Hatem al-Haj – Being Muslim in America after 9-11

			The magnitude of September 11. And the magnitude of the crackdown on the Muslim community, I don't
think that the community was prepared for that democratic isation of basically information sharing
of information has been helpful. Like if you're an American citizen, you could critique America as
much as you want. But you cannot critique Israel, it's permissible for Israeli citizens. It's not
permissible for genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, discrimination, would Jesus want that you
could basically approach religion from an identitarian perspective, and you could approach religion
from moral spiritual perspective. So anyway, we are dealing with with a lot that needs to be sorted
		

			out. But as I said, Islam is meant to be a witness and refuge, a witness to the truth and a refuge
for people who accept to the truth.
		

			This will handle Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam Shula, welcome back to our program, we have a very,
very special guest, and I'm embarrassed to say it is the first time we're meeting face to face, I
would have preferred a more private setting and just a more maybe only conversation or anything like
that, to benefit from your knowledge. But you are someone that I have benefited tremendously from
through your work that is written and online. And I look up to you a great deal. So I'm very honored
to be here with you today. And I ask Allah subhanaw taala to elevate your rank and to preserve you
and to make all of your efforts weigh heavily in your scale on the Day of Judgment. One thing that
		

			we were talking about off camera sort of the parallels, but differences in American society between
now in the aftermath of October 7 versus the aftermath of 911. Could you tell us, what was your
experience of 911? Where were you what were sort of the feelings that were going on through yourself
in the Muslim community at the time, and that sort of that so I mean, it's my honor to be with you.
It's like a love island for the invitation. I was here in the 90s. I was in this area, the tri state
area, New York in particular in the 90s. And I had just moved to Minnesota in 2000. So I was new to
Minnesota at the time. So the Chief Medical Officer of the hospital I was working out came and told
		

			me about it. And he was actually very kind and he said, we just want to make sure that you're fine
and that you feel safe. And then a few days later, somebody from the FBI came by and to make sure
that you feel safe, right, just make sure that you feeling safe. They went to HR, that's human
resources. And they basically asked about me, and then I came down and talk to them. I didn't
appreciate it, because they could have messaged me, or they could have called me they could have
come to my home, but to come to the workplace was a bit suboptimal. But at any rate, the the people
that I was working with, had known me for about a year prior to this. So they were nice and
		

			supportive. So that's my personal experience. You know, when this happened, I think that community
was unprepared for this. To a great extent that posed a lot of challenges and opportunities.
		

			One of the positive outcomes is that prior to this event, people would consider someone like me,
like too conservative to be supportive, or too conservative to stand up for. And then when, when
September after September 11, the crackdown on different Muslim organizations and different Muslims
of different backgrounds and orientations made the Muslim community feel that no one is excluded, or
no one is considered like a moderate Muslim. So just for clarification, you're saying that you felt
like the Muslim community would not have supported someone so conservative until after 911? Yeah, so
like men, because the Muslim community is certainly not a monolith.
		

			And some people from the Muslim community with consider my discourse, I guess, which many people
would believe to be moderate, I guess, and some people may even consider it more than that. But you
know, many would consider too conservative. And they wouldn't stand up for that type of discourse.
But but after September 11, there was oneness, unity. And there were many manifestations of that I
that later have my own, sort of worthy that people have felt, you know, my views on particular
issues cannot be supported. But But generally speaking, the September 11 brought us together and
made us feel that we are in this together and we should support one another. Certainly we should not
		

			support any injustice or any wrongdoing, because that's not what Islam is about. That's not what
Islam teaches us. The Prophet sallallahu sallam said on Surah haka, Vardaman Amma the lumen Give
victory to your brother whether he is the oppressor, the oppressed and the ask the prophets of Allah
how do we give them victory if they are the oppressors, he said to stop them from
		

			on their oppression, to stop them. So that's what Islam teaches us. But on the other side, it made
us more concerned about survival than anything else. And Islam is meant to be much more than
basically a religious identity. Islam is meant to be a witness and refuge for Muslims and non
Muslims.
		

			And that part, I guess we need to revisit that I'm interested into what was the situation before in
the 90s, you said you were in New York City and the tri state area, you know, in the 90s, a lot of
people talk about it as a very strident time, that was not a time that I experienced as a Muslim. So
that's completely off my radar. And he said that Muslims weren't really prepared for 911. I guess my
question would be, what were the ways in which we weren't, we weren't prepared? What was the flavor
like before 911 In a place like New York City? And how does that relate to today, you have to
understand the Muslim community in the United States, although that there is history, there's less
		

			lamb does have history in the United States. But when it comes to the numbers of Muslims in the
United States, particularly, I guess, in the 70s, and 80s, many people started to emigrate. But this
was like an immigrant community, largely, certainly there was the indigenous community, the the were
more established than the immigrant community. But when it comes to numbers, the numbers were not
there for the community to be really impactful. And to have the strength of numbers where there is
strength, quantitative and qualitative strength, but there is certainly strength in numbers and the
numbers were not there and give me the emigrants, okay, I'm in the 70s, and the 90s. These are
		

			economical immigrants, they came here to pursue a better life. Mostly, I'm not saying all of them,
I'm just saying mostly that that's their concern. And that was their focus. But at the same time,
they also wanted to be Muslim, and they wanted to transfer their Islam to their progeny, so that
they were concerned about building my mustards and surviving in within those small communities,
collective efforts, planning for the community at large and things of that nature. Certainly, there
were people that were doing this work, I can't deny that and more outside of the tri state area, I
guess the tri state area receives the fresh immigrants. And in the 90s, I was in New York, I was in
		

			the tri state area, maybe there were greater efforts elsewhere, but still the sort of the magnitude
of September 11. And the magnitude of the crackdown, justified or unjustified. That's a different
issue with the crackdown on the Muslim community. I don't think that the community was prepared for
it. Because it's, you know, these are new people to the country, mostly, I don't deny the presence
of indigenous Muslims, but the immigrant ones are new to the country and their concerns, they, what
they came here for their understanding of the American realities was limited. So to a great extent,
I was one of them. And I just wanted to emphasize an important point here that when we criticize the
		

			our criticized, why and so on, and so forth, which we may do, as you know, the discussion, you know,
gets into that it is extremely important that that we are turning the lens and word because we're
not talking about other people from a position of superiority. We're critiquing ourselves, and we're
not exonerating ourselves for many of them. And the second thing that is important also is to
maintain a sense of positivity and optimism, because this is what Islam about, you need to be
positive and optimistic, but that should not overshadow your ability for introspection, and self
criticism. So if we if we do criticize, you know, the Dawa, and Islamic work here in America, we're
		

			doing this as part of it. And we're doing this for continuous improvement while maintaining you
know, our hope that this is the religion of Allah subhanaw taala. And Allah subhanaw taala would
support it, maybe let's talk now about the current environment. And where we've gotten to there are
some interesting parallels to 911. There were many things rhetorically that were attempting to draw
parallels between the two in order to justify what would eventually become the genocide, the
massacres, because the escalation of everything that's gone on, and there's similar dynamics when it
comes to maybe the resuscitation of this war on terror, quote, unquote, counterterrorism perspective
		

			that the government and the security forces have the criminalization of Muslims, right. There's
there are forces that are attempting to criminalize dissent on this particular issue. Anybody who
disagrees is an anti Semite is a Hamas supporter is a terrorist. That's the attempt. So there's a
feeling like we've been here before, but they're also
		

			seem to be differences, there is a big difference between something happening on American soil and
something not happening on American soil. There's also a big difference between sort of the
undeniable horror of 911. And the confused narrative of what actually happened on October 7, and a
lot of people questioning the official narrative and what actually happened and what didn't happen
and who's responsible, etc. And so I'm interested in your thoughts as to where we sit today. What
are sort of the opportunities that we see for data that have come about because of everything that
has unfolded? And then maybe what are some things that are opportunities that we're missing, that we
		

			need two more things that we should be careful of that we're not taking into account? I think the
the fact that more people are getting more of their information from social media has been to some
extent helpful, despite all of our grievances against social media, that Democrats are isation of
basically, information sharing of information has been to some extent helpful. So now that people
are tuning into like MSNBC, CNN, Fox, and people are getting some information from Tik Tok, and
various other places of that nature that are not sort of corporations that are controlled by big
money. So individuals posting on Facebook, despite the shadow banning and all of that stuff, but
		

			certainly the the people, the people in America and non Muslims in America are still able to get
some real information that's undoctored through social media, so that has that has been positive.
And it's quite obvious that the people are trying to create this confusion to blend between anti
semitism and anti Zionism and or basically critiquing Israel becomes like an anti semitic crime,
which is extremely strange, because critique in America is not a problem. Right? critiquing Israel
is like, if you're an American citizen, you could you could critique America as much as you want.
But you cannot critique Israel, like Israeli citizens do. This is this is prohibited for you, it's
		

			permissible for Israeli citizens, it's not permissible for you as an American citizen, which is,
which is very weird, but it also reflects the nature of the relationship between America and Israel.
Some of it is strategic, although it's starting to make less and less sense from a strategic point
of view, some of it is sentimental. Some of it is just the effect of certain lobbies that are that
have influence and control. And not just lobbies, you know, but people of influence, that, basically
they react to the public opinion in America or steer the public opinion in America concerning this
particular case. And those people are not necessarily Jews. To be clear, certainly many of them are
		

			but but there is not limited to Jews. And I have posted recently on Facebook, like all communities
here, stand up for justice and defend our communities here and there is no room for anti semitism.
Certainly, Sam, the son of Noah did not only have the Jews as his progeny.
		

			But But aside from that discussion, were against the targeting of any community. And we should
basically stand together against that. But the critique Israel should not be a critique settler
colonialism to critique apartheid, critique discrimination, to critique genocide, you should have
the right to do that. As an American citizen. I think if there is any freedom speech, if there is
any meaning for the concept of freedom speech, critiquing those things should be granted and
guaranteed. So it's not like September 11, I think the community is better prepared, because the
community has gone through September 11. Already, so the community is better prepared, it's in a
		

			better position, whether it's the indigenous or immigrant community, the community is more mature
than it was during the September 11. And certainly, it's a completely different event. It's
completely different events of different nature. And we're not making comparisons between sort of
October 7 And September 11. Like any factual comparisons, but but certainly this is an event and
that's an event and they do have an impact on the Muslim community here. And some of the there are
similarities between the impacts. So I think the community is better prepared, and I'm hopeful that
the community will seize the opportunities that this event offers. What do you think about you know,
		

			you highlighted several absurdities, right that I think a lot of Americans that aren't Muslim are
picking up on the absurdity that you can't critique a foreign nation. You know, the absurdity that
to critique a foreign nation or the actions of its government would be something akin to racism or
bigotry.
		

			And that seems at least in the online sphere to have created
		

			A unique dollar opportunity where a lot of people are now questioning this and they're curious about
Islam. We've had the trend on tick tock of people reading the Koran, and things like that. Have you
experienced and have you observed in your own activity and increased interest in Islam, similar to
the interest in Islam after 911 and the Dow activities that have been going on since then, I'm not
on social media that often but whenever I am, I guess I do see some of that. So there is room there
for though, and there is room there to point out the absurdities, as you said, because at the end of
the day, the tributaries into this American sentiment towards Israel or the central public sentiment
		

			towards Israel, they come from different places. And sometimes they come from places of bigotry and
racism or superiority. So we have the the Judeo Christian heritage, and then people that sort of
subscribe to this heritage more when you have the Enlightenment heritage here in the West, and that
of the Christian heritage, and there are people who subscribe to this, and there are people who
subscribe to that. But mostly people are subscribing to a blend of them. Sometimes with more of the
Judeo Christian heritage, like it might have, like a central role in their thesis. Sometimes the
Enlightenment has a central role in their thesis, and sometimes they are quite mixed. So people come
		

			and he always ascribe more to that the Christian heritage, they call it the Judeo Christian
heritage, although you may think that Islam would be closer to Christianity in many regards, but
that is the that is the definition that they prefer to use. So I would use it to the Christian
heritage. So people don't subscribe to the Christian, Judeo Christian heritage and all religion is
and we're not exempt from this, you could basically approach religion from an identitarian
perspective, and you could approach religion from a moral spiritual perspective. So there are many
people who subscribe to the Judeo Christian heritage that don't have the piety of religiosity, they
		

			have the zeal without the piety. And those are the most dangerous people, whether they are
Christian, or Muslim, or Jew, or Jews, or whatever they are, they are very dangerous people, you add
to this, some of the apocalyptic mythology that they have about the End of Times, and then you have
like a disaster, you know, you have people who are committed, and people who are not educated
enough, and I don't know if they have their priests and pastors are teaching them the, the
difference between the concept of you know how to restore your county, if you have prophecies, you
don't necessarily have to bring them about. So there is, there is another Assura you which is the
		

			legislative decrees of God, and there are the creative decrees of God. So God may create something
that he does not like. So you should not be participating to bring it up about just because of the
you know, that God will create it. He doesn't like it, he will create it for like a higher wisdom,
but he doesn't like it. So what you have to go by is that legislative decrees of God the commands of
God, so to bring about like the establishment of Israel, at the that cost, which is genocide, ethnic
cleansing, apartheid, discrimination, would Jesus want that? Would Jesus actually condone or
advocate for that? Is that the only way that he can come down? So that's an issue, that's a big
		

			issue that we confront. The other sort of tributary is the enlightenment, legacy, man, I don't like
confronting every thesis with an antithesis, there is usually a synthesis that is more sort of that
is closer to the truth than than the antithesis of any thesis. So I don't like to bash the
enlightenment, you know, and I don't like even tabash post modernism, I like to point out the
problems and, you know, in, in both philosophical trends, but yeah, the heritage of the
Enlightenment, the it came at a time where Europe was expand outside, outside of
		

			its territories into Africa and Asia and the Americas and so on. And all the enlightenment that not
basically prevent settler colonialism, occupation of other people's lands, exploitation of other
people's resources. You know, I come from Egypt, too. So we were colonized by our Great Britain and
all
		

			of the Enlightenment in Great Britain and all of the great philosophers did not prevent that from
happening. I think the Enlightenment was mixed also with sort of the irreligious or the Darwinist
sort of Outlook, that believed in the stratification of humanity. And, and that was a very, like a
very dangerous, it's a very dangerous concept. You know, if you look at compare between Darwinism,
and the theistic proposition, have been the descendants of Adam and Eve, or at least the Abrahamic
proposition have been the descendants of Adam and Eve. It's a completely different outlook diff
completely different if you believe that we are all the children of Adam and Eve, versus believing
		

			that we have evolved from apes. And then then we have different levels of evolution. It's completely
the deaf, different perspectives. So anyway, we are dealing with with a lot that needs to be sorted
out. But as I said, Islam is meant to be a witness and refuge, a witness to the truth, and a refuge
for people who accept to the truth. So that is what we need to remind ourselves of, like, in the
midst of trying to survive as a community, we have to remember that we should not work as if if we
are too little, then we should just excuse ourselves that we should not worry for as long as long as
much bigger than us. And as a medical doctor, I come back to the analogy sometimes. I mean, you
		

			being in a medical doctor, about how Islam is almost a cure. I think for the diseases that exist
here, the theological diseases or the metaphysical diseases that you've brought up, whether you go
through the Enlightenment route, the Darwinistic, route, the
		

			fabricated Judeo Christian route, because traditionally, or throughout history, Christians have
been, perhaps, the harshest on the Jews, yet the discursive forging of a Judeo Christian sort of
heritage is more fiction than fact, really, but it serves certain political ends, but they all miss
right, they all have an excess, or they all have a fundamental mistake that actually, as you were
saying, results down the line and something that's very negative, or very regrettable, or has
palpable tangible sort of harms. And so I often see Islam as possible redemption, to those harms and
excesses, that if people sort of become interested in it, then it can actually correct the sorts of
		

			wayward wanderings that that European history has gone through and by extension America, that being
said, there are some misappropriations that need to be warned about and guarded against as well.
What would you say to somebody who now let's say they're a young person, either Muslim or non
Muslim, and they're coming across this for the first time, and they sort of are attracted to Islam
or more becoming more Islamic, but there may be heading down a bad path? What would you do have any
response to that? I think that sort of genuine genuine scholarship as needed here in America, and
genuine scholarship means activist scholarship means scholars who are connected to their
		

			communities, and particularly to the youth in their communities. So not the bookbound scholar who's
basically detached and I think if we have more of those scholars, genuine in the sense that they are
truly educated, and I think that she has had the cream say then in his book also the Dow or the
principles of Dow, he said that there's there is a set of qualities that every guy needs, he said
that Immanuel amico alhfam At the peak quality solid with the yes or no which means, you know,
profound face precise and detailed understanding an intimate bond or connection with Allah subhanaw
taala an ongoing intimate bond or connection with Allah subhanaw taala I think the eyes of this
		

			nature, the presence of the eyes and this nature will be our greatest source of intervention, again,
against the Muslim children being pulled into extremism on either side, the US certain side of
excessiveness or lacks the these are two extremes. So Islamic moderation needs to be championed and
promoted by the US who have the that set of qualities. So producing those there is and helping
people move beyond identity and phase which is faith by association to phase by persuasion and then
phase by experience or experiential phase where they actually enjoy the rejoice in their connection
with Allah subhanaw taala we need those people. We need those the dice that have the profound faith
		

			not only the knowledge, but the profound faith in the end
		

			With connection with Allah subhanaw taala to be able to transmit this and to be able to help people
ascend rise, because it says identity identitarian faith, or you know, identitarian religiosity that
causes this type of extremism and this type of excessiveness. But once people move beyond this, once
people ascend
		

			to basically more spiritual experience of faith, I think that this would be withheld to them. How do
we do this by having more of those guys that are not only graduates of azahara and Medina
university, but the who have also a profound faith and have an intimate connection with Allah
subhanho wa taala. So we have to remind each other of Allah, we have to remind each other of of the
deen of Allah and of Allah of justice, that of the beautiful teachings of Islam. And we have to
remind each other of the importance of sincerity, particularly though, they need to remind each
other of the importance of sincerity, their words will be a lot more effective if they're coming out
		

			of their hearts as a very profound point, a story that we brought up at the Dawa luncheon that was
mostly targeted towards non Muslims yesterday, one of the points we tried to emphasize was truth
over tribe. And the story of Musa atta, he said, it was very instructive in that, you know, he kind
of has that moment where he's called in to assist his tribesmen in the fight in that gala movie,
that's right, and your music guy mustn't either, exactly, and then it becomes apparent that that the
truth was not automatically associated with his tribe, that somebody from his tribe could be wrong
and mistaken. And that was an important point of maturation for him, and his his spiritual growth.
		

			And that's despite all the injustice is that this particular person might have
		

			basically been subjected to that particular Israelite. I'm from Egypt. So my ancestors, I guess, you
know, how the ancient Egyptians have treated them during that time in particular. So there were
grievances, and there were justified grievances, but picking up fights every day was not the answer.
That's an extremely profound point.
		

			We know you have a busy schedule today. So maybe we'll just have one more question.
		

			A lot of sort of the reaction within the Muslim community. After October 7, the escalation and the
genocide and
		

			has made people work together in a similar sort of coming together that you mentioned after 911. The
the differences that prevented people from maybe collaborating or working together before have sort
of almost naturally without even maybe a lot of intentions sort of drifted at least out of focus.
I'd like your comments about that, generally, and about Muslims working together, across the aisle,
so to speak, different
		

			struggle to find the right word. I don't want to just say flavors of Islam, but different sort of
traditions within Islam. And people that maybe you're not used to working together with or having
any sort of relationship with what should be, what should be the level of cooperation and what
should be, what should be people's attitude towards that type of cooperation now and going forward.
Certainly Muslims should always cooperate, you know, Islam has overarching objectives, and we should
be all pursuing those overarching objectives. And wherever pursues those overarching objectives with
us, we work with them. I, you know, I just posted yesterday about the Christmas tree and I said that
		

			although, as Muslims, we must maintain our religious distinction, and must not have those religious
Christmas trees in our homes. They, they remind us of the gradual integration of pagan beliefs and
practices into the divine, the revealed religion of Christ, these be upon him. So we do have sort of
an aversion to the Christmas tree in that sense, but I don't have an aversion to seeing the
Christmas tree in public spaces, because I do not want to see the clips of Christianity by atheism
in the West. So I will not be part of this and I will not facilitate that shift from Christianity to
atheism.
		

			Atheism will not be any kinder to Muslims in the west or elsewhere anywhere. So we work with
Christians on sort of common objectives.
		

			But when it comes to Muslims,
		

			these are the people who say like Allah, Allah, Muhammad Rasul Allah, how much do you
		

			glorify Allah Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, what is the weight of la ilaha illAllah Muhammad Rasul
Allah, in your
		

			perspective in your creed in your thoughts, and that is, that is my point. How much do you value
that Allah Allah Allah Muhammad Rasul Allah, and the people who subscribe today, Allah Muhammad
Rasul Allah, that is huge. And there's so much that is in common between us, and there is so much so
many sort of common objectives that that we can work on. And oftentimes, we can
		

			not necessarily
		

			ban discussions over the differences that we have among ourselves. Now I am completely for honest
and, but polite, and several discussions on on the differences between us. But again, at the same
time, polarization is detrimental. The polarization is legislated. And throughout our history,
things were not polarized now, like you, it's like the Democrats and Republicans.
		

			And, and that, that has not been the case throughout our history, because Islam. You know, when we
talk about traditions, we're not talking about one thing, we're talking about creed and different
traditions within creed, we're talking about, you know,
		

			practice and the then then the practice of the interior and the practice of the exterior. And then
there are with different traditions for the practice of the exterior, which was, you know, you have
different Messiah, how many of the theories and you have the form of and you have, and so on. And
then the practice of the interior, which is the look,
		

			that see, look, the scale to solve whatever people call this. And then you have different traditions
within this and the the vented divide, hold that traditions into two groups is fictitious, as
manufactured is on real.
		

			And it is an indication that we're not actually for the truth, we're for the tribe.
		

			And that's why we're making two tribes. Because it is simpler for us. And, you know, we just don't
want to get, like, bothered by the details. So it's just two tribes. Now, how would you respond?
We'll end with this. But the, the common retort, or the justification that I hear is that, well, the
Sabbath, they practice, they practice hedging, right, they would boycott or abandon or disassociate
themselves from people have innovation, that's usually, you know, the common response. So what would
you have to say to that someone says, I don't want to work with this person, they have some
innovation, and the way the setup they handled it was to boycott and abandon, okay, I have to first
		

			to be honest, also to the
		

			to be I'm sorry, to be fair to all people, I don't think that this
		

			this attitude
		

			is particular to one particular group, I agree, I think that this attitude is prevalent, and it has
been prevalent in our history also, and you know, and those who are familiar with our history,
should be able to should be able to see that and they should be honest enough to not to basically
lay the blame on one particular group or one particular tradition or in particular, you know,
orientation. So having said that, which is important to begin with, I must say that they operated
from different paradigms, and they have different circumstances. And we have to basically
		

			understand that, that the sell off, we're not all the same, and they did not have the same approach.
And they did not have the same attitude, even the Sahaba they were different. So, you can say that
Muhammad and I would or that have the same personality or even our best enemies obey, you have the
same personality, they did not have the same personality, the end it actually showed on their
approach to too many issues. You cannot say that someone as great as an Amish
		

			Rahim, Allah Tada
		

			had the same personality, as you know, many others like hustler Busbee.
		

			You can say that Syedna, debayer and Sidon and Messiah and zaharie had the same attitude towards
towards the rulers, for instance, those are all self worth. So when you talk about self and you try
to
		

			make a monolith of a self and then monopolize the
		

			The sell off and make your understanding of the deal in that of SLF. You have to really be aware of
what you're talking about the seller for were different people. Yes, there are.
		

			And I completely for this, there are certain features,
		

			and certain trends and certain principles that we can say represent the self as the sort of
righteous generations. Those are trends in creed, their credit trends and practice or, you know,
principles and creed and principles and practice.
		

			Whether it's the practice of the interior and the practice of the exterior, and we should always
point to them as superior to us, they were basically praised by the Prophet sallallahu sallam, they
were given credit by the Prophet sallallahu Sallam and their practices were sanctioned by Allah and
His messenger. So that is true. But that is not to say that they were are a monolith in every regard
and particularly when it comes to this particular issue. How do you approach the differences among
the Muslim community and Sal have also tolerated a great deal of the disagreement and dissent
		

			you know without the love and I'm so excited about but the problem Falcon robinus you know, that
they disagreed over whether the Prophet sallallahu Sallam so Allah subhanaw taala did not see Allah
and other matters of creed as well not not not just a practice, you know that they disagree that
great deal over a major issues of practice. Riba at some point that certain types of Rabbi disagreed
over, they disagreed over most of at at at some point, they, you know, you know, which is temporary
marriage, they disagreed over and what Arthur had a great deal also, which, which was to combine the
motto, the ombre and the heart,
		

			and to basically do the ombre first and then remove your ROM and do the heart. So they disagreed
over major issues of practice as well. But how did he treat each other, you know, when when they
when they had those disagreements? So we have to keep that in mind. The second thing that we have to
be aware of, is that lie on Capitol Hill Uralic, Capitol Airism annual McCain, well, our Edward
Island excetera. So the change of rulings with a change of times must not be denounced, because you
have the overarching objectives, you have the fact that they're stable principles, but you have a
flexible legal framework to adjust to variables. And there are variables, you cannot say that we
		

			have the luxury to basically given to those fights that they had when there was a community when
there was the Muslim abode, the Dar Al Islam, you know, under Khalifa, and then Madonna humble, has
that had the luxury to fiercely fight the Felisa intellectually, you know, theologically, resist the
demands of the philosopher, but at the same time, pray for the Khalifa when he goes out to fight an
armory. So the this was a completely different paradigm, a completely different paradigm. And you
may not,
		

			you would be committing a crime against Islam and the Muslims, if you
		

			aren't carefully
		

			transplant practices, you know, by the scholars into a completely different reality, without
complete awareness of the context, and the objectives that you're that you're trying to serve.
That's a fantastic response. May Allah bless you. So just to distill what you're saying, or saying
that when it comes to certain issues, such as how to treat or interact with the rulers, or how to
treat and interact with differences, even if they might be, you know, reached the level of an
innovation, that there is not a monolith among us, that there is differences. And that Furthermore,
that those differences we would say are right, or they're makhoul manner, they were things that were
		

			adopted, through a calculus of what their effects were going to be. And so then when the time and
situation changes, then it's perfectly permissible. It's not like booty, it's not something that we
don't, you know, even those who adopted the method of abandoning, you know, the people of
innovation, not even hearing to them, listen to the Koran.
		

			This was not done simply as pure ritual worship to a last poem to order. This was something
		

			That was a selected tactic that was supposed to lead to a rational end or the ending good and
forbidding bad in general is contingent on the Musleh you know, achieving procuring the certain
interest and certain objectives. And are they in the good? If ordaining the goodwill bring about a
greater harm? You don't?
		

			Just and this is sort of an established principle that was defended by scores of scholars, including
Halima van de Mayo Rahim Allah Mashallah. So, if somebody wanted to read either in Arabic or
English, just some further information about some of the the diversity between the setup on these
issues, do you have any recommendations?
		

			Yeah, so So there are books on the, you know, advocates of this agreement that could be helpful, but
But generally speaking, reading the car,
		

			of a self is extremely important, and I think that it is, it is very important for us.
		

			As though, in particular, to read the history of the Leakey, reading Sarah lemon novella, I think
that people should read a book like Sarah Holloman novella. And I think that people should read it
from cover to cover despite how challenging that may be. But I think it is important it gives a it
gives you like a different perspective.
		

			And contextualize things for you. Yes, it's extremely important. And that's a golden advice, because
what can happen is, when someone claims the setup said this, the settler did that they're shifting
the burden of proof. Now, they're basically relying on you, not knowing something to the contrary.
Whereas what we're saying is that it's there, you have to go read.
		

			If you immerse yourself in all of the data points of the actions and the beliefs of the self.
Sometimes it's a lot more complicated than maybe some of the grand narratives that people are
championing. And even even reading, reading one Hadees may not be sufficient to have the proper
sentences. Like how many times do you read like I was reading other Bill Maher flood yesterday, and
the Malibu party would put one Hadith and then put the counter Hadith next to it.
		

			So that you make this the you you come up with a synthesis. And and that's very important because
like, you could read three or four Hadith, pointing to one direction and then you read another
Hadith that would qualify them
		

			or specify something out of them or so the synthesis is important, and don't rush to make any hasty
conclusions.
		

			We thank you so much for your time, shake hands. It was it was a pleasure. I had to selfishly insert
my own resume questions there at the end. We appreciate your tolerance and forbearance with us and
forgive us for our shortcomings and may Allah accept
		

			that enter self critical to where they sign when they come after