken metaphorically. The methodology of the Sunnah is not to isa terrifies the Quran, but to recognize that there are esoteric interpretations. The prophets I sent him said in a hadith that the court every idea has a head and it has other her own and about known animal Palla or mattala. So the he's indicated
There are four levels of interpretation and in even in traditional Western Christian interpretation, they had four levels of interpretation. So they had the, the historical, the, the allegorical, the the moral, and then the negotiable. So, there are ways multiple ways of interpreting things. So, for instance, if Allah subhana wa Tada says that some of the verses are hazing with the shabby hat, and then others are, they're, they're, they're, they're Montcalm they're, they're, they're clear in their meanings. And those who have sickness in their heart tend to use a terrifies and wander off into the occult. So we
we were people of the inward and the outward and we assert that there has to be a balance between the two
that's that's the Sunni tradition. And and the Shia really also.
Next question for someone beginning to read the Quran in translation, how can the jewels of the Quran be discovered without one being overwhelmed was a good question? I mean, we have to recognize the limits of translation, but also we have to recognize the benefits of translation. So even reading the Quran in Arabic, if you're not trained in Bulava in Navajo and SARF, you have to be very careful. And not many people, even a modern Arabs who have gone through 12 years of Arabic education, or even into college. They don't have the type of grammatical skills or rhetorical skills, that people that went to traditional methods OSA, acquired and still acquire in places where
were they they're focused on. So you still have me there's great grammarians in Mauritania. shadowbanned Bay is an extraordinary grammarian. He's a rhetorician. He's a magician. And so you have to be careful, translations are problematic. They they
there are many possibilities, some versus literally you will get it's not that common. But in some of the countries, you will get very extremely different interpretations, as if they're almost like completely opposite. So in America, zombies work can sometimes roughly be divided to work for scholars and works for the average Muslim. That's true. Where did the jewels of the Quran fit in? I think it fits in an educated Muslim, I think if you're if you have a good level of education, and I'm not talking about so much Islamic education, I think you can benefit greatly from the joules of the Quran. But it's a really good question because there are works that are for scholars, and then
their works. I look at it like prescription and over the counter.
You know, there's things you can buy over the counter, and they're not going to be harmful. You read the side and it says, you know, it might say we recommend that you ask your doctor before you use this. So but generally over the counters are pretty safe. But even Tylenol can kill so even with just
going, you can get into trouble. So you just have to be careful. But I do believe that we should if we don't have access to the Arabic, my first reading, I became Muslim from reading the Quran, Dr. Omar became Muslim from reading the autobiography of Malcolm X. There's different ways to get to Islam. But my experience was with George sales Poron, which is pretty amazing. Because as a really old that was that 1734
was a George sale. The first one was Robert of Catan.
Back in in 1643 was the first translation into Latin was it considered a good translation apparently in Latin, my Latins too rusty to read that but
but
George sail, there was an argument because it was reprinted in America in 1832, I think. And they actually in the introduction claimed that he was probably a crypto Muslim, because he was too. He was he was too
relatively neutral, not entirely. I mean, he does. You know, they you people, people have to realize that at that time, you had to say nasty things about Islam or you'd be accused of being a Muslim and could really get into trouble.
It was a different world and so a lot of people don't understand that, that that
about the nature of that time. Is there any methodology method, myth, methodical, common ground between how Azadi approached the Quranic text and the way it
RB approaches it? Well, there's two of them out of these. I mean, they're more than two. But the two main ones, when you're talking about the Quran, tend to be called the double bucket have been at RB, who
was a student of the Mamanuca Saudis.
And he was largely, although he had a commentary that was apparently multivolume. Unfortunately, it was lost with the fall of Andrew Sia, but he did do a four volume known as camera Quran. If you're talking about mining, even at RB, who was a 13th century scholar, Maha death Mufasa, and mystic and he's more known for
what some people term theosophy, which is, like spiritual philosophy. But it so I don't know which one you mean. But I would say in terms of even out to be the all the he's very much focused on camera Quran, but it has beautiful insights. If you want his more
spiritual book, it's called theologian, and meridian, which is a fantastic book that got published beautifully. It was a book I waited for 25 years for, and it was finally done in a really good edition by a friend of mine from Algeria. So it's, it's a stunning book. So Roger moody Dean and has just amazing insights into it. And he does deal with the Quran, even an r&b did. There is a, a tafsir, there's a Tafseer attributed to him, which I bought in fast in 1978, my first trip to Fez, I actually bought it in a bookstore and I could have no it wouldn't be possible for me to have been able to read it at that time. But But I did buy it. So I have that copy still in my library, that
was probably written by his student on a shiny, but it uses a methodology in which is consistent. What if you read just a few chapters, you will learn his methodology and then it becomes relatively easy to navigate what he's doing. So usually, for instance, out of, he'll interpret as the heart in Allah head or the animal to Allah brings the earth back to life after its death. So the heart is the place of cultivation. It's where you cultivate good deeds, or you cultivate bad deeds. So you're sowing seeds in your heart, and you water that, that heart with either good deeds or bad deeds. So the seeds grow and the heart either becomes virtuous or vicious. And so what is that that's one of
his approaches.
It doesn't deny the outward either. And so he was not a he's a terrorist. I mean, even out in Ottawa, he's usually said without the Eddie flam, even RB, and even Taymiyah has his criticisms, particularly the fossils that have come. But even Taymiyah does say that he benefited greatly from his book, The photo hat. So even to me a read if an RV I would not recommend even out to be I am not an RV scholar by any stretch.
I have read in the photo hat.
But I would not recommend it's
that level of is for it's like trying to go to a quantum physics book before you've learned basic physics. So I would not recommend it and see the Amazon Roku, I feel more close to see the Amazon asked his chef about even RV and he said at Tasleem.
In other words, I don't wanna say anything. And he asked him again, he said, Look, some people say he was a hot tub, and some people say he wasn't a Muslim. He said, I said, Tasneem you know, just stay out of the debate. Yeah, you don't want to make takfeer of people that aren't cafiero And
there's there's a book by
I think, it's called to be Hello Robbie
Lehman kufra Ibn Arabi, you know, waking up the idiot in his making tech fear of an RV, that CLT so, you know, even out of the was highly honored in the Ottoman tradition.
And, but he is a he is a contentious
even amongst some of the great scholars. One of the greatest scholars of Islamic tradition is the great Muhammad said Hindi was known as Majid Al Thani, the renewer of the second millennium. He did not agree with Eben RB and he actually wrote his own
own understanding of Tawheed. To counter the understanding that was presented by Eben RB, but he didn't make takfeer it these are debates. So we should be very careful about these. I just want to ask if there are any tips for a mother who struggles with a baby and at the same time wants to finish the Quran and understand it? Well, first of all, you get a great reward in struggling with your baby.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. So sometimes, you know, you just have these problems. One of the great stories that we have in the Western tradition is the story of
the Pied Piper of Hamelin, which is about a rat infestation in this town. And so this Piper comes to town and says he can get rid of all the rats. And, and so he pipes them all out, and they follow Him and He destroys them, but then they won't pay him. So he gets really angry. So he pipes the children out, and they all go into a cave and disappear and they lose their children. I liken that to people that use the television to get rid of the Ratty at the pesty aspect of children, you're going to pay the piper by losing your children. So it's very important just to be patient with children.
The idea of leaving a child crying,
a young infant crying
like this, that's how the they say the generation of the Nazis was a result of a kind of Dr. Spock like book that was published in the 1880s, on how to raise children. And it was all about punitive measures, it was all about not letting them cry themselves to sleep. It created a generation of people that lost empathy. So it's really important to have empathic children. The way you get that, according to Erickson, psycho psycho psychologist that I really liked when I was a read psychology in college, you know, he had the
these crises, developmental crises, and the first one was trust versus mistrust. So if a child knows that it's in a trustworthy family, it's going to resolve that crisis. But if you're ignoring the child, it's gonna really traumatize that child early on.
And I'm more and more convinced that most of the problems in the world are a direct result of childhood trauma.
Do you have any reflections on NJ dilutes attempt to present the Quran in the order of revelation? Rather than compilation How reliable is already offers
NJ downloads and interesting this is one of the important translations that emerges in the 19th century. It was published at the turn of the century in I think, the every man library or something so it actually became quite widely read. It's still in print.
We do know that Imam Ali had a almost half that was based on the actual dates of Revelation. So Imam Ali kept that and but it's lost. And even Jews al kalbi said if we had it, we would have access to great knowledge. So it's unfortunate. There, there are some interesting aspects to what he did. It's not entirely verifiable, but some of it is I mean, we do know when some things were revealed, although one of the miracles of the Quran is that as it was coming down Gibreel was saying put this here, put this there and so which is a much more miraculous way to do a book. I mean, it wasn't just given to him in any linear fashion. So
yeah, I would take that with a grain of milk
next one
okay, I got it. You don't have to spell it out.
Can you please shed light on the idea of a poetic translation of the Quran we have a popular product translation of the Quran in the Sindhi language by Molefi atman Mela. I mean, I would argue that the Quran is stunningly powerful. We don't call it shit out out of Adam to the Quran. But to use the word you know, somebody who watched Garry wills as what is the Quran? They that we got some emails saying, Oh, he called it poetry. Well, if you look up poetry in the in the
dictionary it has different meanings. And one of them is just beautiful language. Like we could say his speech was pure poetry, just meaning it was really beautiful and eloquent. That's all it means. So there is a translation right now. I think it's being done by Dr. Bruce Lawrence. I don't know if he's finished it but he wrote this book on
the Quran in English and he's actually doing one inverse which I personally wouldn't do. Because the Quran says will not alumna who shall name vallila You know, we did not teach him poetry and it's not appropriate for him.
The great Algerian Mujahid and scholar Amira, the other Giselle 80, of the Lauryn Hill, who fought the French, and was a scholar in his own right has an incredible commentary on the Quran called animo archive. It's really one of the most amazing books I've ever read. But he
he has a book called Tempelhof
that I read many, many years ago, and really benefited from it. He says in that book, that the reason that the they call the prophets poets, is because
a poet is doing something that other people can't do. And and when you hear a great poet,
it just, it's quite amazing. And, and so there's a there's a, there's an inspiration, that is clearly part of a great poet. In fact, many poets will tell people that they just the poem was there.
Robert Frost talks about that, and then there's the craft of poetry also. But
the Quran is definitely not poetry, but whoever translated translates it should really have an extraordinary gift with the language he's translating it into. One of the reasons why I really really like
Dr. Queries, translation, lawyer Hummel is that
he has this minimalist style which end the Quran is very, very minimalist, despite its extraordinary eloquence. It has a really stunning conciseness what's called a jazz it has opened up but generally he jazz is his and he really, he has that and he has a
just a very interesting word diction.
One of the things that
Bruce, Dr. Bruce
says about
Dr. Clarice trends, translation, he says
that he actually mentions me in light of because he does say, and he does he, there's an American who did his own translation of the Quran. He's not a Muslim, but his name sent out Burke, and he mind clearly for constructing his own hybrid version of the Quran. But he had read so he he did it because he wanted Americans to know more about Islam after 911. But one of the things that he said as he read all these different Commentaries, but it was Dr. Clears commentary that really grabbed him. But because it was in copyright, he didn't use it, he ended up using one that was out of copyright. But Dr. Clear, he says here that
the translation is it can be problematic, right? Because, for instance,
that he seems to lose his way in rendering evil as Ill a drastic D metaphysical reading of what are often used as apotropaic texts. And that's because in in,
in in the chapter, a NAS, he says in the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,
He says,
or in Dawn rather, right, he says, say, I take refuge in the lord of dawn, pulled out with a bit of a bit of luck. I mean, Sheree Mahara from the ill of what is created, and from the ill of darkness when it's gloomy, and from the ill of those who curse and from the ill of the envious when he envies now, Dr. Lawrence was criticizing him because he's saying it's D
It's a D metaphysical reading because he's not using evil. But if you actually look up the word ill
The fourth meaning of it is evil. And it's actually related etymologically to evil. And one of the things about shadow in Arabic, it is not just evil, the Arabs call anything that's deficient shadow, like poverty is shower. So one of the things that really struck me about using ille there is that the last two sources were given to the prophet as a protection, because he was unsettled by some people who had who had done this, these knots, the 11 knots that they did, and that's why there's 11 verses because 11 is the devil's number. And so there's 11 verses, and and, in fact, nine and 11 because they, it bypasses 10, which is one with power, and that this is in like a cult tradition.
Anyway, that's what I've read in in these books on occult numerology. So,
doctor clearly understood that
these ideas were revealed to protect people from mental imbalances from losing their way from having West Vasa, which is what we today know as compulsive thoughts, right? So obsessive compulsive people, those are illnesses. But but but they have. There's an evil when it comes from a demonic source as opposed to say, a natural imbalance that can occur from not sleeping, eating or drinking properly. So that's just one example of that. So I my argument is that whoever transits are on must have an extraordinary knowledge of Arabic and an incredible sensibility in the English language, if it's going into English and Urdu into Ordo Persian into Persian. That's what I would say.
100 Subhanak lomi harmonica, a shadow and you know lantana sulfuryl corner to buoy Lake. What else did he invent in Santa Fe Hosur in Medina, and also it had to do also but happy with wasabi sober, ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada, bless your Ramadan, inshallah Allama Hilah. And in a billion anybody man who sent me Islam or Buuren book, Allah, Allah hamdulillah JazakAllah. Heron, Sara Marie calm. Inshallah, we'll see you on Thursday, for those of you that are going to come back and we'll see the, the the reading club, the first command club is going to be open for everybody. I mean, technically it is in that if somebody can't, we've never turned away people at zaytuna. College, if
they if they warranted acceptance, we've never turned anybody away from lack of money. And it really bothers me because a lot of people put out this propaganda somehow that they turn is elitist. And that, Oh, it's too expensive. And this well, education is expensive. But fortunately, we have a lot of really generous Muslims in the United States, and around the world that have helped us build this college, we still want to do a lot more. So we really appreciate the support, but we never turn away people for lack of funds. It's never been our policy. People. I read this criticism of the gala. How it's this bourgeois adventure where these rich people go and have, we've always had four people that
were given scholarships. We've never gone, the Prophet said, There's no good and a gathering that doesn't have poor people. And so we've never promoted that. But the idea of not having beautiful environments, our whole civilization was based on creating beautiful environments. I mean, this is Islam. It's a religion of Exxon, and we love Exxon. So unfortunately, there's a lot of wealth in the world and we hope that the wealthy people will support the other people to do so.
So 100 Thank you. So for Allah