Ismail Kamdar – The Dangers of Liberalism
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. hamdu lillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah in Al Hamdulillah. The Buddha who was the hedonist of Pharaoh were not Nobita Wirkkala Lee when we left him in Cerulean filthy now let me see you Dr. Molina mejor de la bala medulla OMA unilocular Hadiya Amma bad for inner circle Hadith Nikita Allah okay, you heard you heard him Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was Sharon Maureen was to have a kulambu desert in a little bit at the end Allah Allah, Allah, Allah Allah infinity.
Today, I want to discuss a bit about a problem that we face in the Muslim community, a problem that often goes undetected, because it happens at an intellectual level. And very often, we don't even know what's happening to us. And this is the problem or the danger of the religion being lost through modernization.
i In the past, I've spoken a lot about the other extreme, where we become so dogmatic on specific opinions of fake that we do not change when the Sharia allows to change. What is the opposite danger as well, is the danger where we become so
we become so open to change, that we change everything, until there's nothing left of the religion besides the name besides the label. Both of these are opposite extremes. And sometimes we don't even realize sometimes we don't even realize when we are falling into one extreme.
So I'll talk about today let's talk a bit about the history of this movement, the history of, of what exactly happened with this modernization of the religion? And why is this something we should be wary of what are the limits of what is acceptable and what is not. And this may be a multiple part series, because there's a lot that we need to say, because to some extent, certain aspects of modernization are necessary. Right? When we use a camera to video record a lecture, this is a necessary part of modernization is when you have a microphone. To amplify the voice of a speaker, this is a necessary part of modernization, but what's acceptable and what's not. If you look at the
history, we begin to understand things a bit better. So let's take a look at the history of fake from this perspective. For the bulk of Muslim history, the old man's job was to deal with the problems of their time using the principles of the motto. So for the bulk of Muslim history, the Muslims had Allah Ma, who were much guides who were people who were capable of dealing with contemporary problems using the principles of the Messiah. So for example, Imam Al Ghazali, he was a Sharpie scholar. And when new problems pop up in his time, he would use the principles of the Sharpie mazahub, to solve those problems, to come up with contemporary fatawa. For his time,
even Taymiyah. He was a humbling scholar, and he did the same thing. And he lived in a very difficult time. And he solved the contemporary problems of his time, using the principles of the humbly model. And this was the way for the bulk of our history.
But in the late Ottoman era, people began to become too dogmatic about the matter. He moved away from having Allah Ma, who did each Jihad using the principles of the madhhab, towards having just a complete blind following to a level where the opinions of the madhhab began to be treated as if they read the Quran. In a way, if you change your opinion, other naturopathic people would say you are going against the Sharia. And so people became very dogmatic, and people became really extremely distant place, specifically in the Ottoman Empire and in India, in these two lands, is just extremism in how people handle Vic became dominant in the latest centuries. And he was at this time
the British conquered Egypt and India. And it was in the colonized India and Britain that the modernist movement began. Now, what is the problem with this movement? Why why is this automatic? You see this, we have a problem. And very often when humans come up with solutions to a problem, they go to the opposite extreme. You notice this with every problem we see today, right? That some people in trying to solve the problem of feminism falling into this red pill ideology, which is the opposite extreme woman hating, right we see this again 150 years ago, that when people were going to the extreme of blind following, some people went to the opposite extreme of complete and total
reinterpretation
based on new principles. So, in dealing with this problem of blind following
two responses came about what are the three responses came about? Two of which are balanced and moderate, and one which you can call the extreme
To balance or moderate approaches was number one calling for the Allama to start doing each Jihad again using the principles of the mother. So for example, in India, India is one of those areas with a blind following, but worst Shah will, you'll additionally began to call for the Allama to start doing jihad again. And you can read in his book or gentle albala, he has an entire chapter on reopening the doors that he had, where he called an older man to start using the principles of the madhhab to solve contemporary issues. Right, so this was a balanced approach. Likewise, in Tunisia, the great scholar even assured the Maliki scholar he called for the same thing.
Another approach that came about that's still acceptable, although this one went a little bit extreme was the Salafi approach, which was let's go back to Quran and Sunnah. Right and not have to altogether and I will say it's a little bit extreme, because you need Mudhouse to interpret the Quran and Sunnah. But nonetheless, it's still within the realm of acceptability and I guess the following Quran and Sunnah just not sincere in what they are doing. Right? Where things went to extreme is when one group came about saying, whatever the West says is right, we will interpret Islam to suit that. See, this is where things got problematic. When he grew came about saying
whatever those guys are saying is right. We will agree with you, and we'll find a way for Islam to agree with it. Now, when people started thinking like this, they opened the doors of deviation. And they opened the doors of misinterpretation, and this started 150 years ago, and it has been * and getting worse with each generation. So 150 years ago, the British conquer Egypt and they come in and they tell the Egyptians, your woman cover this is barbaric. She moved to Egypt and a woman don't have to cover anymore. Right? Just to appease the British. The British Chaldean your men have more than one wife. This is barbaric. So the the Mufti said only the Quran says you only
allow one. Right? For 1300 years, the Quran said you allowed for suddenly this movie comes along and says, Oh, you're only allowed one. So this becomes the new fatwa of Egypt.
The British come and see you'll don't do interest based banking, you are stuck in the olden days. The movies Oh, no interested in this painting is trying to put on talking about something else not talking about this. You see, he starts changing the religion. I won't mention the name, right. But a move to Egypt at that time, he says changing the religion to appease the British. This is the foundations of this modernist movement, where someone who is in a position of authority wants to appease an outside force. And in order to do so, he starts reinterpreting the religion.
The problem is, over the past 150 years, the West has been moving further and further down the path of liberalism, further and further down the path of immorality. And with each generation as they are going further towards the left, Muslims are trying to play catch up.
Muslims are trying to play catch up. And
so you find for example, in the past 20 years, you will start seeing that
homosexuality is fine.
Then suddenly, you now have a group of Muslims saying, oh, homosexuality is fine. Right? Do we start saying that it's okay to change your gender? In sudden you find a group of Muslims saying it's okay to change your gender? What is going on here? What is going on? Yo, this is a very, very dangerous pockets of people who are involved because these opinions, you know, firstly, the opinions are outside the realm of acceptability completely outside the realm of acceptability. Number two, certainly believing in something like this can take you out to the fold of Islam, when something is clear in the Quran, and Sunnah. And there is consensus on it. And it is something that has been the
established belief of Islam for over 1000 years, to come now and say that Islam was wrong for 1000 years, and my understanding of Islam is right, this can actually take a person out of the fold of Islam. Now, we won't say that about an individual, right, because each individual case will Allah, but understand the dangers of thinking in this way. The dangers of trying to make Islam suitable to other people's palates. We see it again, you know, after 911 where Muslims started saying, Islam is a religion of peace. Now there is no jihad, there's only defensive jihad. When we stop talking about battle, we stop talking about, oh, we stopped talking about the conquest of Syria and the conquest
of Egypt. We act like none of this existed. It will be just a religion of peace, a bunch of hippies. Oh, that's not our religion. Our religion has is balanced. It's the middle part. Yes, there's peace. But there's also justice is also conquest. It's also the whole history of conquest, which is a very glorious history that we should not be ashamed of.
Now, there's a hidden danger, in many of us are unaware of with this movement that could have affected all of us without us realizing. And I want us to think very carefully about this point. Because really, this point can affect all of us without us you
Like, you see, as the Midwest and western world moves more and more towards the left, the
the window of what is acceptable opinion also moves more towards the left. And what was considered the balanced middle part 50 years ago, even by Muslims will be considered extreme today.
And what would have been considered modernism 50 years ago, is being considered balanced middle part today. Why? Because we don't realize how the world around us affects us. We don't realize that if you are sitting and watching, you know, Netflix every day and absorbing that culture, suddenly everything of Islam looks extreme in comparison, right? Because it's gone so far towards the left, that forget the right you know, even America today, if you look at the American, medical non Muslims today, those who call themselves Conservatives or the right, you know what they really are, they are the left from 50 years ago.
The calling for Zina right for opens in, are they calling for, you know, drinking alcohol as much as you want equal to all these things that were considered liberal ideas 50 years ago, the problem is America has gone so far towards the left, that now people who are slightly more this way are considered the right, and everything on that side is considered extreme. And our problem is Muslims is we get caught up in this rhetoric. And then suddenly, things that are known of our religion, by necessity, become extreme in our eyes, suddenly, it becomes wrong for them to even preach things, and agreed upon things that are a part of our religion become politically incorrect.
Right. So for example, I mentioned a few examples with things that become politically incorrect even to the part of our religion, for example, Italian woman that her brother in law is not
supposed to observe hijab from your brother in law. And nowadays, when you see these people see you being extreme,
but it's in the Quran, it's in the Hadith, he says your plugin law is that when a woman asks for some catchy remover hijab in front of her body and law, the prophets or something you're planning Oh, is that why I'm looking at the world today, majority of zoonotic diseases are happening, we'll post them. Right.
It's something that each mile upon between the mothers, or when you stated, people think you're being extreme, but this is a matter of each month matter of consensus. Another example, perhaps more controversial, that there is a consensus in our religion, that the man is the leader of the household, and the rest of the household has to respect the authority and follow him as a leader.
In some parts of the Muslim world today, if you say that people will kill you, it's become so taboo to even state these things, which by the way, are in the Quran, in the Hadith, and a matter of consensus between the mother cups? Why? Because the world has moved too far away from the public part. So how do we find the middle part again? How do we move forward, because we don't want to go to the other extreme, where we just follow whatever people are saying, even when it's wrong, and we don't want to go to the other extreme, which is where we follow the Western whatever they say, even when it's wrong. How do you find the middle part again? Number one, if something is clear in the
Quran, and Sunnah, and there is a consensus amongst the early scholars and how it is to be interpreted, don't go beyond that. This is a very important point, if something is clear in the Quran, and Hadees. And the early scholars have consensus on that point, mean, there's no differences of opinion on how to interpret the point, do not go beyond that. Follow it submit to it, because this is now the religion. This is not an opinion, it's not a religion. You can't come to me and say, in my opinion, you don't enforce a law, you don't need to pay pleasure anymore. You can't say that it's consensus to this lifestyle. But you can't come to me and say, oh, you know, we don't need to
fasting in Ramadan anymore. You know, we get lost in December instead, because we follow the Gregorian calendar. You can't say things like that. Why? Because there is consensus. The Quran is clear, the hadith is clear, there is consensus. So when there is consensus amongst the early Muslims on a point, there is no room for difference of opinion. And we have to be very careful today. So for example, today, we have people coming and saying that oh, the story of Prophet loot. It's dealing with *, nothing to do with homosexuality. We tell them you are lying. You are lying, because for 1400 years, everybody agreed upon the interpretation of the story. And then you come today,
suspiciously a homosexual walks up today, as everybody before was wrong in the interpretation.
They remind me of something my teachers used to see when I was young, that everybody says smoking is haram besides a smoker. Right? That's what's happening now with the homosexual everyone's saying homosexuality is haram besides the homosexual, either we want to justify what we do. So be careful when they is each month. Do not go outside the boundaries of each month.
And when you are presented with a new opinion, ask yourself four questions about
opinion. Number one, the person stating their opinion? Does he or she have qualifications in Islamic law? Is this actual spoiler a mufti, someone with a Bachelor's or Master's or PhD in Islamic law? Why is this somebody just talking out of pocket?
Not everyone can just come up with opinions when it comes to proof, you have to be trained, it's a specialized science. It's a science is a whole methodology behind it, you can't just come up with your own pick opinions. So ask yourself this opinion, is it coming from a person within the tradition, someone who is a traditionally trained scholar Number two are the other scholars that agree with them. So if you have the entire onma, holding on to one opinion, and maybe just one guy in London, or one guy in Durban, who stating otherwise, so better to avoid that opinion, even if he's qualified, even if he is qualified, because this is, you know, historically an opinion like
that, the term they would use for it, they call it sharp, sharp, meaning doubtful, stay away from it. But even amongst us the harbor, they were doubtful opinions, they were opinions that wants to be held in the lessons that have been rejected. For example, Maleficent entered the examples, too controversial, let you see some of the Sahaba had opinions that
would shock us today. Right? And those opinions do not become part of the Sharia because they be considered shots. That's not one individual's opinion, and the rest of the Ummah rejects it. Number three, ask yourself this question this new opinion that you are following? Can it be argued for using the sudo?
This is very important. If someone is saying something is halal, or something is haram, or this needs to change that needs to change? Can they construct the argument traditionally? Can they show you the Quran sunnah each mark? Yes. Or whatever principles are fit in a structured process manner that can be approved by other other Gulaba? That yes, this is a correct conclusion. Or again, are they just talking, you know, based on their own desires?
Finally, the final question to ask yourself when dealing with a new opinion, is this opinion coming from within our tradition? are outside our tradition?
Right? So if someone comes with an opinion today, and says that, let me give you a controversial opinion that we're dealing with right now. Even the foot fine English, right? Someone comes up and says, you know, let's get the goodbye in English. Well, I did I let someone else's No, no, this this is modernism is no, this is from within our tradition. There are hundreds of scholars throughout history who said the football should be in the language of peep of the people, and the others who said it should be in Arabic, both opinions are within the tradition. So as long as it's within the tradition, it's fine. You understand, as long as it's coming from within the tradition, it's fine.
It's not me taking some other concepts from another culture and saying this needs to be our religion, is it actually a traditional opinion. So is the change coming from within the tradition of outside so for example, that someone says that homosexuality is fine, this is coming from outside the tradition, there is no traditional scholarly basis for that. This is coming from someone seeing where the world is headed and wanting Islam to go in the same direction. Right, it's like projecting somebody else's values onto Islam. So this is coming from outside tradition.
So reminder to all of us that yes, Obama need to do HD hard, you need to stop contemporary problems, it has to be done using the issue of the model, it has to be done in a traditional manner. And we have to submit to the conclusion whether we like it or not, right, but the HDR has to be done. However, we have to understand the boundaries, Allah as well, if there is no boundaries, and if everything is open to change, and you don't have a religion. If everything is open to change, you do not have a religion. Take a lesson from the Christians. They allowed everything to be open to change, and they are dying. Your religion is dying. It's dying out across the globe. Churches are
empty. People don't take the religion seriously, seriously anymore. Islam is on its way to becoming the number one religion in the world simply because Christianity is like, the only that's what's happening, just because their religion is dying, and our religion is growing. You know, within the next 40 years, we've been number one, even though we are politically weak, their religion is dying, because they never held on even to the most basic principles.
We even have Christian churches now with the saying that, you know, being gay is fine, completely rejecting the Scripture.
Do we want to go down the same path. So understand if you start today with rejecting some of the moral principles of Islam, your children will reject some of the pillars of Islam and their children will reject Islam altogether. That's that's the direction that we're heading. If we go down
to when the is each mark, you submit and when they easily new opinion, we analyze it within the issue of fake and make sure it's coming from an authentic and qualified source. Then you can follow it right then you can follow it. Otherwise, we are in
Danger of perfecting our own UI. So we ask Allah for balance you ask Allah for moderation We ask Allah to grant us hikma and wisdom and understanding of this religion, to keep us stateless in the state bar to protect us from both extremes from the extreme of line following of people and then the extreme of grandfathering of the model of non Muslims. And we ask Allah to grant us the correct understanding of this religion. Subhana rahbek Robin is at your mercy pool was salam ala mousseline Al hamdu, lillahi rabbil, Alameen.
Hamdu lillahi, wa wa Salatu was Salam ala Mala and
the second love Allah will fade you heard you heard him humbling. sallallahu alayhi wa salam, or Sharon morning mostly said to Hakuna Matata CityBeat. co located out in Allah Allah, Allah Allah didn't pick up one last point that we all need to keep in mind. Be aware of following your desires. There is a verse in the Quran, Allah subhanho wa Taala warns us Have you seen the person who has taken his desires as his rod? Have you seen the person who has taken his desires as his Lord?
Now in the past, it would be a person in the past, did you have a whole community of practicing Muslims and you have a person who is following his desires he's committing Zina, he's drinking alcohol is doing whatever he wants. Three, it's a movement. Today we have movements that have taken the desires. So we have movements calling for reinterpretation of Islamic laws related to homosexual sexuality. We have movements calling for reinterpretation or interpretation of Islamic work related to gender roles. We have movements calling for the reinterpretation of the Islamic laws related to business, right? And the problem with these movements is they come from the place of desires is love
not seeing what I wanted to say. It's not not seeing what I want to do. You know, it's all about what I want. It goes down to this individualism and it's all about me, historically, who are the people who are always all about me, that Allah told shaytan to bow to Adam, it's an honor for you to me, I am here today. When Prophet Musa Allah Islam tool for your own to worship Allah He said hon como Allah I on your door the Most High. Today we are all making our lives to God the Most High. When you want this religion to submit to our does understand that this is the religion of controlling your nerves is a religion of submission to Allah. If every single aspect of your
understanding of the religion is in line with your nerves, then you are not following the religion you are following your nerves. They are going to be things in this religion that you don't like and I don't like we have to submit. Islam does not mean peace it means submission. You attain inner peace through submission. Right we must submit to Allah even when it goes against our nerves your nerves wants to do one thing Allah is telling you to do the opposite the test of life this summit Allah wa Tada i here and I will be your knifes does not want to make up a fortune. Your nerves one shortcuts when it comes to earning money. Your nerves once to enjoy this dunya to the full extent
without any restrictions. Islam came to come to us should be very very careful that when you hear an opinion of this religion, you're not rejected because it goes against what I want. never reject an opinion because it goes against what I want. If it goes against Quran, okay? It goes against sunnah, okay? If there's room for differences of opinion okay? But if you want to rejecting something from the religion because it goes against what you want, then you are following your knifes that's what it boils down to. The ask Allah for protection and guidance. We ask Allah for for, for keeping us on the straight path of keeping our steadfast Artina for dunya Hassan What will you know the hustler
working out of robbing a HUBZone I mean as watching
nama Subhana rahbek are a bit easier to me. Yes, it was salam ala Rosalina hamdulillahi rabbil Alameen Upminster