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Vision Of Islam CD1 #04
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Channel: Hamza Yusuf
Series: Hamza Yusuf – Vision Of Islam
Episode Notes
Episode Transcript
© No part of this transcript may be copied or referenced or transmitted in any way whatsoever. Transcripts are auto-generated and thus will be be inaccurate. We are working on a system to allow volunteers to edit transcripts in a controlled system.
One of the things that he mentions here is that people who are native speakers feel a proprietary relationship to the Quran. In other words, it's mine alone and nobody else's. Particularly Arabs, Arabs definitely have that feeling that if you don't understand Arabic, you can't really understand the Quran. I personally don't believe that's true. I think that there are agami people who don't know Arabic, but are actually more moved by the Quran and many, many Arabs. And I know some people, especially South Asians, who who've seen their mothers or their fathers weep profusely reading the Quran, and they don't even know the meanings of the Quran. But they know it's God's words. And
that's what's impacting them is the fact that they're reading a revelation. And that's why there's a famous story of one of the Agim who heard the Koran and began to weep. And one of the Arabs said to Uriah, Jimmy, and how can you weep by hearing the Quran he said, My tongue is Agia me but my heart is out of the way.
In other words, the heart can understand things that the mind doesn't necessarily understand. And this is important also, a general rule is that a person with no grounding in the Islamic worldview, if they pick up a translation, Koran will have their prejudices confirmed. And I think that unfortunately, that is very true, that if you go to the Koran, already, with prejudices, you will find exactly what you're looking for I knew it. They do that see, it's right there and sort of the Toba kill the policy is where we see they were looking for that. And so they find it. And when you're looking for something, you're often blinded to the other things. So prejudices can be
confirmed in the Quran, if you don't allow the Quran to speak to you without and that's why the Quran begins that it can kuttabul loughrea Buffy, who Devlin Mota pain, this is guidance for people that already have piety. And it says this is a book, there's no doubt in it, it already declares its position right from the start. If you have doubt about this book, it's not going to benefit you. Now not being open, it doesn't necessarily mean you have doubt. See, if you believe automatically, it's not a revelation from God, then you're going to read it with that perspective. If however, you go to it and say I want to find out is this a revelation of God is not that you have doubt. You don't know
anything about it, and you simply want to see for yourself. So going skeptically and going objectively, are very different. And you will have very different experiences in taking those routes. Another thing is the Quran. And the worldview of the Quran is definitely connected to the Arabic language. The Arabic language is a Semitic language. It's the languages that Moses and Jesus at Islam spoke, they spoke Semitic languages. The root structures of Aramaic and Hebrew are very similar to Arabic, Hebrew scholars are forced to use Arabic dictionaries, by their own admittance, they are forced to use Arabic dictionaries to interpret the Hebrew language. The reason for that is
that the rabbi's prohibited putting down a great deal, the Midrash they have an oral tradition that was not permitted to be put down, and they never bothered to do any dictionaries, the Arabs began to write dictionaries immediately. In literally the eighth century, the first Arabic dictionary, which is already a sophisticated dictionary, unlike the English language, we find our first dictionary is in the 16th century. And it's a bad dictionary. It's a lousy dictionary, whereas the Arabs were already writing extremely sophisticated dictionaries by the 100 years of Islam. And another thing about Arabic is it was preserved by poetry. I shut up the line of memorize 12,000 lines of poetry
from just lobbied one error poet 12,000 lines. And that's not an exaggeration, because I know people that have memorized far more than 12,000 lines, personally.
So I know that that's not an exaggeration. On page, unfortunately, 19 there's one expression there that I thought was inappropriate, and you can see it for yourself, but I crossed it out in mine, and I don't want to repeat it. They were using an English idiom, and I don't think they intended anything by it, but I don't believe it's appropriate to say, in conjunction with the prophets, Eliza. Let me put it this way. The Quran is the miracle of the Prophet Solomon.
Never forget that. The Quran is his miracle.
In other words, the Quran is the proof of the prophets a lot is
because he is the first and greatest Muslim. Now the next is the Quran. It has 114 chapters that is a nonlinear book. And that becomes problematic for Western people that are used to a book like Genesis. It begins in the beginning and it goes by history.
When you read the Quran, it doesn't begin in the beginning begins exactly where Allah wants to begin it. It begins Alif Lam me, and nobody knows what that means, which I think is one of the greatest proofs of the Koran. Because I don't think anybody could think of that. To start a book with letters, nobody knows what they mean, to show you, well moto T two, T two minute enemy lapadula you've only been given a little bit of knowledge before colloquially, the Edmund alene. over everyone who knows something is somebody who knows more, you have to go to the book humbly. Because it's already telling you you don't know everything that you know very little. So that's important to
remember. Now the prophets Allah is them on the bottom of page 20. Also, it mentions that in some traditions, the prophets, Eliza them contemplated suicide that is not true. He did not contemplate suicide, he was deeply troubled, which is another proof of his prophecy. Because one of the things about false prophets is they want to convince you that they're sent from God. Whereas the fact that the Prophet his first response was what's happening to me when it was confirmed by his wife, and then by what aka the cousin of his wife. At that point, it hit home what was happening, but initially, he was very troubled. And it was a deep shock. And he was not reluctant at first to
submit, there's no, they mentioned that also reluctant at first, Mohammed submitted to God's will and began to proclaim His mission, he was not reluctant, in a true sense of that word. He was troubled. And he was also worried about the responsibility. And you can see that in the forum, and it says, Don't try to keep up with the revelation because when it was being revealed to him he used to try because he was so worried that he would forget something, or that he wouldn't get the whole thing. So he had a deep sense of the debt and the burden of burying this message. The basic idea of the province of Islam was born into the Arabian Peninsula. He was born in an environment of
idolatry. He disdained idolatry early on. He did not like the idols he never swore by the idols, he never prostrated to an idol. He had a natural inclination to tawheed, or unity of God, and that there was a tradition on the Arabian Peninsula called the Chanukah. Hanif in Arabic means one who naturally inclines to God. And these were people that knew that God was one, they believe they were on the path of Abraham at acnm. They did not follow Jews or Christians, but they believed in this unity of God, and there were several of them. But they really are not many there were several in the sense that you could count them on your fingers. But there were not a great deal of them. And the
prophets, Allah is to them inclined towards that tradition. But he had no revelation until he was 40. And then he began to have true dreams. And then he began when he used to go to his mountain. And he did what was called a type of emptying out to handle, which means to empty out, or to remove any traces of the idolatry of his people. It doesn't mean traces, but rather, avoiding or shunning idolatry. So it was this purification work, and that's when the revelation comes. Now the Arab tribes considered themselves and we consider them believe that the Arabs are descendants of Ishmael, Ishmael is the son of Ibrahim or Abraham, Ishmael, was the firstborn he was the son of Haggar, or
hajer. And he was, according to the Bible, he would, sire a great nation. That's what the Torah says. Now, one of the things that Martin Ling says is the Torah is a sacred book, not a profane book, and God will not put great with anything profane. In other words, if God said he will, sire a great nation, that means that they would be a great nation in God. Now, another thing is that the official Jewish doctrine, and a lot of people don't know this, but the official Jewish doctrine of some of the greatest Jewish rabbis, including Maimonides, and the remedies, several of the greatest commentators of the Torah, believe that the Prophet Mohammed Salah s&m was a divinely inspired
person, and that His revelation was from Providence. They actually believe that it was from God, but they believe that it wasn't specifically for them. And they believe that it is a fulfillment of Zacharias prophecy, which is in the book of Zechariah. And now I'm telling you, this is from you can read this and books on Jewish theology that aren't influenced by the politics of the Middle East. The Jews believed when Zechariah said the teaching
This pure teaching of what was given to the Jews would spread to the east. And to the west. The traditional interpretation of that is that was Christianity which went to the west and Islam which went to the east. And the traditional interpretation was also the Christians were half proselytize. In other words, their understanding was marred because of the Trinity, whereas Muslims had a full understanding of the unity of God. And they were in a better position to prepare the world for the coming of the Messiah, who would bring to heat for the entire world. The Jewish position of some of the greatest Jewish rabbis is that Islam is a vehicle of Providence. And it was a way of preparing
the world for this coming of the Messiah. Now, obviously, we believe that the Messiah was reciting to them, Jesus, and so to the Christian. But it's interesting to note that that is a position the prophets a lot is an M, who is a son of Ishmael, when he was given this message at the age of 40. Initially, he just read it secretly. And then at a certain point, a lot commanded him to go out and teach it to the people. And he did the response that the Arabs gave your polar Latina cafaro inhabit assault bureau over in those who disbelieve, they say these are fables of the old. In other words, these are fairy tales, which is very interesting, because it's very modern thing to say about
revelation. So it's interesting that the Quran dealt with that type of response. One of the things also that they mentioned, which is in sort of the normal 2768, in which it says that we're gonna have the nanowire about lunar moon covered in how to in the south who are worried we've already been promised this before us and those who went before us, meaning the Jews and the Christians. These are just fables. So the Arab, some of the Arabs did not believe this. Now, the turning point for the Prophet slicin comes in 622, which is when he makes the hijab. This is a major turning point for his teaching, because after 13 years of oppression, he makes the Hydra he goes to your trip, he makes
this migration. And this resulted from a delegation that was sent to him. The Ellison, the huzar, Raj were to Yemeni tribes who had migrated many, many generations before to this city called yathrib. It was an agricultural city, largely date palms, and they had battles amongst each other. They were constantly fighting. There was intertribal warfare. And they were really getting tired of it. And, and they wanted an end to this violence. There was a Jewish community living there. And they were tended to be traders, although some had date palms also, they controlled the marketplace in Medina. And they used to tell these Arabs about the final prophet, how he would show up and he
was going to show up in their city, and that he would remove all their idols, and that he would purify their land and bring the true teaching. Now these Jews believed that it would be a Jewish prophet. So when the Prophet Mohammed Salah emerged, they said to each other, maybe this is the man that the Jews were talking about. So they wanted to go see for themselves and when they did, they ended up becoming Muslim, and submitting to the prophets ally, sytems Dean, and then the Prophet migrated to them. And these incredible bonds of brotherhood occurred between those who migrated and between the people of Medina. Now the hegira marks the first date, it begins year one for the
Muslims. So in a sense, this is the beginning of real time for us when Islam becomes successful established in the earth. That is year one for the Muslims.