Hamza Yusuf – Vision Of Islam CD3 #02

			But it is a common sight to see it 30 hours after to increase the Islamic observers chances to
independent witnesses are required, the Ottomans decreed that first sighting can be made with the
naked eye or a telescope. Now listen to this. There are efforts to standardize the Islamic calendar
so that Ramadan is started on the same day in various communities. But the relationship of celestial
bodies to the earth is a living thing. And every location has its own sky. So why shouldn't
religious festivals begin on dates peculiar to particular places, the modern mind, however, wishes
to generalize and abstract the situation. So the phenomena are bypassed.
		

			As with the length of the day, the average is calculated and becomes the accepted truth to
accommodate the limits of circular wheels in clocks. Yet none of the celestial bodies moves in
circles.
		

			So what he's saying is, you put all your averages in and you'll get this average. And it'll all work
out, you can make your little calendar and it works perfect. But that's not nature. People forget
that 24 hour a day period. That's not real time. That's our standard time. Real Time is 23 hours and
56 minutes. That's what a day is. So the idea of going out and looking at the moon is again
connecting you with nature. I mean, I think it's really interesting that before you pray, you use
water. And if you don't have water, you use Earth, touch the world, touch these things, feel them,
you don't have children, one of the things children do is there. They love to touch mud, and get in
		

			there. And they love to do that. Why do they like to do that, because they're still connected with
that they're still the world is very real to them, we become so abstracted. And so these things are
bringing us back to the basic elements of which we are composed. Earth and water, prayer movement,
get in your body, people behind a desk all day, never stopping to I mean, watch a cat. A cat could
not sit behind a desk all day long. They they're not insane. They have to move. They have to
experience they have to feel that. That's what they have to do. That's why cats do that. And then
they do their Whoo. Right? They have to do all those things. They even do the wiping over the head.
		

			Have you ever watched them do that? That's what they're doing. They're in there. And all these
animals, watch them watch animals. People forget the prophet SAW some had goats in his yard. And we
know how many needs to go out and milk them. He drank milk that came out of an utter Have you ever
had milk directly out of an utter? Right, really? I mean, this is this what Hakeem is always asking
people about that stuff. Really? What have you experienced nature? And that's what going out and
looking at the moon. Look at the moon. Have you ever seen a new moon born? It's called the ladder.
It just it comes into existence literally just comes into existence.
		

			And it's an incredible thing to witness. And when you see it, there's this thing that happens in you
spot.
		

			That's what happens. And that's why Allah is saying go out and look at that because I made that. And
that is a sign of my existence.
		

			Go out and look at it and say Suhana law, feel that because that is reality. That is you as a
conscious creature. With his gift of consciousness experiencing the creator's world that he made for
your consciousness. He has put it all together so that you could experience it because nobody else
can. We are unique. That's the gift he gave us. And that's what it's about. That's what fasting
Ramadan is lunar. Why do we have lunar calendars they're so here they wants to Syrian sections. They
don't want natural birth. It makes it so easy because I got my golfing appointment. And then at 11
o'clock I just go and do the operation but children don't come out at 11 o'clock. They come out
		

			whenever they want. They come out when they're ready to come out. They come out with a lot decrees
for them to come out.
		

			But modern mind wants to fix it all. And that's why if you look at aerial cities of the Islamic
world, they look like cells. They literally look like living cells look at Feds look at pictures of
fairs and look at modern cities with all their perfectly straight streets perfectly. I mean, there's
no, you have to go into Muslim cities, and it's all corners and curves and everything, because
that's the world. That's how the world is. It's not all straight line straight lines are
abstractions in the mind. But that's what the modern mind wants to do, wants to impose its reality,
on an already existing reality. And that's why it's living in a delusional state.
		

			Because reality is not like that. And Islam is about experiencing reality, as it is Aloha, Marina,
Usha karma here, our last show me things as they are not as I want them to be.
		

			Not as my filters, project them to be, show me them as they are, that was a dose of our Prophet,
show me things. And they are.
		

			And that that's Islam. And fasting is part of that. I mean, look at what fasting does. Fasting, the
law says, We decreed fasting for you, the under contact account, in order for you to learn how to
discipline your souls, and make them pure. Now, one of the things about fasting is things that are
normally permitted, are suddenly prohibited, what does that do to the things that are prohibited,
they become extra prohibited, and suddenly, you're aware of backbiting in a way you weren't aware of
it during the rest of the year, suddenly, you're aware of looking at somebody lustfully in a way,
you weren't aware of it, because, oh, my God, I'm fasting. In other words, what is normally
		

			permissible is now prohibited. And it makes the normally prohibited seem very, very real.
		

			And so it's a discipline of your soul, it's teaching you how to have tequila.
		

			And it's, it's about purification of the body and the soul sumoto sale, this is a body is here, it's
real, don't ignore your bodies. The bodies are real, they're real. And Allah made them. And it's a
great gift to be in the body, and we should take care of the body, be good to the body, because the
body is good to earth. And that's why the proper size and said your bodies have rights over you. And
fasting, the beauty of fasting is that non Muslims look at is this incredibly difficult thing. And
Muslims, it's the best time of the year, because it's the time when they're closest to Allah. That's
why, because they're actually in a state of worship, despite themselves, just by sitting there by
		

			sleeping.
		

			They're worshiping because they're fasting. And that's why even the sleep of a faster as worship and
that's why you feel good in Ramadan, you might not feel physically good, but you feel spiritually
good. So it's this beautiful proof every year. And another thing that he points out that is
beautiful is about the justice of God, that if you look on the earth, if you've, if you live in
England, half the year, you're going to be fasting really short period, now the half really long
period, but over a 33 year period, which is the total cycle, it'll work out to the same amount of
fasting that those people in the middle part of the world. So everybody ends up fasting about the
		

			same amount of time, all throughout the world.
		

			Now the fifth pillar, which is how much
		

			every religion has this idea of pilgrimage, and it's the setting out on that journey. And here, it's
a physical journey with a metaphysical destination.
		

			It's a physical journey, but the destination is the house of God and God does not have a house in
which he dwells. So he put a house there as a symbol of visiting God, and you're a guest of God. And
that's why you're called layfield. Right man, the guest of the merciful and he put a rock there that
he called the right hand of God that you can go kiss, in the same way that when you would visit a
king, you would kiss the right hand of the king. So the rock there is symbolic of paying homage to
this benevolent monarch, benevolent king of whom you are a subject.
		

			And obviously, it's also a recognition. One of the things about going to Mecca, is suddenly all
these things you've heard about are real, the cabinet is real. The places where the province lies
and walk become real Jebel foe is real Jebel Nur is real. You're walking in the footsteps of the
Prophet Abraham, and his greatest son said no Mohammed Salah I sent him and that's part of what the
Hajj is. It's connecting you with the footsteps of these great human beings that were in a state of
complete
		

			submission, then it's about submission. And then also the gift of visiting the prophets a lot, isn't
it that he's there will be commercial law, he is amongst us. In other words, he is there you can go
visit him. There's no other prophet on the planet than anybody can go visit with any certainty. The
Jews can't go visit Moses, nobody can go visit the Saudis. They can't visit that really, I mean,
this is a great gift that Muslims have been given that their prophet actually is there physically in
Medina. And he according to the Hadith, actually returns greetings. So this is a real visit with a
response. And for people who have been there and been in the right state. They know what they tasted
		

			there. They know.
		

			Because you can go in there in different states, there's people that go in there, they don't see
anything. There's other people that go in there, and they're waiting in light. And some people are
not waiting, they're engulfed in it. And other people, it's, that's all they can see. I mean, there
are many different visits to Medina. Now he talks about the sixth pillar, and this is a sheer
concept. And he studied in Iran. So that's what you kind of noticed that. I mean, I think he's very
fair. I like both them because they both wrote it. But I know that William chittick studied in Iran.
And so I think he's very familiar with the Shia tradition, which is why he brings he's a Shia
		

			traditionally considered, the jihad is a sixth pillar. So he says some authorities that that is not
a Sunni concept. Although EMA Matic does put it in acts of worship, not in Acts, transactions,
whereas the other imams put it in transactions. So you don't have to write them if you want to just
there is a separation, and then there's a restoration. So there is a separation. I mean, obviously,
the soul has a reality and ematic Rob Ilana described it and this is the best description we have.
He described it as the soul is to the body, what moisture is to the tree.
		

			In other words, it's what animates the body. So in that way, we're vitalists 19th century had a
school of medicine that they called the Bible as the Chinese also adhere to that the idea of CIH
that there's this nondescript, non quantitative force, working in the body, and when that force is
removed the body that what I was talking about was that consciousness, the idea of separating
consciousness, there's a duality in Western tradition of the mind body split that comes from
Descartes, which is why Descartes said, for instance, that animals didn't feel any pain, even if it
sounded like they did.
		

			Because they didn't have a consciousness. So you could just dissect a living animal and don't be
bothered by the screams of agony. That's the type of madness that know the body is very real. The
nervous system is very real, and we're very much we need to be in our bodies. And a lot of people
are not in their bodies, they check out of their bodies, they become disembodied, and you can
actually go into a type of psychotic condition where you're completely disembodied. So it's very
important. That's part of why we pray in our bodies because it keeps us in our bodies. We put our
heads on the ground. We do these things that keep us in our bodies.