Jeffrey Lang – The Way to Islam in America Pt 01 The Questions
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AI: Transcript ©
And, as we mentioned
at the last session,
this session, we will start with a series
of session. It will be,
Dear brothers and sisters, it's a privilege and
honor for me to introduce this lecture,
which is a part of
3
lectures.
Doctor Jeffrey Lang, as, Doctor
mentioned, is a professor at the University of
Kansas.
He teaches math,
but his
second interest after mathematics, I understand, is reading
and
reading on Islam and Islamic material.
He covered a lot of,
reading
and good homework that he finished.
That this homework, every day I understand,
comes walk into my office, so she's about,
45 minutes walking.
And I asked him to give him a
ride. He always says, no.
He wanna walk.
He,
finished
a book
titled,
Struggling to Surrender, and it will be on
the market shortly in.
And the second book
is on its way.
And, the lectures that we have,
today and tomorrow, Insha'Allah,
are parts of his
second book which is titled
he wrote other books, of course, in math
and, but, in Islamic material,
this is his second book, which is titled
The Way to Islam in America.
We will deal with it in 3 parts.
The first part
deals with the questions.
And by the questions, we mean the questions
that
come to the mind of all the Muslims
who come over here. The questions will stop
people from being religious,
from coming to commit themselves to Islam. What
are these questions? How they come to their
minds, and,
and then towards the end of the, first
part, part 1 of today,
he is going to,
discuss briefly
the introduction
to Islamic response to this.
And tomorrow, insha'Allah, he's going to talk about
the second part,
how the Quran answers these questions,
and how the Quran deals nicely
in given the the answer to those
questions that come to,
their mind, especially his mind when he was
an atheist and he converted to Islam, and
how Islam or the Quran did the reaction
and inter interaction
that made him made the decision,
which will bring us to part 3, which
is the decision.
The process of making the decision, how it's
being made,
how this birth of a new Muslim is
being made, the difficulties
that he or she or she may face,
and how he or she would be able
to overcome
these difficulties. This is part 3.
So in today's part,
expect that you will see a lot of
of things that may confuse you.
Expect to see to be talking about questions,
problems.
So please, I ask you from the beginning
to be patient.
When you gave this this picture
in Lawrence, a lot of the, brothers,
showed some
unhappiness with with that. Of course, they didn't
hear the rest of the,
lecture, which is happening also today because the
rest will come tomorrow.
So please be patient until you hear
all the parts together.
And if you have, any questions, I interfere
because I,
I know how to interfere.
So I, ask your apology if I I
mean, I ask your forgiveness if my interference
sometimes,
may
seem,
not in in place.
I kindly ask doctor Jeffrey to, make his
presentation.
I'm
a little nervous.
One correction, though.
It's a technical point. The title of my
second book
is, planning on making it,
even the angels asked.
It's about reflections
on Islam and the purpose of life.
One of the great novels written in this
century
is
is the novel by William Somerset Maugham
entitled A Human Bondage.
It's a very powerful
novel. And when I read it, just reread
it a couple of weeks ago,
reminds me so much of my own life,
my
twenties and early thirties.
And in that novel, there is a scene
where the main character Philip
asks an artist friend of his,
what is the meaning and purpose of life?
And his friend tells him,
you see that Persian rug over there?
Points to an oriental rug.
He says, if you study that rug long
enough,
study the intricate patterns and design,
you'll come to know the answer to that
question.
So Philip says, no. Just tell me the
answer, and I'll go back and study the
rug. He says, no. That's you have to
find that answer yourself. It's no good unless
you find it yourself.
Well, Philip's life over the years gets more
and more tragic,
one more crisis after another,
until finally he hits rock bottom. He's destitute,
poor,
and his life is filled with tragedy.
Then one day as he's walking along, he
pictures the Persian rug in his mind,
and he's contemplating it as he walks along,
and then he suddenly realizes
that his friend was right.
It dawns on him that his friend was
correct. The answer to what is the meaning
and purpose of life is contained
in the Persian rug
because he comes to realize
this is his realization.
He comes to see that light,
like the many patterns in the Persian rug,
it's intricate, it's complex,
it's often beautiful,
but in the end,
it's utterly
and totally meaningless.
This is what he arrives at.
This was indeed a very Western
novel and a very Western point of view,
a European
point of view, so to speak.
This idea about what is the meaning and
purpose of life,
why are we here,
why didn't God just put us into heaven
in the first place,
How could a just God put us in
such a suffering environment
when we haven't even done anything yet as
individuals?
How he could do this, these questions have
dominated western thought
for over 2000 years.
If you go to a university library on
almost any campus in this country and you
pick up at random a book on philosophy
or theology
or logic
or psychology,
if you pick up most novels that have
character studies,
you'll see this question asked in one form
or another again and again and again. It's
probably the most significant significant and important question
that western man has ever faced,
European man. And it has informed his culture,
his politics,
his society, the way he looks at life,
the way he looks at all religions, the
way he looks at pluralism, the way he
looks at religion and politics,
and on and on and on.
It's perhaps the most important vital question
in European civilization,
and I would include America in that.
A
famous,
professor of psychology and religion by the name
of CG Young
wrote that he finds that in his patients
that this is the biggest crisis they seem
to face in one form or another. The
vast majority of them are facing a crisis
of meaning.
Their life has no meaning. And they cannot
reconcile that
with
their religion. In other words, they see a
conflict between what their mind tells them rationally
and their religion tells them, whatever that religion
might be,
religiously or dogmatically.
And they can't resolve the conflict, and he
says it creates a tremendous,
deep tension, a tremendous
fission in the person's personality.
And many psychologists
and psychiatrists have echoed that, and sociologists as
well.
Victor Frankl,
famous
psychiatrist who was at Auschwitz,
he also mentioned the very same thing. That
the biggest crisis facing human beings today is
a crisis of meaning. He said especially in
America
because there's no traditions in America or very
little.
And so people have nothing to take root
in,
and so they feel lost and empty and
they can't find reason in their existence.
Another writer I came across just the other
day, he said no religion
that is in America or comes to America
could hope to gain true influence over western
society again, European society as well,
unless it could reconcile faith and reason. Unless
it could not only be compelling from a
spiritual level but could be compelling from a
rational level too.
Well, in any case, in the last
20 or 30 years or so,
we have
the Muslim enters the scene
largely through immigration, the last 30 years have
seen a tremendous influx of Muslims coming to
the United States and Europe.
Also, there's been a considerable conversion among black
Americans
to Islam.
And there's been a trickle among the white
Americans as well, those of European heritage.
The Muslim enters the scene and enters this
dialogue.
Here's a typical scenario.
The Muslim walks up to an American, says,
and
he feels he wants to make a contribution.
And he says, you know, when I consider
religions in America,
I just don't see where they make any
sense.
And then the American,
especially if he's university trained or so
or well read, he's likely to say, frankly,
I I don't think any religion made sense.
Startles the Muslims. He expects him to defend
religion or defend his own belief, the American
but feels no need to. He feels that
all religions are essentially
senseless in some sense,
somewhat irrational.
The Muslim says, no.
My religion makes sense.
The American comes back and he says,
well,
could I ask you a few questions? The
Muslim says, sure.
He says, well, tell me, what is the
meaning and purpose of life?
Why are we here?
Why didn't God just pop us into heaven
in the first place?
Why would a perfect God create an imperfect
world?
If he could create heaven, which is perfection,
why would he also create something imperfect?
If he could create angels, which are perfect,
why does he create humans,
which are imperfect?
If he loves us, why does he expose
us to terrible
torment and suffering?
Oftentimes,
inexplicably.
The Muslim thinks
he tries to draw back on his memory
all the things he was taught since a
child. All those things that were universally accepted
in his culture.
Suddenly,
explanations that he was given and everyone understood
and everyone agreed upon
come immediately to his mind.
And the first thing he says is,
God created us and put us on this
earth to test us.
And so the American asks,
oh, so you believe that God is sort
of imperfect in his knowledge? He doesn't have
full knowledge of all things?
He must have said, no. No. He knows
everything.
Then he says, well, what's he gonna learn
by testing us?
Why does he need to test us?
Suddenly, he feels,
that explanation didn't work. Let me try something
else. And he reaches back into his memory
again, and he comes up, no. No.
He put us here because he wants us
to worship him.
And the American says, Oh.
So you feel that God has certain character
flaws,
certain weaknesses, certain needs,
psychological needs?
And Muslim says, no. Not at all. I
I don't think that. God has no needs.
He said, well, if God has no needs,
what does he need your worship for?
If I, as a human, demanded your worship,
you'd say I have some sort of
pathological problem, a character flaw,
a terrible weakness, tyrants that that demand our
worship.
So you so so what's going on?
It must have goes back to his mind
again. Now his head is swimming.
It's looking darting through his mind trying to
think of the explanation. He'll do the trick.
He finally says, no. No. I know it.
Adam said,
he was sent to Earth and we've descended
from it.
We sent to earth as a punishment.
And the Muslim says, oh, well. I mean,
the American says, oh, well. Then you believe
God is unjust.
He said, no. No. God is perfectly just.
Well, he said, why do you okay. I
could understand punishing Adam, sending to the Earth,
but why punish all his descendants as well?
Give them a chance.
If they sinned, send them to Earth. If
they don't, leave them in heaven. You
You know? Why punish all of them when
they haven't even done anything yet?
Do you guys believe in original sin?
No. No. We don't.
Then what's going on here?
Suddenly, he comes away confused.
He doesn't know he or she doesn't know
exactly what will work, what explanation to
give.
Will this mean that he'll suddenly he or
she will suddenly leave the faith?
Chances aren't up.
I think the vast majority of Muslims, and
many Muslims do, confront this conversation
sooner or later.
No, they're not going to leave their faith.
Why not?
Well, the reason is is that the majority
of Muslims right now living in America
came from Muslim environments.
Environments where the vast majority of people were
Muslims.
And in that environment,
that environment provided them with the atmosphere where
they could grow
and practice
and believe in this religion and follow it
and practice it and work at it. And
slowly but surely, they found as they got
older that indeed
they started to have a tremendous, beautiful, powerful
experience of peace,
of transcendence,
of God's near
ness. Maybe they experienced
miracles.
Maybe they had awe inspiring experiences,
utterly beautiful experiences.
They had time for that faith to root
and grow
to now all these sort of rational arguments
really don't matter because the experience of faith
they had
is so great, so powerful, so real
that it's as real as anything else. And
it's proof for them of its truth.
And so, no, these rational arguments, they just
may be unprepared, but they're not likely to
leave the religion.
That doesn't mean some won't.
There are considerable number of Salman Rushdis.
Salman Rushdis says in his autobiography that he
came to England a very religious young man.
But when he encountered rational thought, when he
encountered
Western critical thought, and it was applied to
religion, he came to doubt
his religious roots,
and he came to disbelieve in the religion.
And indeed, at my own university, when I'm
teaching where I'm teaching, and I don't say
this as a criticism or a judgment,
but there are several Muslim professors or professors
with Muslim names on the campus right now.
And I'd have to say that those that
I know personally
have completely disavowed any connection to Islam.
They'll just say, I'm not a Muslim. I
wasn't Muslim. I'm not Muslim now.
And I've heard that the others,
the 2 or 3 that I don't know
personally, either distance themselves from the religion,
say, well, I'm not I'm not really religious.
Or just say, all religions are the same.
But none of them participate in the Muslim
community at at all.
And I found this on college campus, after
college campus, after college campus. So there are
some that might be affected by this
encounter.
What about the convert?
I was reading a study by
a member of this ISNA the other the
other day, a former member, who said that
at one stage, ISNA was very concerned by
the high rate of apostasy among among congress.
I thought, is there a high rate of
apostasy among congress?
And then I thought, yes. Most of my
friends that became Muslims in America left.
It's a fact. It's a bitter fact, but
it's true.
How many survived?
Especially among the so called those that have
European heritage? How many survive?
From my own experience, they told me that
for every one that survives, several don't.
Why?
Well, the convert situation is very different than
that of the
person who grows in a Muslim culture, where
it's the uni religion is universally accepted. From
the day 1 he converts,
he's in an environment where the religion is
not accepted, where it's criticized,
where it's picked apart, where it's rationalized, where
it's attacked,
where where where he tries to practice that
religion, he finds barrier after barrier barrier after
barrier.
For many of them, they never even get
whatever their initial experience is, they find that
it's very difficult to get that faith to
root, to grow, to get it into the
soil.
And so many of them, their faith quickly
gets uprooted.
Whatever that initial experience was, it was not
enough
to help them hold on to their faith.
Is Islam gonna survive in America,
and is it truly gonna survive here?
Here? Well, that question isn't about immigrants, and
that question is not about converts.
That's a question about children.
See, I mean, it's one thing to talk
about
what's gonna happen to the immigrant, what's gonna
happen to the convert. But the far more
important issue for the future of Islam in
America is what's gonna happen to the children.
Because their experience is not like the converts,
and their experience is not like the immigrants.
It's completely different.
And will their fate survive?
Well, it's hard to say because
on the one hand,
we see the immigrant, his faith is strong
because of his experience of the faith.
For the convert, some of them have very
strong faith, but some of them commit apostasy
because their experience, whatever it was, was inadequate.
Well, what about the children?
Well,
regardless of how good a father I am,
I cannot pass my experience
onto my child.
Experience is something individual and personal. I can't
take my experience and make that child experience
exactly the same thing. I could tell him
about it or her about it, I could
explain it to them, But no matter how
good I am at explaining it, they will
never relive it. Not like I did. See,
the problem is that faith
something personal and individual.
I could give you a proof or give
you a logical argument.
And regardless of where you're from, if you
understand everything I said, you could appreciate it
in the same level that I did
because it's rational,
something universal.
But an experience
is not.
I can't tell you about my experience and
you've just grasped it fully.
And this is the big problem.
We expect our children to pick up this
religion by virtue of our experience.
We expect them to just sort of get
it by osmosis or inheritance.
When faith comes down to experience,
when it becomes individual, when it becomes personal,
then Islam or any religion, they all become
the same.
The Christians will tell
you that if you want to believe in
Christianity, you have to experience it.
The Buddha the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Krishna,
the Muslims, they all I mean,
if it all comes down to experience, then
for all practical purposes,
all religions
in America are essentially the same.
They're a matter of experience.
If you can't
make a rational case for your religion,
if
as CG Young said, if you can't make
that religion compelling on the spiritual
and the rational level,
then religion becomes essentially spiritual,
personal, individual, and a matter of personal choice.
And
all religions are essentially the same.
And once that happens
and you're an American child
and you see all religions as essentially the
same,
my own daughter came to me with that
type of question. She said to me and
a brother just told me that his daughter
came to me with the very same question
today. Daddy, how do we know that our
religion is true over the others? Don't other
people think their religions are true?
She's only 7 years old.
But already, she has adopted a western approach
towards religion.
Her approach to religion is very rational.
My 6 year old daughter, Sarah said to
me,
daddy, why didn't God just put it in
the heaven to start with?
See, when they watch Nickelodeon
or they watch TV or they're taught in
school,
these question these questions are so interwoven.
This approach is so interwoven in the culture,
they adopt it.
Why? Because they're American.
They think
like Americans.
They see the world
as Americans.
They approach religion
as Americans.
They say it takes
2 generations
before an immigrant family becomes completely assimilated in
American culture.
2 generations.
I was reading a very disturbing statistic several
years ago.
It was by one of the Islamic magazines
in America. It It said 90%
of children born to Muslim parents
but who were born in America
who have reached the age of 20 or
above
either
do not believe in God at all
or see all religions as essentially the same.
90%.
I was astounded.
90%.
If you polled Catholics,
you might find that number 30
percent. You know, if you polled Jews, maybe
60,
but 90?
90? That seems like an astronomical figure.
Could it be that high? I wanted to
know exactly how the study was done. I
couldn't believe it. I wanted to see how
scientific it was,
but I never got to find out. But
I heard the same thing quoted at the
last ISNA meeting.
Virtually the same statistic.
Now, I don't know if this is just
an emotional response or this is a scientific
study, but indeed,
it does show that there's a certain alarm.
There's a certain perception
that many children born to Muslim
parents in America are by the age of
20. By the time they get to college,
by the time they are open to all
sorts of new questions,
all sorts of critical methods, all sorts of
methods of doubt, all sorts of self critical
methods, they're coming to doubt
the truth of their religion.
If religion
is a matter of experience,
if it becomes something personal, if it becomes
something of choice,
how many Muslim children do you think
if if Islam just becomes for them another
option, will hold on to this religion?
Think about it.
Of all the religions in America, it's the
hardest one to practice here.
It's the most demanding.
Many of its practices go against these cultural
flow of this society.
If you add to that that the majority
of people here are not Muslims,
don't really appreciate Islam, and of all the
religions
in this country,
Islam is by far the most despised.
Are we so surprised
at statistics like 90%?
Are we so surprised?
Why should our children be any different than
a Hindu, Buddhist,
Krishna,
Taoist
children who have come to America and have
left their religion and probably adopted no religion
whatsoever. Just sort of an agnostic point of
view. Why should we be so surprised? Do
our children have different genes?
Why should we be so surprised?
Unless
we could relate our religion
to those children
in a way that is compelling
rationally, that is relevant to their way of
thinking, and that is spiritually powerful. If we
could do that,
then there's hope. If we can't do that,
then it really doesn't matter. I don't think
there's gonna be much hope.
We could talk about all the other issues
that concern us, men and women's roles in
Islam,
science and the Quran, etcetera, etcetera.
Islam and politics,
interest system and etcetera. All that'll mean nothing
if we don't come to terms,
if we don't come to terms with our
children. If we can't relate our religion to
them in a way that they could understand.
Because this is the great failure of all
religions in the Western hemisphere.
A 1000 years ago, when Christianity was preached
to the masses in Europe, those masses were
99%
illiterate.
And what was preached to them made sense
to them. It was
it worked.
But those same descendants of those same people,
a 1000 years later, those same explanations no
longer work.
And religion has been put on a shelf
for most Americans.
Back on the shelf.
Even most people that go to church
at the University of Kansas, the professors that
do, have grave doubts about whether their religion
is true or not.
But they feel it's a good moral system,
the children will learn.
When did I start thinking about this problem?
I started thinking about this problem
8 years ago.
I had been a Muslim for 3 years
and something very dramatic happened.
Part of the time, 3 years Yeah. I
had been a Muslim for 3 years at
that time. I'm a Muslim for 11 years
now.
And something very dramatic happened. We were sitting
in the masjid one night after the Isha
prayer like we always do,
myself and about 15 other guys.
And the leader of our masjid,
the elder. Communities were still very young in
those days. The elder was about 38 years
old. Maybe no, he was about 40.
But the eldest member of our community,
Mohammed, he was from Algeria,
turned to us after the prayer and we
sat in a circle and we were talking.
And then suddenly somebody
asked him, Mohammed,
how old is your boy?
He knew we were referring to his oldest
son. He had the oldest child in our
tiny community.
San Francisco has maybe 15, 20000 Muslims in
the Bay area, but we had a little
Masjid and Mohammed had the oldest child. We
were very proud of his child
because he was farthest along. The rest of
us were just starting families.
And he said,
he became 16 today.
So he said, yeah, Mohammed, congratulations.
We're all celebrating
and twinkling in their eyes and patting them
on the back.
And then all of a sudden, the masjid
fell completely silent.
And as we looked at Mohammed's face,
huge round teardrops were falling were forming in
his eyes,
and they were slowly
agonizing
agonizingly dripping down his cheeks.
And we were dead silent.
And then he looked at us and said,
Brothers, I lost
him. I've lost my son.
We didn't say anything.
We didn't say anything. We just said stay
dead silent.
This man was the pillar of our community.
It was a terrible defeat. We didn't know
what to say. We have seen it happen
a 1000 times before in all the other
communities in San Francisco. We had walking cases
of this before our eyes all the time.
If a Muslim reached teenage years in San
Francisco,
born of American born in America and he
was still in some way practicing Islam, it
was a miracle in San Francisco. We shouldn't
have expected any different, but somehow it crushed
us.
And we're driving back at home that night
in my car,
I couldn't help but think of what Mohammed
said. It kept coming back to me again
and again and again
because
I was just newly married for about a
year and my wife had just become pregnant.
And I thought that someday I'm gonna have
have a child and I wonder if I'm
gonna repeat the same
words
16, 17 years later.
And then when I thought about it, I
thought I don't agree with Mohammed.
As much as I loved him, I still
do,
I wasn't convinced that Muhammad had ever lost
his son.
And the reason is because I don't think
he ever really found him in the first
place.
You see, Mohammed
was the perfect
Algerian Muslim father.
He did everything
a good
Algerian Muslim father should do to bring up
a good Algerian Muslim son.
But the big problem was
his son wasn't Algerian.
His son, even though it's only the 1st
generation,
was as American as apple pie.
He thought like American. He looked like an
American. He talked like an American. And whatever
explanations,
whatever worked back in Algeria
wasn't working here.
Whatever explanations
did the trick
back in Algeria,
they weren't doing the trick here.
He couldn't relate that religion
to his son in a way that his
son could relate to.
That's when I began
thinking about this issue. So in any case,
I want to share with you today and
then in the next two lectures
some
reflections on this problem.
And the main problem facing Western society, what
is the meaning and purpose of life?
And to do that, I am gonna sort
of
combine conversations,
thoughts,
communications
that I've had with other American Muslims
who came to the religion through the same
door I have, through the door of atheism
or agnosticism.
Because this is all I have
to offer and all we have to offer
is our experience. But hopefully, in relating this
experience to you,
you'll come to understand
at least what we felt was compelling about
Islam on the rational level.
And I'm hoping that it'll help us formulate
answers to the questions that our children are
gonna face day in day out as they
grow up in America.
So in other words, I'm asking you
to take
a journey with me.
A journey to Islam in America.
Now of course, when you're gonna take a
journey,
you have 2 questions on your mind. One
is, what do I need to bring along?
What baggage should I assume?
And the answer to that is I want
you to bring nothing.
I want you to bring absolutely nothing. I
want you to pretend for a moment that
you have no commitment to any religion, just
hypothetically,
of course.
I want you to erase the idea from
your mind that you believe in God. I
want you not to be a belligerent atheist
but an atheist who just does can't make
sense out of any of the religions before
and so doesn't accept.
I want your mind, your commitment to religion
to be blank.
The second thing is what's going to be
our guide.
And our guide, and I'm sure you know
what that'll have to be, it'll have to
be the Quran.
The source of faith for a 1000000000 Muslims
worldwide.
Because if we start to approach these questions
and formulate an answer, no matter how coherent
it is, if it's not based on the
very source of Islam, then it's just another
human construct construct
and it could be taken or ignored
like anything else.
A human theory
based wholly on human thought, no matter how
consistent,
it's not gonna be very compelling.
And especially it's not gonna guide us to
these questions in terms of Islam.
So that's it. Your baggage, I want you
to be blank when it comes to religion.
Your guidebook, the Quran.
And with
me, my fellow
hypothetical atheists, let's open up the Quran and
let's try to approach the problems that have
dominated
American and European society for over 2000 years.
So we open the Quran,
I don't have much time I'll just be
able to start this today.
So we open the Quran
and we turn to the very first surah.
We're not expecting much
but we turn to it and we read
the first one. Alhamdulillahiirabbalalameen.
In the name of God, the merciful, the
compassionate, all praise goes back to God, etcetera,
etcetera, etcetera. And we read the first surah,
7 short verses.
We come quickly to realize that this is
a prayer,
that we're being taught a prayer. By repeating
it ourselves, we are in a sense making
a supplication. What are we asking for? You
all know is guidance.
Show
you
Show us a straight path.
It's essentially
a prayer for guidance.
We turn to the second Surah of the
Quran.
We come to the first verse.
Alaf, Lam, Meem,
Taarikal Kitab.
That
is the book. Suddenly, the entire perspective of
the Quran has changed. The tenor of the
Quran has changed. In the first Sura, it
was apparently us making a supplication.
Now the tenor is,
the point of view is
God addressing
the reader, the audience.
It's shifted and he'll maintain that address
through the rest of the Quran.
That is the book. What is the book?
That is the book wherein no doubt is
guidance.
It's telling us that the prayer that we
have just made
has an answer. That is the book
wherein no doubt is guidance.
For who? For those who are God conscious.
Who believe in a reality beyond their perceptions.
And so on and so on and so
on.
It's telling us that this is a guidance
and now in the next several verses, many
verses, it'll describe its audience.
You know, when I write a math book,
after I introduce the topics, I say, this
book is appropriate for people that have reached
this level.
And if you haven't reached this level, then
you have to study this and this and
this.
I describe the audience
who will benefit from my book, who will
benefit a little bit, who will not benefit
at all. And we notice the Quran does
this in the first many passages of the
second Sura. It too describes the audience
in the different levels or types that'll approach
this Quran, that'll hear it, and even to
some extent how they will react.
Once we do that, we get past that,
we come to the 30th verse in the
Quran.
And right away,
of course, it gets to the main
issue, the origin of mankind.
So let's take it one verse at a
time. All of us collectively are high. My
audience of hypothetical atheists. Let's take it one
verse at a time and see what we
could read in it. But remember, you have
to read it carefully.
Because the Quran can't just skip over things
very quickly because you're likely to assume things
that might, on second thought, necessarily be true.
The great Arab scholars of Quran used to
say that the Quran has this quality of
Ijaz.
In a in single verse, it may it
is so concise,
so economical
and powerful in expression. It's very easy to
miss essential points. So the only thing is
let's go through it carefully
and slowly. So we turn to the 30th
verse of the 2nd Sura and it begins.
Behold, your Lord said to the angels, I
will create a Khalifa, a vice rent on
earth.
Notice that Adam
hasn't even appeared on the scene yet. No
mention is made made of him, what he
has done, what state he is in at
this moment.
The only thing we know and he certainly
hasn't committed any wrong deed yet.
The only thing we know is that
your Lord said to the angels, I am
about to create a viceren on earth.
This is very strange.
From our old religious tradition, we remember that
Adam going to earth was because of wrongdoing.
Now he hasn't committed any wrongdoing yet, and
yet
God is revealing that he's going to put
this man and mankind on earth.
It's a wonder to us.
Slightly strange. Something doesn't seem quite
familiar.
And they said the angel said,
will you put there in one who will
make mischief and shed blood?
Will we celebrate your praises and glorify your
holy name?
Now notice the question.
This question sounds utterly familiar.
Will you put there in one
who will spread mischief and shed much
blood? It's a very strange question.
That question, I recognize it somewhere. We all
do.
That is our question.
It's the atheist question,
confronting us in the very first verse in
the Quran that deals with the nature and
the creation of man.
This is our question.
Why would you possibly create this being
who spreads mischief,
sheds
blood, suffers, dies,
agony,
terrible things, murder, death,
destruction.
Why would you even do this? Create this
environment, this creature.
It's our question.
The question that has driven us from religion.
The first first that deals with it in
the Quran and there it is before our
eyes.
But it's not us who's using it to
combat religion, it's the Quran using it to
combat
us.
We will put there on 1 who will
make mischief and shed blood.
And notice who's asking the question.
Where is that question coming from?
It's coming from heaven.
It's talking about earth and it's coming from
heaven.
Implicit in the question is, why are you
creating this creature for this earthly environment with
all this suffering
when you could create this perfect heaven,
paradise?
More important still, who is the question coming
from?
The angels.
The angels
of all beings.
If we were to ask it,
it would certainly be legitimate.
But then when the angels ask it, what
do you think of when you think of
angels?
When we think when we use the word
angel in our society in our language, what
do we mean?
If you look at the newspapers, what does
Mother Teresa always refer to? She's an angel
of mercy,
an angel of kindness.
We think of angels as being
the best that humankind could be, something that
they can never reach, but that they should
aspire to.
When someone does something very kind, very good,
we say to them,
oh, he's such an angel or she's such
an angel.
Even in the new testament, it says that
God created Jesus a little lower than the
angels. In his humanity, he was a little
lower than the angels.
Because angel
is we think of as better
than us. When I watch my children sleep
at night,
my 3 daughters,
and I go over and look at them
with my wife and they sleep there so
in such solitude and peace and tranquility.
What do we say? We all say it.
We're parents.
Aren't they angels?
When we think of angels, we think of
peace and joy and happiness and goodness,
greatness,
mercy, compassion,
things that we could only poorly approximate in
ourselves.
And so it's so significant that this question
comes from the angelic hosts.
Because when the angels ask it, implicit in
the question is, why are you creating this
being, this patently inferior being
to live in this imperfect world when you
could create a being like us? And they
say it explicitly
in paradise when they
say, while we
celebrate your praises and glorify your holy name.
Why are you creating this when you could
create
creatures like us?
And then he said,
Quran says that God said, I know
what you do not know.
Many an orientalist has studied that passage,
deliberated on it much like I just have
and came to the conclusion that, and in
that last statement, I know what you do
not know, the Quran simply dismisses the question,
Doesn't really deal with
it. And they point out that no religion
ever has.
But is that true?
We've learned as atheists
that everybody has a religious side to them
even
the orientalists.
They have their own religious or irreligious commitments,
and we've become very skeptical.
We don't trust orientalists and we don't trust
religious writers.
So we go on.
We just check this out.
So we go on to verse
number 31.
Does the Quran just drop the issue?
No.
And the next passages, it continues the narrative
directly referring back to this question.
It says,
and he,
dot, taught Adam
the names of all things.
Short statement, he taught Adam the names of
all things.
Notice
in this verse very clearly, we see that
Adam is a learning creature. He can be
taught.
What's he being taught?
How to name things.
What things? All things.
Not just material things, but his desires, his
hopes, his dreams, his insights.
He's taught verbal communication. How to communicate his
thoughts, his ideas, his anxieties, his knowledge, his
fears, his insights, his wisdom in verbal symbols.
This is a great power, of course,
because it gives all knowledge, all human knowledge,
but cumulative
sense,
power.
None of us are islands.
What I know is not just what I
know. What I know is a product of
1000 of years
of handing down
from 1 generation to the next the cumulative
knowledge of past generations.
This is a great power that man has
and the Quran singles it out here. And
he taught Adam the names of all things.
And then he placed them before the angels
and said,
notice it's talking about the same question now
and it's interesting that the Quran singles this
up, man's ability to learn and his ability
to communicate on a highly verbal level
and it refers back to the angels question
immediately. And then he placed them before the
angels and said, tell me their names
if you are right.
And now we find in the next verse
that the angels are inferior
in this regard.
Notice it says, tell me their names if
you are right. It's pointing back to the
question.
We're getting a clue,
partial clue, maybe a small clue, but a
clue to the answer to the question.
They said,
Glory to you.
We have no, no what?
No knowledge.
We
have no knowledge except what you
taught us.
They're limited in their knowledge.
In truth, it is you are perfect in
knowledge
and wisdom.
They're saying to do this type of thing
takes knowledge
and wisdom.
You are God.
You have the knowledge and wisdom. You have
infinite knowledge and wisdom, but we, angels, we
have just very limited knowledge and wisdom. It
takes knowledge and wisdom, a certain level that
we do not possess. And then in the
next verse, it takes knowledge and wisdom. It
takes knowledge and wisdom, a certain level that
we do not possess. And then in the
next verse,
that we do not possess.
And then in the next verse it says,
and he said, oh Adam, tell them their
names.
Next verse we find Adam can do it.
He's superior in this respect,
and it's partial answer to the angel's question.
When he had told them their names, God
said,
and now it goes back to that question,
just so that you make no mistake about
it. Did I not tell you that I
know the secrets of the heavens and the
earth and I know what you reveal
and what you conceal?
Didn't I tell you there's a wisdom in
it?
There's a purpose in it?
May not be obvious to you, but there
is.
This shows you that your question had several
flaws. You didn't you thought you were superior,
but actually,
this man
is superior in certain respects,
and it fits into the answer.
Of course,
my fellow hypothetical atheists
were wondering, but what is the answer?
And behold,
we said to the angels
Now just so we know for sure that
we understand that the angels are inferior in
this respect and that this potentially potentially
makes man superior.
And we learn later potentially much inferior depending
how he uses this gift.
And behold, we said to the angels, bow
down to Adam. Show your inferiority.
And they bowed down.
Not so Iblis.
He refused
and was proud.
He was of those who reject faith. He
was of the rejecters.
So we see that the angels are indeed
in this respect
inferior.
Also we see the birth of something here.
The birth of what?
The birth of sin.
Other religions, they might say that man made
the first sin. Evil was always present. But
here we see a different perspective.
Quran just sort of goes off on a
tangent for a second. We see the birth
of sin.
In who? Iblis.
And what is the motive
that creates that sin?
Pride.
In the west, we often say that money
is at the root of all evil.
The Muslim would disagree.
Based on this verse at least, he might
say that pride,
arrogance,
envy is at the root of all evil.
Many people do terrible things without no material
gain in sight.
But here we see what is at the
root
of human evil,
pride,
arrogance,
selfish
ness, irresponsibility,
etcetera, etcetera.
But back to the main point.
Are you tired?
I am so I just
just asked.
And we
said.
Oh, notice, just notice again, when Satan does
come to Adam later
and gets him to slip, you find in
the Quran, by what door does he come
to him?
Again, it's pride.
You could be like an angel.
You could be immortal.
Go ahead.
It's the same
illness,
pride.
But in any case,
so we move on to verse 235. Let's
make it let's at least agree upon this
my fellow atheists, hypothetically.
We're intrigued,
we are intrigued. The Quran has piqued our
interest.
See, turn to verse 235, and we said,
oh Adam,
dwell you and your spouse in the garden,
and eat freely thereof what you wish.
But come not near this tree,
for you will be among the wrongdoers.
Kind of different than what we expect.
No special emphasis is put on this tree,
it just says come not near this tree.
Does this tree threaten God?
No, we find out later in the Quran,
no.
If he touches it, will he compete with
God in some way? No.
He's just given a command, come not near
this tree.
But it's more than just a command.
It's a moral command.
It's made moral by saying, come not near
the street for if you do you will
be among the wrongdoers.
You will be committing wrong.
So it's not just an arbitrary command command,
it's given an immediate powerful moral content.
So we need to understand at this point
that man is a learning creature, that has
the gift of communication.
Somehow that relates to this whole issue before
us. The third thing is, is that man
is nurtured
by God. He's brought along. He's taught. He's
developed. He grows to a certain level. And
now
with this command, we understand that man is
now a moral being.
The ingredients are all there.
Let's see how he responds.
But Satan caused them to slip.
Notice,
this is not
I mean at least as we read it
in the Quran, we expect this sin to
be tremendous and great because we come from
a European heritage.
But Satan caused them to slip.
To slip?
I mean, you know, to
Sounds like it's not that big a deal.
Satan caused them to slip.
It's confusing for us. You don't expect that
word to appear there. And Satan caused them
to slip
and expelled them from the state in which
they were.
And we said,
get you all down. There will be enmity
between you, and on earth will be your
dwelling place and provision for a time.
Okay. We know what's next. We grew up
in this western society. We know what to
expect now, don't we?
We've been haunted by it ever since we
were little children.
Seen it in television, in books, on walls,
in pictures.
We know what to expect.
At this moment we know that on the
cosmos and on creation there will be unleashed
a rage
and anger,
a vehemence,
a vengeance,
a jealousy,
a destructive
power
like has never been witnessed either before
or since.
A volcanic
eruption of violent emotion and anger will explode,
which will result in man and all his
descendants
being subjected to toil and torture
on this earthly planet.
And not only that,
you know what's coming next, the women.
The women will pay the biggest price. Why?
Because it was the woman
who tempted Adam with Satan. It was that
evil temptress with that seductive voice who allied
herself with Satan. The poor guy, he was
no match. No match for the combination of
this guile with this wit and charm.
No match for the combined
guile and intrigues of the devil
earthly
pain. And so she will have to bear
the biggest price.
She will suffer the most earthly pain
every month. And when she delivers her child,
she'll suffer it like nobody else, no other
suffering on earth. Why? Because she was primarily
guilty.
And not to and the worst of it
is
and the worst of it is
that who will rule over her?
The very being that his intelligence,
that his wit was no match for her.
Her intellectual
unequal
will rule over her,
The utter humiliation.
And so
we wince, we cringe, we close our eyes
cause we know what to expect. We turn
to the next verse expecting that tremendous
black thunder crowd of violence to erupt on
a scene. We turn to the next verse,
knowing what to expect and what does it
say?
Then Adam received
certain words from his Lord.
And they say the words here, the commentators
say, promises and words of consolation.
What?
Words?
Is consoling Adam,
giving him promises?
Where's the violence?
Where's the volcanic eruption?
This is like nothing we've come across before.
Then Adam received certain words from his Lord
and his Lord turned towards him for his
oft returning most merciful.
There's no violence here.
Where's the jealousy?
Where's the threatened god?
It's not here.
Then Adam, he turned towards him with mercy,
and he relented towards Adam
in kindness.
Why?
Later on we find that God forgave them.
The woman was no more guilty than the
man.
God just went ahead and forgave them.
After all,
it was just a tree.
But then wait a minute,
if he forgave them, why doesn't he just
pop them back into heaven?
Okay, they sinned, you pop them down, okay,
but now they were forgiven,
it's not that big a deal. You turn
to them in mercy. Put them back in
heaven.
Let's wait for the answer of suspicion
to talk to them. I'm almost
done.
Put them back in heaven.
But he doesn't put them back in heaven.
Why? And then we realize, stop thinking like
an American.
Stop thinking like a European.
Stop thinking like in the mindset of the
religion you rejected it years ago.
Remember,
there is no evidence in the Quran that
God put man on this earth as a
punishment.
It serves another purpose.
That's why he doesn't put him back into
heaven. The purpose of life
is not a punishment.
But if it's not a punishment, what is
it?
Questions
are swimming in our mind.
We'll get to
it. We said 2 more verses.
We said,
Go down
all of you from here. Almost exactly the
same words we heard before, but now we
see them in a gentle tone. So we
understand that this is not a punishment,
but truly there'll come to you guidance from
me. Your promises,
consolation.
And whoever follows my guidance, on them will
be no fear,
neither shall they grieve.
But we do need to know that this
earthly life has severe consequences.
Already, the Quran will inform us this is
not a joke though. It's not a game.
But those who are the rejecters,
who give the lie to our signs,
they show the inhabitants of the fire and
therein they shall abide.
Did the Quran answer any of our questions?
Not quite yet. We're still early into it.
And in the next two lectures, I'll take
up some of these issues again. I'll take
up where we left off. But
let me just and I'll pick it up
from here next time. Let me just
summarize
very briefly some key points.
Very clearly, at least we understand this so
far, man is created for some earthly purpose.
And as a matter of fact, as we
read through the Quran, the Quran will insist
on it.
Did you think we created you purposely?
Do you think we created the heavens and
the earth and it's all between them without
a purpose?
It'll never let us forget it. It'll haunt
us with that remark.
2nd, Adam sins
and is forgiven.
But he stays in this earthly life
because it's not a punishment. It fulfills another
person purpose.
Three features of the human character
are emphasized
in this account,
and this is where I'm gonna take it
up next time
elaborate on these some more.
1, man's intelligence.
He's a creature of intellect.
He's a learning creature,
and a creature who could communicate on a
fairly high level.
And so that his learning takes on a
cumulative
aspect.
Man is a moral creature.
What signals his earthly beginnings?
He makes his first moral choice.
3rd,
as the angel said,
if God agreed,
man's gonna suffer on this earthly life.
Suffering somehow fits into the equation.
Man's intelligence,
an environment of adversity,
humans will suffer.
There are creatures of choice.
At this stage, and I'll talk more about
this tomorrow, at this stage we just see
pieces coming together.
When we first picked up this Quran, they
were like disparate features,
pieces scattered all over the place.
But now we're like one of those young
children, like my children. They love to build
puzzles with a 1,000 pieces before us. And
we're starting to see somehow see that certain
ones seem key and certain ones seem to
fit together and we're starting to regroup them.
We could see them slowly coming together into
something.
So already we're faced with a choice,
Only 39 verses into the Quran.
I'm gonna invite you to some,
my fellow hypothetical atheists. We have 2
choices in front of us. We could either
put down the Quran now and forget the
encounter we just had,
or we could go on.
Personally I'm of the type of temp type
of temperament that has to go on.
The Quran has faced me with my own
questions
and shattered my presuppositions.
I thought for sure that I knew the
answers
to the questions. I was sure how the
Quran would answer those questions.
I'd anticipated
it and it shocked me because it has
shattered those presuppositions.
So where am I now?
My presuppositions
are shattered.
I've been challenged with my own questions.
I have
many fewer answers
than when I started,
and I have many more questions
than when I started. But if I leave
here, and if any of you leave now,
my fellow hypothetical atheists,
then you're just leaving without ever really knowing.
I say we got to do this.
And it is a scary endeavor. I say
we have to finish this to the end.
Either this
will finally culminate
in something that we recognize as truth
and as coherent,
or it'll shatter into a 1000 pieces and
we could return to our atheism fully convinced
that we were right in the first place.
But one way or another, we gotta see
it to the end. I don't know I
don't like to leave the doors open.
I've got to know either way. And I
think many of you do too,
so I'll see you at the next lecture.
Assalamu Alaikum Warahmatullah.
May God's peace and mercy be upon you.
Takbeer.
Takbeer.
Takbeer.
Thank you, brother Jeffrey for this enlightening experience.
I'm sure by this time, we have a
lot of,
comments to make,
a lot of
questions that we have,
but I think let's forget that we are
hypothetical
atheists at this point. Let's come back to,
being Muslims.
I would like to take some comments maybe
from the guests first, the guest speakers,
and then we'll move to the rest. I
have an announcement here. The children ages 6
to 9 and the teenagers are crying. Please,
end on time.
So that's to me.
So we'll end, Insha'Allah, on time.
So doctor Jamel, start with you if you
have any comments. Would you do you mind
if you come over here and make them?
I would have conquered with, doctor Jamal, unfortunately,
and I'm very sad to say this because
I've been leaving earlier for another commitment.
So I won't be listening to the rest
of the story.
You might be answering the questions that I
or the comment that I'll I'll make make
it for you.
Now just a couple of things. We do
get encounters. They have lived in this country
for 17 years so far. I have discussed
with university professors and so on. Church people,
I go to public schools, universities, colleges, and
so on. And we are faced with the
same.
There are a couple of things that I
just wanted to ask. Actually, the best way
to put them,
is that there is a lot in the
Quran that should be complemented
by what the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
has explained.
Because many of the things have been left
out. So I don't know whether you are
taking that into consideration or not because I
don't want to,
people to go and think all the answers
in the Quran. The prophet himself said there
are something certain things in the Quran that
were completed by the prophet. So this is
salallahu alayhi. This is the first one. Now
the second thing, I did mention something here,
I don't know whether you were there or
not.
That even the experiences when you are talking
about children, I know, and many many of
these
statistics people give in conferences and so on.
To me personally, they are very exaggerated.
But there is also some other thing that
I want you to,
to address, Ayani, when when you continue,
is that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the
Quran not only taught us actually in very
details,
about questions that are being to be asked
the way he handles them. Say for instance,
when he was addressing Ibrahim, Alaihi Salam,
when he was challenged by, like, they put
him to fire. Like, this atheist sometimes you
tell them even people have asked irrational questions,
they have,
tried to do irrational things for very rational
things. Allah tells us Ibrahim was put to
the fire after he demolished the idols and
so on. Now these people because they are
suicide,
somebody was,
like,
to whom God has reversed the characteristics
of the fire. And he walked out of
the fire, they thought the king will punish
him, but the king was more wiser than
them. So he asked him the dialogue that
was mentioned in the Quran,
who is your,
he said, why do you claim this? He
said, because I have my lord. You are
not my lord. Then he said to him,
what does this lord do?
You meet the
man, brought 2 people, killed 1,
and preserved the other to tell him that
I can do this.
So Ibrahim didn't argue with him because sometimes
actually,
these atheists or so called other people, they
bring very logical questions. And I think if
we try to answer every question, we'll go
wrong.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala actually teaches in
the Quran that when somebody makes a point,
logical, very good, you should stop there and
look for something else rather than pursuing it,
just endlessly and you don't get anywhere. This
is why
says, he challenged him by the other one,
the You claim to be God, you can
kill and give a life. I'm not going
to argue about it.
But,
Allah makes the sunrise from the east, set
from the west, reverse it. Because that's something
that you can telling people,
and the king didn't do anything, and this
is why he couldn't punish him. But still
the question lingered in Ibrahim's mind. This is
why Allah tells us, he went on and
he said,
because he has been challenged, now he has
to seek the answer from Allah
Then Allah went on to tell him
like take the 4 bears,
actually,
which means you squeeze them, mince them, then
put pieces into it. I will show you
how I manifest myself to you. So this
dialogue is also there in the Quran that
I wanted. The last point I wanted to
make about this exaggeration about, the children inshallah
is the,
question that relates also to what Allah tells
me and tells you that we can do
this much but not that much, even if
we desire so.
Yani, whose children for instance, I mentioned this
story about Nuh alaihi salaam, about Yusuf and
his brothers,
about all of this. Because parents sometimes feel
very sad and they actually
get into despair when their children like the
story of Muhammad you have mentioned, and they
think we did something wrong. And people think
sometimes
ill of people who are very pious, very
good. And I have a lot of examples
like this. You get people who are and
we cannot question their faith, we cannot question
their piety, we cannot question their effort that
are making, and their children get exactly the
opposite. So this consolence and comfort that we
get in the Quran from prophets of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. So these are the things
that I wanted to say, and thank thank
you very much and hearing what you are
saying, actually.
Okay. I can't comment. About the I can't
remember.
Yeah. I can't remember all the points. Let
me just begin with the first one.
I'm trying to present you as best I
can with an authentic experience of Islam.
Remember, when the convert pick when the potential
Muslim
picks up starts beginning to study Islam,
his primary source, really, is only source. He
begins with the Quran. He's not familiar with
very much more than that. So I'm trying
to present it as authentically as I can.
Of course, I can start to bring in
all sorts of information and other sources and
commentaries,
to to a much greater degree, but it
would lose its authenticity.
I'm trying to be as
I want to show the audience
that
the Quran
can guide a person,
a very skeptical person,
towards belief in God. That's that's the point
I'm trying to make. And I hope to
carry that out to the second and third
lecture to explain exactly how that can be
done. Sometimes, honestly, if you start bringing in
elaborations from Hadid or other Islamic commentaries or
things like that, you could actually do more
damage than good to a person who's
trying to consider Islam for the first time.
Because the hadith collections are extremely large. They
deal with many different types of situations,
different types of temperaments and personalities.
You might tell a person, you
know, bring you're likely to confuse the person
who's newly considering Islam by just, you know,
bringing in lots of other information. I would
try to focus on central points
and actually really focus his attention on the
Quran to begin with. You know, because
most converts come to Islam through the Quran,
not through anything else. You bring in too
much information. I remember people started telling me,
well, you know, there's this hadith and that.
And I said, what? What's a hadith? And
is that different from the Quran? Is that
a revelation? Then they and I said, is
it of the same level of authenticity
Quran? And they said, well, it depends. There's
this type and that. I got very confused.
Finally, I decided to put the Muslims aside
for a minute and just study the Quran.
I do honor them to know what the
principle source is.
Now as I go in my lectures, I
will be mentioning a few sayings of the
prophet, peace be upon him, here and there
that help to elaborate on some of the
points. But I'm trying to present this experience,
this journey as authentically as it occurs. Alright?
That that's the first point.
The second thing
about
types of questions that you should ask or
you shouldn't ask or certain questions
you shouldn't deal with or if you can't
deal with if you can't deal with them,
it's probably best to say, I don't know.
I can't deal with
it. Alright?
And then maybe bring up other considerations.
But there are many questions that really can
be dealt with. There are many statements that
Muslims make that demand
an explanation.
I remember many times when I was discussing
questions with Muslims,
and I was the person, by the way,
who would say,
I was very good at it. Oh. And
I was being very mean about it. I
agree. I'd say, oh, so you think God
is unjust?
Because
you he's punishing all of mankind
for the sin of 1 man.
So you feel god is unjust. If you
say that, this is what I used to
say to them. If you say that,
I'll at least say you're consistent.
There's no contradiction there.
But if you claim that that's not true,
we have a problem. But if you say
to agree to that, then I'll at least
agree we have no contradiction.
I might not feel very compelled to worship
such a god
but at least agree there's no contradiction. This
is the type of game I used to
play.
Now people would say to me Make it
short, please. People would say to me, well,
you can't ask such questions.
I said, well, look, I didn't make the
statement.
You came to me with 2 statements that
are apparently in contradiction.
I'm not asking to know all the secrets
of the heavens and the earth,
But if you bring with me 2 statements,
then you better either have an explanation for
them or be able to resolve them or
just don't bring them to me in the
first place.
The burden is on you. What you take
to me, you're at a burden to explain.
Otherwise, don't take it.
Now this is how I used to handle
the argument.
Now the Quran, I think, does deal with
these issues very well.
And this is why I talk about our
children.
Because
I think we are not doing our homework.
If it's one thing, if we struggle and
we try to learn and we try try
to understand our children and we try to
relate this religion to them, and for one
reason or another, they just don't buy it.
But we
but to to ease our conscience, we have
to make a 110 percent effort to do
the very best we can.
When
Noah's
son
is up on the hill, he's still trying
to get him back.
Come on, please. You know, etcetera.
You know, here the prophets never give up
on their children.
They are desperately trying or or one of
their family members. They desperately try to get
them back.
I don't see that in our community in
America. I was eating dinner at a Muslim
families let me finish this point then. At
a Muslim family's house the other day, the
children were watching Nickelodeon. There was a problem,
program about the plurality of religions in America
and how we have to learn to respect
all religions as essentially equal.
And I was sitting with the parents and
we were sitting together and we were talking
about the pattern.
The politics back in Pakistan.
Well, while we're arguing and discussing what's going
on in Pakistan, our children are living here
in the United States and are confronting what
that television screen is taking to them. I'm
not saying what it's taking to them is
evil,
but what things are vital to us are
often have no relevance to their
daily reality whatsoever
or very little.
I think oftentimes we're just ignoring them.
We are not seriously communicating with them. We're
not making the effort to understand what they
are thinking, what problems they have. And I'm
not condemning you by this. I'm just mentioning
as a community.
And we are not putting in the homework,
the time, any effort to deal with the
problems that they will face.
We're too much absorbed in our own hurt,
our own,
culture shock, our own struggle to be a
Muslim convert, for example.
We are, you know, too absorbed in ourselves
to take sufficient interest in our children.
So, you know, those are the three things
I have.
And I'm not,
giving that many addresses.
It might be a shock to you, but
I come from your same background. I'm an
English major.
I've read all those novels
that deal with nihilism and that this life
is nothing and that there's a way out.
Yeah. This is a trend. At least a
deliberate trend, you see, It has been done
deliberately
by those who do not know that there
is a religion on this earth that can
solve all those problems.
Now the threat that we have against our
kids in this society is has to do
primarily with epistemology
and knowledge. Where do they get their information?
And I think it's it's the problem of
the Muslims
that they have got to
screen information
and pay enough attention to have comments on
information that is drilled into their kids' heads,
that there is something called
new Islamization
of knowledge. That all these
or the knowledge that we get in schools
is going to be turned around and seen
from the Muslim perspective,
and people are exerting a lot of effort
to present this to the United States here
so that the kids that are growing up
will have a new Islam that is given
to them in the books. And I think
just to make us feel better, it is
not all that bleak, but we are trying
our best as Muslims
to give the solution to the coming generation.
That's that's a nice point.
I,
my first experience as a Muslim was in
San Francisco. We had some 20,000 Muslims in
the Bay Area.
I frankly never saw a Muslim kid over
16 commit into the religion.
I don't know why.
I was talking to a brother on the
way up here from
Kansas City.
There are several 1,000 Muslims living in Kansas
City. I asked him how many Muslim children
were involved in the community.
He felt that there was about 20.
They were between the ages of 15 20.
That's not that's a pretty bleak statistic.
Even if that number was 50 percent or
30% or 20%. That's bad.
I have met many, many Muslim children on
campus. I shouldn't even call them Muslim because
they prefer not to be called such.
Children born of Muslim parents with Arab names
in my classes
They'll come to my office. We'll get into
discussions.
I'll ask them, by the way, are you
Muslim?
We'll say, well, my parents are.
I know that response very well.
So when I was an atheist and people
used to ask me, are you Christian?
They used to say, well, my parents are.
I think it is serious.
I think, you know, when we discuss these
issues, we are thinking of this little group
we have here.
And maybe this little group is might quite
successful with their children. But there are several
1,000 families out there. I think for whatever
numbers of people that hear their tons of
people out there that have either given up
and feel that the problems that they're facing
are overwhelming.
Or maybe they're just so busy in their
life. They just haven't had the time to
really consider it. I'm not blaming anybody.
But and I agree with you. We do
have to start
I don't see the questions
that Westerners ask about religion as dangerous.
I don't see them as even wrong.
I almost think they're natural.
Because when you read that first verse of
the Quran,
even the angels ask ask the same question.
God in the Quran, as the aim puts
it in the mouth of the angels,
He doesn't condemn them for it. Just points
out that they're wrong.
So that's what I think we have to
start doing, formulating a response to those questions.
The victory if Islam is going to have
a victory in the west, it's gonna be
because it's going to present a coherent and
compelling picture of its own religion.
And I think if we're not gonna do
it, we have to hope a letter later
generation does. But I think there's no generational
like the president that is in a better
position to take up that battle.
I think it becomes harder with each successive
generation.
The, of the kids,
see some come in the duration then and
so.
You know, showing our kids. And,
it seems that the majority are,
you know, away from Islam. That's that's the
way he presented it.
I
kind of disagree a little bit on that.
Can any of the audience share this opinion
with me? Just like you're with it. Yeah.
The issue is very, very simple,
but now it looks,
confused. Why? Because the way it was presented,
it was presented in philosophical
way. It make us confused.
So the problem here, and I feel also
brother Jeffrey when he made it confused because
he start with Surah Al Baqarah
and to
respond to some question that deals with the
faith. If we go back to Islam,
96 surah was revealed in Makkah that deals
with the faith to come to one conclusion.
If we reach this conclusion, the
rest,
easy to answer. So what is this conclusion?
That this 96 surah dealt with
is
That Allah
nobody can question what he is doing, and
he's gonna question us.
96 Surah is dealing with this conclusion.
And last week I was
traveling, and a woman asked me this kind
of question. I told her there is 2
areas in Islam.
One area where we should ask
and use the
intellect is the area of the faith.
Once we agreed that this is there is
one God,
these are his attributes, he can do that
and do that, if we can agree on
this, that's it. We have to take everything
else.
Otherwise,
you cannot answer me why we pray for
You cannot come up with any answer. The
only answer is the first one.
So it's very, very simple. So the problem
why we are losing our children or why
discomfort
they
reject the faith because they came to Islam
through a philosophical way or they be introduced.
What's the point of the conclusion?
The
conclusion?
That's what I'm coming to the conclusion.
So it's not, it's not a judgment or
a measurement for us, those people that they've
been converted and reject the faith because they
came through a philosophical way.
And, the children also when we presented the
faith, we don't present it as the prophet
salallahu
presented to the early companions
dealing with God. Who is God? Before we're
dealing with the commandments.
So it's very, very simple. The issue is
very, very simple. We should not make it
that's complicated
that I know maybe some brother, this star,
I have to leave America now tomorrow before
I finish anything.
So it's very, very simple. The only thing
I'm trying to say is is that the
children are living in American experience,
and they are American.
If not them, then certainly they're descendants.
And they will confront these questions.
It is any American will tell you, you
as an American
face them. It is a phenomenon in America
that the majority of Americans, regardless of their
religious roots, have no
strong commitment to any religion.
And Americans know
what is the heart of the problem
Because religions don't make
sense. Now that's why I said that if
Islam does make sense
and we ignore it and tell people that
they shouldn't be concerned with such issues,
I don't think it's the problem with Islam.
I think it's the problem with us.
Absolutely. I think that if we
ignore this responsibility,
we are only hurting ourselves and the future
of our community in America. I think Islam
could do well to hold its own.
I actually think I wouldn't be here if
I didn't think that Islam could lead
the American society out of this
endless
maze of questions.
I
I I am utterly convinced it can't.
And I think the explanation is extremely simple
and it's contained in the Quran.
So
this is what I'm this is why I'm
campaigning for this question.
Like you said, you know, if you tell,
I think the Quran was revealed for all
times and places.
I don't think the mentality of 20th century
man is exactly the same as it was
for the companions of the prophet peace be
upon.
I believe that the Quran was arranged in
a certain order for a particular reason.
I believe that when you read through the
Quran from the beginning to the end, it
takes you on a journey.
And that that arrangement
is perfectly suited to that journey.
So I have a somewhat different feeling about
it to to to just say. And I
do think there is a real threat here.
I don't think, you know, what you were
telling me about first, the belief
and put aside these philosophical questions.
Well, even on the level of taking this
message to anyone else to to my mind,
and I'm not trying to be but to
my mind, I hear that from every
Or
you have to believe or there are certain
things alright. Okay. But let me say it
anyway even though you didn't mean He he
didn't mean that. So I I just have
to make it clear. I I know you
didn't mean that and he doesn't mean that
you mean that. Yeah. But
I don't believe I'm not saying that you
meant that. What I am saying though is
that when I first this is not you.
But but I do think that some people
may have understood it that way. When I
first approached Islam,
Muslims told me, you can't ask these
things. You know? And then I used to
say, well, fine. Then if if you don't
have an answer or it's not right to
ask these questions, then I'll go ahead and
stay an atheist. Everybody tells me I can't
ask.
You know? So
when we have the answer there, I think
it's our duty
to formulate that answer, to understand the question
and to do something about it, to present
it in a in a relevant way. And
I'm sorry that I that I made it
seem well, forget.
Well,
would like to thank you, doctor Jeffrey and
all the brothers and sisters who attended. I'm
sure we, all were entertained and we all
had lots of questions
in our minds and we wanna make some
comments. And that's why we have part 2
and part 3, insha Allah.
Before we conclude, I would like to remind
you with a very important note.
Tomorrow morning,
the session that is going to be the
starting session at 9 o'clock is a very
important lecture, and in my opinion, is a
historical lecture.
We see a lot of debate concerning Muslim
woman.
Should we separate them? What should we do
in parties
and then in Eid and then all our
activities?
How we should deal with them?
Does what we have now
was at the time of Prophet Muhammad or
is it made recently?
Were some of the things that were of
Prophet
Muhammad disappeared now or not?
That's what doctor Jamal is going to do,
make a comparison
between the state of women at the time
of Prophet
Muhammad and the prison time.
What went wrong?
What went right?
Why there is a change if there is
any? And so on. And this is going
to be at 9 o'clock Insha'Allah,
followed by the second part of, doctor Jeffrey
Lang. So hopefully we'll see all of you
at 9 o'clock.
So what talk tomorrow at 2:30 to 4:2?