Hamza Yusuf – Vision Of Islam CD1 #03

			And I recently finished translating after two years, a poem by Mr. Mobile city, which is 160 lines.
I read translated it three times, literally, I translate it first time, and sent it to somebody who
has edited it. For me, it came back with a lot of changes, it forced me to go back to a second time.
And I went through it again. And then the last time I completely just retranslated it. And at a
certain point, I realized that if anybody's read Jorge bobbleheads, who was a surrealistic
Argentinian writer, and one of the motifs that he often explores, is the eternal recurrence of
events. And I realized that I could be in a bar, he's in a story where I would just keep translating
		

			this thing for infinity. Because there was always a new possible meaning there was always a word
that could be something else. If you look in a book of synonyms, you'll find for the same word,
you'll find several different possibilities, trying to understand exactly what that poet meant when
he said this. And then the possible syntactical changes Koran is Arabic, it is in nyanzale, no Quran
and adobea we have given this in Arabic is an Arabic Quran, because the Quran out of you, we made
this an Arabic Koran. And that's it. That's why the Quran is out of B, and you do not call a
translation Koran. It's not even called Koran. The meaning of Quran is love, municipal, jazz, the
		

			tabooed. The out of its uttered, it was revealed incapacitates anybody in imitating it, and it was
sent to worship Allah, that's the Quran, and it's Arabic. So that's very important. And this is why
there are many different interpretations of the Bible. If you look at the new American version,
standard, new standard American version, and then look at King James that completely different
sometimes the meanings are completely different, completely different. So what do you follow, and
who determines what it means? There are obviously multiple interpretations of the Koran. But if
you've completed the 15 sciences, or the 12, going to even Jews as needed to master the Quran before
		

			you can interpret it, once you've completed those sciences, and your interpretation is congruent
with the Arabic language and does not contradict anything the prophets ally said him said, it's an
acceptable interpretation. And so the Quran is open to multiple interpretations always has been and
it always will be. He mentions that the Quran was translated into Persian early on, which is true,
but they were more interlinear notes, they were actually not done for the masses, they were done for
the rulers. So the original interpretations were actually not given to the mass of people. In the
end, it was the same idea that the Catholic Church held, they kept the Bible in Latin, and did not
		

			translate it into vernaculars. Until Lutheranism Protestantism began that process because they felt
that you should master certain sciences before you read the Bible, because you'll misinterpreted so
the idea was, don't put it out there for the common people. And traditionally, that idea was
understood in Islam that you can read the Quran for worship, but you should not attempt to interpret
it until you've mastered certain sciences. And then also the idea that the Quran has, he mentioned
seven meanings he's talking referring to a hadith about consider Quran address a variety of problems
forum was revealed in seven different letters. And there's a lot of debate about what exactly that
		

			means. But there is a verse in which had teeth in which the province Eliason and said, Every i A has
an inward and outward and overseer. So the idea is that there are meanings, you become an ISA
terrorists, when you only accept the inward meaning, you become an exit terrorists when you only
accept the outward meaning, as Sunni Muslims have always believed that the Quran has both inward and
outward meanings, and neither should be rejected. It's also mentioned that this port on which
created an incredible civilization addresses simple people and sophisticated people, philosophers
and kings as well as peasants and shepherds, that the Quran that's one of the attractions in the
		

			powers of Iran is it it, it literally speaks to the highest and the lowest. And there's a common
ground that it finds because it's speaking about the most important things that we deal with. And
also mentioning that the Quran spread within 100 years from China all the way to Spain. And all of
those various people spoke different languages. And yet, despite the fact that the poem was in
Arabic, the Quran was able to speak to all of them because it was speaking to their hearts and
minds, not just to their ears to their tongue. It was speaking about meanings that human beings
share. And that's why the Koran is
		

			Universal book. One of the things if you read some other traditions, you'll notice that in their
scriptures, there's a great deal of geographical things that really relate to living in the jungle,
for instance, whereas Islam, if you look at the Quran, it's speaking to people who travel on the
ocean, despite the fact that the Arabs didn't travel on the ocean. So it speaks to sailors in the
middle of the ocean, dealing with massive waves. And it also speaks to people traveling in the
desert. It speaks to people traveling in the mountains, it's people who live agriculturalists
pastoralists, it speaks to merchants. And it speaks to people who have trades make things by hands,
		

			so everybody will find themselves in the Quran. And the Quran does speak. And that's to everyone.
And one of the powerful unifying factors of Islam is the fact that it unites all of us with Arabic.
So Christians, for instance, have liturgical services in Korean and Japanese, in Polish, and
Sanskrit, all these various languages, whereas Muslims, their worship is in one language. So we all
share that. So whatever mosque you went to, you will hear the same Koran recite, you will not hear a
different Koran. And that is a unifying factor for us as one people. Also the Quran is about the
same size as the New Testament in terms of actual length, although it differs from the Old Testament
		

			and the New Testament, by consensus, both of those books were compiled by several different people,
whereas the Quran, it was given by one person, and that is in agreement. I mean, even though there's
people like Patricia Crone, and other scholars who have attempted to say that the Quran was put
together by a committee of people after the prophets liasons death, and they added what they wanted
and took out what they wanted. And this was in Atlantic Monthly. It's come up a few times. Those are
rejected even by orientalist people that work within the orientalist tradition do not accept those
theories. And Patricia Crone has backtracked quite a bit. She's not saying things like she was saved
		

			three or four years ago. She's teaching I think, on the east coast. Now she was originally at TSO s.
And she's no longer saying the same things because she was given so much flack by the orientalist
community. So when you read those things, you have to understand that those things are not even
accepted by non Muslim scholars of Islam. Nicholson Ari Nicholson who taught arbury in his book on
the history of Arabic literature says that we have to admit that the Quran is definitely the word of
the Prophet Mohammed Salah Isom it is what he taught his people, and anybody who knows the prolific
memories of the Muslims and the Arabs in particular, know that it's simply this book has been
		

			translated orally, transmitted orally, and I'll give you an example. Mohammed the husband was dead
to who came here and gave a talk here, who has probably close to a photographic memory and
memorizes, several books of Hades, he memorizes at Bahati by heart, and I had a handwritten copy of
it Bahati that he took a look at. And he found two mistakes on the first page that he was looking at
and pointed them out. And that is why Traditionally, the Muslims depended on people, not on books
themselves. And people don't understand that that people are actually more when they have powerful
memories, and they devote their memories to preserving knowledge, they're actually more trustworthy
		

			than the text itself. scribes make mistakes, whereas a half does not. He might make a mistake, but
he'll catch himself if he's a true half. And that is why no true half who mastered the Quran needs
anybody to interrupt him, he can work it out, if you leave him alone, he will work it out himself.
And all of us have seen that, who have prayed behind a really strong half of Integra via prayer and
a half of the somebody who memorizes the Quran. by heart, the shortest Sora has 10 words and the
longest one has over 6000. Each of the verses is called a A, which means a sign. And they go into
quite a bit of detail about that. Now one of the interesting differences between the Koran and
		

			between the Bible also is that the Koran is about God. Now that might surprise somebody to hear that
the Quran differs from those traditions. But if you read the Bible, you will find a good deal. The
Bible doesn't really talk about God. It talks about history. It talks about tribes, it talks about
people's problems, it talks about families, it talks about a lot of things, but you will actually
not find God mentioned for several pages in sections of the Bible. In the Quran. On the other hand,
no matter what God is talking about, he will always bring it back to Allah subhana wa tada and one
of the ways
		

			That he does that is by using His Divine Names. He will end the idea by saying, well who will vote
for Rahim he is the Merciful, the Forgiving will who add a condition hadir he is overall things
capable. So the Quran is always bringing us back to that most important subject, which is a last
panel with data. And that is why if you look at a red lettered Koran, which is one that has all the
names of God in red, you will notice that every single page in the entire Quran is filled with the
name of God. If you look at a red letter Bible, you will be quite surprised to find that a good deal
of the Bible does not make mention of God. That is not to say anything wrong with the Bible, but
		

			it's an interesting difference between the two books. It is an interesting difference.