Hamza Yusuf – Vision Of Islam CD8 #03

			Now one of the things they say like all myths, this myth can be understood in many senses and
applied to the human situation in many different contexts. It's important to remember that myth is
actually a very good word. That doesn't mean a fictional account, if you look in the dictionary, one
of the meanings of a myth, and I'll give you the exact definition, according to Webster, a real or
fictional story that reflects the ideals of a pre literate culture. So obviously, Islam has
foundational myths, it's a perfectly acceptable word. Unfortunately, it gives the hint of being
something that is not true. I mean, we tend to think of something mythological as a fable or a
		

			fabrication. That's not how they're using the word here, the point of a myth. In fact, the
definition that an American critic of literature gave was that it is so true as to be unbelievable.
One of the things about a myth is it's a universal story. And that's why the power of myth is that.
And obviously, if people have read the hero with 1000, faces by Joseph Campbell, he's somebody who
just saw the same myth and all these different stories, because it's a universal story, the story of
the hero's journey. And certainly, we believe as Muslims that that is a true story. We don't believe
that it is a fictional account. But we also have to remove ideas of anthropomorphism. And the idea,
		

			this is language explaining something that happened in a realm that we have really no access to
other than what is described for us in the Koran. So that's important to remember. And one of the
things just about that Adam Madison was given all the names, is again, one of the things about power
is the power of language, because if you can measure, and if you can label, you have power, people
in power label the powerless. So a freedom fighter will be called a terrorist by the people in
power. And that's why the British considered George Washington, a terrorist, whereas the people at
that time who were fighting in the Continental Army, they saw themselves as Fighting for liberty and
		

			freedom. So that's the nature of the power of naming, which doesn't mean that every person claiming
to be a freedom fighter is not a terrorist. I mean, there's people out there terrorists, anytime you
bring in civilians and indiscriminately kill people, you have an element of terrorism. And certainly
there's state terrorism, and there's individual terrorism, but the point being is the power to name
or label. And that's something that the mass media obviously has, they can make people look like
they're insane. Because they have this power and the power to name them. They already determined the
discourse when they put you on as the extreme left position. Now we're going to hear from the
		

			extreme left, so they've labeled you and they've already defined the discourse there. And this is
the power of naming. So naming is a power. And that's why powerless people tend to be people without
language. And that's one of the things like Paulo Freire, a, who wrote a lot of books like pedagogy
of the oppressed pedagogy for freedom. He's got a whole bunch of books on, he spent his life
teaching Brazilian peasants how to read and write because he really felt that their powerlessness
was based on not having language. One of the things that the Cherokee did in this country, the great
Cherokee, Sequoia, who was a great Cherokee leader, who was actually half Scottish, but he developed
		

			an alphabet for his people, because he said, the power of the white people resides in their ability
to write. He saw it as that their power was in language. So he felt that he could empower the
Cherokee. And that was a really interesting experiment. And it almost succeeded had it not been for
Andrew Jackson who acted unconstitutionally in forcing the Cherokee, you know, to the famous Trail
of Tears and things like that, but language is something that if you don't have it, you're
powerless. And that's why articulation and the ability to speak is so important. And that's why
Islam emphasizes the grammar and and rhetoric and learning these things because it's an empowering
		

			element. Now, they mentioned here also that this idea of microcosm macrocosm came from the Greeks
and that's I don't think that's true because Emma Maddie or the line who said they were okay FICO
will matter shadow without coming on October zero. Well, yes, it would. insano and who would ask you
what a NACA German severe Oh, no FICO. And power animate abajo you think that you are some
insignificant body or entity and the entire universe is in you? so emotionally, that's microcosm.
That's what it means a small universe. So the human being is seen as a small universe. And part of
the reason Adam was able to name everything is because everything was in him. Because you cannot
		

			know something outside of yourself if you don't recognize it from inside of yourself. And that's why
we have mineral in us. I mean, everything that you see in the earth is in you. We have mineral, we
have vegetable, we have a
		

			animal is all there. So when you when you see a tree, you recognize vegetation, because Zinnia when
you see the sun fires in you, it's all there. And that's what caloric energy is heat. So everything
that you see out there is in you and and we're even made up of stars. And we know that now that
modern astronomy understands that our bodies have constituents of stars that were constituted of the
material that stars are made up. And one of the interesting things about a human being is the human
being, the body is placed on a scale of magnitudes between an atom and between a star.
		

			In other words, we fit right in the middle of the smallest elements in the creation and of the
biggest elements. And that's a mathematical you can actually work that out. So human beings have
this, we are this barossa between the smallest elements and the biggest elements, we're right in the
middle. And we have this ability to bridge the unseen and the seen world.
		

			And then finally, here, the reason that we have been given advice Regency is that if we follow God's
instructions, that everything is following God's instruction on the universal level, turtles,
demons, scorpions, mice are all following. But vice Regency is specifically a human quality, because
a human being is able to follow instructions through his freewill or her freewill. And therefore,
Adam was created to be vice region of God. But in order to be God's voice region, he first had to be
God's servant. In other words, people were created to represent God on the face of the earth, in
order to fulfill this function properly, they must submit to God's Will as revealed through the
		

			prophets. And so really, that's the essence of the Islamic teaching, is that what we're here to do
is to submit to the will of God, as best we can, as servants of IBM. And in doing that, we enter
into a type of harmony with the world. So we're not alien to the world, we're part of the world, but
also, we're part of another world, which is the next world. And so we again, become this bridge,
this bottom set, and realization of that clip at obedia is a lifelong journey. You don't just do it
in one day, in one evening, and you can learn all this stuff theoretically, and fill your heads with
a lot of information. But if it's not practiced, if it doesn't become part of your practice, and
		

			it's difficult, and it's something you'll struggle with all of your lives, and you need company, you
need reminders, you need people to to put you in your place and you need to put yourself in your
place. And inshallah I mean, the goal is to get through this world in one spiritual piece, both PE a
C and P IC, to get through it and get on to the other side. And then the important thing is also to
expect great things from your Lord. Because the prophets Allah sent him he said, that Allah tells us
and underline the IDB I am in the opinion of my servant. So if my servant thinks good of me, he will
find good and if he thinks bad of me, he will find bad and that's why the Hadees says, Whoever wakes
		

			up in the morning woman was at the higher end 30 ama de la, if you find good say at 100 in the
praise be to God, woman was your the VEDA that iica other than that, he didn't say woman was yet a
Shadowrun. Woman, whether the Hydra dareka because it's fellow human, Elon EFSA, let him only blame
his own soul, because you're still not seeing correctly, what's going on in the world. You're not
seeing that if you really believe in God, it's all good. It's not an exaggeration. It's all good. If
you really believe in Allah, and then it becomes that you need to conform to the divine and not make
the divine conform to you. Because what the moderns want to do is make God conform to them. So God,
		

			we met God just as we are.
		

			And it's not going to work. You have to conform to the divine how the divine wants you to be. And
just finally, that anything that occurs in the world and Chairman mentioned this last night, but
it's important to remind people who weren't there is that even our best out of the line who said
that no calamity ever afflicted me, except that I saw three blessings in it. And the first one was
that it wasn't worse than it was. So that the fact that it's not worse than it is is a blessing. And
you should show gratitude. The next one is that it was in my worldly affairs and not in my Deen
		

			and that is a blessing in the death of the Prophet, Robin Allah animasi Bettina fee, Deena, oh, god
don't make our calamities in our religion. The assumption there is already there's calamities in the
world.
		

			You're in the world, and you're going to have calamities, and you might not have seen the worst of
it yet. inshallah Allah make things easier for all of us. But you might not have seen the worst of
it yet, if you think what you've seen is bad. You might not have seen the worst of it yet. So, if
the calamity is not in your deen, don't worry about it.
		

			Because dunya is not so important that you should get upset about it like that. It's just you
shouldn't give it as much power to affect you in that way to depress you, if you lose all your
money, what can you do about it, I'm depressed, why I lost all my money. Depression does not change
the fact that you've lost all your money, you have chosen to respond to an event in the world in a
certain way. And the choice is, I'm depressed. Why? Because I associated with my money, happiness.
And now my money's gone. So I have to be unhappy. So you, therefore has made an assumption about the
nature of happiness, that it's only material goods. So it's a philosophy, that is a philosophy.
		

			And then finally, that it was in this world and not in the next world.
		

			So if the calamity is in this world, that's a blessing that it wasn't in the next world because
you'd rather have your calamities here than there. And according to the Hadith of the Prophet,
analyze them, everything that happens in this world is a purification. So it might be that you're
just getting your wrongs removed. So that's why I'm falcata Yeah, the marine calamities are the
holidays of people seeking God. A lot of people might not like that. But if you take that on, it's
not that you asked for calamities, because the problem is that don't ask for calamities, because you
don't know if you'll be able to bear them but ask Allah for well being so we asked for well being
		

			but when the calamities come, Mashallah, Mashallah. That's what happens. So,