Hamza Yusuf – Vision Of Islam CD6 #03

Hamza Yusuf
AI: Summary ©
The concept of clans of cities and states is discussed, as well as the Prophet Muhammad's message of acceptance and blending. Hagneism is a positive thing that protects oneself from harm and avoid negative behavior. The "has been guided" concept is also discussed, with advice given to avoid mistakes and sin. The "we" of human beings is also mentioned, with guidance given to avoid mistakes and sin.
AI: Transcript ©
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And then also you have the adab. And I that is a direct result also of those who transgress. And then in law, which is very important, because just as you have to share, you have in law, so just if you have glad tidings, you have a warning, and the prophets are unique in that they have to share and in their, in other words, they warn, and they give good news. And you will always see in the Koran, whenever there is a verse that deals with punishment, it will always be followed by a verse that deals with mercy, you will never see verses in the Quran separate like that, you will always see that there is a promise. So this is called wide and worried, you have the promise of if you do

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right, then you get the promise of the righteous, which is that Allah accepts you and blesses you. And if you do wrong, then you have this Inbar this warning that there is retribution, there's acquittal, and then the human response to all of these because this is all happening out there. I mean, this is the world, there's wonderful things happening, and there's terrible things happening. And so the human response to these events in the world is one of two, there's only two possibilities. It's either tous D, or tech, the either you believe these signs, or you deny them. So those who deny will turn signs into arbitrary meaningless events, which is what Neil ism does, we

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reduce events to chance, an accident, that we don't live in a moral universe, that our actions do not have repercussions in the world. And if they do those repercussions are arbitrary repercussions. They're not repercussions that have any significance in a cause and effect type of relationship with any moral component there, but rather cause and effect as a certain aggregate of variables that come together. And then something happens from that. So crime can pay, maybe it doesn't always pay, but it can pay. And if it's organized, it usually pays very well. So that's the kind of attitude that they have. The people that deny the signs, the people that accept the signs are people that believe

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that the universe is meaningful, that we're living in a world where everything that happens has both existential import so me as an individual, my life is meaningful. The events that happen in my life are meaningful, they're not arbitrary events. And then we see this as a collective group. In other words, groups as collective groups of people have courses. And the courses that they take will determine outcomes as a collective group. And this is where you get into the idea of clans of cities, and of countries or states that an actual country can bring upon the wrath of God. And because they bring this upon them, they're they're taken to account as an aggregate not as

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individuals. And that's why the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him said that when the punishment of God comes it afflicts the good and bad, it afflicts everybody and the Quran says a typical fitna to lead to see bender Latina bottom woman come Haha, you should fear and guard yourselves from calamities that do not just afflict the oppressors among you. And the reason for that verse is that if only the oppressors were ever harmed by wrong in the world, then no one would have any cause to stop wrong in the world, they would simply just wait till the oppressor got what was coming to him. Whereas once you begin to understand that wrong in the world affects everybody. And therefore the

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kind of modern concept. Well, as long as I don't hurt anybody, this is the idea of as long as I don't hurt anybody, then it's all right. But from the Islamic cosmology, that any wrong that is done openly and in public, if that is not rejected by the society will actually affect the society, even if it's not harming anybody, per se. There's no apparent harm, but the reality of it is, it does take its toll and eventually begins to corrode the society until all those signs that come on civilizations in the past begin to happen, and then the civilization will disappear, be overrun by the hordes. If you want to go into ebonheart dunes, philosophy that societies decay, and then

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they're invaded.

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By hordes and then the hordes will tend to re invigorates the society. So America gets invaded by the hordes of the south or something. If you want to look at pat buchanan's type of scenario of what's coming, the South American and Mexico overrun America, but then from that comes a reinvigoration. I mean, that's projection in the past, it would be things like the mogul hordes coming down, and completely decimating the Muslim societies, but from the moguls sprung, this entirely reinvigorated Muslim culture and civilization. So they ended up being a blessing. Whereas you can't see the blessing when it's happening. All you can see is the massacre and the slaughter.

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And this is part of the thing that the Quran reminds us that do not judge things because you can't see the whole picture. So you might think that something is terrible when it's happening. And that's why the Quran says anticorrosion will hierarchical. Sometimes you detest things, and yet they're very good for you. So you can see something in the short term, this short vision of something, you see it happening and you think, Oh, this is terrible. But then in the end, it actually becomes something that there's a lot of blessing in it. That's why it's always important to wait and to withhold judgment. Because ultimately, it's only in understanding the thing in its entirety. Can you

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judge it, that's why the people have ban, which is one of the sciences of rhetoric and Islam, they say a whole kumada shaped and thought out on anti slavery, he before you can judge something, you have to conceptualize that thing in its entirety,

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that you can't make a judgement about a thing, if you only understand one facet of it, you really have to be able to comprehend it. And that's why ultimately, it's God alone that can judge humanity. See, we can only judge by the apparent and that's a limited type of judgment, but there's only God alone that can judge human beings because he is the only one that can encompass all of the facets and variables involved in judging. So, the immediate consequence of the human response which is one of two things is either gratitude or in gratitude, that is the human response you are either grateful which is called a Shakir or a movement or you are an ingrate, which is called a calf It is

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the only two outcomes of interpreting the signs that are in the world. And for the one who has gratitude, because he wants to maintain this state. This causes this person to enter into what's called a state of taqwa. And taqwa is protecting yourself from losing what you have. And the way that you do that is by maintaining gratitude, because the Quran says, lay in Chicago tone than in Chicago term, lazy denticon that if you show gratitude, I will continue to bless you. But when you stop showing gratitude, then those blessings stop. And that is why even out by law or the law who said that the hobbling cord of blessings is gratitude. If you have an animal and you want to make

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sure it doesn't go astray you you hobble its legs, he said the hobbling cord of blessing is gratitude. And therefore, if you're not showing gratitude, you allow your blessings to wander off, that you're not protecting them. And the final result of this is a man or Cooper and the results of man or Kufa are Jenna or the nod. Now, before we go back to the book I just wanted to look at because I think this is very interesting presentation of guidance that Robert is behind, he gives what he says is the highest thing in the Koran, really the highest thing is called tofi up. And this is the highest state the human being can be in is a state of what's called tofi. And the word in

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Arabic tofi. Up comes from a root word which means to correspond with mawatha means a correspondence. And the definition of tofi is that the will of the human being corresponds with the will of God. So that is at the essence of a human being who is in a state of success. And that's why the word for success in Arabic is tofield.

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So the idea of true success is that your will corresponds with the will of God. And that comes about by following the guidance and guidance. According to the Quran has three degrees in this world. There are three degrees of guidance. The first is knowing good and evil

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So that is a level of guidance, even if you don't act upon it. And the Quran says had a no an edge Dane, we have guided the human being to the two paths of good and evil. So every human being has been guided to this understanding of right and wrong. And that is why the nature of the soul and the prophets of the light is that I was once asked that what was a wrong action, he said, a wrong action was that which you did that caused trouble in the breast, in other words, that your heart was troubled by it. That that is the nature that the fifth or this natural state of a human being is that when they do wrong, they're troubled by it. Human beings have different strategies of dealing

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with that trouble. And obviously, alcohol is one of them drugs, being immersed in the world, looking for affirmation, there are people that are doing really wrong things, and they tend to hang out with people that do wrong things, because that confirms that they're all right. In operation Candyman, which was the operation of trying to find all these PDF files, and the interview that they had with one of these FBI agents, they said, these guys know what they're doing is wrong. And the reason they need to be connected on the internet is to try to feel a little better about it. That is a very Islamic insight into the nature of wrongdoing is that you want to be in Bad Company. Because that

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bad company, well, he's doing it as well. So it's, it's not that bad. That is why one of the worst things in the Islamic tradition is to do wrongs publicly. Because what it does is it causes people to think that the wrong is not that significant. That's why it's so dangerous. And one of the French ethicists said that hypocrisy is of is a homage that vise pays to virtue. And that is very similar to an Islamic understanding. In this culture. Now, there's this idea that it's better to let it all hang out, you know, let it all out. Don't feel bad. You know, the Catholic Church. They used to absolve sins by making you do Hail Marys, and all these things in this culture sins are absolved by

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telling you they're not sin. This is what happens is that we just tell No, it's okay. There's nothing wrong with you. But he's feeling like something's wrong. That's why he's at the psychiatrists. And the psychologists say, No, don't feel so bad about yourself. You have low self esteem. Well, why does he have low self esteem? Have because the society's telling him this? Well, where does all this come from? Do you see because you get into the chicken egg thing? Where does the idea of virtue come from? In other words, I mentioned this before in this book of ethics that I took in the university by chittister. He said that religion solves the very problems it creates. So

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religion creates the idea of sin, and then it gives you the idea of Toba or repentance or atonement. But you have to ask the question, Where did sin come from? Where does this idea that human beings Where did they know that something was wrong? Why? Because it's in the first story of Cain and Abel, he feels bad after he kills his brother. Why did he feel bad? If we weren't in a nihilistic world where there's no right and wrong, he shouldn't have any feeling what was in him that made him feel bad

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