Mohammed Hijab – Full Debate vs Lars Gule – Does Traditional Islam Need to Be Liberalized
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the need for liberalization to address fundamental human rights and the political and moral views behind liberalization, including the need for a universal policy on racism against black people and Filipinos and Arabs. They emphasize the importance of protecting human rights and creating a healthy environment for children, while also promoting a project in Norway to establish a human center. The speakers emphasize the need for intuitive morality and show the potential for sex with animals. They also emphasize the need for privacy and privacy in the future, and discuss the use of animals as carriers of sexuality and the potential for sex with animals.
AI: Summary ©
I
have no right to infringe the basic human rights of everyone, even the criminal
with the infliction of torture. So, if you say God has said, we should amputate the hand of the thief, that is a clear example of how
certain
commands in Islam are against human rights and therefore not compatible with modern human rights thinking. And I stand in front of everyone today, with full confidence that this claim will not be refuted. liberalism can and has and is capable of producing death penalty outcomes for non religious to the state, for example.
The laws barbaric, outdated, dysfunctional laws, which is the genetic fallacy, by the way, and you should know as a philosopher that presenting cases like this is weak. Then he mentioned democracy, which is even, it's even older than Muhammad, so it's even more outdated. So it should be even more wrong in your understanding. But then, here's what I'm saying to the point is this Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala rasulillah
I welcome all of you with Islamic Greek greetings. Assalamu aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.
May the peace blessings and mercy of a lost paradise Allah be upon all of you.
I am Fahad Qureshi, the chair for this debate today, this very interesting debate about Islam. Does Islam need to be liberalized or not? And we are talking specifically about traditional Islam, orthodox Islam.
And by liberalize, we mean, do we need to renew Islam? is Islam suitable for the 21st century? is Islam suitable for the West? And the values that we are living within in the West? That's the main topic of discussion today. Why is this topic so important? The reason why it is so important is that politics are based upon this. We see different
political suggestions coming all the time,
wanting to change Islam, or restrict Islamic practices, based upon the notion that Islam is not suitable or traditional Islam is not suitable for the modern Western society. Islam needs to be liberated, it needs to be
progressed in terms of being able to fit in the modern context. So that's going to be our debate today.
And the organization organizing this debate is, as you know, Islam net and Islam that is a Norwegian, the our organization, focusing upon giving our meaning spreading information about Islam, in the Western society, with a special focus on Norway. And we also we also have a big focus on inspiring young Muslims to find their Muslim identity and feel confident about their religion. So inspire young Muslims to come back to Allah subhanaw taala.
And one of our main projects nowadays, is that we are raising funds to establish a Norwegian Dawa center and a Masjid, a Masjid and a dour center that we hope that would help the Muslim Norwegian youth reconnect with Allah subhanaw taala because as we see the masses of young Muslims, they may not be practicing Islam, they may not be very interested in Islam. But if we reconnect their faith with a lot, then we believe that that would be bringing them success in this world and in the hereafter. So if you want to know more about this project to name this project, save Eman. So you could go to the website, save eman.com and read more about it, save eman.com and for those watching
online, we will have the link in the description to read about that project for you to be able to support that project as well.
This is a man she's 14 years old, a Norwegian Muslim living with her parents. In the next 20 seconds. She is going to send in decent pictures of herself to her secret boyfriend
This is why
Norway, a Scandinavian country that Muslims migrated to 50 years ago with around 200,000 Muslims. But this is changing. Muslim names are increasing, but a man is dying in the hearts of our youth.
The vast majority of these Muslims do not pray and are leaving their Islamic heritage and adopting the western lifestyle. Why is this happening? Why are the youth leaving the Islamic way of life, the majority of Muslims came to Norway seeking financial opportunities. The mosques that were established were centered around culture from back home, and the next generation of Muslims assimilated to the Western lifestyle. The main source of Islamic knowledge remained the Friday sermon that was conducted in the mother tongue of the first generation of Muslims, so the youth didn't connect to it. The man is not happy at home. Her parents often tell her to start praying and
stay away from boys. And that makes the men feel suffocated and depressed because no one taught her why Islam teaches Muslims to pray, or why it sets moral boundaries for relationships with the opposite gender.
Eman doesn't know what to do. On one side, she loves her family and she loves Allah. On the other side, she doesn't understand Islam and its restrictions and guidelines don't make sense to her. So she is living a double life. Muslim at home and someone else outside
Eman is not just an individual. She symbolizes that you men have the majority of young Norwegian Muslims. They are struggling to retain their Islamic identity and are drifting away from Islam. We need to save Amen. We need to start at the grassroots level. The problem lies in the lack of Islamic knowledge resulting in the weakening of Eman. So we want to build the country's first Islamic Law Center combined with a Masjid that will share the message of Islam in a way that the youth of today can relate to. It will have a youth center where the youth can come instead of hanging in the streets or going to Western clubs. It will have Islamic programs and activities where the youth can
learn their religion. It will have a studio for mass production of darwell material for social media, it will educate the Muslim community on how to bring up their children on Islamic values. We have already raised about $1 million locally. And to make this project come true. We need to raise the remaining amount. There are 1.8 billion Muslims. But the question is, Are you one of those very special people who will help save you man. Please click the link. Give for the sake of Allah and earn your reward. Also, we need to make the Muslim world aware of this campaign. So please do whatever you can share this video on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and all other social media
networks. We alone cannot save you man. But together we can.
So back to the debate. Our two very respectable candidates for the debate today are Dr. Large Gula and Mohammed hijab. So to begin with, let me introduce Dr. Lars Goulet, who will be the first person to speak today.
Dr. Loss Beulah is a philosopher. He has graduated with a doctorate in philosophy, and is an associate professor at Oslo Metropolitan University.
From 2000 to the year of 2005. He was secretary general of the Norwegian Humanist Association.
Ula became famous or known to the general public in 1977, when after having joined the DF LP group, Guru was arrested in Beirut, Lebanon with explosives in his luggage, intended for Israeli targets, leading to a six month conviction and subsequent to deportation. He remains a pro Palestinian,
a pro Palestinian and in regards to his stance on Islam and Muslims. My personal opinion is that he is very balanced. He is very nuanced. He is not the kind of person who would spread fabrications about Islam and Muslims. He is not the kind of person who would spread Islamophobic theories. In fact, he is one of the most outspoken individuals in another region.
Context against right wing extremists and people who spread conspiracy theories about Islam and Muslims. So, we have great respect for Dr. Lars Gula. In spite of disagreeing with him in some, some points and he is a critic of Islam and on my on my left hand side is Mohammed hijab. He is a famous debater and YouTuber. He is well known from his debates from a Hyde Park at speakers corner, where he debates many different people and he travels around the world and engages in dialogue in debates with academics. So Mohammed hijab is very well known in the in the Muslim world.
And he completed a degree in politics, and a master's in history. From Queen Mary University. He completed another master's degree in Islamic Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He has taught and instructed courses on humanities and languages in many contexts. He has numerous ages in some Islamic sciences, and has studied in multiple Islamic seminaries, including the Concrete Institute, which employs a traditional Mauritanian style of teaching the sacred sciences. Mohammed is currently doing further postgraduate studies in applied theology.
So that's our two respective speakers for tonight's debate. And the setup will be that each speaker will have
20 minutes to make his case to make an introduction to his case. So we will start with Dr. losh Gula, giving his presentation and then Mohammed hijab will give his presentation in 20 minutes each. After that, we will have 10 minutes each have a rebuttal session where Dr. lodge will be responding to what Mohammed hijab has said, and vice versa. After that, we will have a cross examination where each of the speakers would have the opportunity to cross examine to ask questions to the other speaker, and that speaker would have three minutes each to answer those specific questions. After that, we will have our
we will open the floor for the audience. So the audience could also participate and ask their questions to each respective speaker. And we will conclude with each speaker having five minutes to give their final statements. So without any further ado, I would request Dr. Large to take come to the microphone and begin his presentation. Thank you.
Thank you very much for the invitation. And I believe it is fruitful to have serious discussions. Thank you
about these important questions. And the question posed today is does traditional Islam need to be liberalized?
The answer is yes. And I could actually stop here and give the remainder of my time to my honorable opponent, because he will need more than the allotted his allotted 20 minutes to explain why his outdated and dysfunctional religious tradition does not need liberalisation in the 21st century. However, for this to become a meaningful debate, I will give some of the reasons for my short answer.
But first of all, there are internal resources in the Islamic tradition in traditional Islam, that can be utilized and that has been used lized in the past to develop interpretations that take Islam in a liberalizing direction, especially the interpretive principles of HD had supplemented with the principle of the common good Muslim.
Furthermore, my short answer, of course has to do with how we understand the term and the concept traditional Islam What is it? What is this object that I and many with me, including numerous Muslims, think things are in need of liberalization?
We also need to clarify what is meant by liberalisation. Is it the same
Same as reform or formation. It seems that what it seems that Islam that organizing this event, have made this interpretation, the most relevant for this debate, but I'm not sure that it is.
But my honorable opponents views on Islam and traditional Islam are not the only views.
He and his followers attempts at monopolizing their interpretation as the correct interpretation, or mainstream interpretation of Islam flies in the face of the fact that their position, the position of Islam, that and the followers of Islam that here today is a minority position within the Islamic world today.
It's not the majority, it is not what Muslims nor not even the majority of scholars think is the right interpretation. So, before I gave my reasons for why reform of Islam should entail liberalisation, I will say something about this what is Islam and so called traditional Islam.
Part of the problem is that it is almost impossible to give an all comprehensive definition of Islam. It is a religion.
In that sense, it is what Muslims believe. within some parameters, one cannot say I'm a Muslim, and believe anything, there are certain limits, but those limits are fairly wide.
Islam is even more It can be said to be a culture, and also a 14 centuries old civilization. And these three forms Islam as a religion, Islam as a culture and Islam as a civilization.
Or these three ways of understanding Islam will overlap and they influence each other.
Here we are concerned with Islam as a religion.
And a religion can be said to consist of the following factors or elements,
a cosmogony, that is a narrative of creation, a store a story about how everything came to be a cosmology, an understanding of how the world is working, and epistemology and explanation on of how we know what we know. And ethic rules for a good life. And finally, cultic practices.
The short Islamic answers to these points are on the cosmic journey, God, Allah created the world out of nothing.
cosmology, God has organized the world, and is the cause of everything that happens,
perhaps in certain interpretations, and we see how variation in the interpretation enters very quickly into the picture. Some think that perhaps science can help us understand how God have organized the universe, the universe,
I everything.
epistemology, a theory of knowledge, saying that we have knowledge through revelation, perhaps science can help us understand but revelation is the most important source of knowledge. ethics, the rules for a good life are the same as the will of God for mankind, or the revealed law of God. Sharia, and Sharia covers all aspects, all aspects of man's life, especially,
or, actually not only between all men than mom a lot, but it also covers when we come to cultic practices, man's relation to God about that, which is also part of the overall legal ethical perspective of
Islam.
So, of course, there has been differences in the understanding of these building blocks of Islam throughout Islamic history. Some have said that the world is not created but eternal, coextensive with God. Others say that man has free will, and therefore man can cause both good and evil.
There are those who have said that revelation is as found in the Quran and Sunnah cannot be understood, literally. We need to understand the metaphoric language of the Quran and even the hidden meaning of the Quran
and interpreted it
In a rational way, other say we should take the word literally and not try to understand the metaphors of the Quran
as God is sitting but he's totally different from human beings How can you sit? Bill okay for
others say that we should take the word literally and not try to understand what Sophie's say. We should attempt union with God. And they have various meditative techniques developed for the purpose of perhaps the Sufi traditions. The Sufi tariqas are the largest organizations of Muslims in the Muslim world.
Many Muslims mix traditional values and Islam and still believe they are good Muslims, ie they are following the will of God.
Some find ethical guidelines in what they believe is the will of God as revealed in the Quran and the example of the Prophet, but the will of God, even if seen by many Muslim scholars, as a complete and total system needs interpretation. based on Quran Sunnah, he had an enigma. However, there is no unanimity on how to interpret accordingly. There are many interpretations with nature and might make major differences. In Sunni Islam. There are four surviving schools of law. But
But there have been other attempts at understanding the will of God. Those schools are those attempts did not survive the test of time. And we have numerous other differences in metaphysical approaches in theological approaches, etc. There are differences that vary over time, and there are differences from place to place within the Muslim world in the past and today. In short, there are numerous versions of Islam, even within Sunni Islam. And in addition, we have various Shia interpretations. Do they all have something in common? Apart from the five pillars, difficult to say, as an outsider, as a researcher, it is not my job to decide which interpretation is the correct
one. That's for Muslims to quarrel about. You're welcome. And they do.
Miss the hijab has no serious claim to represents the to the true interpretation.
As a researcher, I observe that there are certain agreements on the level of scholars and also certain elements practical and practical Islam, so to speak, common practices across various interpretations and cultures.
Some of these interpretations and practices do need to change, for example, the discrimination on knowledge,
discarding scientific knowledge, that goes against revelation,
discriminating internally within Islam against those you disagree with, like for example, the Shia of Medina, but also within Sunni Islam, the Mata Zilla, not respected, not accepted as part of traditional Islam today.
Furthermore,
the discrimination of women needs to be changed, as we can see here today, with the women relegated to the back.
That sort of segregation
is not good for anyone. And if you say, well, we are separate but equal. There is no example in history of separate but equal. That's what the apartheid supporters said in South Africa. There was no equality between blacks and whites, segregating men and women makes one * oppressed compared to the other.
We see it in the strict demands on women's women concerning their clothing, and their behavior. And in regulating their education and choice of professions. Which is something that Islam that has attempted to do by giving advice on what studies are suitable for women. What professions are suitable for women in Norway.
There is discrimination of non believers on equal rights according to interpretations of Islam. Unacceptable. We have the discrimination of sexual minorities with the emphasis in certain circumstances of the death penalty, but in practice in most countries, social exclusion,
chased them away. They are not part of us anymore. We don't want to have anything to do with them.
The change of these attitudes
And practices should move move Muslims in the direction of greater freedom and equality, freedom and equality for all. That is what I would call liberalisation.
When I advocate liberalisation of Islam, I am not talking about replacing Islam with political liberalism. That's a different matter. That would mean abolishing Islam and establishing political philosophy of a certain kind as a substitute religion. If that would be possible at all. I am talking about the verb the process, then to liberal liberalize means, according to dictionaries, to make something such as a law or a political or religious system less strict or to make or become liberal.
Then what is liberal or someone who is liberal? Not necessarily some, someone who embraces the political philosophy of liberalism. Again, according to a dictionary, a liberal is someone willing to understand and respect other people's behavior, opinions, etc. Especially when they are different from your own, believing people should be able to choose how they behave, or wanting to or wanting or allowing a lot of political economic freedom and supporting gradual social, political, or religious change.
That are reasonable definitions of a liberal person and liberalizing
processes our movement in that direction.
These processes and attitudes are or should be compatible with various interpretations of Islam.
The theological resources for interpretation in such a liberal and therefore, liberalizing direction, are there in Islam. The interpretive principle of each Jihad can be used and supplemented with the principle of the common good Muslim, as resources for interpretive change. However, currently, it is narrow and confining interpretations that have the theological and ideological hegemony in the Muslim world. Thus, each jihad is often limited to guess, and illogical reasoning, and not used in an innovative and progressive as an innovative and progressive principle, which could, in union with mass law, be the basis for a more dynamic understanding of the Sharia, and
therefore make Islam more compatible with the modern world, including modern science and human rights. But and this is important, it is for Muslims to decide how they want to live. This is a right according to modern and liberal values are a human rights is a basic human right, you have the right to decide for yourself. Nevertheless, because it is possible to make these changes, I hope and I argue for a process of liberalisation, that is based on recognition of the equal human dignity and worth of every human being a process that accepts the best instruments we have to protect every human beings dignity, namely human rights, and a lot and the logical attachment to a equal human
dignity and human rights is democracy. Thus, interpretations of Islam that embrace equal human dignity, human rights and democratic political organization of states and societies is what I would say represents much needed liberalisation of traditional Islam.
And if the liberalization of Islam and its various interpretations today, including the so called traditional interpretations, were steered by a free and liberal practice of each the heart inspired by Muslims, we would see a gradual reduction in the segregation of the sexes, greater tolerance for differences within the Muslim community, acceptance of non believers, including marriage, marriages, across religions, freedom of religion, and the right to change religion without social sanctions, freedom of religion for children, acceptance of sexual minorities, respect for fuller freedom of expression and acceptance of what some might see as blasphemy.
Acceptance of critique of Islam, of course, with the right to a vigorous defense, hopefully based on recent
and important part of this process of liberalisation is based on freedom of religion for everyone.
Thus, those Muslims who want to live their lives in different ways, in stricter ways, are absolutely allowed to do so. Nevertheless, they have to accept the rights of others, to criticize their interpretations and their ways of living.
And conservative, traditional or strict Muslims should not try to force other Muslims to change to their ways of living, they can use persuasion, because also the strict conservative, traditional or so called True Muslims are free to use their freedom of religion and freedom of expression to influence others. This is exactly why we need to respect the rights of others, Muslims and non Muslims to live their lives as they wish. Thank you.
Thank you, Dr. lodge for your presentation. So we will now have the introduction of Mohammed hijab. So you may come to the podium, please.
So I want to label together Can you guys hear me? This is a bit low. Shall I bring up? Is this better? Is it better? Or is it too loud?
All right. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Gu. For your presentation.
It was a bit more moderate than your previous presentations, I must admit,
with other debates I've seen of yours, so I appreciate the more nuance that you put into the discussion.
Let's start with definitions because I think this is a point
of difference actually, between me and ghoul.
guli. Good. I said that the definitions that he took were from dictionaries, vernacular definitions, or dictionary definitions are invariably influenced by ideological ones. And so I would put to him that dictionary definitions are actually influenced by political and social outcomes around
around those particular definitions when they're being written. In order to avoid such bias, one has to go before the 16th century, for example, when liberalism was around and find definitions, then that would be, I think, an appropriate recourse for someone who wants to use addiction definition. However, what I would say is that Dr. guli, went on to talk about human rights, which is actually an outgrowth of liberalism. Human rights is an outgrowth of liberalism, you cannot understand human rights without understanding liberalism. Therefore, the liberalism that we are talking about is the social liberalism.
That is the political philosophy.
That was well introduced by john Locke, one could argue, some say, Thomas Hobbes, and has a tradition all the way up to this day. And so my definition of liberalism is actually a politically philosophy, philosophical one, which I'm sure he'll be able to resonate with being a philosopher himself, traditional Islam, I agree with Dr. gulay. We no one has a monopoly of traditional Islam. So for example, I follow the ambilight School of Law. I can't say that my school of law is the only correct one. I understand that there is different strands of traditional Islam. My attorneys were accepted as part of the edge man, for example, and that's even mentioned by even taymiyah. Who is a
literalist, as many of you know, so I'd set the nuance there. I don't disagree with him. I don't think anyone has a monopoly of tradition, traditional Islam. So I think that's the first thing. The second thing I want to put to Dr. gulay is
that before we say that we should move into a liberalizing direction, I think it's very fair to ask the question, how can we prove that liberalism is true in the first place? And of course, john Locke, who is the founding father of liberalism, had an essay or a book that he wrote,
where he talks about morality and he in that he said that morality is something which is you can be demonstrated like mathematics. He said that you can prove the truth of morality in the same way as you can truth, you can prove scientific truths or mathematical logical truths.
In his own system, he said that liberalism is true. And he gave theological reasons for it. He replied to Robert filmer, for example, who was a Christian, and he was using God as the example. So in other words, he was using an Anchorage, a moral, epistemological Anchorage, which was theological. And of course, the liberal tradition is not just john Locke. So across time, there has been different philosophers all of which have tried different things in order to anchor their respective moral philosophy. So we have john Stuart Mill, we have john Rawls, de tocqueville, Montesquieu, all of these individuals, right?
Books. And there is a vast, there is a rich tradition of
referring back to a particular underpinning, whether it be utilitarianism, the hedonistic principle or whatever. But in any of those cases, liberalism has proven to be a creature of convention. What did you say? I said, liberalism is a creature of convention, meaning it's a subjective morality, something which is and has been the subject of change.
It's not an object of my therefore, before we even proceed in this conversation, you have to prove to me that liberalism is true. I mean, you had a debate with Hans is also some time ago, about God's existence. 54 minutes into the debate, Dr. Gray said, there is no scientific evidence of God.
Just bear that in mind. There is no scientific evidence of God is a problem with his understanding of philosophy of science. But where is the scientific evidence for liberalism? You can't have one standard of truth when you're trying to discover one system of morality and then this band that discard that completely throw that out, when you're talking about your own beliefs, which are axiomatic otherwise, unprovable. So before you tell us to be liberal, why don't you prove liberalism, stop preaching to us and start proving to us that's the reality, you have taken the stance of an ideologue, a liberal ideologue, preacher.
Don't be a preacher, be a teacher, don't be, don't preach, prove, I want to learn. Give me some proofs. However,
what we saw in the second half of the presentation, was Dr. goon, or gulay, is that he started talking about discrimination, human rights and all of those things. And he mentioned the death penalty.
Here's my claim. And I stand in front of everyone today, with full confidence that this claim will not be refuted. Listen to the claim. liberalism can and has, and is, wait a minute, now you're using too many words, rewind.
liberalism can and has, and is capable of producing death penalty outcomes for non religious to the state, for example.
The laws barbaric, outdated, dysfunctional laws, which is the genetic fallacy, by the way, and you should know as a philosopher that presenting cases like this is weak. Then he mentioned democracy, which is even, it's even older than Muhammad, so it's even more outdated. So it should be even more wrong in your understanding. But then, here's what I'm saying to the point is this, liberalism can allow why because Ladies and gentlemen,
liberal contract arianism, or contractual ism, which is the only liberalism that you will find on the face of the earth, assumes that we had a primordial state of nature, and that we entered into a primordial barter, where we traded our freedom for the security of the state.
Meaning what the sovereign becomes the ultimate authority, john Locke is, himself said, in his letters of toleration, ironically, that if someone in a Jewish state john Locke, the founding father of liberalism, someone in a Jewish state, a pasta sizes, this believes in Judaism, he has to be killed. Wait a minute, is this prophet Muhammad? No, no, no, no, this is john Locke, the founding father of liberalism, which is the very ideology you are trying to preach to us today. This, of course, did not stop at Locke, it continued to mill. It continued all the way up to rules, actually, Emmanuel Kant. All of these individuals have messages similar to that, that you have to fully obey
the sovereign, listen to this.
Listen to this, me I knew I was born in London
28 years ago, you were born maybe 29 years ago, I don't know, in Norway.
And, and what happened was, I didn't get a choice. Did you get a choice that you had to obey the law or not, or to be a citizen or not? I was just forced into the social contract,
freedom of expression, and freedom of religious expression, and freedom of thought and so on and so forth. All of that was curtailed at the very starting point for me. I didn't choose to be here and to be a citizen and obey the law yet I have to be open
The law, the point is the social contract is, is dominant. And therefore, when the law is in place, I have to follow the law. If the law is that there's treason, which is associated with some kind of religious authority, then that is the law. Therefore, it's conceivable through liberalism to have death penalty outcomes, philosophically. And by the way, it's also conceivable in Islam, as he alluded to, to be fair to him, that you don't have to have death penalty outcomes for a public apostasy in an Islamic State. Let me give you the evidence for that. Some brothers are going to say wait a minute, you know, you become liberal. No, no, no, no. For example, the Prophet Muhammad
Sallallahu wasallam. In a hadith in Bukhari, when he was talking to the people of inhaled Abia, he spoke to him.
And there was a pact that he created. So halep nam who was deleted of the corner, she's at that time said that if anyone opposed to sizes, even publicly, the assumption was, then they are to be not killed but returned to us the Prophet agreed to that. Now the question is, is this still applicable today? In no kaimal Josie I mentioned in zetten ad, just as Elmer Tao he also pronounced though he mentions as well in his books not in soft the other one, he wrote another big book, where can give you the references after he mentioned that this is still applicable today. So it's not been abrogated? In other words, it's conceivable fully, to have a fully fledged Islamic state where there
is no war and someone apostates in public, and there is no death penalty outcome. Why is that? Despite what the prophet Muhammad said, and because of liberalism? No, no, this is because of what Prophet Muhammad said. So a lot, a lot of you have said, therefore, it's conceivable in Islam for such punishments to be waived, as well as implemented fairly, and the liberalism for such punishments to be waived or implemented. So what's the issue? The issue is you're actually calling us to something which we don't need, we have within our own system. The point is this.
As he said, correctly, it does Musleh the jurist can and have argued to that effect.
Now let's look at something else.
A point I wanted to make here, which I think
we need to be very clear on,
is not to have colonial amnesia,
the most * massacres in human history, and I say this with full confidence have been perpetrated by liberal states.
Let's take one example 1830, the French annexation of Algeria, 1 million people were killed, genocidal. And by the way, I was a history teacher in the UK for some time. Nevertheless, we teach this and it wasn't even on the national curriculum, but we teach about the Holocaust, those kinds of genocides. Why? Because the French were adamant on censoring this information because it included *, pillaging
of human beings and pictures of them because this was the time where pictures could be actually generated. Many Muslims don't even know what happened in Algeria for 130 years by a government, a French government, which was not only liberal, listen to this, but the founding fathers of that Liberal government. And philosophers like Alexis de Tocqueville, in his essays to Algiers, actually supported the colonial discrimination against to the Algerians because of what because of the superiority complex that they had.
And this is to be honest, what we find in the discourse, a superiority complex, where you don't even have an objective morality to give us.
So the point is this, listen to this, liberalism has can allow for racism, and colonialism and tyranny and authoritarianism, whereas Islam can never, I'm not saying has never, but can never as a religion can never allow for racism. So the question shouldn't really be now if you if you like racism, liberalism can't stop you from being racist. Let me say that one more time, liberalism as a political philosophy cannot and has not, through its principles, or its actions stop you from being a racist. And if it could, then surely the founding fathers, surely those who came after them, and those who came after them, wouldn't have allowed a race based slavery to exist race based slavery in
America until the Civil War, which by the way killed the most people in American history in terms of wars.
So this is a colonial amnesia, which I think people are having and forgetting about the
fact that most genocides that have been committed in history have been by massive genocides have been by liberal states in the in the in the recent history. The Native Americans what happened to them, Native America, Native Americans and what happened to them is, is basically ISIS on steroids. If you don't like ISIS, you shouldn't like, I mean, imagine 100 years from now you speak to ISIS person. And they say, this is our state, we've overtook it from the people. No one would accept it. But now America is basically premises is built on the same kind of genocide. And that's the reality this is liberalism for you. Yeah. westward. expansion, Manifest Destiny. These were all liberal
concepts. Please don't try it. We know your history. We know your history very well. And we know your present as well. And the question now is it can it be legalistically justified, you know, I did some research, which I'm going to publish soon inshallah, maybe a week or two,
I did some rich research on the amount of times that Hadoop have been implemented in the Ottoman Empire. Of course, there are gaps in the records, but there has actually been digitized and archived. And my understanding is from the years 1500 to 1700, there was only two or three cases. And by the way, there was no death penalty outcomes for a lot of them from the IRS 1700 to 1856, which is when the tanzimat took place when actually in 1839.
In 1839, they basically stopped Sharia law as being the arbitrator and in the judiciary,
in the ultimate in that period of time we saw the most but most of them wants to get through muscle and other reasons. Why stop now look at America treason
is I believe, and not me, the scholars of Islam like a Sarasi he mentioned in his must pop suit, he they say that lead that is equivalent to high treason, America. In 1862, William Mumford, he tore down an American flag. Now notice that this was not an act of militancy. This was an act of symbolism, he took down an American flag. This was after Abraham Lincoln, and all the founding fathers of liberalism, who wrote the Federalist Papers, etc. In America, he tore down an American flag and was executed in front of a mass amount of people in New Orleans. Now, this is not militancy. So is it conceivable? Yes. Has it been shown in history? Yes, even through the law. So
liberalism doesn't produce non death penalty outcomes. That's fake. That's false. We don't get to believe in that.
That's fake. History has improved in that bring your evidence. And so the present is even worse, because they don't even use the treaties clause in the second the second Article of the Constitution of America, and they do extra judicial killings. And by the way, those extrajudicial killings and the suspension of habeas corpus rights are sometimes navigated and mitigated through the liberal constitutional rights. And then you have people like, *, he's a six year old who was killed by Americans by drones, yes, by drones, killing a child because they're afraid that she'll turn out like her father without any trial. This is liberalism for you in action. Don't talk to us about
liberalism. And does Islam need to be liberal, outdated? democracy is much older than Mohammed's time. And he mentioned it as outdated as if some kind of argument This is dysfunctionality in argumentation, actually, to use his phrase.
Moreover, liberalism is contradictory with itself. pluralism says that you can use for example,
your religious expression, and so on to express yourself in society, secularity or secularism doesn't allow that. So if I'm a Muslim, and I want to use my religious belief systems to influence policy, that's not allowed to me by secularity or secularism by is allowed by pluralism. So there's contradictions. What if something which is democratic contradicts something which is liberal?
What do you do in that situation? So here, the truth is, there is nothing you can say, at all, to convince us in the same way as many colonial forefathers, not of himself, I'm just saying of the Western people in general used to come to our countries and tell us to believe in what they believe. And just like in Algeria, we rejected this, because they did not provide any proof for what they believe. And today, we're finding the same thing again, you're not providing any proof. So what I'm going to conclude with is a list of just three questions. The second one has sub compartments, which hopefully, the professor will answer. Number one is straightforward, give us proof of liberalism.
What kind of demonstrated proof Have you got logical give me a rational argument using mathematical logic? Give me a mathematical argument aside
exhibit one, you can't just produce, say be liberal. It's like coming here and say be communist. It's ridiculous. Give me some proof. Number two, give us evidence for the presuppositions of liberalism. You mentioned equality and freedom. How can you even prove that freedom exists as an atheist materials? I'm assuming materials are not, let alone be a desirable thing. You have to prove this equality. That's against the theory of Darwinian evolution. We're not born equal. That's what that's why it's mentioned in the documents, like the United States, for example, the United States Constitution,
or sorry, the Declaration of Independence. But how can you prove that we're all born equal? JOHN Locke said that we are endowed that equality from God as an atheist, how can you prove equality? Prove it prove to us that we're born equal, that freedom exists? That is a desirable thing, and that individual rights should be prioritized over collective rights, which is the basis for most moral liberal systems? You have to prove this? And do you admit that liberalism is capable of producing legally binding death penalty outcomes for non allegiance to the state, for example? And if so, how do you suppose liberalism solve a social problem that is created by Islam? Please answer those
questions. Well, salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah.
Thank you so much,
Mohammed hijab for your presentation,
we will now have the rebuttal session, where Dr. lodge will have 10 minutes to give his comments on what Muhammad hijab have spoken, and you will have your time on the timer in front of them. So without any further ado,
thank you,
I must say that I met surprised by the mixing here of
norm and fact by Mr. hijaab. Because he assumes that we can prove normativity norms in the same way that we prove the existence of the sun, or that we are here today. These are two completely different areas, two different spheres, we don't use the same sort of logic, we don't use the same sort of arguments, when we are discussing norms. And when we are discussing facts, reality, the descriptive part of reality.
So here is a confusion, the confusion that he brings with him into his presentation of the liberalist tradition. I am not in that tradition, I find parts of it sympathetic, but he is and it seems to me that he's reading every text as a Salafi as something that is there like the Quran unchangeable for eternity. The whole point with a tradition in Pillai in political philosophy is that it develops, of course, we do
think and say, liberals do think and say something different from what john Locke said, that is, the whole point of a philosophical tradition is that those who follow john Locke looked at what he wrote, and so on, he's mistaken. I can do better, we can improve, and those that follow him again, says the same thing. So liberalism, now I'm speaking as a teacher,
is different today than it was at john Locke's time. And to say that we have to go back to john Locke to understand liberalism is plainly nonsense. I'm sorry, it doesn't make any sense, because liberal lists today say something else than what john Locke said and wrote.
So, so here, there is a confusion and actually a rather strange if not to say naive presentation of the liberal tradition in political philosophy. Of course, people within the liberal tradition are affected by the circumstances. JOHN Locke was a Christian. Many liberals, political liberals today are not religious, they say and mean different things, and how the tradition how the contradictions within the traditions has been addressed and changed.
Mr. Job is quite correct.
In the liberal tradition that has been raised racist attitudes, there has been arguments for the death penalty, it has been practiced and liberal and legitimized justified by liberals. today.
If we say that
liberal political philosophy, liberal political thinking is predominant. And there is a case for that. In the Western world today, look at Europe today, they have all abolished the death penalty. So to argue that john Locke was in favor of the death penalty 400 years ago, and relating that to liberalism today is simply absurd. doesn't make any sense. Because liberalism today is completely different.
And then, what about cannot avoid it? Because if you're saying that Islam is Islam, and it's perfect from the beginning, and that is absolute, there is no relativity here. It's the same throughout the centuries, because the basis is the same. The Quran is the same. The Sunnah, is there. Yes.
What about today? No, you cannot, you cannot justify racism in Islam.
About the equal number of slaves transported to the Americas was captured and sold from Africa into the Muslim world over several centuries, wasn't that racism?
And if you think it disappeared Well, some time ago, because today we preach a more enlightened form of Islam, you're wrong.
Some of you with black skin having been in the Middle East would know that skin racism, skin color racism, racism is still prevalent in the Middle East. Don't tell me otherwise. I have spoken to blacks, black Muslims, studying Islam in Syria, telling me how they have faced racism in that country, amongst Muslims. And if you say that, well, the West they have been committing atrocities it is true. And who who are those who have addressed those atrocities critiqued them made? interpretations of politics change? Well, they are the same people in the West, criticizing France for its occupation of Algeria.
Where are the Muslims protesting against Saudi Arabia and Muslims? killing children, Muslim children in Yemen today?
Where are they?
Where are all the Muslims protesting against Saudi Arabia's killing
of Khashoggi a year ago?
Don't tell me that, Oh, you are to blame for this and that colonialism? What about
Islamic colonialism? What about Islamic imperialism? Oh, no, we just spread the word. We didn't use soldiers at all. We didn't conquer Spain. You know, we just persuaded the Spaniards, to become Muslims. I am not the one who says that Islam was mainly spread by the sword because that is not true. But it was also spread by the sword.
Jihad visible Allah. Don't tell me otherwise. So if you're saying that your interpretations of this and that political philosophy is different from then you are comparing bad Western practices with Islamic ideals, you're not looking at Islamic practices, and comparing them with Western ideals. And that is also a fallacy. Finally, there are many things that could be said here. But But finally, when it comes to the liberal tradition, again, Mr. Jacob is asking for proofs. And he's saying that
liberalism is based on a fallacy on something that cannot be proven that that's true. No one pretended that the state of nature could be proven. At least not today. It might have been i a hypotheses that Thomas Hobbes, john Locke thought was plausible, also, in the political sense, not least because of the colonial experience.
But the fact is that when most of the liberal theoreticians talk about state of nature, it is a hypothesis. It's a logical hypothesis. They used to establish premises that you can use to argue in favor of certain moral ethical principles. We're not talking about facts, we are talking about norms, we are talking about the basis for a logical argument that can justify
individual freedom.
The states need to withdraw from total * of the individual and so on.
So it
Again, there is a confusion of the empirical and the normative in Mr. He jobs presentation, which I find very, very strange. Finally, if
there is such a thing that well, we are influenced by this and that and we have the colonial past and
colonialism is wrong. Why?
Why is colonialism wrong? I would like to have Mr. hijaab answer that, because if he says it's wrong, because and I agree with him, then we have something common in spite his religious starting point, and my non religious starting point. And that is what is interesting me.
So, to comment on the questions, and I cannot do but comment on them, I don't need to give proofs of liberalism, it doesn't make any sense. First of all, I'm not the liberalist in the philosophical sense. And second, it is a sort of system that cannot be given proves it can be shown to be consistent or inconsistent. And because of certain of its inconsistency, I am not a political, liberal. So there and I've just commented on the evidence of liberalism, presupposition, the state of nature born equal, etc, born equal, yes. Are you saying that we are not born equal?
That is also
hypothesis. Of course, when, when Rousseau said that we were born equal, he did not necessarily mean that in a literal, empirical sense. But he said, when the baby comes out of the mother, they are equal, some grows up slaves, some growth up as laborers, some will be princes, and rulers. Of course, he knew that he wasn't a stupid man. But he made a premise that you have to argue why we are not equal. That is the important thing. So liberalism can produce various outcomes as we have seen,
but so will Islam as we have seen, thank you.
Thank you, Dr. lush for your rebuttal. Now, we will have Mohammed hijab giving his 10 minutes of comments.
So I'm very happy with that. Actually, a lot of that is exactly what I wanted to hear. He said, liberalism cannot be proven. And then he said, we're born equal. And he said to me, the burden of proof is on me. But actually, no, the burden of proof is on the one who's making the claim. The burden of proof is not on me to prove why we're not equal, because that's demonstrated. When we're born out of the mother's womb. Some of us are tall, tall, dark and handsome, like myself.
And some of us,
yes. And some of us are not, as I'm not saying, right, and so on. Okay, know, what are we equal in, we're not equal in physical characteristics. We're not equal in opportunities. Some of us are born in different geographic locations. Some of us are born in the east, west, north, south, wherever it may be, what is equal about our opportunities or our physical characteristics? From a strictly scientific perspective, there's nothing equal about how we're born at all. No, the burden of proof is not on me, the burden of proof is definitely on you. Now, having said that, we do believe in an equal spiritual opportunity from an Islamic perspective. We can say that by arguing from first
principles, the problem is, you can't argue from first principles as admitted by yourself, because you need and a systemic vantage point which doesn't have the end, as the beginning. This is how you argue in your debates, you start by saying human rights is a good thing. But you have no way of proving that according to your own admission, your understanding of human rights, you cannot say I'm not a liberal now, because you've been promoting human rights all your life. That's what you've been doing. How can you not be a liberal and human rights is a birth child of liberalism is a birth child of liberalism. And you've been promoting it harassing Muslims in debates, telling them you have to
be this and you have to be that and you cannot even prove human rights because you cannot even prove it. seedbed epistemic seedbed, which is liberalism, don't run away from the question, saying that liberalism in his definition, is lack of strictness. Or I can say, The Prophet said, don't be strict. But that's according to our understanding our jurisprudential understanding of strictness, you have to have a when you say strict, what do you mean you're talking about in like, post enlightenment ideas? This is perfect. This is the trap mode. And then he tried to say, because right now he's running away from it. Sorry to say, I'm not
trying to push you into a corner. But why I'm saying is he came today and tried to equivocate. It's called the fallacy of equivocation. Use the dictionary definition of the word liberalism when all his life, he's been using the political philosophical definition of liberalism. And by the way, the dictionary definition is informed by the political definition to run away from proving what he has to prove. That's the reality of what's happened today. Then he says, talks about discrimination. Now, it's confusing feminism with liberalism says, Why are women in the back in the front? This is a second wave feminist interrogation? Why should we go for a second wave feminist interrogation? Not a
third wave feminist interrogation, which will ask you by a third wave feminists would ask you, how do you know that women? Have you asked to their pronouns? Now, honestly, honestly, how do you know? I mean, a Queer Studies theory would say that so you're trying to force us You don't even know what you're arguing for. That's the reality of situation, you've come here with a gun with no bullets. And you've shot out the wrong man. Because the reality is now you're being questioned on your own ideology. He says, john Locke, liberalism has changed since john Locke, if you listen to what I said, I said, I don't care what john Locke said. I said, it's the principles of liberalism. I use
john Locke as a supporting argument, not as a main argument saying that everything that john Locke says is liberalism, I said, that contract terian forms of liberalism, or otherwise referred to as contractual forms, which are the only forms you'll see in the whole wide world. Give me one, Robert nozick style utopian anarchy in his book, I'm sure you've read it.
Non contract terian form of liberalism on the left today, you won't find it. Therefore, what's happened today is it's as if I was debating someone about Christianity and Trinity and say, Look, actually, I don't really believe in Christianity, I only believe in parts of it. So of course, you're gonna run away from the question because you have to prove yourself at this point. And when Neo liberal Yes, orientalist. commentators are questioned on their principles, they retreat, they run away from answering, and if they do answer, they'll be honest, like he asked me to be fair, says, I can't prove this. And at the end, he tried to kind of run away from it, they actually have
to prove that we're not born equal. But actually, no, you have to prove that we are equal, because that's a metaphysical equality. It's a metaphysical, it's not a physical one, you can't argue that we're physically equal, we definitely know. So if it's a metaphysical claim that requires metaphysical proofs, you have to provide that. He says, well, there's a racism in the Middle East. I agree with you. But there's racism against black people, and racism against Filipinos and racism against, you know, even Arabs race against themselves. And racism is a problem. And I agree with all of what you said, there. I don't have any disagreement with you on these points. But that's a straw
man I didn't say anything about I wanted to defend the Middle East. If I was defending realism, I promise you he'd win the debate. I made to defend Islam call Hello, hello, soon Allah and the messenger. I don't care what the Muslims do. Muslims are only applicable to the discussion if they form part of the map, for example,
in a jurisprudential sense,
he says,
Islamic colonialism? Well, look, even if there was Islamic colonialism, I was made very clear. I can't stand here and defend 1400 years of Islamic history very clearly, if there was Islamic colonialism with the connotations that implies and you asking me to condemn it, which is misappropriation of land, taking people out of their homes that's wrong. We don't believe in that. But we do believe in an age of empire, where there was a medieval realist form and an international relations perspective of power relations. If you know, your neighbor is about to take you over and you have two choices as a government, then it's not morally objectionable, from my perspective, to
offer them the ultimatum first. It's not a un style, a situation where we can agree and Islam says, Islam says if there are peace treaties in place to stop that from happening, and we're sure that our neighbors will not do that, then those peace treaties must be respected. So if my neighbor if I was living in the medieval period, and my neighbor, my read geographic neighbor said, I'm not going to, you know, come into you, and try and overtake you. You don't overtake us and there was an agreement, I would say it's haram wrong, morally unacceptable for them to innovate. But unless the neighbor can provide such guarantees, then I would say it becomes possible. And an option in that in that in that
context, because you either get it either, you're gonna get eaten, as you would say in a Biograph in a biological sense, Darwinian sense. So really, these are the points and he said that men and women let's say, let's take the gender, the dichotomous second wave feminists think, how is that discrimination against women as well, men and women get exactly the same. If men can go into women's area, women can go into men's area
This is not the same isn't that the rights of men or women are exactly the same in that situation? How can you say that that's discrimination against women? It doesn't make any sense. Because if the same rules apply to men to women, and that's it, that's actually a form of equality. Now, the question is why do you allow certain separations in certain contexts? I'm from UK, we have girls, schools, boys schools. That's an educational setting. This is an educational site. I've never seen you condemn that. Why don't you condemn that? Why don't you condemn someone separated? Why? Because the white man said, so. That's the reality when the white liberal man decides This is an acceptable
form of separation, which has no problem with our sensibilities. Then we have to hear some Anahata we have to hear and obey the colonial overlords? No, that's weak, give us some proof. You've just come here and said, well, john Locke, liberalism has changed, therefore run away. No, you come here to a debate that is entitled, does Islam need to be liberalized? You need to show us first why liberalism is true and desirable before you can convince us of that.
I know that Muslims have a bad track record, but what I'll say to you is this as Muslims, why are we calling you to
the last minute I'll say this, we're calling you to forget about the hedonistic principle where the pure procurement of pleasure is the main thing we're saying constricts your pleasures, in the same way as Allah subhanaw taala has constricted the laws of the heavens and the earth has constricted the laws of nature. We are saying as Muslims we would rather constrict ourselves and our behavior constrain our behaviors in line with the divine God divine guidance Allah in the Quran, which is actually a response to liberalism, I believe, by the honorable minister, he says, although it tebal Haku
faster that is to one man fee in Bella China, be the creme de creme.
If the heavens in the earth have followed their desires, everything in the heavens and earth would have been destroyed. We have come with the reminder, the reminder is to follow Allah as laws, instead of following your own whims and desires, which is the essence of liberalism, the hedonistic principle, and then you'll find meaning in life. We should change the title today after this discussion, to should liberalism be Islamic sighs
Thank you, Mohammed hijab, for your rebuttal.
We will now have our cross examination, where each speaker will have one minute to phrase his question to his opponent. And, and the other speaker will have three minutes to answer his question. And each speaker will be given three questions each. After that we will open up the floor for the questions from the audience. So we will start with Dr. lush with his first question that he would like to ask Mohammed hijab.
I have just a couple of of question. First,
I didn't think it was necessary to emphasize that I actually know that there are difference between men and women when they are born, black and white. We know that some people will be big and burly, some will be short, of course, again,
that this has to do with physical reality reality. And that's not when what we're talking about when we're talking about human dignity and human worth. And it is in that respect that we are equal. And my question, first question is, are we of equal worth, regardless? Men, women born from believers or unbelievers, in this normative sense,
okay to answer that question directly, we are born equal. So the Mohammed salatu salam says in the Hadith, from our perspective, khulumani knew that one fatality, every born baby is born among with the fitrah fitrah is a disposition to believe in God. So from a spiritual perspective, we're all equal, and
we are not to be punished as well unless we have equal opportunity to receiving the message. So Allah says in the Quran, oh, my goodness, why Divina Hatton avasarala. In chapter 17, verse number 15, we are not going to punish them until we send profits. and by extension, that means we're not going to punish them until we send someone to tell them the message of tawheed which should resonate with them instantaneously.
From a monotheistic perspective, because we have an implanted
primordial nature, or as they call it, an autograph of God in us, obviously we don't accept the phraseology of that. But the idea is, is that we have a receptivity to use Justin Barrett's terms who in fact, just embarrass him from saying his name correctly. He was the lead project lead in Oxford University in the anthropological society in 2011, who concluded throughout basically checking out young children, that we do have in his words, and in a receptivity to believe in God or higher power. So from these perspectives from both an empirical perspective and an experiential one, we have good evidence to prove that we are born, believing in a higher power, and from an Islamic
perspective, therefore, we are born equal in terms of dignity. And in terms of worth value, no child born to, for example, this believing parents is any less valuable from that perspective than a child born to believing parents and the Prophet Muhammad. Allah says, In the Hadees rufio, al Kalimantan says that the pen has been lifted upon three people. And now it is taken the sleeping person until he woke up was sobbing, you had a pillow and the and the child until they become pubescent. Well, much known had Tarkin and the, the, basically the insane until they become sane. So Islam is a religion, which can anchor your belief system to a spiritual metaphysical type of equality. Now he's
right. He said that, physically, we're not equal, but he's making a metaphysical claim. You see, the point I was making was, it's impossible unless you argue from first principles convincingly with this systemic vantage point. Other than that, which your end goal in mind first, which is a circular type of reasoning, to prove on liberalism or any other ideology that we are born equal from a metaphysical perspective. And that was exactly the point. So I agree with him physically, we're different. But metaphysically, which is what he's talking about, you can't prove that we're equal, but we can.
Thank you
for your answer. Now, you will have one minute to phrase your question to Dr. lash. Okay. I found it quite bizarre, to be honest. To be fair to you, Dr. ghuli, that you tried to use dictionary definitions to escape defending the ideology that you've been promulgating for many years in this country, with the proof of many debates that you've had, for example, on human rights. I found that even more bizarre that when I checked the dictionary, when use the word liberalize some dictionary definition actually said, especially in regards to politics and economy, economics. My question is, how do you decide how do you decide what definition you're going to base your arguments of, for
example, we use the word liberalize. But another word is religion. ml Durkheim, who's seen as like the founding father of sociology, said religion encompass any meta ideas, which include liberalism actually. So from this perspective, how can you and why would you choose some selective definitions over others to escape from answering questions?
Thank you very
much, when we use definitions, we try to fill concept concepts with meaning and a concept is not true or false. The concept cannot be proven, it is not a premise in a logical argument as such, a concept is something that should be relevant and should be of interest to the subject matter that we are trying to understand. This is difficult, but it is also very important, because many things that definitions are true or false, they are not they are chosen,
they should not be chosen arbitrarily, they should be relevant to the subject that we are discussing the investigating. This is very important. And when I am asked the question, should Islam be liberalized. And I myself is not an ardent defender of the political philosophy of liberalism. I'm looking at
more or less common sense definition what we call definitions of use, how how can we understand liberalisation in a common sense way, and then you can go to dictionaries, you will find nuances in those dictionaries. And I made it very simple for myself because I googled and that comes up the Oxford internet dictionary and so well, that was sufficient
To make my point that we are talking about changing certain dogmas, beliefs, practices. That is my point. I don't have to prove premises or the basis that that that is a very strange way of approaching this is a very Islamist way of approaching it. You can say that's that's his right. Okay. So so be it. He can ask me to do that. But I don't see that as necessarily. Just a point about my own position. Yes, I define human rights, defend human rights, I've been doing so for quite a number of years. And of course, there is a certain liberal element in that I don't deny that the history of human rights has been strongly influenced by political liberalism. But you don't have to
be a political liberalist in order to defend human rights can be a social democratic, you can be a Marxist, you can be an anarchist, you can have many different views. You can even be a Muslim, and defend human rights. So you can defend those from many different perspectives. Coming to human worth, it was a very interesting answer, because mislay job has his position. It's given to us by God, human worth and dignity is given to us by God, I have a different story about the origins of, of the human dignity and human rights. Then we have a liberal philosopher, john Rawls, who is talking about overlapping consensus. We disagree about the basic reasons, but we agree on the
conclusion that we have human dignity and human right human worth as an inherent value, and that we can build on even if we agree or disagree on the causes or reasons behind
that worth.
Thank you, Dr. Gorilla.
May you phrase your question to
Mr. hedger? Yes, it's very simple.
Is colonialism wrong? Because God says so?
Or do we have a common ground for saying that colonialism is wrong?
Thank you, Dr. lush.
Thank you. Just to comment on what was just said in terms of popular usage or academic usage. The word liberalise is certainly used to refer to popular political philosophy and I'll give you some usages here. For example, a book with an anthology of different thinkers called towards an Islamic reformation civil liberties, human rights and international law. This liberalize means the political philosophy Asad, Talal Assad, he wrote a book called blasphemy injury and free speech. Whenever you use the word liberalize. He's referring to the political philosophy john chavi, who is LSE Professor whenever he used the word liberalize. He used it as a political philosophy. For example, Evans,
who's,
who's is in Britain, he wrote a book called liberal terror. Whenever we use the word liberalize, he means the political philosophy gray, john gray when he wrote the book, black mass, whenever you use the word liberalize, he means it in terms of political philosophy. So if we're talking about usage, I don't think you can argue that when people use the word liberalized in the English language, that that means to make things less strict. Even the dictionary you said, Oxford says with particular reference to economics and politics. Now to answer your question directly, that we can say there's something called divine command theory, which is divine command theory. First, I should I should
preface this by saying there's a difference of opinion among Muslim scholars, that would be the most correct thing to say. So this is something called a takbeer seen in an Islamic moral theory. And some people have said that tuscumbia tahseen are being able to discern morality.
With Fitzroy Salima is something which you can do intuitively.
Even taymiyah said this, but he proved it. He said that you can do it, you can find our intuitive morality only. But sometimes it's very difficult to realize what is actually socialized and what isn't socialized. So he says that in order for you to be sure you have to go to the textual evidences, the ashari school of thought are more in line with divine command theory. metacity say is stuck with a belief in a scene. So there is a discussion among Muslim scholars. I can't tell you that this is the way and this is the truth and there's a discussion, but in my understanding, I think a combination of views with Toby had I seen him Tell me as you weigh said about fitrah is true
with
divine command theory as well, I think that's true is also looking at what God said. And looking at the sadhana is not the only access point to morality. Yeah, so we do believe in intuitive, which is actually what john Locke believes is intuitive morality as well. However, it's a it's a way to serve out
those true morality is from false moralities. I think it's a bit of a complicated answer.
Thank you. Thank you for your answer. Muhammad hijab. Would you pose your second question? Yes. Dr. Gula.
The third, the third question.
How many questions you a second for a job? That's what I said. Because you asked the first question.
And you have one more question left in here. One more. Exactly. Exactly. I have one more question and it will relate to nobody. But it's time to ask now. Oh, sorry. Yes.
It's okay.
You're not trying to impinge on my freedom of speech I
want to do, talking about freedom of speech, and particularly the 30 articles of the human rights, which Lars Gulick, law school a has adamantly vehemently defended in the past which I maintain our liberal outgrowths. One of them is democracy. One of the, you know, human rights is democracy. Now, let me give you a scenario and I want you to answer this scenario, would you consider it democratically legitimate if a state wants to carry out a referendum and conclude that they want amputation for thieves as an appropriate punishment? And if not, why not?
Thank you, the answer is no. And that is because of human rights. And the question is very relevant in the West, because we have had since 2001, is so called war on terror. in that war on terror, the Americans found it reasonable.
They tried to justify it through low arguments that we can torture suspects in the war on terror.
between 60 and 80% of Americans polled on this question, said it was acceptable, it is not acceptable. You have no right to infringe the basic human rights of everyone, even the criminal
with the infliction of torture, that is an absolute prohibition in human rights.
totally unacceptable. So, if you say God has said we should amputate the hand of the thief, that is a clear example of how
certain commands in Islam are against human rights and therefore not compatible with modern human rights thinking.
Actually, rather few states including Muslim states practice this. I think it was Habib Bourguiba who's No, it was actually,
it was actually the second in command in Libya in their Gadhafi, who had his special interpretation of Islam, and he was criticized for that. But he said it was Islam and they should follow Islam in many ways. And this guy was asked, Why don't you amputate the hand of the thief? Who said no, we can't have a, we can't have a you know, a stock of laborers with only one hand, we need people who can work with both hands, which is a rational way of saying that it is not a completely outdated
method of of punished punishment for rational reasons, but the main fact is that it is a cruel and inhumane punishment and therefore it should not be practiced. This represents a challenge and a problem for
a number of Muslims who want to maintain that the will of God is clear and at the same time defend human rights. Very interesting person in this regard is is up the line and I am a Sudanese scholar
who is trying to square the circle,
but recognizes that here there is an absolute challenge and opposition between modern human rights thinking and certain demands of
the Sharia.
Thank you, not a lot you may pose your third and last question. Yes, sir. Job. That question relates to the interesting point you made about
The various interpretations on human dignity and human worth, because then you were approaching some of the rational arguments that we have human dignity and human worth, because we are rational beings. And that leads me to a question maybe more out of curiosity, then
have specific relevance to the this debate. But still, what do you think of the contributions of the philosophers in the Islamic tradition? I'm thinking about philosophers like farabi, even seen, also a little Sally, but not least even rushed. Because they emphasized that should as good Muslims, perhaps with the exception of causality in this context, should as good Muslims we should use recently. And that is there should be no understanding of an opposition between reason and Revelation.
Thank you, Dr. loss.
Actually, I've written a book on this, which I want to give to you. This is available online on Amazon. It's called Kalam cosmological arguments. All the names you just mentioned are mentioned in the book as aliens. We're gonna give you one
question in detail, hopefully.
Hopefully, other books will come out on liberalism and apostasy, which I'm going to bring out, hopefully next week or the week after. And another one I'm going to, I've actually written called fifth wave feminism. It's been peer reviewed as well. So hopefully, I can send you those over something. Yeah.
So I'll quickly come back to something that was said and then answer your question directly.
The the premise that barbarity equals falsity, because we heard he says something about cutting the hands off. It says is barbaric, cruel and barbaric? I think that's cruel and inhumane is the words he used. But just because something is cruel, it doesn't mean it's false. That's a fallacy. Actually, that's, that is a fallacious kind of reasoning. barbarity does not equal falsity. And in fact, war is an industry of barbarity and cruelty, cruelty. War is an industry of barbarity and cruelty. And unless you're a pacifist, you endorsed that kind of barbarity and that kind of cruelty, you actually went and tried to get involved in it yourself. I mean, so. So who gets to decide which
kind of barbarity and cruelty is legitimate, and which kind of barbarity and cruelty is illegitimate? And moreover, another thing is it talks about the vote, you know, if a Muslim country, for example, voted that they wanted amputation of the thieves of the hand, should we say this against human rights, but I don't have the 30 articles, I don't see the right to have a hand is one of them. Actually, the right to have a vote was one of them and the right for a state to be sovereign as another one. So hey, you have clear contradictions between human rights, which is what my esteemed interlocutor is not telling us that these human rights which are predicated on axiomatic
unprovable first premises are actually human rights, which are outgrowth of liberalism, and which have no proof, as we've seen, seen today. Moreover, they contradict each other sovereignty of state versus democracy versus life versus these others, why ask them the question? Because if you say, well, even if 99% of the population don't want, so they want amputation of hands of thieves, we're not going to have it. This is in fact, going against the human right of democracy. So you can you can't have your cake and eat both is going to be a contradiction. I'm afraid you're gonna have to enjoy that contradiction. As far as I even seen as amazing scholars, as I say, you can read the
book, as I like to have the philosopher
and I think they all had an incredible impact on one another.
But yeah, I'd read the book for sure that will give you an insight because I can't I can't do it in two minutes. I think it's very difficult.
Thank you. Mr. ajab. You may pose your third and last question to Dr. Gouda. Okay.
I think you can see that that slavery, colonialism, racism, and punitive punishments are all principally conceivable in a liberal state. If so, as a defender of human rights, which is an outgrowth of liberalism.
Why do you use them as main arguments against Islam?
Sorry, let me let me say that one more time. Can I repeat it? Yeah. So I said, I think in the course of your presentation, you conceded that slavery, colonialism,
racism, etc. punitive punishments are all possible conceivably possible in a state which is liberal
or even says that we follow human rights. A state that
predicates itself on human rights values. Therefore, if this is the case, what use how isn't it fruitless to try and call us to this? Because the conceivability of it being implemented does not change. In fact, you could argue it may even increase based on historical data.
It's conceivable, and actually, we see violations of human rights every day all over the world, including in countries saying that they are defending human rights. It's a continuous struggle. But the fact that something is not respected fully doesn't mean that it is not right to defend those human rights.
So, of course, the fact that people are are in a way, hypocrites or not practicing what the ideals say that they should practice doesn't mean that the that the ideals are baseless. And for example, if we should accept this
ultra democratic position that the majority can decide, okay, we now would like to torture suspects in the war on terror, or we should cut off the hand of thieves, then we are free to outvote Islam in Norway.
And believe me, that is not impossible. We have strong parties groups advocating prohibiting Islam in Norway, and if you say it's a democratic, right, goodbye.
Why is it wrong? Because you have human rights, because Muslims have the right to practice their religion in the country where the majority is opposed to it. And if you don't stand up for that, right, when it comes to others, not to be mistreated, not to have their religion banned, etc. Why should we accept your right to be practicing Muslims in Norway against the will of the majority?
If you don't understand that a modern democracy is not the rule of the majority, or the majority tyranny. But it is always a tempered democracy. It's a democracy, with respect for the individual.
And groups of individuals who want to live their lives, the way they see fit, which is what I emphasized in my introductory remarks, we are talking about the right of individuals coming together in groups in congregations in mosques, to live their lives as they want to do it, even if it provokes me, even if I'm don't like it. What should I do, I should defend the right to do this.
While at the same time use my freedom of expressing to critique religion to critique these practices, as I have done today. But if someone comes here and tries to take those rights away from you,
I will stand up and defend your right to be Muslims the way you want to be Muslims.
Thank you, Dr. Gouda. That's the conclusion. Can I just add, because I also the book, it's actually my doctoral dissertation, a little bit thicker than Mr. Jobs book.
But this is actually an attempt to not prove because I don't think that is possible, but an attempt to logically
justify human rights. And I think it is a fairly valid proposition that I'm making. So I will give this one to Mr. hijaab.
It's good to see that love is in there.
Mashallah. So that concludes our second. This is actually the third session. The first one was the introduction. second one was the rebuttals and this one was the interrogations. So now is the last and final session where the audience will have the opportunity to ask the respective questions to each speaker at a time. So first question will be to Mohammed hijab. Do we have any questions from to Mohammed hijab? From the gen side?
Or from the women's area? Any questions?
No questions. everything made sense. He won the debate is over and done.
Now, any questions, you may also send your questions by message to our Facebook page, the Islam net Facebook page, if you wish you could send your question to the Facebook page, but preferably we have the microphones available and you will be given priority if you stepped forward to the microphones.
Yeah, you're sure. Any questions for Mohammed? Hey, john.
No questions? Yes, yes. Okay. Come to the microphone. You may choose any microphone you wish. Thank you.
I just have Thank you. I just had one question about what you mentioned about
one old practice about cutting the hand if you're a thief.
Wouldn't you think that that person would be labeled and recognized by everybody in the society the rest of their lives, that they may be once positive? Isn't that very cruel thing that you never are?
ready with your punishment?
Don't you think is cruel?
I think is definitely is not nice to watch the scene. But that's the whole point. Some things need to be crew you need to be cruel. To be fair, sometimes the point is, is that first and foremost, is always applicable. I think that's the first question as it is not always applicable that someone has to have their hand amputated.
But I think the system of ethics of Islam is different to the system of ethics of liberalism. So liberalism assumes that we own our bodies.
And by the way, that's that's another thing you cannot prove.
By the way, you cannot prove logically or metaphysically that you own your own body, you cannot prove that it's impossible to prove on first principles,
let alone your children, which some have stated actually in the literature. However, when we say this, that there are some deterrents which are, for example, cutting the hand of the thief and so on, which can apply sometimes in certain situations. We're admitting that this is something which is not and the Quran actually says when it talks about the huddle, Xena, it says what what can be emailed for tuning fee feeding the lamb in quantum to Muna Bella Yamanaka in chapter 24. Verse number two says when you're applying the punishment, don't have compassion in your heart, when you're applying the punishment, meaning there's a natural inclination to feel like this is a bit
this is a bit much is a bit, you know, however, a lot of thing, despite this carry out the punishment. And the reason why is because it has a deterrent effect. Now, if you look at, for example, the death penalty in states where it's actually implemented in the United States, for example, and compare it to states where there has there is not implementation of the murder rates are much higher in states which don't implement the death penalty. That's a fact.
reoffending rates in the UK, about 30% of people reoffend. burglars reoffend. 30%. That's one in three people in prison, I got to come out and do it again. So the whole point of well, cutting the handoff, it reduces reoffending rate is very effective is scary, especially if people are watching it. This instills fear in people's minds, we have a problem in, in London, people are being stabbed. You know, we have 30,000 stabbings a year. And because the gang members in there are stabbing, they don't don't care about the risk of going to prison. That's the bottom line. The fear is not there in their hearts. If you don't have fear for authority, like Emile Durkheim would say, then you can do
whatever you want.
So the point is, it hasn't it has an intentional
deterrent effect. Now arguing, as law schooler has said, going against human rights are wrong because you have human rights. That is a circular argument. That's exactly what he said. He said, it's wrong because you have it's wrong to go against human rights because you have human rights. But how do you prove you have human rights, the way you've described them? This is the problem. This is a bait that you cannot prove your first premises, therefore, there's no way of disproving this kind of thing.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have one question to Dr. Gula.
You mentioned that you believe in the human rights.
So I will just summarize what I understood. You mentioned that you believe in human rights and that if there was a referendum to vote that Muslims should be deported, that would be wrong because of the human rights. But if there was a referendum in terms of deciding these human rights, that it is okay to discriminate against religion. What would you then do because what are your human rights based upon at the end of the day? It's like there are human beings that came together and decided or voted or majority minority whatever. Indeed, they agree that these are the Human Rights How would you answer this question?
Reality is reality. If the majority decides to throw Muslims out of Norway, they say we have a right to do so. And they change the laws.
Well, Muslims could try to bring the case in for the human rights
court in Strasbourg. But if the majority had already decided it wouldn't mean anything. That is the whole point of human rights. They're only respected as long as we recognize them as important and valuable.
That's why it's a daily struggle.
Germany was a very democratic states in the late 20s and early 30s. And it ended up with Hitler and the abolition of democracy, the abolition of all sorts of liberal values, and ended up with with the Holocaust, a genocide. That is why there are no guarantees an enemy, okay, we replace this with the God and the will of God. So what guarantee do you have for anything, then? Just a short comment? I think you may have misunderstood the question, okay. Because from what I understood, he's asking that Who are those who actually decide which human rights are? What are the human rights? Who have the right to decide or define that these of you because you keep referring back to human rights, but
these human rights are not God given? So who is the one who, where where do they come from?
That is a very good question. And the answer is that human rights are actually in continuous development.
We've had some basic human rights understanding of what human rights should be. But it has varied over time they have developed.
One example is gender equality. When they when the Declaration of Human Rights was accepted in 1948, he doesn't say one thing about sexual minorities. Today, it is human rights law, at least in Europe, that sexual minorities, homosexuals, have equal rights should not to be discriminated because of their sexual proclivities. We have seen that even though the declaration and later on the conventions, legally binding conventions were meant to give respect to women. It wasn't follow up in practice, therefore, we deepened the rights of women in a particular convention, and so on, we have now the Convention on the Rights of the Child
who thought about children in 1948, in 1966, so this is a continuous development where everyone can have their same time is in the public debate.
Thank you, Dr. Duda. And we have a question for Mohammed hijab. From the microphone. Right. There. I just wondering,
why should we prove things from first principles? And
how can you decide that the the accepted method for proving things is the first principle from the first principles?
Thank you.
Why should we prove things from first principles, there's more than one way of proving things from first principles is one of the ways you can prove things from a logical perspective. There are other ways from induction from abduction, from some kind of deduction, which sometimes relies on some kind of induction or abduction, there are different ways of proving things in the world. That's why the scientific method works. And by the way, we don't we're not against the scientific method. In fact, we invented the scientific method, Muslims invented the scientific method. So the point of there being a contradiction between Islam and the scientific method is something I didn't respond to.
However, we know from the philosophy of science, that science is not incorrigible. So it's something which is subject to change. In effect, Karl Popper said that this was the thing that made science what it is is falsifiability, in his words, having said all of this, to answer your question, we don't need to prove it from first principles. But what I was trying to do with my esteemed interlocutors today was let him use the same standards as he was using with us when we were having to prove God's existence which is metaphysical, right? Because God we wouldn't say is physically dwelling in the sense that he's can be detected by a microscope or some telescope or something. He
asked us for evidence in that respect. So I wanted to ask him for evidence using his very methods of inquiry and truth. And what he admitted today was that there's a difference between facts and normativity
normativity means how something is become part of the discourse of, let's say normality. Yeah. So that's, of course I agree with this fact. And normativity are two different separate things. It doesn't have to be separated. It doesn't have to be disjunct. However, what I will say is, if you're going to make a case and tell us to be something, whether it's believing human rights, the 30 articles, which as the question I was quite right, in, pointing out, was a collection of people that came in the UN convention 1948 and decided on what 30 could what 30 points should be the human rights, and that this in his words, it's correct. It's a development meaning you keep changing your
mind. What he means by development is social forces are continually coming back and asking questions, whoever has the loudest voice wins at the end, one of the human rights is not your right to trip tribal lineage, is because tribalism is not part of the Western orient, sorry, the western post colonial narrative. So it's usually what happens in the West will trickle down to the rest of the world, what's important in the West, and that's another issue with human rights. There are many issues with human rights, they focus too much on rights, what you're owed, and not enough on duties what you owe. That's why you don't have any mother's rights. In in the third convention, of all the
things you've been mentioning, the right to be good to your parents is not one of the rights. Is it? Can you imagine. So the point I'm making to you is,
you can't you can't tell us to believe in something which in your own admission, is not provable. It's not static, it's not incorrigible. And it's fluid. And subjective. That's unfair. I believe that's, that's unscientific as well.
Thank you, Mohammed hijab, I will take one question here from Dr. lush.
The question is about
the doctor mentioning that we have to evolve in our, in our understanding of human rights.
So
50 years ago, homosexuality was not acceptable,
in accordance to human rights. Now, today, we do accept almost homosexuality in western liberal society.
But some people are arguing also that we should accept *, between brothers and sisters who willingly participate in that kind of relationship if there are prevention, etc. And some people also arguing that we should accept
or make it illegal to have sexual * with the animals, as actually has been practiced in Denmark for years, and that there was a it was actually in the news as well, that people from Norway, they take sexual vacations to Denmark to have sexual * with animals. So people today arguing something and in the future, they might argue different things. So how do we reconcile? Should we just go along with whatever we now feel is morally correct? How do we define these boundaries? Where are the binary boundaries of moral morally correct wise is for example, not okay. To have
to have what disco? Yes, for example, mild
* that you, for example, a man masturbates to a baby, a baby wouldn't take any harm of that.
From your values.
What you should not do which is unacceptable, is that which harms someone else. * is usually understand understood as the * or sexual violation of the rights of a child. If you're talking about grownups, who cares? I don't, this is really a minority question.
And as a matter of fact, there are instances of sexual * between consenting adults, resulting in children. And the biological argument that this is harmful to the baby has a very weak foundation. Actually, it's more of a problem that cousins marry again and again and again.
Because that limits the genetic pool, that the brother and sister on one occasion, marries and have a child. It's not a big genetic problem.
Do I like it? Would I say, hooray, this is great. No. Why not? Why not? Why should I? I mean,
why don't you do the same for the homosexuals?
I am not gay, and why? Why should I? Why should I say because I accept the light of gays to be gay and practice there would consult consenting adults, their sexual proclivities, it does it doesn't mean that I have given an invitation
I mean, why should? Why should you think so?
I am saying that I have my preferences. Maybe I like blondes, maybe I like colored women. That's preference, it doesn't mean that I have to say that, oh, it's not alright to do it otherwise. I mean, you have to think through. And your initial reaction that I don't like this, this is disgusting. Well, it's disgusting with amputation. And that's actually a more serious case than having * voluntarily, with another person of the same gender, actually. So here we have cultural ideas. And that is the important point. How do these things change, they change because we recognize greater and greater freedom for the individual, as long as the activities of the individual does not
harm physically or psychologically, other people.
You say the sound with animals? Was that?
The same answer for
me?
As long as you're not hurting the animals, I'm also in favor of animal rights.
And again, I mean,
excuse me for going over time. But since you are adding to the question here, the question here
has it I mean, you can argue, based on principle, but you can also argue, as Mr. haber, your job is done, based on empirical realities. And then the question becomes, how, how many people does this involve? What is the problem here? How large is the problem? Why should we have laws against something that I mean? A very small minority? And I would like to see the statistics on how many Norwegians are traveling to Denmark to have * with animals? And what animals By the way, I mean, this becomes sort of absurd discussion.
Thank you. So I will take one question to Mohammed hijab. This actually, it feels like it's a follow up question.
The individual is asking, how does Islam
regard these kinds of matters? sexual relationships with the same gender and with the animals? And why do you believe that? That, that your moral views are correct?
First of all, I find it quite interesting that you find amputation of hands disgusting. But when we're talking about having * with dogs and cats and horses, this is not something that maybe makes you feel disgusted. And frankly, this shows you how much liberalism and human rights are creatures of convention, they are subjective, they are baseless. They just basically, what white people sorry to say, what why people find, okay, what white people find tasty, or for the sensibilities of the white people. That's what literally sorry to say, that is liberalism in a nutshell, since white man's not even woman for the for the most part, white man's sensibilities, subjective preferences.
Yeah, it's okay for a brother and sister to have * but cutting the handle the thief? Oh, no, no, no, that's come on. We see. I mean, who, who's who's made this? The parameters, the correct parameters. For us? It's a straightforward
thing. And when I say white man, I'm not meaning that derogatorily I mean that quite physically in the sense that the 1948 Convention of Human Rights, the ones who had the, the biggest say in that were American, white men, because America emerges as a superpower. And it was in charge of those particular institutions, and still is disproportionately considering the size of China and Russia, by the way. And there's lots of literature on that I'm sure he's aware. So when we say the New World Order, and the white man is in control of the basically the preferences that we the rest of the world, we should be shaped in the image and the mold of the white man, post enlightenment
experience. This is the reality so you can have * with a dog, potentially, right? He didn't want to really say it. You can have * with your mum and your dad, sorry, children, or your brother or your sister can have enjoy your time freedom. But you know, this thing about cutting the handle? I don't know about that. It's disgusting. Well, he's giving us the I mean, to be honest, it's like I eat this. I drink that sort of matter of taste. Now it's become ridiculous. I can't force your tastes on me. I like Somali food.
You might like Viking food.
You might like Norwegian. I don't know what they eat him. You can't tell me you have to eat the sausage and this egg and column. I don't find that nice. We say the Maharajah or the one who finally determines which is acceptable moral recourse and what is not accepted.
To answer the question is Allah subhanho wa Taala is God Almighty and we have good reason to believe God's exists, God exists, we have good reason to believe the Prophet Mohammed is the actual final prophet. He gives evidences for that.
And so divine command theory would suggest that whatever comes from this is eternally true, which, by the way, can adjust in terms of time and place, but that's part of the Eternally true mechanism. And that's how we live our lives, sexual matters, financial matters, and so on and so forth. Like I said, if you want guidance, you have to seek guidance from the one who knows what guidance which we believe is gone.
Thank you. I believe you have a question from the microphone to Dr. Gorilla. Yes. Okay. Dr. Gould, I have many questions as well, just making sure.
First of all, question, one is liberal liberalism changing with time, I think you've kind of answered it. But I want to have a fully answer, because for the past 400 years, today, and then another 400 years from now, there's going to come another person like you, who's going to say different things. So is it changing under atheism? Isn't that a form of belief as well, you have some form of text or belief you're holding on to third, which country? We can't take too many questions, because you only have three minutes to answer.
Okay, I'm making sure that we talk about homosexuality. When it comes to human anatomy, human anatomy is not created the way the homosexuals thinks. I work as a doctor, and I see more cases related to homosexuality diseases than cousin and cousin, any man and woman who are married, who come there for their reasons. The human anatomy is not created the way the homosexuality works, no matter how you try to define it change and you try to make the human rights that they need deserve the human rights, their anatomy is not made the correct way. So evolution, no matter how much evolution you put into, it is not going to change. So in terms of you talk about being good in the
society and making the size society Well, good for the people, you're making everything wrong for the kids who are coming after us. They're gonna have more diseases because of homosexuality. I've never seen any diseases were cousins, and we're married. And they come because of they have * or any other reasons. There are more diseases related to homosexuality. How can we change that with time?
factor? Yes, thank you, Dr. Nash. Yes, a minute. liberalism is in continuous development. And I really hope that someone will come with the good answers in 400 years that differs from mine today. If not, then the world had stagnated. So of course, that is the whole point. liberalism, or the defense of human rights, political philosophy develops over time, because it's a continuous dialogue with history and the current situation. That is why philosophy is a continuous process, especially when we are talking about morality, ethics, and political organization, the future will be so different that to say now, what it should be like in 204 100 years is absurd, that's preposterous
that that would be like taking the position of God.
And besides, we have agreed here that Islam and Islamic interpretations also change over time. atheism is not a life stance, not a religion in itself, it is a position on certain aspects of reality. You can have good arguments, you can have poor arguments for atheism, and there are many of them around.
My position is that I cannot find contrary to Mr. hijaab good reasons for believing in God. I find all those stories, contradictory, self contradictory, they don't make sense to me. I recognize that it makes sense to others. So further, you can believe whatever you want. Of course, you have the right to believe what you want.
Homosexuality Well, if doctors if medical science now and in the future discovers problems with it, well, again, we have we are allowed to do a lot of things with our bodies. That some fine stupid discussed piercing, for example, tattooing, woof. I don't like it. Terrible. Women with holes in their ears and rings and so on. What's the point? I don't like it.
But it's there, right? So if consenting adults have * with each other, the same gender, it's up to them.
And no one should. I mean, here it is interesting because the norms of privacy
In Islam are actually very interesting. What happens behind the closed door is nobody's business.
So you could have * with one of the same kind.
It's nobody's business.
Well, to say that it harms the people is a position, and that is an empirical statement. And that is something that can be investigated empirically by the science of medicine. And I say, if you have suggestions that it is harmful, then you can get give advice to those who practice homosexuality and say you should do it that way or not at all. But it's their business in the end, thank you. piercing is also harmful, in my opinion. Thank you. So, we will take one question to Mohammed hijab that is actually very, very relevant now that you keep basing your your arguments upon or bringing them back to the existence of God, how can you actually prove that God exists?
There's the book. This has got the some of the proofs, medieval proofs, which are, for example, the argument for contingency the Kalam cosmological argument I find, I don't spend much time this is called clinical logical arguments, the book so it spends more time on Kalam cosmological argument. So if you want to really know the answers question, I'm not gonna give you justice in three minutes that that requires a long time, so you can get the book but I wanted to comment on a few things.
The gentleman asked a very good question said 400 years someone else might come and say something different. And he admitted, yes, hopefully that happens. The thing is, if the white man has the edge on a Gemini on Hollywood and and, and political hegemony, then really it will be white people dictating how the rest of us should live our lives and telling us these are the correct kinds of rights. And these are not the correct kind of rights. The truth is they have not done a referendum on the rest of the world, they have gone to the African villages and asked them, What morality Do you accept? What morality Do you believe is true, and then predicated human rights based on this
kind of moral consensus of, for example, so so called developing world peoples, Oriental peoples, and so on. So really what is been in the post colonial world, especially after 1945, World War Two has been a, a, an agreement among whites. And that's what we've had to be forced to kind of believe in,
or the discourse has been, has been parameterised. to that particular narrative. It's our these are the rights which we consider the most important, God is not part of that it's a secular discourse, and therefore, you have to believe in it. So 400 years, maybe nowadays, you might find Booker's not nice and bikinis are nice, but maybe 400 years, you might like Bercy bikinis. I don't know, it might be a white man. But basically, whatever tickles the white man's fancy fancy. This is the problem. Homosexuality is another thing. He talks about sexuality and * and so on. The problem is, he said, you'd have to see the dog of animals. I'm not sure if a dog is harmed. But how can a dog
consent when they can't even speak? as to when the bark is there? How is it gonna say, how seriously, I want to have * with your dog? How two dogs for Yes, and one one bite for? how you're going to know. I mean, this is this is the absurdity of consent theory and liberalism. You know, seriously, I mean, where do we draw the line?
You said, stories contradict themselves. that's problematic, because he said the source of the Quran contradicts itself or religion, by noon last debate, our two minute 23 as you said, I don't spend much time reading the Quran. Why should I? This is what you said. So how do you not first contradict yourself? You don't even written the Quran properly. And moreover, now you're enduring contradictions. When it comes to human rights. You enjoy the contradiction of pluralism versus secularity pluralism versus democracy, individual freedoms versus collective freedoms. You're enjoying those contradictions? And you're acknowledging those integrations, and therefore you
shouldn't really be sanctimonious in your presentation.
Thank you.
You were referring to me or to the one who asked the question.
Yeah, well, I have not talked about the Quran today. You're not reading the Quran?
Because our two minute 23 I just I like to be particular about those. He said, I don't spend much time reading the Quran. I know, I don't think I mentioned the Quran at all, but we can go and find out.
I said that story is about God. I find Okay, contradictory. Okay. And that goes for the Christian God and Hindu gods and so on and so forth. I don't find them convincing. Okay. Yeah. So, so we have a question to Dr. lash from the other side. I would ask a large schooler about one thing he said
That cutting on the hand of a thief is cruel. Yeah, it is a cruel, but one thing if let us say that I'm not going in, in the television store now. And I am stealing from somebody who I have been working for getting a television store all the life is good that
I have two hands and can go and steal another place.
I'm not sure that I understood the question. Is it good? If I go to another television store thought after tried to steal from television, a television from a man who had been working all his life? Okay. Yeah. That that is the that is the individual individual prevention and in a quite physical way you try to prevent the thief from stealing again, by making it physically impossible for for him? Well.
You have arguments for that you have had arguments for that in the in the West, in Europe, that we need to be strict we had torture of traitors of thieves we had the burning of witches, etc, etc. to scare people. All of this was
cruel and inhumane. Part of the problem is that
you even can convict people execute people
for wrong reasons, they actually turn out to be innocent.
The whole idea of modern penology their theories of punishment is that we rehabilitate the criminal, we condemn and punish the crime, and we rehabilitate the criminal. And when we're talking about the prevalence of crime in the UK and in the States, as Mr. hijaab referred to, I could inform him that the Norwegian system far from being perfect. It is considered by many too lenient, but we have probably the lowest recurrence rate in the world when it comes to reoffending. So actually a humane system of punishment and rehabilitation is better when it comes to reducing crime than those with serious with serious
punishments. And you have the story from the Sudan when, when the
Islamic Front introduced the Sharia after military coos there. They started with the Hollywood punishments. And the story is that when they were chopping off the hands of thieves in public with huge crowds, the pickpockets had a field day.
So much for prevention.
Thank you. Do we have a question to Mr. Raja? Yes, we have a question. Now. Do you have a question for my manager?
Yes, we have a question to my manager. May you come forward to the microphone please.
like to ask
about morality.
Someone like who'd say today that
gravity says that * is so absurdly wrong yet. And someone could argue like, it wasn't like that all the time. You know, there was a time
when Adam and Eve, you know, the insistence alone. So how can you answer that question?
Great question. Let me answer that question and then move on to something I just wanted to make a point on some of the comments that were made. So we believe in Sharia consequentialism Yeah, so something which is halal in one place can be haram and another and the Quran says woman a tog Rafi must mussels envira mutagen if and little fella Gina Holly. So for example, if you have to eat pork in a certain time period, if you're, if you're, if you're forced to it, you can do it. So this is where allswell comes in. Actually, they take these principles to do a soul. So if you're like me, I'm a chef I said Dr. Amrita to Sherry, our Satoshi radical armor. If the situation becomes more
constricted, the shadow becomes more flexible and if the Euro becomes more flexible, the situation becomes more constrict. Therefore, yes, they can be things which are completely Haram.
Like even saying Kelly metco for saying words of COVID forget about Adam and Eve's children having *, which we we don't have a problem within that context. The same thing. We don't have a problem with someone making Calumet, Cofer in that context because they're more thorough. So where is the Aurora, a DA to be brought as the kind of the old principle of rule says, if there's if there's a if there's a need for it, and this absolute necessity for the continuation of human rights, then that becomes permissible, and it's a different context to go. So this idea of a rigid Islam, I totally agree with law school a people who believe in that kind of rigid Islam will be able
to find it very difficult to navigate themselves in the modern world. Just to mention a point now, because I have some time on barbarity or cruelty equals falsity, which is again, cutting the handle the thief is cruel is an emotional argument. That's what that is. I can make an emotional argument as well. I'll show you. For example, in Islam, we believe in casas. Yeah, so we believe that
iPhone I and I, for it doesn't make the whole world go blind. It makes it monocular. Because if someone has one eye, you'll see that the other eye left his ideas is false, actually false reasoning for bad logic. But the point is,
if you have a small daughter, I'll make an emotional argument. Yeah. You have a young daughter, three years old, a bad man in East London, where I'm not based, but I'm based in London,
walking around, they throw acid around like, you know, proper acid. Yeah. If you have a young daughter and someone throws acid on her, that person gets a suspended sentence of five years, six years in prison. 10 years. Do you think that's fair? I think majority of people from an emotional perspective will say no, and this is an emotional argument. Say, actually, the father should take acid and put it in that manner as well. Let him live with the consequences similar to that which he inflicted on someone else. And a lot of people emotionally will accept that kind of argument. If you ask me to prove on first principles, I won't be able to I can prove it on divine command theory. But
I can't prove it on first principles. That's the point I'm making is subjective unless you have some kind of Anchorage. And that is the point I'm making. If you want to make emotional arguments, I can make emotional arguments will they make you all angry, talk about *, * babies, and so on. They should be killed. And most of you will agree with me. But what I'm saying is we can't prove those things from first principles unless you have moral objective Anchorage.
Thank you. We have a question to Dr. lush. The sister is wearing a niqab. And she's mentioned that Dr. Nash he claims to be defending the human rights. And in the in the specific articles of view, human rights is constituted that everyone has the right to education, but Dr. lash, he feels disgusted that she is wearing a hijab or niqab and he would not support her right to education. That's a summarized version of it in English. I'm not disgusted by much. Not niqab either, but then it prevents an open Free and Equal dialogue and communication. The right to education is not absolute. You need grades, you need to have qualified, you need qualifications in order to enter
higher education. So there is a meritocratic system here where you have to have earned it through achieving competence qualifications, not wanting to show your face to other people means that you have said no to a lot of things I mentioned piercing earlier. If you are wearing a lot of piercing, including or not even a lot of piercing, but including holes in your ears, you have to remove that if you are going to be a nurse or a doctor in the Norwegian healthcare system. Why not because it directly immediately harms other people because but because there are good reasons, medical hygienic reasons for that. So if you are choosing the profession of medicine, you have to follow the rules of
that profession, how to behave in a responsible, hygienic manner. If you choose to enter an academic institution, you should abide by the rules of that institution. And those rules are openness, equality, trust, etc. And when you hide your face behind any cop behind big sunglasses, or you wear a crush helmet with the receiver down, you are saying I don't want to talk to you on an equal footing. So next time, please address me on the phone.
Thank you.
Okay, so I've been informed that the time for the question and answer session has been
you want to take one more question. Ah, okay.
So let's take one more question is, by the request of the speakers. So, can we have a question for Mohammed hijab? Do we have a question from the audience? First and foremost, because he argued that we don't need to liberalize Islam because we don't have a proof that liberalism is true. But if we assume that liberalism is true, is there any part of Islam? certainly nothing to be liberalized? Is that last bit? Can you say that? Is there any part of Islam that
would be what's the word you said? To summarize, if we assume the premise that liberalism is true? Are there any parts of Islam that needs to be liberal? needs to be liberalized?
If liberalism is true?
Is that what she said? Yeah, well, obviously, if liberalism was true, everything is neutralized, isn't it? Because if that's the point, but we have to first find out what liberalism are we talking about? Are we talking about utilitarian liberalism, utilitarian consequentialist liberalism? Are we talking about a hedonistic one or contract terian? One a non contract terian one one that's based on virtue ethics, ethics,
a social liberalism or political liberalism or fiscal liberalism, whose conception of liberties in what place What time? So first, we have to discuss which liberalism and then we have to discuss if it was true, that's something else. Just Just to make a comment on the niqab issue. So just to finalize the question, if obviously, if liberalism is true, then we'd have to liberalize everything. But the point is, that's not been proven today with the admission of my interlocutor to his credit. Now, having said that, the point of the club I just wanted to mention that this was an interesting discussion, because in Britain, I'm not sure no way. If you have any blind judges, have you got any
blind judges. In Britain, we had a blind judge in a political Tower Hamlets in London, which means the judge who cannot see. And the main reason I see for those advocates against the club is that they say, Well, you can't see their facial expressions, right. So that blocks barriers to communication. But if that's the case, in the same way, as you would need to ban a niqab in a public space, then you'd have to say to blind people that they shouldn't moderate certain things, including, of course, judiciary, because they wouldn't be able to see people's facial expressions. So all of the carry all of their judgments are actually miscarriages of justice, justice, if seeing
the face is so important, you should ban blind people from being judges, because actually, that would mean that everything that they're seeing is not the full picture. And of course, this is something you could have to be not only with the judiciary, but many other professions where it would be deemed, of course, that such facial expression is of paramount importance. So the the arguments will necessitate if we're being consistent. And if we from a liberal perspective, give equal privilege, to religious discrimination, Visa v. Disability Discrimination, then we would have to say that wherever there is a ban on niqab because of communication or the idea or the causative
reasoning is communication problems, then there should be a ban on blind people. Being communicators. Judges are otherwise arbitrators in those settings as well. If you don't give those two things equal weightings and you give disabled people higher privilege, then that is arbitrary and arbitrariness is against liberalism. And there's no reason for it. So I would suggest that large ruling, because he's an intelligent man and a man who I admire first consistency on some stances, frankly, to revise his position on that based on his own principles. Because I do think if he thinks about it from those angles, he may well change his position just like I'm not here.
Thank you.
Did we start with the first question to Dr. lash, or to the to Mohammed?
Okay, so we have one last question for Dr. Gouda. Oh, microphone, please. First.
First of all, I just want to say to you never say to a Muslim woman called me on my phone, because she's never gonna do that. So you just have to know that, especially if she's wearing niqab. So that's hopeless. Yeah. And my question is,
I just got an original try to translate it in English. shala. So how would you define the freedom of religion for children like small kids? Because the parents they just want to learn their children what they think is good for them. Yeah. The same does Muslims as well. But in West whatever the non Muslims does, they it's like it's freedom. But if like here in Norway, we got like, choosing boyfriend or girlfriend or dancing in pairs and yen going
to disclose and such things, but if a Muslim father or mother just avoids their children not to do such things, then their children are are oppressed. So how would you define like the freedom of religion for children? Thank you. Thank you.
It's an interesting and difficult question. Because according to international human rights law, the legally binding conventions, parents are the ones who are responsible for their children's religious upbringing. So they have a right to, to impart their religious beliefs to children.
And I defend that right, because I cannot see anyone else who should do it. So this is a moral argument and not a legal argument. It is an it's an appeal, not only to Muslim parents, but to all parents, to give children freedom to explore, to investigate, to find out what they want to believe in.
And one of the things that parents should do
is to give them that the freedom to opt out of the religion of parents, by not telling them that if you change your religion, we're not going to talk to you anymore. Furthermore, parents should not make a reverse irreversible physical changes to their children, as a mark of their religious belonging, circumcision of men, boys should stop. If a man wants to be circumcised as a sign of his belonging to a given religion, he can do so after he has become mature 18 years of age. And this goes off course, for female genital mutilation, totally unacceptable in order to make a religious cultural identity statement. Here, children should have freedom to decide if they want to cut off
the whole thing, after they are have become 18. But parents should not make that irreversible decision for their children. And they should give them a liberal meaning non strict upbringing so that they can explore various life stances, religions, etc. That's what I mean, but about giving freedom of religion to children. But, and this is because it is a responsibility to parents to
what is the good English word, they are photovoltage they are the keepers of their children's safety and moral upbringing. And that is a big responsibility and it has to be
carried out in a very good way.
So it's wrong, but if they learn like other things.
So if the parents decide to learn their children, Islam, so it's wrong. No,
no, no, no, no, I'm, well, there are different ways of teaching children religion. You can say, this is what we believe. But you are free to choose. Or you can say this is what we believe. And this is what you are going to believe. And if you say otherwise, we are going to kill you.
That's the difference. You see the point?
Sorry.
You need to use a microphone. I don't know if it's the acoustics of this room or my age, but I simply cannot hear. Even if I got a new hearing aid, the use of that adults should do that he should decide and do circumcision is that we'll just get right. Again. circumcision.
Yep, they use it a person should be adult and then he should decide it and then do it. Exactly. Have you ever seen an adult do circumcision? No. I've seen it. Do you know?
This is this is just general topic, which prognosis would be bad? A kid under five years old, performance circumcision. Home adult who is well developed over 18 having system circumcision who wouldn't have a backup notice? Any good surgeon who's performing will tell you an answer that maybe you could tell me which one you think that is irrelevant. The question here, right now make it clear. No, no, no, no, no appearances should be adult and then existence.
Have you heard from science is proven that a kid has a better prognosis and a better result of circumcision. No matter how much you say that is a writer mineral has nothing to do with the law. I don't care. The point here is See there you go. That's the point. I'm already you know, you're wrong. At that point, you understand a one a better person, I don't know, I'm not I'm not discussing medicine. I'm discussing right and wrong, a claim like that. That's the problem, you cannot make a claim like, of course, I can back it up or something. What I'm saying is that if you circumcise a child, you have introduced that child to a certain culture and religion without Wait, let me speak
without the consent of the child that is taking away from the child a possibility to choose later on, if you as an adult decide to do something and it is very scary because now we vow this can have complications, that is your choice, but because it is more difficult when you are older, you cannot impose it on the child when the child cannot consent. But you understand the prognosis.
The prognosis is irrelevant. It is a moral question. It's not an empirical medical question for the child. One second, one second, one second. So just a quick quick so if they do this in America for medical reasons not being Muslim, then that would be okay. You would be okay with a childhood
medical benefits No, why not the arguments for medical benefits? What are taking drugs or medicines etc. The argument for vaccines, let me answer Don't interrupt the argument for medical advantages of a child circumcision of of babies or children are weak. And nevertheless, they are irrelevant from a moral perspective, because it is the person who has the right to decide on these things, we are talking about something that is irreversible, an injection, oxy
vaccine and so on. They are not irreversible. And parents usually it goes with an operation that a child has an illness they bring into the hospital, of course, then the parents decides based on medical advice on what is best for the child, he he she needs an operation to get rid of the appendix that has become infected. That is not a problem. That is taking care of a life that is saving life that is protecting life, you are not protecting life by cutting off part of the penis.
Okay, let's stop the penis talk. Nihongo.
So, this went on quite a bit long, and we're getting more requests that people want to ask the questions and kind of really any questions we're gonna give one more question and and have to take one more for good as well, to make it fair. This question goes to Brother Mohammed hijab. I've understood that liberalism,
we cannot prove liberalism. That's why we cannot go further with this discussion about liberalism. But what about if we say, Can Islam or part of Islam be modernized? Can we modernize Islam? And did martyrs ILA and all philosophers? Did they modernize Islam at that time, according to the time and age?
Thank you. So theories of modernization usually revolve around post enlightenment thought processes, and usually the dominant ethic being referred to either directly or indirectly is liberalism, democracy, individualism and those things as it's usually a Eurocentric basically definition of modernization. However, just to kind of point something out, which is very important, two things actually, which I've been hearing just trying to listen to the interchange between Dr. gelei
and the audience members. So the point of not introducing them to a certain culture and religion goes against human rights, actually, because one of the human rights is right to education. Point three says parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their child. And this goes to the heart of a problem, which we were facing in Birmingham in the United Kingdom, which is, do does the school have the right to teach young children for example, certain sexual things? Or do the parents have the right that one of the best arguments from their own paradigm and I'm saying from their own paradigm, to make it very clear, we don't disagree with this,
that a parent should have a right to give
education to their child. Now, you can't limit the variables and say you can have a right to give education but it can't be an Islamic one. Because that will go against the two points of liberalism, consent and reciprocity. It goes against this human rights, actually. So from a human rights perspective, from a liberal perspective, you can't actually maintain that I'm allowed to teach my child to be an agnostic, atheist, liberal feminist. But this person from Somalia, from Afghanistan from Pakistan, he doesn't have their right to give them their moral ethic. That's actually a kind of totalitarianism. His move is veering in the in the direction of totalitarianism, which I'm sure he's
against, but it's quite odd that I heard that argument being made. Moreover, FGM is usually associated with the Middle East and Africa. But that's because there's been a problem you mentioned with FGM FGM is practiced most by Western women. Because the way that the who defines FGM includes things like piercings which we know now Dr. Gu lays against in the *, and labiaplasty which are construction surgeries to basically sorry to be explicit, thin the lips of the * for a woman, which is usually done for cosmetic reasons. The NHS, which is the National Health Service in UK, actually gives guidance to women on how to do this. So the point is, there is and this is becoming
quite prominent in the literature now FGM, depending on how you actually define it could be set to be an epidemic in the Western world. But it's always looking at the Muslims or the Arabs or the Africans with a view to make them a subject of investigation and peculiarity that makes them an orientalist point for liberal critique, which I think is hypocritical in all its forms.
Thank you, we will take the last question to Dr. Gula. Is there anyone?
Okay, wait, let me see.
The too many hands on.
Now, this will be the last one unfortunately.
I have a question for Dr. Mueller.
I find a bit problematic when you say remember you say human rights, human rights is not the definition. But in social science as we learn, the definition is what the most important thing when you want to have a good theory. And if you say in the social science from Karl Marx and Max Weber to the to this day with the border, all they have tried to do is redefinition the culture, for example. So I feel I find a bit problematic when you say we don't need to defy the definition, the human rights, but I can understand you if we say it's a priori. But then you see later that in the 70s, or the
sexual royse wasn't there, and that human race will develop and that goes against a query as we know that count, when he said that April you have some principles, and that is cannot change over time. So if human race is not a priori, so, how can you argument for human rights with a definition please,
thank you, of course, you have to define human rights, I what I have said is that you cannot prove them, you cannot give a scientific proof of human rights, you can argue to justify them, but of course, you have to define them. And you can basically say that we have three major human rights is the right to life, their right to liberty, and the right to, well, fair well being. And what we find in the different conventions are
concrete decisions of those three major types of human rights. Now, that is, by itself a definition of them.
And they are sometimes legally binding and then you can extend them and give them moral value and so on. And they change,
as I said, because you can expand them and give more rights, emphasize certain rights and so on. So I'm not against the attempting to define in a serious and meaningful way human rights on the contrary, but I am saying that you cannot give a mathematical proof, you can give good justifications for human rights.
And we will have to
I use the word definition by meant proof. Because if you say like when in the social science, when you don't prove a thing, you put it into a priori category, but as you say in the principles that human rights
When you as you talk about them, they don't fit with the principles of a period. So, even Foucault, with the post modernists, they have some principles. So, I'm looking to understand, because I want to understand, I want to understand how I can prove human rights and fight for human rights with reason. So, if I cannot put in the apiary category, and I have no principles of the postmodernist, so, how can I find principles to understand this I have to understand as a human being, as a rational human being, thank you, you have one minute to answer that question. Yeah, well, there are elements of a priori notice here, when we are talking about human worth and human dignity as the
base with human worth and human dignity is what is protected by human rights, human rights is a consequence of human beings having human worth and human dignity. And that is a metaphysical position, I agree, it is something that you can argue for, you can try to give it its some sort of empirical reference by saying that social reality is normative. We are all living in a world where we are following rules and we do so instinctively actually. So, in that sense, there is a a certain a priori ness and also actually an empirical reference here, but it is, but I would not claim to prove human rights. I wouldn't This is an ongoing philosophical discussion, where human rights have
good
arguments based on many different positions something I will come back to in the summation. Thank you. So, we will end the question and answer session. With that. And Dr. Loss you will have five minutes to give your final remarks and Mohammed dw will have also five minutes to give you a final remarks, then I will conclude the session and after that, everyone stay seated we have a big surprise.
Okay, thank you,
okay.
So,
okay.
First of all, we are not talking about taste, when we are talking about cruelty, we are talking about
not our subjective experience of taste, we are talking about something that has to do with right and wrong. We're not talking about false or true, false and true relates to the empirical world. It is true that the Earth revolves around the Sun, it is not right or wrong.
It's not right or wrong, right or wrong, relates to it's not true to say that it is wrong to kill someone. That's not true, it is wrong to kill someone.
The fact that the world is divided into different spheres, and where we have an empirical sphere, describing reality telling us how things are is different from morality, law and politics, where we are talking about how things should be
that is something that has to do with with norms. norms is something that we can discuss human rights are norms, they also represent values. Those values are important because they are there to defend to protect human worth and human dignity.
And therefore human rights have good reasons. They have been given by theologians, Muslim theologians, Christian theologians, they have been given by philosophers, they have been given by legal scholars, political scientists, politicians have all given good reasons for human rights. And those reasons have been accepted. They have been accepted by a majority of representatives of the people of the earth. It is not true when Mr. hijaab says that they were a Western invention.
They have a long history in the West, but just as little as 30 is a Western mathematics, Western natural science, Western physics, Western chemistry. There are no Western human rights. They are universal, when they were developed, in order to be put on paper made into a declaration. That was an intercultural process, where representatives of the Muslim world of the Confucian world of the atheist world as well as the Christian world
took part.
There was an argument we need God here. We need God
to guarantee human dignity and human worth.
And then you would think it was the atheist communists who said, No, we don't go for God. But it wasn't. It was the confusions that Chinese they said.
We have confusions, we don't believe in God.
And then the committee who drafted the Human Rights declaration realized that we can agree on the human rights, but we don't have to agree on their recent our own justification
for human rights, therefore, you can have your Islamic justification for human rights as many Muslims, scholars, legal scholars, philosophers have,
or you can have my rationalist
arguments in favor, you can have Christian arguments, you can have Hindu and Buddhist arguments. Human rights
are not carved in stone, they are developing as we use our recent in order to understand and improve the world we are living in, in order to prove improve the protection of each and every one of us. And so far, they have done a good job, it does not mean that they are being respected universally, even though they are universally applicable, even though they have universal protections. They are not respected universally. That's why fighting for human rights, including freedom of expression, and the right to blast feed, including freedom of religion, also the right to change your religion. And I'm not sure that Mr. hijaab knows, but in the dialogue between Christians and Muslims in
Norway, it was actually agreed that the right to change your religion is a basic human rights, which should be respected by Muslims without repercussions for
members of congregations mosques, or families who change their religion. The final point, education has to do with becoming a good citizen, a functioning citizen. That's why in general, parents can take care of that, right. But sometimes they don't do it in a good way. That's why we have Child Services barnevernet. That's why we can also make demands on the content of education for children, so that they will function in a good way in a democratic society. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Dr. Lynch, for your final remarks. So I would request my day job to give his final remarks as well.
Well, just to comment on some of the things that were said in the final part of that summary, is that it was an intercultural process, deciding human rights was the intercultural process. It was an intercultural process to some degree, but one that the western elites presided over, especially after World War Two, this is well known history. I mean, there was a bipolar system of international relations where Soviet Union and America became the two dominant forces. And of course, America controlled the international organizations, including, of course, the UN, of course, he was talking about Chinese, he refers to them as a Confucian world, I would put to him that probably the liberal
world is the one that's confused, but Chinese have whole different set of moral injunctions. If you go to South China, sometimes you might see some way a restaurant of people eating dogs, for example. Although it will be I mean, they're not making arguments to have * with them, is still completely different in terms of the prioritization of rights. And we don't see the world shape shaped in Chinese or Russian
rights images. My opponent today has been asked three questions to prove
liberalism slash human rights to prove the presuppositions of those things, including freedom, equality, etc. And then also to consider admit that within liberal systems, you can have punitive laws, Corporal punishments, racism, colonialism, etc. And to my surprise, he actually agrees with me on all three of those points, which is, I think, a very good way to end the debate where the two people agree on some of the main issues in regards to moral theory.
So I want to thank my opponent for coming today and putting up
With my hostile approach to debating, which is become a hallmark of my,
my interchanges with people. And I also want to thank my family, because they had to put up with me as well, preparing for debates like this, but also preparing for research material that I had to do.
Going back to something about family, and I've kind of alluded to this before within my discussion, that Islam puts community rights over individual rights for the most part and put God's rights above all of that. That is the prioritization of Islam is a different, completely different prioritization to human rights. We don't disregard or deny some of those 30 articles of the human rights. In fact, I agree with a lot of them. If not, I would say most of them, frankly, I mean, might come as a surprise, but we would just disagree with the way in which their phrase and prioritize, we would disagree in the way in which right support of responsibilities the Islamic discourse, it puts more
emphasis on responsibilities and rights, because if everyone is selfish, nothing will get done. At the end of the day, if everyone's thinking about what they owed, then there will not be reciprocity in a communal space. And so therefore, membership or fraternity to a community is prioritized over individual interests. And that is something we say comes from divine command theory, but also helps for the welfare of human beings across time. Actually, this is something which many liberal scholars, I would call them liberal, maybe they wouldn't call themselves liberal, would actually agree with me on they're referred to as communitarians. like Michael Sandel, in his book theories of
justice, they actually say the community spirit, you're born into membership and family and so on and historical lineage. And therefore, you should prioritize communal arrangements before and above individual ones, or is the case. Now going back to one thing that we did disagree upon, which was definitions in this debate? I think that my opponent did employ a fallacy of equivocation. For example, if someone in front of me now had a heart attack, maybe one of the liberals, when he saw my first presentations, and want to joke and had a stroke, and then maybe the doctor will say, is there a doctor, the doctor over there comes?
And actually Dr. Gula, comes up and tries to I said, I want a doctor. But in this case, I meant a medical doctor, not a professor, right. So it's using a word in a completely different way in order to avoid a particular argument. So when I was using the word liberalized, as I've proven in popular usage, this means in reference to political philosophy, in particular liberalism, but he this indeed disengaged from that, because you knew the moment we scrutinize, liberal philosophy is the moment that would be the end of the debate. However, to end this debate, on a good note, what I would say is that, instead of reform, we should both and we I think we do agree that there should be
reconciliation between Muslims, traditional Muslims and liberals. And both of us need to be as flexible as possible in facilitating such reconciliation, as a process. Welcome Dino Kamala Dean, you have your way, and we have our way, but we will build bridges. And we thank you for all the good work you do. So everyone a round of applause for our schooling.
It has been a great honor for me today, to hold to host this great debate between Mohammed hijab and lush Gula. And I asked last panel dialogue to accept this efforts of ours, and put Baraka in this and make us and give us more opportunities to arrange debates like this again, see, I mean,
and we ask Allah subhanaw taala to guide all of us to the right path, Dr. lush, Mohammed hijab and all of us we all need the guidance of Allah. So yeah, I mean.
So with that, I thank our two participants, Dr. loss and Mohammed hijab. And I will conclude the session by this. And for those who are watching online, and all of you as well, as I mentioned early, earlier in the beginning of the program, that we are working on a project to establish a Masjid and a data center here in the heart of Norway, in Oslo in the capital of Norway. So please go into the website save eman.com. To read more about this project. Save Eman, calm, and you will find the link in the description of this video. And please participate with your participation as much as you can. Thank you so much.
How's the Mondo? Not good? Okay.
Good
Is it really that bad? I'm really afraid of this.
Is there anything we could do to save a man? Yes, Eman is dying. But we can save him on with your donation. Please watch until the end and give for the sake of Allah. And he subhanho wa Taala will give you up to 700 times in return and build for you house in gentlemen. I am Fahad Qureshi, and I'm chairman of the Islamic network Islam net, one of the most influential Islamic organizations in my nation. I was born and raised in a European country called Norway. In search of a better life, my parents migrated to Norway in the 70s. What they didn't realize was that he man may not be able to survive this journey. The population of Norway is around 5.3 million people with Muslims making up
200,000 of that population. The number of Muslim names is increasing, but the number of Muslims with a man is decreasing. In other words, a man is dying in the hearts of our youth today. Islam net has been for the last 10 years working nonstop and developing key that our projects to maintain the Muslim identity for our next generation. So we are making a change. I was a non Muslim with no purpose in life. But Allah guided me and Islam Allah gave me a platform to spread Islam and my country.
Slam net has given me an opportunity, not only to learn is them also to give Dawa and invite other children to Islam. I can't express how grateful I am for having Islam that in my life. Through our projects, we are combating Islamophobia inviting non Muslims to Islam, giving tarbiyah to the youth, guiding non practicing Muslims back to Allah, giving support to revert fighting extremism, and empowering the Muslim community to get involved in that hour. We have been operating from a small office that no longer can cater for our needs. We need to establish a Masjid with a dour and community center that can host Islamic events and exhibitions have a youth center and offices where
we can have full time to add expanding the our interview programs so we can bring up a generation of youth aspiring to make the word of Allah the highest fed that is absolutely brilliant. We have to do this. Brothers and sisters donate generously and help us to establish this mystery and our center. And don't forget to make and share this video on all your social media platforms so everyone can benefit from this amazing project. We are not going to let a man die.