Jeffrey Lang – The Way to Islam in America Falls Church VA 259
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AI: Transcript ©
At the University of Kansas,
Brother
Lang accepted Islam in 1982,
and he is married and a father of
3 children.
He is also the author of 2
books.
The first book
is Even the Angles Asking,
and the second is Struggling to Surrender.
I would like to invite brother
Lang
to come in Shaba and talk to us.
Brother Lang will be talking to us
about
an hour, and then inshallah we'll open the
floor for questions and comments.
Is,
is Mohammed
Harath here?
Mohammed?
Is he here?
Mohammed?
I have something for
him.
Yeah. He's coming.
Assalamu Alaikum. Peace be on peace be upon
you.
No, that's okay I'll- I guess I'll stand
I- I sort of like
standing.
I'm sorry it's taking me a few minutes
to get organized here.
This Malayar Mani Rahim,
in the name of God, the merciful, the
compassionate.
This is just to let you know where
this is coming from, this is,
from the beginning of my
of a book I wrote called Even the
Angels Asked.
And it deals with,
questions and issues that
are central to
Americans in particular, but Westerners in their encounter
with religion.
What difficulties they have with religion.
I read in, the Washington
about
about some allegiance to religion.
2 thirds of people in my of my
age group
either don't believe in God at all
or undecided.
And this article
believed that that that statistic would become even
more one-sided and dramatic
with the next generation and then the next.
So I want to sort of address those
those that issue.
Well,
many
scholars of Islam both Muslim and non
Muslim
have observed that the Quran seems to have
a tremendous
power
even in this century over the lives of
Muslims.
That is that the
Quran more than almost any other community, religious
community,
I would even say
very safely more than any other religious community.
The Quran
seems to play a very intimate
role in the everyday
lives of Muslims.
They chant it in their prayers.
Many many Muslims, a huge number of Muslims,
a very large percentage read a part of
it every day.
Rather than listen to music many times or
some other t type of entertainment,
a Muslim while driving his car, sitting in
his house, or alone will turn on the
Quran,
and listen to it and get comfort from
A famous western scholar by the name of
h a r Gibb in the 19 fifties
wrote
and he was seemed to be quite surprised
by that. That in this century,
the Quran seems to have lost none of
its power
over the lives of of hearts and minds
of Muslims in this, the modern age.
And I think if he was writing in
1990, although he's passed on now, he would
have made that said said that with even
more more emphatically.
H,
Arthur Arbery, when he translated or interpreted the
Quran in English,
He was affected personally by it. He said
he was going through a very difficult time,
and that it moved him and helped him
through that very difficult time. And he said
that when he heard the Quran chanted,
in Arabic it was like listening to the
beat of his own heart.
And Frederick Denny,
from Colorado, a professor I believe at the
University of Colorado or Colorado State, I can't
remember which.
That he wrote
that even when a person like himself,
a professor of Islamic Studies, a non muslim,
studies
the Quran on an objective level, on a
research level.
There comes a time in the reading of
the Quran where you feel that you're in
the presence of this tremendous mysterious
power.
And he described that feeling as being somewhat
frightened
but also
exciting
and powerful.
And he said that
unique power of the Quran he believed
was behind the current Muslim revival
and gives Islam its permanent
resilience,
its continuous resilience and power
in the lives of Muslims.
But one aspect of the Quran that I
think is seldom studied, seldom discussed by Muslims
and non Muslims power,
scholars
is stability of the Quran to transform
people's
lives, to win converts to the religion.
I know that other religions
have stories of people that have converted to
the their religion out of contact with the
their particular scripture.
But in mus the annals of Muslim history,
these stories are prolific. They're everywhere.
And they occur again and again and again.
In modern times,
in the most recent times, I have many
many friends and I'll include myself among them
who,
just through the study of the Quran
became Muslims.
Gary Miller of Canada said he knew no
Muslims at all, he was alone, far away
in Canada, there wasn't a Muslim for miles.
You read the Quran?
Decided he had to enter this religion.
And others like Amina Silman, etcetera, etcetera. All
many many brothers and sisters will testify to
the fact that they either became Muslim or
remained Muslim
because of the Quran.
And this power of the Quran,
the power to transform, to take a disbeliever
and make him a believer, to take a
rejecter
and make him
a devotee, to take someone who is even
has a tremendous animosity to Islam,
and to win him over,
is an extremely important thing that we must
explore for two reasons.
One, because here in America we're trying to
share our
religious perceptions, our experience as authentic as authentically
and sincerely as we can with others.
And so we need to know
what is it about the Quran that reaches
others?
How can we direct that to them?
How can we relate that to others?
And second and most importantly, we have an
entire generation of children, our children, coming up,
growing up in America.
Who naturally are both American
fully
and Muslim.
Hopefully.
Hopefully.
And we find them
on the fence
forced into weighing and balancing and choosing
and believe me they will.
What Does this make sense?
How does this compare with this?
They're facing a very difficult
time in their lives where from where they
often see this choice as a choice between
one system and one totally opposed to it
and it's an extremely difficult thing for them.
And so we need to know how to
reach them as Americans,
which they are. How to relate this religion
to them in ways that they will understand.
I've had many Muslims tell me, Should I
give the Quran to a non Muslim?
And today I would like to argue the
case that yes, you should.
Because more often than not the only thing
that makes a person or Muslim or keeps
someone after that person becomes a Muslim is
the Quran.
It's the greatest power that Muslims have.
And very often we give lectures on theft,
and we give lectures on science, and we
give lectures on Islamic government, and we give
lectures on women in Islam, and we give
lectures on so many things.
But we never really share with others
the experience of the Quran.
Well,
in talking to many others like myself that
have become Muslim,
Americans,
And many of my friends that have are
either were once atheists or agnostics.
Either disbelieved in God
entirely
or were just undecided about it, decided not
to, deal with
it. Many of us in our conversations and
our reflections found that our perceptions and our
reflections intersected in many key points
along our way to conversion to Islam.
And as I visualize it in my head,
I see that these points seem to trace
out a certain characteristic
path
to Islam.
And so today,
in the next
50 minutes or so, I would like to
invite you on that path.
Just the beginnings of it.
I'd like to invite you
on a journey to Islam
in America
with special influence on how the Quran works
on the minds of someone who is not
a Muslim.
What is the dynamics of that relationship? How
does it take place?
Let me remind you of an ancient story
of a rather dramatic conversion.
I'm sure you all remember the story of
Omar.
How he converted to Islam.
It was one of the most dramatic early
conversions.
Why? Because all the previous conversions were people
that either were not
wholly antagonistic to Islam.
Many of them were
friends of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him,
loved
ones, relatives, people close to him.
People who at least trusted him.
But none that were such devout
enemies
to him and his movement as Omar.
Omar, this fierce
Meccan Aristocrat,
this fierce powerful warrior who the prophet, peace
be upon him, once joked that when Satan
saw him, he'd reverse direction and flee.
This powerful enemy of Islam one day set
out to put an end to this divisive
movement as he saw it.
And how was he gonna do that? He
was gonna put its leader to the sword.
And so on his way,
he encountered
a fellow
and asked him where he was setting out
to and I'm gonna tell him his deadly
mission.
And he said, well,
before you do that, you better put your
own house in order
because your sister
and her husband
are among his followers.
Suddenly, Omar's rage which had reached a fever
fish was now diverted to his own family
and he rushed over to his sisters of
old to see if this was in fact
true.
And he found out that it was in
for him the worst possible way because as
he moved closer and closer to the house,
he heard the chanting of what had to
be the Quran
inside by his sister
and her husband and perhaps another person but
some of the versions say there may have
been
another. And so now his rage has boiled
and he burst in upon them and he
found that they were chanting it from a
piece of charge parchment and he demanded
to see it. They refused. There was a
scuffle, blows were thrown. His sister was hit,
blood and tears dripped down her
cheeks.
Suddenly, he was moved to brotherly compassion.
And he calmed himself just a little.
And he apologized.
And everybody's nerves sort of calmed down although
it was still a tense situation.
And he asked once again if he could
see the parchment
now that his, or now that his violence
was cool.
His sister handed it to him
and he looked at the piece of parchment
and suddenly his entire countenance changed.
His eyes that were once violent and flashing
were were now withdrawn
and vacant as if he had entered another
world.
Umar, who was ready to kill,
was now totally absorbed
in himself, in the words that he was
reading.
The account say almost nothing of what happened
after
that. And from that, we could surmise that,
Omar probably very quickly excused himself or dismissed
himself
and left very deeply engrossed in thought.
And shortly after that, the account differs on
say that day or a couple days thereafter,
after, he set out once again
in the direction of Prophet Muhammad peace be
upon him.
But of course, this time not to put
him to the sword,
but to become one of his most ardent
followers
and one of the greatest leaders in the
history of Islam.
But we have to ask,
what was the chemistry of that moment?
How did that anger, that passion,
that compassion,
that rage, that sympathy when
confronted with the words before him, him? How
did that combine
to produce that convert to Islam?
Is it just a dream?
Is it story made up?
No. Because it happens too often even today.
So I would like you
to help appreciate this. I would like us
to begin that journey I spoke about, the
journey to Islam and America.
I won't be able to take you on
the whole thing. It takes would take several
hours up here, but I would least just
like to start us on that path to
give you a feel for the feelings, the
dynamics
of that relationship between the reader and the
Quran, between the rejector and that heavenly call.
And so,
I would like you to help you understand
this best and because this is the experience
that I and
my friends that have converted understand best, I
would like for you, for just for a
few minutes, for a little while, to assume
sort of the hat of the atheist.
I'd like you to try to pretend for
a little while that you are
a Western
American
born and bred person, who, for one reason
or another, has had great doubts about religion
and has come to reject the idea of
God.
Just to help you understand this dynamics.
Now most Muslims believe that an atheist is
somebody who just flippantly rejects for
very
for
very powerful, emotional, intellectual,
psychological
reasons. Having been one, I know.
So to help you understand the attitude of
the atheist, I'd like to share with you,
just for a couple of minutes, my feelings
towards atheism
before I ever encountered Islam.
Just to let you know what the emotions
behind it are. Then I will approach the
Quran
with those feelings
and see let you see and hopefully experience
to some degree
that tension, that battle between the rejecter
and the words he finds before it. Are
you with me?
Well, we go through a lots of changes
over the years, I know I have.
So for example,
right now in my life, summer is my
very favorite season.
I love its sunshine and its warmth and
its long days and long walks in the
late afternoon.
But when I was a child,
12 years old in Bridgeport, Connecticut,
it was definitely winter.
I loved
the blizzards and snowball fights, ice football, sled
riding, and ice hockey.
But most of all, winter was a time
of year that I could steal a few
hours alone every once in a while with
my father.
Because the rest of the year, my father
had to work 12 hours a day, 7
days a week at his one man refrigeration
and air conditioning business. He was self employed.
And on certain Sundays, we would take our
German shepherd for a lock walk along the
beach,
and it was always one of my favorite
times. My father always picked the most bitter
days.
Stormy days, bleak and gray and frigid.
That remind me now of those prize winning
photographs and paintings he did when he was
a young man. It was something of an
artist in my pocket,
An artistic personality.
Unfortunately, now he couldn't pursue that
goal anymore because he was engrossed in trying
to provide for a family of 5 boys.
And rather than pursue what he considered to
be those higher things, he had to pursue
a very difficult, hard, and exhausting job. And
he often came in very dirty and tired.
In some sense, broken.
On one of these walks along the beach,
we almost reached a point where we, my
father and I usually turn back. When I
looked up him, up at him and I
asked, dad,
do you do you believe in heaven?
I was only 12 years old.
I knew that I could depend on a
straight answer
with no punches pulled.
My mom, if I had asked her, would
carefully estimate the possible repercussions of what she
said. She wouldn't wanna lead me into the
direction of doubt
or distrust.
But my dad, he would answer the same
regardless of who asked.
That's just the way he was.
He wouldn't answer thoughtlessly
nor dispassionately.
He would internalize and personalize
the question,
relate it to his own experience
and answer you in a very dramatic way.
This time though, he showed no reaction,
kept on walking,
And we continued on into the cold, damp,
pounding gales that were blowing back my father's
thick graying hair
and stinging my face.
I began to wonder if he had even
heard me for it must have been a
half a mile ago when I had asked
him.
Then suddenly,
he slowed and stopped
and turned towards the shoreline.
And he looked out past Long Island
when he said almost to himself,
I could believe you in * easy enough
because there's plenty of that here on earth.
But heaven,
and he paused and he shook his head,
I can't conceive of it.
I wasn't entirely surprised.
Even at that young an age,
my father was extremely sensitive and already I
had learned and understood that life had robbed
him of his goals and his dreams.
Every night after work, he would come home
and try to numb his anger.
But more often than not, it would lead
to violent eruption of his frustrated passions.
Anguish is contagious and my father's dark and
angry and cynical view of life infected all
of his 5 boys.
After all, we were only children.
We were emotionally defenseless.
When others of my generation felt cheated by
the Kennedy Assassinations,
or Vietnam, or the Watergate conspiracy,
I was hardly even moved
because they were only confirmations
what I had already come to know of
life.
Religious types will criticize my father and they
do
for opening a door,
a door to doubt.
But if had been unlocked for some time
or I would have never asked the question
in the first place.
If anything, my father's answer
slowed my inevitable progress to atheism
because he was not an irreligious man.
The fact that he had doubts seemed entirely
natural.
How can any sane and rational mind not
have them, I thought.
But he was nonetheless a believer and he
must have had some reason.
And so, I sought very hard to understand
that reason for several years.
But whatever it was,
I never found out.
And I continued to have problems with heaven.
Because every time I thought that it was
in God's power to create such a world,
a heaven, a paradise,
I had to ask myself,
why did he create this one?
Why in other words did he not place
us permanently in heaven from the start?
With us free of the weaknesses and the
failings for which he punish us with earthly
suffering.
I came from a Christian background.
Why not simply make us angels or something
better?
Put us into heaven from the beginning.
Of course, I heard all that talk time
and time again of God's infinite sense of
justice.
But I did not choose my nature. I
did not create temptation.
I did not ask to be born, and
I didn't eat from any tree.
That's how I felt.
Did it occur to no one that the
punishment far exceeded the crime?
Generation after generation of suffering human humans
because 1 person or 2 took a bite
of an apple from a tree?
I'm just trying to share with you feelings
of an atheist, brother,
and sisters.
Even if only a symbol,
with quote unquote
mercy and quote unquote love, which they were
constantly trying to force down my throat.
Oh, how I came to despise those words.
They made me sick with revulsion. Love, mercy,
mercy, love, love, mercy, mercy, love.
Not only were we here for no good
reason,
but an infinitely innocent sacrifice,
and acceptance of a blatant and incomprehensible
contradiction
were were required
before admitting us to paradise.
The rest of
us, not lucky enough to be born into
the right creed,
or unable to suspend our reason, were just
destined to be consigned to eternal damnation. I
thought to myself, would it
not
idea
never realized.
As a mistake,
never brought into fruition.
It was all the sugarcoating,
all the love, salvation, love stuff that made
belief for me so unpalatable.
I used to conceal my disregard
behind an emotionless exterior
as I listened to constant assurances of divine
love. Like when you humor someone you feel
has lost their mind. You know how that
is? When you feel somebody is crazy and
they're talking to you, you don't wanna upset
them, you don't wanna make them nervous, and
you don't wanna hear them talk anymore. So
you just sit there with an emotionless expression
on your face.
When it was clear that I was totally
hopeless,
we would eventually return to the real issue
which was, of course, the divine threat.
But what if you are wrong? I was
always told. What if you are wrong? What
will happen to you if you are wrong
in your atheism?
As if you should believe on a hunch
in order to
hedge your bets in case this brutal
monstrous vision is a reality.
Then I used to say that if I'm
wrong,
I'll still be right.
For refusing to surrender to the irrational demands
of an infinite tyranny.
For refusing to indulge an unquenchable narcissism,
a self love that feeds on helpless pleas
and suffering. And for free refusing to accept
responsibility and repent for a great and grand
blunder that I didn't initiate.
And in the end,
I'll be an eternal victim of the greatest
injustice.
And in this way, I for will forever
represent
a higher sense of righteousness
than the one that brought me into being.
And even though that may not ease my
suffering in the eternal torture chamber, I used
to say,
at least it'll give it meaning.
A lot more meaning this life ever
held. And so that's the way I felt.
So how in God's name did you ever
become a Muslim?
Many people have asked me that question and
this is not a direct answer,
but I hope
it will
you know, if you read between the lines,
you could get some indication.
But the point again is to now adopt
that sort of attitude or at least try
to let yourself empathize with that sort of
attitude now. And you open the ground for
the first time for whatever reason, and you're
really opening it quite seriously.
I'm just checking the time.
And earnestly
and quite curiously to see what it has
to say about those great eternal questions that
have kept you from religion all these years.
And you turn to the opening Surah. Like
I said, I won't get too far maybe.
Pardon? Take your time.
So if you open the beginning Surah it
says
Bismillai Ar Rahman Ar Rahim in the name
of God Merciful, the Compassionate.
Then it says,
Praise be to God,
Lord of the worlds,
the Merciful,
the compassion.
At first, coming from a Christian background originally
and I'm not saying this to deprecate Christianity.
It help you understand.
Coming from a Christian background,
it seemed very much like a hymn of
praise, something like a psalm
in praise of God.
Praise be to God, Lord of all worlds,
the merciful, the compassionate.
In the name of God, the merciful, the
compassionate. Praise be to God, Lord of the
worlds, the merciful, the compassionate.
Quite a nice beginning really, stressing God's mercy,
compassion,
control over all.
And then suddenly,
quite unexpectedly,
the whole situation shifts.
Master of the day of requital.
Up to this point, the first three verses
that we're going along smoothly.
Then in the 4th,
3rd, we face master of the day of
requital.
Reminding us of our deepest anxieties,
of our deepest problems with religion.
Master of the day of judgment.
As we proceed to the next verse,
we get even deeper into the quiet mire.
You do we serve
and you we beseech for help.
You do we serve and you we beseech
for help. From what we say, my fellow
atheists?
From the day of requital.
But who created that day?
Here we are beseeching help and looking for
guidance
to free us from the very day that
the one who created us
us is aiming us towards,
possibly.
All our atheistic fears, all our
anxieties are being boiled right now.
It started out beautifully,
peacefully.
We would have thought, at least give us
time
to warm up to the message, at least
give us time to
relax into the message then introduce these sort
of things.
But in fact, we will find that this
Quran is no soft cell,
neither is it
a hard cell. In fact, we'll find that
is no cell at all.
This Quran is gonna turn out to be
no less than a challenge, a dare,
a struggle to fight against this calling. And
it will dare us and challenge us and
and face us
with our very problems time and time again
as we proceed through the text.
It'll constantly work this way.
Challenge us with our own objections,
confront us with them and force us to
think about them.
See it works this way time and time
again.
We move on to the 5th verse. Guide
us
on the straight path.
The path of those whom you have faith,
not those upon whom is wrath
and not those who are lost.
Notice
a slight change as we go from verse
6 and 7. The path of those whom
you have faith. And then in 7, which
is it's a very personal statement. We go
to an impersonal statement.
Not those upon whom is wrath. They very
often translate it, not those upon whom is
your wrath. It doesn't say your wrath. It
says, not those upon whom is wrath
and not those who are lost.
As if to say that to obtain the
straight path
that's conferred on those who seek guidance,
who follow that guidance,
who work to establish some relationship from God.
Those who don't,
those who reject guidance, those who do not
seek guidance, those who have no relationship with
god, upon them is wrath and upon them
is utter loss.
As atheist,
we know this loss.
We know this aimlessness.
We know this wrath of life too well.
We have lived it.
We have internalized it. We made it the
foundation of our philosophy.
We made it our
reason for object for rejecting the idea of
a personal God,
the foundation of our philosophy. But what this
verse is telling us is, seems to be
that for those who do not have God's
guidance, for those who are rejecters of the
idea of God or rejecters of having a
relationship with
God, suffering.
Life seems wrathful. Life seems Life seems suffering.
Life seems wrathful. Life seems punishing.
Life seems tormented.
And it seems utterly aimless
and full of loss.
So as atheists, you can certainly appreciate
that comment.
Now we move through the 7 verses very
quickly and almost everybody who first picks up
the Quran does.
There was a subtle shift in mood between
the first four verses that glorified God
and the last three verses
that ask for God's guidance.
More than likely, we didn't even notice this
shift when we first read the Quran. Praise
be to God, Lord of all worlds, the
merciful, the compassionate master of the day of
judgement. To you alone, we pray to you
alone, we seek help. Up to that point,
it's a divine praise.
Then show us a straight path. The path
of those who knew and favored, not those
under this wrath and utter loss.
Without us quite realizing it, there was a
shift.
Went from divine praise to a petition, a
prayer.
We probably finished the verse,
the Surah,
before we even realized that we just sent
up a prayer to heaven.
It sort of snuck up on us.
We were not quite conscious of it. We
had to go back and reread what we
just wrote, what we just went over
to realize that we had
unintentionally
set up
a petition, a prayer
to heaven.
But we're going to find as we open
the next Surah, that whether we intended or
not, whether we did it consciously or unconsciously,
whether we did it to rip deliberately or
unintentionally,
that prayer has reached its destination
and it's about to receive an answer.
And as you return to the next as
you turn to the next Surah,
you find this in a very dramatic way.
Bismalay Ar Rahmani Rahim, in the name of
God, the merciful, the compassionate,
Aleph Lam, Meem, Dalika Kitab, Lorei, Bafi, Huda,
Lil Muttakim.
Aleph, Lam, Meme, the 3 mysterious letters that
begin that Surah at 29 similar Surahs begin
with mysterious letter symbols.
I don't wanna dwell on that right now.
You're likely not to if you're reading it
for the first time.
But then it says, that is the book.
That is the book.
We're in no doubt
is guidance
for those
literally,
if you don't add anything to it, if
if you just read it as the pre
Islamic Arabs might, for those who are fearing,
for those who have fear.
Who believe in the unseen and are steadfast
and fair and spend out of what we
have given them, and who believe in that
which is revealed to you and that which
was revealed before you, and are certain of
the hereafter. These are on guidance from their
Lord, and these, they are the successful.
Notice how it begins though.
That a cookie pat. That is the book.
If I were to write this, if I
were writing a book to you,
I would say to you, this is the
book.
Why?
Because I'm a human writing to a fellow
human and I'm sharing with you a perspective.
As one human to another, we typically
sort of have in the image in your
hand, 2 people sitting side by side. We're
holding the book. I'm telling you this is
the book we're in no doubt.
But the Quran approaches us in a much
more dramatic way, in a much more powerful
way. That is the book. Which book? This
book? That book. The Quran? Yes. That book.
The Quran. That book.
That is the book. We're in no doubt
is guidance
for those
who fear, etcetera.
Showing you that number 1, that's an answer
to your prayer. Number 2, it comes from
one who does not share your perspective.
He's infinite and transcendent and all powerful.
He created
it. He doesn't share your perspective and you
could never share his.
He's telling you from afar.
That is the book
that you have there
because everything is within his possession.
Everything okay?
So that is the book We're in no
doubt, this guidance for those who have fear.
Pardon?
Oh,
alright.
Notice the emphasis put on
fear
and doubt
from the very start.
Very interesting.
Because let's face it,
we all do have doubts.
Even we have doubts, and let's be honest
and admit it, my fellow atheists.
If we didn't have doubts, we wouldn't be
making this journey.
We wouldn't be interested in discussing with people
their religious beliefs.
We do it to confirm our disbelief. We
do it to test and make sure that
our disbelief is sound.
We're taking this journey to make sure that
we are right because deep in our hearts,
there is at least a kernel, a whisper
of doubt
that we might be wrong
and it and also
a whisper of fear.
Fear
that if there is a God,
then we would be ignoring the most important
aspect of our existence.
So even though verse 3, 4, 5 don't
really apply to us so well
as we're definitely not believers.
We shouldn't exclude ourselves
from verse 2 because we do possess stuff
and we do possess fear as all people
do and the Quran seems to address that
right there and then.
If you read on verse 6 and 7,
talk about those who utterly reject guidance, those
who just don't want to be concerned, they're
not gonna open their hearts or minds to
it, they just are complete and total rejecters.
And appropriately,
Quran dismisses them in 1 verse. Verse 6
brings them in, verse 7 kicks them out.
Verse 8 through 20
then starts talking about those who are in
between,
the believers and the rejecters, those who are
not quite here or there, those who are
lost in worldly pursuits, those who are blinded
sometimes by worldly pursuit,
those who sometimes
think about these things but for the most
part ignore them. We,
as I just mentioned are probably in that
category. The Quran would put us there. We're
not utterly rejecting
in time, nowadays at least
to worldly
aims.
Verse 21 through 29 very quickly
summarizes the major themes of the Quran.
The day of judgement, the prophethood of Muhammad,
peace be upon him. Verse 26, I think,
talks about the use of symbols and a
and other things, the hereafter, etcetera.
Just like a writer of a book,
but infinitely greater,
the Quran in verses 1 through 29
describes its audience first,
who will benefit most by this message,
what are the co requisites, just like when
I write a calculus book. In order to
understand this book, you need to know this,
this, and this. These people will benefit most,
these people will benefit
least, these people are in the middle.
And then I quick then you would quickly
summarize the contents and the Quran does
very interestingly.
And then you come to verse 30 where
the Quran begins
the heart of its message,
the origins of man.
And so I would like us to begin
there.
So we come to verse 30
and it says,
behold,
your Lord said to the angels,
I'm going to place a Khalifa, is the
Arabic word. For now, I'll just say a
vice train on earth.
They said, will you place there in 1
who will spread corruption and shed blood?
Will we celebrate your praises and glorify your
holiness?
He said, truly
I know
but you do not know.
What the dramatic opening
especially for us. Remember who we are.
We are atheists.
Why don't we believe in God? Because of
all the senseless suffering in the world.
Why not pop us into heaven in the
first place? Our famous question.
And here when we read verse 30,
we look at this question the angels ask.
That's why I call the book, even the
angels ask. We look at this question and
it says, will you place her in one
who will spread corruption and shed blood?
Will we celebrate your places and glorify your
holiness?
Why are you gonna create this corrupt
creature?
This one who's gonna suffer and create suffering.
He's gonna shed blood.
Notice that Adam,
peace be upon him, hasn't even appeared on
the scene yet.
You could argue about whether he's created now
or not, but one thing is there's no
doubt about from the sequence is he's done
no wrong.
And yet, God is telling us or the
ground is telling us, I'm going to place
a vice president on earth.
This is part of my plan.
He hasn't done anything wrong yet.
Suddenly, I'm gonna put him there because I'm
gonna punish him.
He says I'm gonna place a vice president
on her. The angels ask the atheist question.
I I mean, not that they're atheists but
they ask our question.
Will you put there in one that will
shed blood and spread corruption?
While we celebrate your praises and glorify your
holiness?
Notice
the power of the question.
Think of who the question is coming from.
It's coming from the angels.
Picture in your mind,
brothers and sisters,
what your image of an angel is.
When writers write about mother Teresa in the
newspaper, they call her her an angel of
mercy.
We think of somebody perfect, kind,
compassionate,
the best of humanity.
When somebody does something very kind for us,
we say that person is such an angel.
Think of human perfection.
The gold which we aspire in substance.
When my 3 daughters are asleep at night
and they're sleeping, they're in bed so
serene and beautiful and quiet,
I say to my wife,
aren't they angels?
I had utter peace
with themselves. But look who this question is
coming from,
the angels.
Why are you gonna create this patently corrupt
being
with this great potential for destruction and suffering
and evil
when you could create us
angels.
As they explicitly say,
when we celebrate, when we, not anybody else,
when we, the angels,
celebrate your praises
and glorify your holiness.
It's also extremely important when we realize where
this question is coming from. What environment?
No less than heaven itself,
paradise.
Why not pop us into Heaven from the
start?
That's our question.
Why put mankind on earth
where he could realize
his most
base in evil intentions?
Why put him in an environment
where he could practice his most evil inclinations?
Imagine you're an atheist and you come upon
this verse and in the very mouth of
the angels is your question.
And then the answer,
truly I know,
but you do not know.
Many,
Western
scholar of Islam
has said that Quran just dismisses the question.
He says, I know what you do not.
The question is dismissed and it never deals
with it. But as we will see in
the verses that come
and throughout the Quran, it deals with this
question
little by little, piece by piece, driving us,
guiding us, showing us a direction towards an
answer.
And like I said, I won't be able
to get too far today, but I hope
I could just give you a flavor of
this encounter
of a disbeliever with the Quran.
Our initial encounter with the Quran, let me
just say this, has been
are you getting tired? I noticed some of
you are looking at your watches.
It's been a long day. Our initial encounter
with the Quran has been anything but pleasant.
It's been distressful
and irritating.
1 of 2 things is going on here.
Either this author is completely unaware of possible
philosophical problems and objections,
or else is deliberately provoking us with them.
We are mere 30
and and our
resentment has been aroused to a fever pitch.
We ask, why indeed subject man to earthly
suffering?
Why not remove us to heaven or place
us there from the first? Why must we
struggle to survive?
Why create us so vulnerable and self destructive?
Why must we suffer broken hearts and broken
dreams,
lost loves and lost youth, crises and catastrophes?
Why must we experience pains of birth and
pains of death? Why we beg in our
frustration? Why we bleed in all our sorrow
and our emptiness?
Why we insist in our anguish?
Why we scream out to the heavens? Why
we plead with the angels?
Why if you are there and you hear
us, tell us tell us please
why why create man?
But verse 31 does pick up the issue,
and it doesn't dismiss
it. And I'll just go a little bit
further,
and then I'll let this
alright.
I'll I'll tell you what I tell my
students. If you're getting exhausted, raise your hand.
But I'll probably get exhausted first.
And so we come to verse 31 which
says, and he taught Adam the names of
all things.
And then he placed them before the angels
and
Notice
that this verse, very clearly, unlike many an
orientalist,
says, is very clearly addressing the angels question.
And we taught Adam the names of all
things and we placed the things these things
before the angels and said, tell them their
names if you are right in your question.
Notice what's being emphasized here.
Adam is what? He's taught, old, unquote taught.
He's a learning creature.
You'll soon find out
of a superior nature to the other creatures
about
emphasizing his learning ability. He's taught the names
of all things.
And then he's placed them before the angels.
What is it being taught?
He's taught to be able to name,
to be able to sign verbal symbols
to his ideas, to his reflections, to his
experiences,
to his past, to his future goals, to
his hopes, to his dreams, all things.
It's emphasizing seems to be emphasizing man's unique
ability to communicate
through verbal symbols.
In another Surah, the 96th Surah, talks about
man's unique ability to do this in writing
and how this is one of the greatest
bounties God ever gave mankind.
Read the name of your Lord who created
created man out of a creature that clings.
Read for your Lord is the most powerful,
who taught man the use of the pen.
What did he teach him? Taught him what
he knew not
or for that matter could not know.
Because through verbal communication and reading and writing,
mankind could learn on a level like no
other in its midst.
So that all human learning, all human knowledge,
this unique ability of man to name and
communicate
gives all human learning a preeminent cumulative character.
And right away, we see that being emphasized
in this answer to the angel's question.
They said,
in verse 32,
glory to you.
We have no
knowledge
except what you taught us.
In truth, it is you who are knowing
the wise.
Here we see the angels
admit that they can't do the task.
Why not?
They don't have enough knowledge, number 1.
Number 2, they acknowledge that this
would require a great deal of knowledge and
wisdom that they do not possess,
that they do not have the capacity for.
God did not give them that.
They may have some knowledge, wisdom, but not
enough required to perform this task.
In the next verse, we find out
that man, Adam
can do it. He couldn't perform the task.
He said, oh, Adam,
tell them their names.
When he had told them their names, God
said to the angels, going back to their
question,
did I not did I not tell you
that I know what is unseen in the
heavens and the earth, and I know what
you reveal
and what you conceal?
Here we find that the angels are indeed
inferior to Adam in this respect.
There's respect for
knowledge, intellect,
ability to be taught,
ability to communicate on a level similar to
man,
to learn on that level.
And this is in part in part
the beginnings of an answer to the question.
But notice also it says, did I not
tell you what you reveal
and what you conceal?
What did the angels reveal in their question?
Think about it.
They reveal
the worst aspects, the worst human potential,
the very
bottom that man could descend to.
But what did their question conceal?
It concealed the reciprocal
interrelated capacity of man
to do great acts of goodness
voluntarily,
volitioning.
The question only revealed one half of the
story, it didn't reveal the complimentary ability of
man
to do great acts of good
and to learn goodness
and virtue and to grow in that.
Certainly, you could grow evil.
You could do terrible
wrong,
but with that ability
comes the related capacity.
The complimentary
capacity, and I underline the word complimentary
to grow in goodness and virtue and nearness
as we'll come to see later
to God.
Trying to rush along here. I only have
a few verses left.
And behold,
he said to the angels,
bow down to
Adam. And they bowed down.
This shows for sure
without a shadow of a doubt,
the Quran is showing that us that in
this capacity of man, man is potentially superior
even to the angelic host, potentially.
He could sink to greater depths, but he
could rise to greater heights.
But not so, Iblis.
He refused and he was proud and he
was of the rejected.
Notice,
now he end enters Iblis. And with Iblis,
the birth of temptation,
the great eternal tempter.
But it's interesting,
what is his
failing? We're just sort of going off on
a tangent for a second. What is his
failing? What is his undoing?
And it's pride.
You know, in Western thought they always say
money is at the root of all evil.
Famous saying.
But as the Quran would have it, money
is not really at the root of all
evil.
It's pride,
arrogance,
self centeredness.
That's at the.
And it's through this door
that we are often undone.
Let me see.
And we said, oh, Adam,
dwell you and your spouse in the garden
and eat freely thereof of what you wish.
But come not near this tree, or you
will be among the wrongdoers.
Thus the famous and faithful command.
Yet the tone of it seems curiously
restrained,
understated.
There's no indication at all that God is
somehow threatened by this choice of theirs.
That somehow their eating from the tree would
in any way diminish
it. As a matter of fact, the concern
of this verse doesn't seem to be about
God being worried about anything at all as
far as
his own infinite
greatness is concerned.
His concern is
with Adam and his spouse then you will
be among the wrongdoers.
So God presents
of course, Satan later says,
you could have a kingdom that detays not
and etcetera. But we find that Satan's insinuations
are totally fabricated. There's nothing to them,
according to Quran.
God is in no way threatened by this
choice.
But on the other hand,
this choice is clearly a moral choice. It's
not just a command.
God gives them a moral command, involves a
moral choices. It clearly says because then you
will be among the wrongdoers. This is a
question of why right and wrong.
The way the Quran presents it is as
if the tree is not anything really special.
The only indication that this tree is could
do anything to
to God is not gonna threaten him whatsoever.
Almost as if it was picked at random.
Go not near this this street
because if you go near, it'll be a
you'll be among the wrongdoers.
But Satan caused them to slip.
Interesting choice of words, to slip,
and
expelled them from the state in which they
were.
And we said,
go you all down.
Some of you being the enemies of others,
and on earth will be your dwelling place
and provision for a time.
Well, my
fellow atheists,
we have to admit it that once again
the Quran seems to have a penchant for
understating things.
Satan caused them to slip.
1 of the greatest
sins
of all eternity
and it's called a slip,
an unintentional
slip,
just what that Arabic
word literally means.
A sin for which all mankind will have
to experience
tremendous torture is called a slip?
And Satan caused them to slip and expelled
them from the state in which they were.
How could this be called a slip?
A slip?
A minor error?
But if we think about it, we have
to remove ourselves from our previous religious background.
Maybe we're reading into it something that really
isn't there.
As we said before, there's no indication that
our life on Earth is a punishment Yes,
indeed.
According
to the Quran, Yes
indeed, according to the Quranic.
Look at this whole picture,
it is a slip.
He didn't kill anyone. He didn't murder anyone.
He didn't kill it adultery.
As a matter of fact, we find in
the neck shortly later that God raises
Adam, peace be upon him, to the level
of one of his elect.
He has an outstanding character.
Just slipped.
The significance seems to be that man, for
the first time has made a moral choice.
And if we look at things up to
this point
and summarize what has happened, first we see
a point where a man is being taught.
We see a period of intellectual growth.
We see Now we see he's presented a
moral choice.
So so
he grows intellectually, he's being nurtured, brought along
by God and now he's presented with a
moral choice and with that moral choice
begins the next stage of his development.
A plan envisioned
and and
brought about by God's wisdom.
It doesn't really quite tell us why,
but it is just a slip. This was
definitely a moral choice and man with that
choice takes on a moral nature.
You see it in other verses that talk
about how he's now shy about his
body and how he covers himself up. He
takes on a certain sense of modesty, etcetera.
With that choice,
mankind
enters the moral phase of his development.
Now under normal circumstances,
we would know now what to expect.
We've been terrified by it ever since we
were children,
if we grew up here, for example. It
shook us from our sleep and it required
our mothers to calm our fears. And unlike
other nightmares,
this nightmare never went away when we awoke
because because it was confirmed by everyone we
trusted.
We know that there is about to be
unleashed on mankind.
A
rage,
a violence, a terror, the light of which
has never been known before, either before or
since.
Like a huge thundering black and terrifying storm
cloud looming on the horizon
and heading straight for
us, mankind is about to be engulfed in
an awesome fury.
And when that smoke clears,
man by time will find themselves sentenced what?
To life
on earth, where he and all his descendants
will suffer and struggle to survive
by their sweat and toil. They will experience
illness,
agony, and death. They will suffer endless pain
and torment, and in all probability,
more the same and even worse in the
life to come. This is what we were
taught and this is what we know. And
the woman,
to her belongs the greater punishment
and the greater humiliation.
For it was she, we were taught,
she who duped Adam with her beauty and
her charms. It was she who aligned herself
with Satan, an alliance for which Adam, of
course, was no match. It was she that
corrupted his innocence and exposed
his weaknesses. And so it was she who
will ache and bleed monthly. It'll be she
who will scream out in her labor pains.
It'll be she who will bear the brunt
of greater humiliation and drudgery because the man
will be made to rule over her. In
spite of the fact that he is apparently
her intellectual
inferior
because he gave so in so easily to
her guile and manipulation.
So we wince and we shudder as we
turn to the terror that we have always
known. We cringe and we cower as we
peak to the next verse knowing full well
what to expect. We read the words before
us.
Then Adam
received words
from his Lord,
and he turned to him
in mercy.
Truly is off returning
the merciful.
What is this?
What is this talk of mercy and turning
compassionately towards man?
Where's the passion, the jealousy,
the anger we've always known,
erupting out of control?
In this verse,
and those that follows,
and others like it in the Quran which
relate the same episode,
the tone is first and foremost
consoling
and assuring.
God immediately pardons Adam and Eve.
And then he gives him promises
and revelation,
and tells him he has nothing to fear.
He just follows that.
Seeks that guidance and follows that. It's assuring
and consoling.
Our minds are swimming in confusion now. Now
wait a minute.
God immediately
turns to them kindly and mercifully and gently
and forgives them. Okay, pop them back into
heaven.
No, wait, we're thinking like we used to
think in the old.
Life is not a punishment.
It doesn't pop them back into heaven because
apparently life isn't a punishment punishment. It serves
another purpose.
The next verse
supports that viewpoint.
Well, there are others, oh, well, in any
case, so look what the next verse said.
He said, go down from the state all
of you together.
It repeats the same thing again,
but here again it emphasizes
it emphasizes
the way that God consoles that, reaches out,
assures
it. Go down all of you together so
we'll make no mistake about it that this
is not a punishment.
And truly, there will come to you guidance
for me. And whoever follows my guidance, no
fear shall come upon them nor shall they
grieve.
Very consoling, very reassuring.
But of course, life has definite consequences. It
has to be taken seriously.
This is no game. There's serious consequences on
the individual. How he lives that life will
determine what he is
on the day of
judgement. The choices that he makes,
the decisions that he makes will affect the
very what he will become.
And so we're told that those who are
rejections and give the lie to our signs,
these are the companions of the fire. They
will abide in
it. So this is the pattern that will
develop in the Quran.
Reassuring,
always giving hope, always giving ensuring, assuring, always
reaching out. Similarly,
always telling you that this has great consequences
and this is no gain. This is
serious. How you live your life determine how
you will be raised.
The story of Adam ends here, and I'm
gonna end here,
to be taken up in bits and pieces
later.
And I hope I've given you some sort
of flavor for the sort of dynamics that
takes place between
someone who rejects this message
and how this message confronts
very powerfully, even from the very beginning.
Many questions and problems have been raised, and
I know I haven't had time to address
them. But we have obtained some clues and
clarifications. Let me just state a few of
them quickly
and then I'll
introduce
the
questions.
This is another characteristic of the Quran. It'll
raise problems,
topics,
rather than describe to give you a a
100 page
thesis on theology.
It interweaves themes throughout the text. I'm sure
all you know
that. In this way, the grand beats the
reader. It lures him or her into its
design so that its different approaches are allowed
to frequently and repeatedly
exert their influence.
Although the picture is still far from clear,
some definite themes have emerged
which invite further reflection and elaboration.
The most striking fact we observed is that
the Quran does not maintain that life on
earth is a punishment.
Long before Adam and Eve enter the story,
the angels raised a troublesome question,
why create
man? A series of verses start to supply
pieces of an answer.
Man has a relatively higher intelligence than other
creatures. His nature is more complex,
and he has a greater degree of personal
freedom, so that he has not only the
potential for growth in evil,
but reciprocally,
there's the potential for growth in virtue. We
witness a period of preparation
where man learns to use his intellectual gifts.
Adam, somewhat innocuously,
although from the standpoint of their development,
makes a critical moral choice.
They slip,
it's a slip, and enter a moral phase
in their existence. It is symbolized in other
chronic passages that have the couple now conscious
of sexual morality
and modesty.
Thus, they depart from a state of ignorance,
but innocence
and bliss. Ignorance is bliss.
Man's higher intellect, freedom of choice, his growth
potential will inevitably involve him in conflict and
travail. The last of these being the focus
of the angels question.
And as we proceed along on this journey,
although this is as far as we're gonna
get today,
wish I had more time, the Koran will
repeat will repeatedly stress these three features of
the human venture,
reasoning,
choice, and adversity.
Unfortunately,
my time only permits me to to go
this far, but I hope you get some
feel for the dynamics, the dialogue, the power
of the scripture
in dealing with somebody who rejects it. And
may the peace and mercy of God be
upon you all.
Thank you.
We would like to thank our brother,
thanking him very much, and we ask Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala that we reward him. Our
brother took us in a journey
in the heart and the mind
of the individual who is seeking the guidance
from Allah
May Allah guide all humanity insha'Allah
to the truth and to the to Islam
inshallah. Now we'll open the floor for questions
and comments.
You can come to the microphone
and ask the questions and the sisters can
bring their papers,
to us.
Yeah. We'll start with a question from the
sisters to hide
You don't have to ask the question.
Nobody asked that question.
Okay. Will you
Brother Lang, I just want
to make a statement.
My son is a student at the United
States Marsh Marine Academy.
And he's about to graduate.
And he gets a whole page in the
yearbook.
And
he,
like, had a chance to make a statement.
And we pondered on it and everything as
to what he could say to really make
a difference because he does a lot of,
and he's a very good pious listener.
So we came up with thousands of ideas
as to what could he say in that
page that would make a difference.
And you know, and you
I just he was home the other day,
and I asked him, I said, son, what
did you decide to put in there? And
he said,
I just wrote, read the Quran.
And I was like,
first my first thought was, is that all
you said?
You know? I mean you had a chance
to make a statement to future generations that
will look back.
And then
I've been it's been on my mind, and
I keep thinking about it. And and as
I think about it, I it makes more
and more sense.
And today when you started your speech,
it hit me like a ton.
You know, the
Read the Quran?
Thank you.
You really want to know about Islam
Read the Quran.
I I tell them the same thing,
you know
because I mean, let's face it Islam
is not a so much it's not just
a religion, we say it all the time.
But it's submission,
you know, it's surrender.
It's a personal
venture.
And if you want someone to experience that
venture, I wouldn't tell them that Islam has
all these rules and regulations in this big
huge system.
Let them
have that personal experience.
And so,
I would definitely agree with you. Let me
just share with you one story. I mentioned
how an atheist reacts to the Quran
but
that doesn't mean that the only people I
would suggest handing this to was an atheist.
I remember one sister
who was a very is a very sincere
Muslim lady,
and she became a Muslim
about a year and a half after I
did.
And,
she and her husband both converted and they
came to my house. They're now divorced though.
They came to my house and they wanted
to discuss some marital problems they were having.
I won't mention their name or the marital
problems.
But it had to do with his well,
it had to do with his seemingly lack
of commitment to the religion, and she was
quite concerned.
So in any case,
we got into a discussion
and she said at one point, she said,
you know, what always appealed to me in
the Quran,
what always reached
me was the tremendous
mercy of the Quran, the tremendous
beauty, the tremendous
kindness.
When I read the Quran all I see
is God's mercy and kindness and compassion reaching
out to my heart and grasping.
And her husband said,
now he was living sort of,
he wasn't quite living up to the demands
of the religion, He was sort of womanizing
and still drinking and things like that.
But and I'm not just saying that to
put him down only to give some background
to his answer. He said, when I read
the Quran,
all I see is chastising it and threats
and
anger and criticism.
I didn't know what to say. I started
taking that. I didn't wanna say, Well you're
wrong and she's right. And then she looked
at me and then at him and said,
looking directly at him said, well maybe at
this point that's what you need to hear.
And I thought that was a beautiful response
because it seems that if you talk to
the various converts to Islam,
they all sort of followed a similar path
but what actually reached them and their personality
were was distinctly different.
But that's the beauty of the Quran and
why I'm supporting what you said is because
we try to strategize, come up with a
strategy for dealing with non Muslims.
But the Quran seems to be able to
reach these people's hearts regardless of their their
differences. I think it's I agree with
you.
Now question from the
Alaykum.
You ask us in the beginning of your
presentation
to
meditate Al Quran.
And, I would like to
I would like you to,
explain
how do you understand Al Quran linguistically?
You approach
it probably philosophically, but how do you understand
it linguistically? We say it in Arabic for
example,
and Ajayzalawy the linguistic miracles of Quran. So
how do you understand
these issues?
I'm not a linguist, and I'm definitely not
a man, a linguist specializing in Arabic.
I'll just say that when I studied the
Quran,
this is sort of related,
and I could read the Quran with the
help of, lexicons.
But basically what I do is when
I go through the Quran and and verses
catch my attention and seem to be
especially meeting my
especially capture my attention at any point,
what I do is I I get out
all my
resources,
my Arabic my resources in the Arabic language,
And I get them out and I go
through the words 1 by 1
and go back to the grammar that I've
learned
and try to get that meaning as, in
some sense, primitively as possible,
or purely as possible. I tried to,
I try as best as I can, and
this is extremely difficult to experience that verse
as if I was a person living in
7th century Arabia and hearing it for the
first time.
Because if you go to interpretations
of the Quran,
those interpretations are exactly that, those English renditions.
It's a particular person's reading of the text
being
given to you.
But I find that the more you understand
what those words meant to the people who
first heard them
without their later embellishments,
the the more those verses seem to be
able to address your situation,
the more power they seem to have. So
I so I hope that,
partly answers your question.
We have the the second question here from
my sister. How would you suggest a Muslim
give dawah to an atheist?
Well, first of all,
I would very much suggest that you do
not go after them.
You let them come after you.
Atheists don't like I mean, having been one.
And I think I was somewhat
especially in America
where the
You know, especially in America where there's such
fear of religion, period.
Especially among my generation.
You would anybody used to come up to
me and say, oh, can I grab a
few minutes of your time to tell you
that I immediately shut the door on that
person? I just wanted to have nothing to
do with. I wanted to do the asking,
you do the answer. I wanted to do
the exploring,
you help me out but don't try to
sell me a bag of goods.
What generally
Muslims kind of stand out, Oh, what do
you guys believe about
this?
And Muslims kind of stand
out, Oh, what do you guys believe about
this?
The typical mistake Muslims make is they over
answer the question.
And I remember asking people,
oh, what do you believe about,
original sin or do you have any similar
concept?
Then he would say, no, not really. We
believe each person
has to pay for his own deeds, suffers
their consequences positively or negatively.
But you should understand that we don't prosecute
women. You know, I never asked.
I never said you did, I never said
you didn't. I don't care if you do.
Right now, I wanna know about this question.
You know, and then the person would There
are so many times I'd be seized by
a missionary, Muslim or Christian or whatever.
And I'd ask them a question and they
would spend 20 minutes excuse me, a long
speech about the religion.
Telling me all my misconceptions about
it. Which by the way, 90% of them
I didn't have.
It's a very
wrong method. I think especially in America, you
will have plenty of opportunity to express
your point of view and you should be
ready to do that intelligibly in a way
that Americans can relate
to. But stop
chasing after people,
you know, it's really irritating,
you know.
Even
I mean, I I still, you know, you
all you always meet Muslims who, to this
day want to
impose their particular interpretation of Islam on you,
will not give up till you accept
100% their way of thinking.
Oh my God. I mean, that's just so
painful to put up with really, you know,
just
I I really wish people wouldn't do that.
It says, you said that you encourage giving
the Quran to a non Muslim
when it is said,
couldn't be touched unless,
by those who are
clean and pure.
It would be better to give the English
version
or translation of the Quran.
I think, what the brother meant is giving
the
translation of the meaning of the Quran because
the non, especially,
most of the people here do not speak
Arabic, do not know Arabic. Yeah. So it
it wouldn't serve any purpose to give them
the Quran in Arabic Quran,
to read. He means giving them
the translation of the meaning of the Quran.
Isn't that true, brother, about you? Yeah. In
America, I don't think anybody would be able
most people you give the Quran to would
be able to read Arabic. Yeah.
Yeah. Right. But,
but,
yeah. I don't know. There's some good, some
very good interpretations out there. You should be,
I mean, and they're not perfect as I
said.
Yusuf Ali's interpretation, Mohammed Assad's, in particular, Mohammed
Ali's, have gotten a lot of criticism.
Some people say it's too
ambiguous at places. It's not clear what they're
trying to say.
You have to realize that when you're dealing
with a Western audience or Western mentality, things
are not always so clear.
They prefer to be sort of ambiguous when
they are not sure of things.
I find that these three interpretations,
and their interpretations
seem to be appeal to a Western mind
most.
And I've I really am sort of disenchanted
by the fact or disappointed by the fact
that some people are are really sort of
giving these
3
interpreters a lot of flack these days.
Frankly, I found that for myself,
sure, every Western reader knows they're not perfect,
they know their interpretations, but these 3 seem
to I could relate to these much easier
than say
the very nice,
interpretation done by,
a group of scholars recently from Saudi Arabia
for example.
Because the mentality
of somebody like Mohammed Assad,
Yusuf Ali is closer to my own. I
can relate easier to them.
But the Saudi scholars, as much as their
English is perfect, have a very difficult time
to communicate there's there's a lack of communication.
I have really
I know there is a time for the
time, but I have really many questions.
I have several questions but I'm gonna inshallah,
delay these questions for later on. I'll probably
ask it with you. But the main question
here,
I have a little confusing,
as far as when you start to attach
to the 1st Surah
and the 2nd Surah.
I found
where there is disappearing
of the
Jewish and the Christian,
where there is atheists
substitute
their position
more than
That's what I observed in the beginning.
What I'm trying to say is say there
is substitution
for the Jewish and Christian by idiot.
Taking that position. I probably misunderstood
some, but this is the main things.
Talking about Jews and Christians in Arabia at
that time and
and that
the,
I
was reading them as if they were talking
to an atheist.
No. What I'm saying he said when they
lost
all these with Allah angry with, and then
he said in Surat Al Baqarah
where even these,
these 2,
the meaning where go related to
the Jewish and Christian model is is, where
I have a lot of difference between 2.
I I think I sort of get your
gist. You know, many people, for example, assume
that where it says,
those,
you know, those upon whom is wrath,
they assume that's the Jewish community.
And when it says those who are lost,
they assume that's the Christians.
That is an interpretation, for example, Atevedi gave
it that interpretation.
Few others have, others haven't.
Not all the scholars agree upon that.
Frankly, I don't have a difficulty with either
point of view.
You have to remember that the Quran was
revealed through a particular
religious community.
And that just like that woman I just
mentioned, this is just an answer, this is
not a dogmatic position,
just like that woman
I just mentioned, the ground was revealed through
to and in some sense through a particular
religious
community. Not a religious community, a particular
community.
How they understood those verses
might be quite different from how I relate
to them in the 20th century.
But the Quran doesn't specifically say that those
are Jews and those are Christians.
It it sort of
relates those verses with a certain
generality.
Because we as Muslims believe that the Quran
is a revelation for all times and all
places.
So just as the people in Prophet Muhammad's
time be upon us,
those verses had definite meaning and import to
them and they understand it in a very
immediate
way. Especially when you consider the occasions of
revelation.
The when you study the occasions of revelation.
But that doesn't mean that those verses were
limited to that
occasion.
In the 20th centuries, we could still approach
those verses and get meaning from it in
our current lives.
So that's that's what I was trying to
say. That I understand
that, you know, there are verses in the
Quran that,
do refer to Jews and Christians explicitly. There
are other verses that don't.
And when we read those, we could learn
quite a bit about it, about our own
lives. You know, we could we should not
deprive ourselves
of hearing the heavenly voice. We should not
deprive ourselves of relating to this revelation
personally.
That's what I was trying to say.
Sorry about that. We could discuss it later.
Brother, learn
and we will have azan for salatul dua,
and we will move to the, Musalla inshallah
to have our salah and then we'll be,
lunch break.
Okay. Just one more, please. One moment.
The food will be distributed
for the brothers
here in the cafeteria for the sisters in
that room there. And
inshallah, the weather is very good. It's outside,
then you can carry your lunch and have
it outside inshallah.
There is no eating. We'll be here in
that corner the most.