Intellectual Seerah #2 The Physical Characteristics & The Virtues of The Prophet
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Channel: Mohammed Hijab
Series: Mohammed Hijab - Intellectual Seerah
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers discuss the physical appearance of Muhammad wa and the importance of showing strength when walking in secure environments, homouple, weight, and the use of artificial intelligence. They stress the use of clothing and bodybuilding in court events, the use of money in religion, and the negative impact it has on one's well-being. They also touch on the history and cultural significance of Hadith, a powerful man, and the use of symbolism and finding a partner for one's spiritual health.AI Generated Transcript ©
Salam Alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh. How are you guys doing? Well, welcome to the second session of the intellectual theater. And what we're going to be trying to do in these sessions as we're trying to employ what is referred to as the multidisciplinary approach, an interdisciplinary approach, we're not just dealing with one thing, we're dealing with many different things, we're trying to bring the philosophical discussions or historical discussions, manuscript discussions, psychological discussion, sociological discussions, and, of course, the Islamic science discussion as well trying to kind of merge them all together. Because, quite frankly, this is the only way in
the modern age, we can crank, try and create an original Syrah, I mean, CLS had been done, have been taught for 1400 years now, they've been taught and in many different ways, and we have to use what is to our disposal our at our disposal in order to try and create something quite novel why? Number one, because this is what knowledge production is all about, if you want to see something new, or bring something new, then you have to try and bring all the information that you have of the day. Number two is because that creates a tight level of relevance, it makes it relevant to the people in the 21st century. So, usually, what we do, what we would be doing here is talking about what is
referred to as a what are referred to as the sheet metal of Muhammad, Salah Salem, or
really the the the characteristics of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu sallam. And there are two kinds of characteristics. There is what is referred to as a subtitle, how clear and all hell clear and then colloquia, which is the you could say the current the natural characteristics of his actual physical self. And then you have his actual, you could say, etiquettes, or his virtues. So we're going to be going through two different things. But of course, before we do that, we're going to start in a typical manner, and deal with the question of beauty itself. Now, why is this question important is important because if we're talking about the fact that the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu
Sallam has beauty, both in character and in physical appearance, and it makes sense to ask the question Is beauty a thing? Of course, many of you may have heard the phrase, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But is this something which is true? Actually, there was a raging discussion in the 18th century between some of the philosophers about this very question and two people in particular stand out who represent what's referred to as the sentimentalist school, or the subjectivist school. And that is David Hume and Immanuel Kant. Now, these two individuals, basically belong to a camp called a subjectivist. Camp, they said that beauty
is not a thing out there that you can measure, and therefore it's not objective in that sense. And we are imposing our own sense of kind of aesthetic taste, or value judgment onto the object rather than the opposite. But this was not always the belief system. So for example, historically, Aristotle and Plato believed that beauty was a thing objectively measured. So beauty, or aesthetics, is sometimes analogize with morality, and sometimes it's analogized. With mathematics. And what Aristotle said is that look, I mean, there are some aspects of beauty which can be measured proportionality, geometric design, symmetry, and so on. And you'll find that this has cross cultural
application. We'll go through that in a second. But this debate between objective and subjective is is important because if we say that we believe that, for example, that the Prophet Muhammad wa Salam is beautiful in both character and physical appearance, is this a? Is this a claim, which is a subjective claim? Because if it is, then it's a very difficult claim to make use as proof of the veracity of Islam, if it's the whole thing is relative and subjective, then how can it be used as proof for the veracity of Islam? Whereas if we can say that at least it maintains a degree of objectivity, then it can actually be used as an evidence for the veracity of Islam. And this is
important because the Quran says limits on the Latina from delegates that we will muster kingdom over Kena Hatter, that team will be in but I saw them in Allah will also have Mahara that the people of the book were deferring until the bayonet came the evidence. And the evidence is Rasul Allah, actually, he's the evidence himself, the Prophet Muhammad is an evidence in chapter 98 of the Quran, for the veracity of Islam, that's something which the Quran hints to and indicates to so let's get started with it. So we said here
that, yes, I'm gonna look at Plato and Aristotle and holistic kind of philosophers, they would they would point to things like mathematical forms, and they would say that these mathematical forms are indication that beauty is, at least to some extent, be measured. And this actual idea, it persisted in the western philosophical tradition, to the Renaissance, and obviously people like Michelangelo and and others you know, they believed in that
They believe that beauty was something you can you can kind of measure. And it's something that's quantifiable.
But as I mentioned, that changed with Locke, Kant, and Hume, who all belong to the subjectivist camp. And David Hume says very clearly, beauty exists merely in the mind, it is in the eye of the beholder? Well, you've heard that expression, expression before. Nowadays, we're actually finding new evidence, a new layer of evidence after this philosophical discussion, which indicates to the cross cultural relevance of beauty. Now, it's not the case, that everything that is cross cultural, that exists in many cultures independently, historically, and contemporaneously is true as an objective value. But it's more information, or it's more indication that it may be right. So for
example, there was one particular study, although actually many studies to this effect, have quoted only one here just because of brevity and conciseness, which is the idea of symmetry as be introduced cross cultural support. So this both and Hilmi, a cross cultural comparison for preferences of symmetry. When we say cross cultural, it's okay, if you go to this culture, and this culture, this culture and that culture, then most cultures would, would show you, okay, that something which is symmetrical, something which enjoys that level of symmetry proportionality, is conceived as beautiful by the end user.
And that's why you'll find in most things, which most products or most designs which capture the most attention, they're actually symmetrical. So like, we're talking about architecture, for example, some of the architectural designs which are most prominent, or geometrically symmetrical, for example, mentioned, you know, the Andalusian, if you look at the Islamic was what's referred to as Islamic architecture, but even Gothic architecture, even Bruce Willis maybe not, to the same extent, because it's actually brutalism, we were talking about before, is the reason why it's, it's like that it's because functionality has been emphasized rather than aesthetics. Because of this
view. I mean, think about the 18th. For 19th century beauty, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Let's focus on, let's focus on the fact not beauty, but let's focus on function. So they give us an a building in the United Kingdom, was meant to be a first world country, which looks quite horrendous, comparative to what people were actually able to produce in this country hundreds of years ago, go to Westminster Abbey, like for example, and just think, use your own sense of taste, look at the architecture there. And then compare it with one of the council blocks or whatever, and see the difference, then, it's like there is a degeneration in our conceptions of us, it's actually
due to this, like almost post modernist idea that everything is subjective, there's no level of beauty and this kind of thing. So they're destroying the landscape, not just morality. So you know, in many ways, and we'll come to this, you'll see this when we talk about virtue ethics, and very important as well.
In many ways, the West has actually gone down. In many ways. It's gone up in technology, and science, there's no doubt about that. But when it comes to conceptions of beauty and morality, you can see you can see a degeneration in that because of some of the belief systems that have come about which have an atheistic kind. Well, humans have a sense of aesthetic taste. And this is, by the way, it's categorized in different ways. Like, for example, people watch sports. Now, for example, if you watch football, people watch like soccer or if you're watching this in America, people watch, I don't know, like an MBA or whatever it may be. And if you look at Forbes, I'm one of
the top guys playing in that industry. Messi, for example, was no one could have any controversy about his greatness in that field. You there's a sense of beauty that is related to that, and I try to go and play football myself with my lumbering, uncoordinated self, or somebody who is a complete novice has never. And if you compare the two kinds of football playing, I mean, you could say that the way Messi plays football is not just functionally better, but it's actually more beautiful. Why because we already have an inbuilt sense of aesthetic taste. Look, if you get this the extremities of the situation, the situation becomes more clear. For instance, if I say, if I were to put
something very vile, to be eaten, like, not going to mention anything, but think of the virus thing that no one would eat, it was unedible thing in the world, foul stench, 2000, but still edible, and it says the given nutritional value. And I'll give you a fantastic dish, let's say a curry or I don't know what it might be like, whatever your favorite dish is, chicken or this or that whatever. Most people in the world would say this is objectively better than this, in taste, is objectively as I don't care what anyone says, Objectively, this is actually better to eat than this in terms of taste. So we all have that sense of and if this wasn't the case, then why not, you know,
supermarkets and restaurants just put anything on the on there.
Because there's a sense of collective understanding of tastes which we will respect.
Now, this becomes more controversial when they start talking about human beings. Because we say okay, well look, that's all well and good, but you got to apply the same thing. So human beings, we
We say we have to apply the same thing to human beings. But let me give you an example. With all due respect, I'm not saying that every human being you know, let the Holika Fussa father are useless and Musharaka back, you know, Allah, He says, Well, Hala canal in Santa Fe Sn is a queen we have created the human being in the best of proportions. So from one perspective, human beings created in the best of proportions, all human beings.
But from another perspective, there's clearly a differentiation in what we what we perceive, but what could also be said to be beauty, or lack thereof. So for example, if you get somebody and completely deformed them, if you deform them, like you take away the eye, and this and that and burn them, or if you burn somebody, you cannot tell me that, objectively, they look better than they used to.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder? No, it's not like that. Because if you take that to all cultures of the world, they'll say this one looks objectively whether if you get someone and pour acid in their face, and say, are there is there an objective difference?
And most people say, yes. This objective is Campbell say, No, you're just imposing whatever because of this, and that, well, there is a degree of subjectivity. I'm not saying the degree of there's no degree of subjectivity, but to argue that everything is subjective.
It would run counter to everything we know as human beings.
So there's a degree of interpretive, I'm not saying that the interpretive sentimental thing, which is based on our upbringing, based on psychology, psychology, or our parents or what we consider or Homolka. Me, for example, there's, you know, we've all heard of hypergamy hypergamy. Now, now, it has become very famous thing that women, for example, marry across an up dominance hierarchies. But we don't talk about homophobia, which is idea that women also marry just like men do, for the most part, people from their own from their own race. From the own ethnicity, that is actually the common trend, a black woman is likely to find a black man attractive moreso than a white man, in fact, now
is that because of what it's just the way it is, I mean, that's what the data says. So maybe her idea of beauty is a little bit different because her upbringing is different. It's more similar to herself is more familiarity and stuff like that. A white woman is more likely to see a white man is attractive on bilott. Of course, there's exceptions. Otherwise, you'd have mixed race people, we wouldn't have people from different. Of course, there are exceptions, but I'm saying that home welcome is also a thing. But how do you how is Homolka explicable, it's only explicable for the fact that your own set of conditions and psychological background has contributed to you preferring one
set of beauties as more or less important than another set of views, such as degree of subjectivity. But then, once again, you cannot sit you cannot render the whole thing subjective because if you do, you wouldn't be able to explain many of the things.
Having said this now, they're also hedonistic conceptions. So like, for example, John Locke and others, but many of the hedonist would say a hedonistic conception of beauty aside like something is beauty, if it was your pleasure, simple as that if it causes you pleasure, that's beautiful. It doesn't cause you pleasure, it's not beautiful.
You know, I mean, that there's no evidence for that, effectively, you can just say that that is an effect of beauty that causes you pleasure. But it's not, by and large, the only parameter. And in fact, David Hume, he does he describes us referred to as, I think, is this interested pleasure? Well, basically,
you gotta think about functionality, because, for example, this pen, okay?
What is the function of a pen to write
something which doesn't fulfill its function is not many people say it's not beautiful, because it doesn't do what it's meant to do.
Many people say, like, if, and we can go to Aquinas, even interestingly enough, he had this whole thing about the integrity of something, the dignity of something, and the clarity of the three a tripartite information of a distinction of what creates something which is beautiful, there has to have integrity and integrity means wholeness, something for something to be Integris as to behold, and the function, sorry, the clarity of something. And, you know, the carry of something, I think the function of something as well. So the thing is, this is really if you go back is probably goes back to the Platonic forms. Plato, he believed that you had this world of forms literally where
everything has this like archetypal value in this world of forms? And what makes a pen a pen? What makes it what makes a knife a knife? At what point does that become a sword?
Think about that. I mean, if I say this is the best knife in the world, and I bring you a suit effectively. So this is not called a knife. This is called a sword. So at what point does it become a sword? And what point is it a knife? When the functionality may differ? At what point is it a pen? And at what point is it just a cylindrical object when the functionality is different? So in order for something to be beautiful, most people would say it has to fulfill a certain level of functionality.
That's why Darwin was very, very upset about the peacock because he couldn't explain why he has all these feathers and all these kind of things. And then
That's actually led him to the theory of sexual selection. Because you know, Pico was colors and stuff like that. And it's a way to try and attract the mate for the mating process. So you have to try and create something called theory of sexual selection. But having said this, I mean, the point is, is that function, it features quite heavily. Hume said, well, actually something which is most beautiful is that which doesn't attempt
to be functional in that regard.
The call disinterested pleasure, but he doesn't really offer reasons why that may be the case is heavily criticized.
So really, and truly, what counts as art, what counts is something art can be divided into two natural beauty and non natural beauty. Right? This is what it is. But then really, and truly the question is our actions. And the reason I bring this Your attention is there's a very interesting Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad salah, where the Prime Minister was walking without a shadow line. And then a group of Jewish people came and they will cite to attack the processes a semi like that is made deftly upon you. And then actually responded then she started attacking that group of people as you said, you know, upon you and this and that actually attack them. And then the process don't
give advice and this is interesting, you know, Hadith which relates to the discussion on beauty. He says mackendrick Coffee, che and Ella Zanna Oh my nose Alif common che in election. That riff was idea of gentleness. It wasn't in something unless it made it beautiful. And it wasn't removed from something unless it made it ugly, effectively.
So here, there's an indication from the prophetic Hadith, that
actions can have beauty.
And our claim as Muslim people is not just that the behavior of the Prophet Muhammad wa salam
was the best behavior, or the most functional behavior or the most guidance, but I suppose beautiful behavior as well. As we are making an argument from beauty, we are saying that it's the most beautiful behavior. Because if we if we accept that virtuous actions,
virtuous actions are counted as actions, and the pinnacle of that then is the most beautiful of behavior
that has been literally adorns the behavior, it's something good to look at. And that's why Vidkun Stein, very famous philosopher said that beauty is something you know it when you see it.
Likewise, when you see good behavior, or virtuous behavior at the pinnacle, you know it when you see it, you don't need to have any training and philosophy or anything else, you know, when you see it. And that's why a lot of people convert to Islam. And that's why it's a missing part of our Dawa, when people just witnessed the Prophet Muhammad wa salam behaving in a certain manner. It was intuitive to them that this behavior is the pinnacle of virtuous action.
And you don't need to have training in any field to know that. It's because it's the it's the you call the golden mean, and we'll discuss what that means in a second in the section that follows, but it's the golden mean of all behaviors, is the way he carried himself was exactly right. And to get that as a human being is extremely difficult. In fact, impossible, you could argue, impossible for another human being. So we would argue, to replicate the fine balance that existed in the behavior of the Prophet Muhammad salah. But before we get to the behavior,
we need to talk about some of the physical descriptions of the parameter. And we will actually read Hadith out because I think when we talk about the Sierra and stuff like that, I should say, there's a lot of discussion about the CRR. And obviously, like, we know that the Sierra authors
that they were much more lenient in terms of the gradation of Hadith. But for our purposes, since we're making arguments, and we're making an intellectual case, I think it's only right for us to know the gradation of Hadith. So I'm going to read it in translation, a lot of these Hadees. And then we'll discuss maybe a couple of things like that, but it's good, it's a good habit for us to actually read the actual Hadith itself, or at least a translation of it. And this is Masha Allah has a very good book is, I think, recently been translated of Chemin Muhammadiyah, into English language, and it's called a portrait of the Prophet you can buy it online. It's actually very good
translation. I commend the translator and good work that's been done on it. So we'll do that. Obviously, this book has Hadith which are different gradations where people would consider that okay, Timothy, but Timothy didn't like it, whether it is Gemma or this book or any other book, he didn't attempt to put all the say Hadith in one place, which means that you actually have to go through, like, you have to have an awareness of what this hadith is. There's some Qalamoun is not Kalam on it, or whatever. So I will try and do that as much as possible.
In what follows but just I'll try and paint a picture quickly.
Of the of how the prisoner's dilemma actually looked.
How did the Prophet Muhammad Salah Salem, actually. So
there are some things which I think it's better for us to say that is say to a high level, which means the authentication of hadith is undisputable or undoubtable, which is the following that he wasn't that tall, and he wasn't that short.
Some of these words we're going to cover say he was taller than the average man. He's taller than average man. But he wasn't extremely tall. Now, what does that look like? I mean, how are you going to pull? What's the height there? To be honest with you in 1004 digits, I don't think the height of the Arab people is going to change that much. You could say a few inches here and that possibly as an average. And obviously, if you have a smaller population, that mean is going to be different because the extremities are eliminated. I mean, if now, if I asked the Arab people in, let's say, the elite region, which are most genetically similar to the promass, some, undoubtedly, someone who
wants to
dispute that by slot is undisputable, it's most genetically similar, that the average height may be five for eight, five foot nine, that's probably what it is. And that's maybe even being generous. five foot nine, let's just say for sake of argument, if you want to add a couple of inches, because a five foot 10 511, because once again, the extremities are eliminated, but that's about what we're talking about. Now. He's taller than the average man. So a couple of inches today, for the sake of I will come to the Hadith that says he's taller than average man, because there's some discussion about the Hadith. But for the sake of argument, if you add a couple of inches today, he's anywhere
between five foot 10 and six foot two, I think that's fair five foot nine, six foot two, but I don't think he's anything but six foot two and over in any society in the world, even in South Sudan, or in Holland or whatever these countries that are seen as the toilets countries in the world, quote, unquote, it would be seen as a tall man, six foot two seems a tall man anywhere in the world. And anytime, maybe, if you go back to 3000 4000 years ago, and that, like a historical period beyond the antiquity, maybe not maybe the average was higher thermal times whatever they want, maybe six five is that is the average or six, seven or six, right?
We'll come to the reason why that's an interesting thing. But first of all, that's probably height, the height anywhere between five foot nine to six foot one, I think this is the range, his he had a wide, head wide shoulders, that's 100% everywhere, you'll find this, this this terminology is not boy and this kind of big shoulders mannequin, the MakerBot, a very white, as mentioned. So this actually in in the fifth physiological field is referred to as Misa morphic frame. Because there are three frames, which are the archetypal frames, I'm not sure if you guys have come across them, well, you might have come across them. One of them is called the ectomorph, who is a very tall man, but
very narrow. And then you have a museum Wolf, who's kind of like, not tall, not short, but and he's quite wide. And the endomorph is a short man who gains fat very quickly. So short and fat. So by the as we'll come to the definition of this, he's not looking like a short man. And he's not looking at there's no protrusion from his stomach, as we'll see. The process solemn, his chest and stomach were young in level with each other. Therefore,
he's closer to what is referred to as the Museum of now, of course, there are combinations, so you can have a tall man, his wife, that's called an Ecto Mizo, effectively, because he's got traits or both could have the endo Mizo because that person is more likely to get fat and but it seems through the, if you like, descriptions here, that the person has to sell them at a museum or fix them. And I've come to the advantage of that, because someone will say why was in your little bit, a bit taller? Why was he a bit more muscular? Like, you know, because we're living in an age when young men are gonna ask this question especially right, because they see role models as bodybuilders and
athletes. So they say, well, our Prophet who was he considered to be the top, top person, why was Why wasn't he any more muscular than than he was? Why wasn't he not like a bodybuilder Ronnie Coleman or Jay Cutler? And we'll answer these questions in a bit but it's interesting to us to kind of put this first so you have a bulging belly had black eyes. And there was a contrast between his the pupils and the white of the eye. So if you saw that and if you've seen people that look like that, they stand out in he had a thick, beautiful beard, everyone you know,
recognize that and he's you know, the lashes are perfect huzzah Salam o long, the lashes, and there's no doubt about it when when someone has long lashes that that is that looks beautiful on any gender. It looks fantastic. My daughter has beautiful long lashes I like looking at.
And I love looking at just just looking at those lashes that people now go and relax their lashes is a fantastic trait to have that contrast. It creates beauty create when someone looks at it. It's It's mesmerizing, in fact. So you'll find a lot of the companion seeing. I looked at the Prophet Muhammad SAW some I looked at the moon. And I realized that he was more beautiful than the moon and the sun. But for me, that's more of a more of an indication of how much they thought the moon and the sun was beautiful than the Prophet himself. Because if you consider the fact I mean I think my my children will be from the moon sign with all due respect. I mean, the point is, is that the
Prophet Muhammad wa salam, they didn't have the words to describe what they were looking at. They did consider him to be a very, very good looking man, handsome and beautiful. And you look at his face
is the bed distinction the masculinity was there, the kindness that was there was gentleness was there. Some people even converted to Islam just looking at as faces that this is not cannot be a face of life, and so on and so forth. But let's go back to the description.
So his hair was long. For the most part, it was like obviously had different hairstyles because he went to hammer on hunch, and it cut his hair, but went all the way down to his kind of like his lobes. He had long hair. And that goes in line, like, you know, subhanAllah when you see that kind of hair, it is where it's not too curly. It's not too it's not too straight, and it's not too curly, there's a bit of cold and it's not straight, and then you've got the beard going on as well. It's that fantastic blend of what is referred to usually, people consider it nowadays to be feminine traits, like lashes and hair. But when you have a little bit of that the contrast it creates is
actually it makes someone look on a different level. Let me put let me put something for you. Right. I know this sounds controversial, but I'm gonna put to you anyway. Look at the men that most women find attractive. Look at them. Even in the West. It's not on social media.
It's actually more like the Leonardo DiCaprio has, frankly, why is that because they've got that, that contrast of what is seen as pretty, if you like beautiful characteristics, and then the masculine characters as well. Obviously, there's a colonial element, there was talk to talk about the wild Leo DiCaprio, not a black man, there, obviously there's, you know, hyper
push to try and create some beauty for the white man that's, but the white man can be beautiful. So can a black man and so can any man from any race. The point is, is when you have that kind of that mix going on that contrast, it creates a new level of beauty that is well recognized. cross culturally, actually, in fact, if you if you go most cultures, if you see those kind of mixes together, it creates a kind of a beautiful contrast to the image. And his eyes, it had to hang on, or it seemed like there was a natural, slight blackening of the, like if someone had put put basically on the eye. So it creates that distinction, that contrast, increase that even more. When
you have that distinction, that contrast, you look at that, and you think this person is looking at me now. That's why a lot of these Sahaba when they look at him, they felt a bit shy, actually, they couldn't even look him in the face. Because imagine someone with jet black eyes, jet black eyes, with a white perimeter, long hair, big beard, and it's almost like you know, the blackening of the eyes underneath looking straight at you.
Do you know what I mean? That is gonna is going to catch your attention, you're going to feel a bit shy but feel embarrassed. And that's how they feel about the situation. His notes and I Salama looked at this because I wanted to know what the root of the shape of his nose was.
And the Hadith that I came across as a gospel lesson that it was basically Hassan to be fair Yanni His nose was basically it was effectively straight. However there was a bit of an arch on his nose here and that the point of the nose was small
it was a small pointy like it was It wasn't bulging, it was a
small like effectively the cattle
the cattle and rubber so the there was a slight arch in his nose as well so
this is a Hadith which I've come across which has actually happened as well.
So now what are his eyebrows? That's the question what is eyebrows now as I saw conflicting
discussion is his eyebrows like what you would refer to as a mono brow? Or is it one is it this or that so I saw two different the Hadith Omar but which is very I mentioned it here, but we're discussing about it, there's some discussion about the weakness of the Hadith. But as mentioned in almost every single book, you know, by Bernie says that, for example, it could be made strong if you look at some other total concerns over but it's a very, very long Hadith. And I will just give you the gist of it because it's too long to read now.
And because it hasn't reached a level of authenticity that is here, frankly,
take it with a pinch of salt. But basically there's a story of a particular woman in the process. Alan Kay he was going by and he saw her and then he there was a particular sheep or a cat was a cow or a sheep or sheep and he wanted to milk the sheep and the woman said this sheep is is gone as cheap as is weakness. emaciated is so weak cheap, you're not gonna get any milk carving. So the prices are so low he came and he got the he got the in
the bottle and he put the milk on the and all that it's like a miracle of the Prophet Solomon all the milk came into the to the thing and fed so many people and and the heavy says actually he was the last to drink which shows you a bit of luck as well. So he gets he drank and he got everyone to drink. And then he was the last one to drink. But then she went on to describe the problem As salam o Matic.
Add in that hadith is described that he was not too tall. And it's very interesting what she said in the Hadith layer. So when I told something like this, like he doesn't suffer from being too tall, which shows you an insight, even if the hadith is weak that the Arabs of the day considered extreme height to be, I actually consider that to be a deformity of some sorts.
You'll be surprised because nowadays, especially in like, I don't know why they encroach, or whatever people consider taller people to be, it's totally wild about you are effectively you can never be too tall. There's no such thing as too tall. Even if you're seven foot tall, you have street cred. You know, for some reason, I don't know what it is. But we'll come to that in a second. But the point is that Arabs at a time considered being too tall to be some kind of doesn't look right, it doesn't look proportionate, because they had this idea of proportionality, probably more in line with what Aristotle was saying, which is that symmetry and proportionality and stuff when
you're tall, you know, you're lanky your legs are long. You know, I mean, your legs are usually longer than most old people, their legs along with an upper body. So does that degree of proportionality does that degree of unusual ality so she said layer is a tool he's not to, he doesn't suffer from effectively doesn't suffer from being too tall. And in that head, he said that he has a parting between His eyebrows, so he doesn't have more brother, he in fact, has a part in between his two eyebrows. And she mentions many different things. One of the things that she mentioned, and it's also mentioned in many of the headings, which we'll read together, is that he
had big hands and big feet. And that's a fantastic quality. It's so functional. And we'll come to the functionality of it for any sport, and many people know that it's having big hands and big, strong hands and feet is actually one of the best things you can have.
Can grip someone you can grab someone if you especially if you're using a sword, like if you're using artillery, and a shield and a sword and stuff like that. But it's also the Companions described it as his hands been like silk. Like it was soft, but it was big at the same time. I can't imagine a better combination.
Honestly, I mean, I wish I mean, I've got big hands only because I'm you know big, but imagine having like bigger hands for your body. You know what I mean? It doesn't if you've seen how that looks, it looks really good.
And when someone clench their fists in that situation, their fists looks big and chunky, which means that Africa if you if you want to inflict damage or any kind of sorts, then you're it's actually good for that reason. So that these are some of the characteristics of the Prophet Muhammad Salah Salem. His complexion was they say he was light brown. Okay, now obviously, the words used in the US have an Obeah than is not actually the Caucasian, there's no chance he was caucasian Yanni. Some people translate well, then he considered a white man, there's no way the salam being an Arab had that complexion. There's a fact called that as better as for the people of
the Romans, they called them the yellow, effectively yellow man, because the Caucasian skin tone is different to the, the the US heart or the beard, or the lighter skin tones in the Arabs.
So he said that, I mean, a lot of that will come to it, but a lot of the the commentary say that he had a reddish tinge. Now, if you hadn't reddish tinge, for example, if you look at my color, this is darker than the poem Homosassa is because I don't get there's not really a tinge of life of what is African, slightly African qualities. So consider, like, I don't know, maybe put the camera somebody but there's people in this room that have maybe yourself, I would say, like your skin color.
Not to not to put on the spot, but it's kind of like where you can see the redness
a little bit as well. But then if you get a tan, you'll be dark as me. So you have the propensity to be as dark as me if you put yourself on the sun. But that's not your natural skin color. That makes sense. Because your natural skin color, you have a little bit of redness for that redness that appear. You can't be like going on to almost the black man's skin color. Almost there. It's not there, but it's not also the white man. So you can see Subhanallah this there's this there's this proportionality there or at least there's a middle ground there as well because the problem is is almost same for all people. So the white man and a black man so he's somewhere in the middle. Yes.
Okay.
But your shoulders are not that way.
Your hands are quite small as well.
So anyway, unnecessary
No, but so let's let's I'm gonna read I'm going to open this book up and actually read the Hadith, right? Unless someone wants to just someone wants to volunteer to read and our mind.
Does someone want to volunteer to read you wanna
join and volunteer to read bro
Okay, that's no problem. I'll read it for you. I'm gonna read just some Hadith just because it's I think she needs to get into the habit because it's an English language or some translation very. He's on behind the Oh strong. So I'm gonna read these things. There's no doubt about because then we can have no doubt about Allah's Messenger salaam salaam was neither very
toll of such an ER shortly his skin was neither pale white nor Tony. And his hair was neither crispy cold nor lank, Allah exalted as he sent him
to serve as his messenger at the end of 40 years of his life so he stayed in Mecca for 10 years and Medina for 10 years. And Allah took him on to himself at the end of six years with fewer than 20 white hairs on his head and his beard. So he had white hairs obviously a lot of the companions in fact should matter to me they would actually count the amount of white hairs he had on it was big and
yeah if you read the second Hadith
Yeah, should be fine. Yeah, just read this. Yeah.
This is 10 years continuous model Yeah
sure, maybe there was just like, you know, approximating Yeah, approximating rather than say this kind of thing. Exactly.
Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah. Two T three of the
two. We have been told by her maiden must add a bursary. Yeah. We have been told by Abdul Abdul Abd Al Wahhab a coffee on the authority of homemade that Anna to be Malik said, Allah's Messenger. SallAllahu. wasallam
was of medium height, neither tone or short. He was handsome physique, and his hair was neither crisply curled, nor smooth, Brown of Brown of color. When he walked he used to strike confidently. Yes, I liked that he was a techie also. So I don't know they are beginning to look at it. But
if a cat fell, so this I was really one of the really interesting things about the professor summers to look at how he used to work. Because the way you used to was it used to be fast paced, and is to be confident this, by the way someone's walks has a lot about them.
Honestly, the way obviously the Quran says well, at times you fill out the MA, in the calendar article Abdullah and Tableau kanji Bella told it like don't walk in, don't walk in the earth.
arrogantly because you're not going to crack the earth and you're not going to reach the mountains in height, meaning Humble yourself, right. And the Prophet Muhammad wa salam
used to walk in a manner that was confident that even the Sahaba used to say that he looks like he was coming down from the mountain, or from a hill or something like that. So there was a moving fast pace. But at the same time, it wasn't arrogant.
No one has ever said that it looked arrogant or Kibber or Mataji, Binetti or any of these things, grandiosity to get that the walk right, you know, of how a human being walks, it says a lot about about their temperament. He's not walking with his chest out.
You know, he's not well, he's not walking with his chest. He's not walking, like, you know, of a bop. He's not doing any of that. Now, honestly. But he's at the same time. Now he's not, you know, but at the same time, he's not walking, meekly, weekly, pretending to be overly humble, but actually, it's a week or a walk is the and you see that as well. I mean, you see the two extremes. You see people walking like this, and to get the walk right. Now, nowadays, people analyze how people walk. So there's a lot of for example, there's a lot of videos I watched online on Putin. I don't know why, but he's got a very specific walk. People are looking at he puts one hand in his
pocket, and he swings the other hand.
People say, Why did you do that and whatever, but he's trying to get that balance. But it looks a bit odd. He's a he's a statesman, he's probably been advised by lots of people. He wants to appear strong, but not arrogant. But he ends up looking a bit like a freak because he's swinging his hand like a pen Benjamin is a bit awkward, be awkward, but to get the walk right, as a man, the rules are solemn, his walk was so noticeable.
That's how I would mention about his walk. Another thing which we're going to cover, Inshallah, hadith is, when the Prophet went to a different environment, he looked around, he very aware of his environment. So you'd look around, you look this in that journal, I mean, because being in a place and you don't know what you're doing, and you put your head down, and you've got to, it's actually first of all dangerous, because you don't know what nowadays we're living in an unpredictable environment, military, this and that knife, crime, whatever it is, doing that is actually dangerous, especially going out of your family. The process that someone has to go somewhere with his friends,
wherever he is to look around, see, okay, what is the where are the hazards here? Where am I? How am I situated? These are all very important things for a man or a woman to do. In following the prophets Asalaam footsteps, you're gonna read the next Hadith. Also, you know, when it comes to walking, we not give it like
putting it in that point in its right place, because they're, they will remember that shirt maybe you can help with, you know, there's a companion who was walking arrogantly war and one of the companies said, Allah hates this walk. But he said, not in this context, because we're facing the enemy. So can we not see like in specific contexts where arguments say for example, enemies of Islam are confronting let's say, the enemies of Islam argument's sake you're like me and a job went to a freedom of speech event, you know, and the hijab had to come shoot and you know,
You know how to start walking, you know, until he got punched in the face, you know? And then and then and then I run away
spoke about courage and
that was that was the tactical retreat.
So basically shuffled in you say, for example, in certain circumstances that to do that it's not arrogance and I'm in the process of, I'm sure how he walked in war, do you think you will be like, you know, to that condition, that situation that you're in? Yeah, depends on the context and substance context. For example, a person needs to share with Sterling. The Rasul Allah has a limp. After Saudi Arabia, the next year they came back to Mecca, or what they call them with a cover your arms with a cover. So the process I advise the companions to show strength when they wear the clamp, you know, yeah, and they would Yanni make all of the throw off a bit hasty.
Just because because there was a widespread
between Croatia that
the people of Medina come to you weakened by the fever of Medina. So the processor want to show something. So that emphasizes the point. And as you mentioned, the there's one companions that will do Jana was on actually on his horse and was Yanni wrecking the horse. Yeah, making an aggregate tweet. So the process and the mission, the Hadith that Elijah dislikes this way of walking, accepting this situation. This seen it here. And it also shows you know, was it Malawi when he was conquering Egypt? I can't remember he was when they will ask him if he was indulging, not endorsed by like, you know, some materialism.
It was it was it
when he met ma via and a sham? Yes, he was he from the bit he was displeased with the fact that Wow, we had the three big castles in the middle. So he asked me What are you doing? So he told him because we are on the borders of Islam, we have to show strength. So I
told them you know best about the situation. So that's also something about
can we get one more Hadith. So, we have been told by Mohammed bin bash Bashar Bashar Bashar Al Abdi, we have been taught by Mohammed bin Jaffa Jaffa, according to SHOT Show Shoba Amon is Hawk said, I heard sorry, Shanghai. I destroyed the names here. Please forgive me.
I heard al al Bara, even a zip say Allah's Messenger. SallAllahu wasallam said,
was neither curly nor lunkhead of medium height, both shouldered with luxery into reaching the knobs of his ears, wearing a red suit of clothes. I have never seen anything more much more beautiful than him.
A lot of us have said that when that when there was a day where the prophet or more than one occasion when he was wearing this kind of red kind of cloak that he put on himself. When he came out. Looking as he does with that cloak on they said many of them were just like, you know, I've never seen him. Julius Caesar used to wear a red cloak in battle as well. Really? Yeah, he put it on deliberately. Yeah.
No, Caesar will put it on to say, look, I'm the man coming to get me Yeah, that would meet his increased his respective blush. Doesn't that? Doesn't that like,
contradict what the prophet actually was like? It was very humble. And I'm not sure the red wasn't meant to indicate like, seize on that, you know, come and get me. There was other things that Prophet SAW Selim did, that would indicate that he was courageous, which we're going to come to on the battlefield. But the red is just, for example, there are many narrations about what the process I'm used to wear. So the red cloak was one of the things that have been transmitted by a lot of people, but also there was a particular thing, a particular piece of clothing, Yemeni clothing, which with striped clothes, was striped. And I suppose I mentioned to Madeline holiday as well,
which is also like you know, so it shows you how different styles so if one time you were in the red, sometimes you were in the striped and that's why it's actually important for a man or a woman to look at look at Be careful of what they wear, to take care of what they wear. So because they narrated the companion and the retinol, and look at the hair, how it's been described luxuriant hair. So it has that luminosity, it has that depth. And you can see like, the beard has depth, and the hair had depth and it was clearly it wasn't too straight and it wasn't too curly as well. It was for his texture and complexion. And whatever he was, it was the right was the right mix. Can I say
something?
It seems like what which from the way we're describing the profit here, since I had a luxurious life and that he
use gel to make it so nice and soon as awful. Can we like, maybe explained that this was just his natural state? And you just done that? I think that's true. Yeah. Yeah. Because it sounds like absolutely, he would calm his beard and his hair and stuff like that. But you wouldn't spend too much time as in Vanity. Looking at you know, gelling is, however, a lot of time anyway. But um, can I get the book by Callie? Is it possible? No.
Not another thing I can see. Yeah. Do you not think that it's important that, for example, people who are in the Dawa, like, it's very important the way we dress the way we conduct ourselves, be it? You know, how we look, Chef, would you say that it is important for us to conduct ourselves in a way where like, for example, physical appearance, you know, you know, myself, I didn't choose to be handsome chef.
But international chef, wouldn't you say looking at this, what we're going through? Isn't it important for a person in the dour to have a certain demeanor look a certain way? Because it seems like the process and the way he walks? Like when he would speak to somebody, he would turn his, you know, direction to him. So do you think that's something that we can use? Because the reaction was someone sent me?
That effect? We don't know for sure. From birth? Like he was saying that a person who's in the Dawa, who adorns himself, like you should be warned against?
I don't know where you got this column from. But how do we find the middle path where we're just like, you know, it's not all about the outer but for the sake, let's say for the sake of Allah, the way we conduct ourselves like for example, with our organization salon, we started to wear suits. Because we realize we try T shirts, we try jumpers, and people don't take you seriously. But the moment you wear a suit, all of a sudden, it's like, oh, we sell in we and yeah, I will just say just
mainly, for example, there's a hadith and nutritional products are selling mentioned that Allah azza wa jal made the prophets and the most beautified way. So that shows something and usually people will accept knowledge from person with a certain demeanor that he wouldn't accept it from. So it shows wisdom from from the side of Allah, that he created all prophets and take care of them. And this with these features, so and we know hadith of Rasul Allah, Jamie Bucha, that Allah azza wa jal is beautiful. And he likes beauty,
Yanni and respond to the companion that said that a person likes
his clothing to be beautiful, and he likes
his shoe to be beautiful. So yeah.
And you know, it's interesting, you mentioned that hadith, because if you took that hadith and applied it to the context, the discussion that we were just having before about aesthetics, that we believe that Allah is like, for example, when talking about the moral issue, we said that really what goodness is, Allah is good. And so wherever goodness is, that's where
that's where goodness is, right? And then when you remove goodness, that's where evil is. Likewise, you can say that Allah is Jamil right. So how is it explicable that we have things which are at least on face value value, cross culturally, you know, considered to be beautiful? It can be said that this is an extension of manifestation of the demand of Allah, the beauty of Allah. Because the thing is a lot of the reason why you find these discussions between philosophers as to about morality and mathematics and beauty, all these three categories, in particular, because they're kind of they have a different ontological status to science is because you can't put them under a
microscope. But then how do you explain that all these people conceive of them in the same way? So with a robust theological understanding that, for example, we say that Allah is Jamil therefore, where there's manifestation of Jamel or beauty. That is where the beauty is. And when that's removed, that's where the beauty is not. Same thing can be said about money. So having the attributes of God
actually being as an explaining force, for how these things are explicable, actually is one of the most powerful things we have in the Islamic tradition. Because I'm cognizant of time, I just want to move on to do you want to? It's just a good question. So what age range are we talking about for the Prophet peace be upon him? And what was he like when he was like younger? A lot of these descriptions would be consistent throughout the time that they were because from 40 to 63, that's what we're talking obviously, right? That's when they were jotting down what he looked like. But when he got a bit older, the main difference would be that he had some obviously whitening and
drying of his beard and but as we mentioned, it's not even that much. So there was a level of that.
But it wasn't that much. The fact that that stuff is mentioned. Like for example, there are aspects about the prophets of Salaam, his physical appearance, which I mentioned, which show you that it's, it's not some kind of a mythological figure that's been described in the white, the whiteness of the bed, the slight arch of the nose. There's lots of things there that you can see that it's not a mythological figure being described as a human being, okay, which no one would have. If you want to portray him in a manner that will seem extra human. You wouldn't put the inject those aspects in there.
Even during battles when he uses teeth and stuff like that, for example, and a hardware, he lost his teeth and stuff like that, if he was meant to be this kind of extra human person that never was touched and never was never, his head never became gray and nothing happened to him, once again, that would, we would look at with suspicion, say what kind of what's going on here. But the fact that these aspects are there as well, it goes back to the first session that we talked about, about preservation. I want to ask questions now. Why not to like why not sure why not bodybuilder not where they've asked this question. I mean,
so why was not taller? Ask what does actually height benefited? Okay, so really and truly, if you look at for the sake of argument, the sports that human beings play the sport so human being play,
where height is actually an advantage, there's only really a few sports if you consider it. Like basketball is an obvious one, right? Being a goalkeeper maybe in a in a football match. Being a footballer high is not actually advantageous. Otherwise the tallest football is the best for but it will be the tallest ones. In fact, probably the opposite is true. Some of the best footballers are the shortest ones like Messi is probably our five foot six,
Marathon and so on. It's not really that. So where does kickboxing there's there is a actually there's a correlation. A lot of the kick boxers were tall and they had long legs. But even then, like with boxing and stuff, if you look at the Mike Tyson 510 511. If you look at the majority of UFC champions for the sake of argument, MMA champions, they're not actually six foot five and over. They're not. And if that's the heavyweight division, wrestlers, wrestlers are not the tallest people in the world, swimming towards people who are although Phelps had a very high. If you look at Phelps, for example, he's the best swimmer of all time. He was tall. He's about six foot three. But
he had a very unusual alaka Johnny Bravo type body. So his short his lower half cat short legs and high too. So that's why I can you know, do the thing. So you had a very, but Allah didn't descend from us in Salem, for the MBA?
No, it's the case. So why does he need like I said, if we're being if we're playing the law of averages here, on a sports level, what is the most if you could ask the question, what is the most advantageous body type I would say is the mega morphic
is the mega morphic body type. Unless we're talking about very specific sports where height is required, or where or the opposite where shortness of quiet. Does some sports were being short can be advantageous. I don't know. of them. Now. It's up in my head.
jockey. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. f1, the f1 driver? Yeah, maybe foot maybe, maybe maybe like what considers to be like below five foot seven or five foot, wherever, where you got a lower center of gravity. It might be good, even some kinds of wrestling. Look at Brazilian jujitsu. For example, one of the best of all time Marcio. gasa, Garcelle. Our, I'm saying his name, but he's like five foot six or five or seven. Bro Sanchez wasn't about kickboxing. Sansha, who's seen as the best kickboxer of all time is five foot six. He's five foot six, that's how tall he is. But he takes out the tallest and the most lanky of opposition sunshine. So being told this there is this misnomer
that somehow being told makes you it's actually overrated in the current and the current age. So people say why isn't your solar? Why should he be taller? What function? What is the process I'm doing? He's engaging in war. Okay, okay, fine. If he's engaging in war with swords than other ones that was fencing or the best fences, the tallest ones? Not necessarily. Surely there can be some kind of an advantage of having a longer reach there. I'm not saying so there isn't of having a longer reach when it comes to fencing and sword fighting, there would be some advantage. But we haven't got the information if I reached a different height, by the way. For example, if you look at
both crosskeys I don't know his reach is probably 74 or something like that. He's quite short. volkanovski Alexander the Great was tiny, he was five foot five, it's really Yeah, it's really small. But with like, for example,
a lot of these a lot of these. McGregor is like five foot eight, but he's got like 76 weeks. So reach is different to and then there's the difference between the arm reach and the leverage. So anyway, these are all things. But what I'm saying to you is that being tall is overrated in the current society. So why Why didn't want to impose something which doesn't have really any functional value? And so why was he not taller? Because a lot of people will be asking, why should he be taller? It's not like being taller is gonna give you that much advantage. The second thing could be said is which is why was he not more muscular? Well, if anyone knows anything, anything about
sports, they know that being muscular is actually cumbersome and unfunctional. I look for example, just at boxing for the sake of argument. Anthony Joshua was quite a, he would be considered a muscular boxer. But then he had to lose all this weight because actually, it wasn't helping him. If you look at the beginning of his kind of title, defense and stuff. He's about 110 kilos, I'm doing 1200 13 kilos. He went down to 106 because it wasn't helping him it was, was getting him out. I imagine that you're running up.
You're in the military environment you're running. You're moving. Being heavy does not help you. It doesn't being a big man doesn't help
be a huge man. Obviously, being somewhat big is fine. But being a huge man of a lot of way, doesn't help. I went to juggle, what do you call it? Nor will know Right? Where the Heart of heart is there. Everybody else found it easier to go up that hill than me. Every single other person found that easier. I found it hardest to go up the hill. At a time it was 125 kilos. I'm telling you, it's the reason why it's because of the gravity and the weight and stuff. So imagine now even for something as simple as the process of going to the VA, it would have been difficult for him to do it. It would I would actually find that it was it was a strenuous workout was a strenuous workout. So being that
heavy and the muscular stuff. How's that helping anybody?
So I think people now overrate the muscular frame. There's no reason for but surely they all said he was athletic free.
They also do an athletic frame. So if you if you had the athletic for him, he had, he has everything that is required for his mission is the long story.
So these are just some things but I know some young people are thinking about this in the bucket. You can also say like Andy Ruiz a fan, and you will always be Anthony Joshua. Yeah. That says a lot. You know, yeah, his cardio is probably insane as well.
But still, he was fat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. body shape is not always it's not doesn't translate into functionality. Everyone knows that. It's becoming a joke when they put this kind of go online. bodybuilder, bodybuilder versus see a bodybuilder was the BJJ goddess. Like, for example, a call Froch I don't know Golovkin I don't know. Give me a guide a 65 kilo, 70 kilo, but at the highest level of boxing 70 kilo, and give me Ronnie Coleman, who would win in a fight.
Is that even a question? It's no question. Do you will be completely demolished? The box would win or let's say for example, a BJJ practitioner, a small guy, Gordon Orion or something. Getting put him next to I don't know, like, your biggest body with Jay Cutler, who's gonna win in a fight? There's not even a question. No one's going to ask that question seriously, because they know that muscle doesn't translate into functionality. So being a huge profit and stuff that makes no sense. It makes no sense. In fact, is that is really bodybuilding is what and even I was watching I said this himself, he said body was more of an art than a sport. Because what you're trying to do is
you're trying to, it looks nice, if you within certain contexts, it looks nice. And you can there is some level of functionality to it, you're stronger by having that much muscle. But the disadvantages on mass, they are on balance, I should say. They're actually more than the advantages. A lot of them die. Because steroid users if you wanna get to the highest level of take steroids, this body that you're seeing now is a steroid body. Like, you know, I mean, if you look at the natural in the early 227 century, 21st century, 20th century, George also names Atlas, or these kinds of Charles Atlas, that body is completely different to bloody what happened in the 50s, and 60s 70s. So what steroids
does, it changes the game completely. And so you couldn't get to that level, we are now seeing freaks of human beings that could never exist in any other time in human history. The most muscular men of today are the most muscular men of all time.
The most muscular, like there's no human epoch, we're had Ronnie Coleman in it.
There's not except for the one that we had. The Greeks used to, they were big and strong, but nothing like when I didn't have those three that I have what we have. I mean, if you just look at the 60s and 70s, compared to the 2000s, and some of them, so Olympia, there is a massive difference. And that doesn't look good. And details get look at Ronnie Coleman, how many operations did he have surgeries?
A wheelchair man. So it's not something which shows you what's the advantage of that? No longevity, no longevity does it doesn't frankly, doesn't even look good. In my opinion. And by I can see within the parameters of bodybuilding, what it would look like if I got myself into the coaches, okay, or whatever. I can see okay, this is good. And this is whatever works. For me. It's not it's not functional. It's it doesn't do anything. Now moving on. So let's go to another question now wishes what is virtue? Okay. And I've just skipped him, we're gonna go back to the character. So the problem is, I don't know that kind of stuff. But when we talked about the the physical
characteristics of the Prophet Muhammad wa salam. So now we have an image of the Mohamed salah, right? We know what he looks like, we know what he we've got, what his facial structure looks like, what His eyes look like, what his eyebrows look like, his nose looks like, what his beard looked like, what his hair look like, that's the full thing. You know, what his body looked like? It's all there. So the question now is,
the question is, what did he act like? Because now we're going to try and get the full picture. But before we get to, what did he act like? We have to ask him, just like we did with the question of beauty, we have to ask a
kind of preceding question, which is, what is virtue anyway? What is virtue? This is a very important question. I mean, that really and truly, the first person to I mean, those were the first people to really talk about this and write about this. I mean, that we have in the Western tradition, and I mean,
Very specifically, and not obviously an iteration, or the Greeks. And in particular, I think one of the main books on this topic is a book called Nicomachean. Ethics. The Nicomachean Ethics was a book that Aristotle wrote to his son. Okay, his son is I think, nicomachea. So well, whatever his name was right? And he and he wrote a book for him talking about what is
what's good, what is what does it look like to be virtuous? And in this book, basically, what he was saying was
that he was saying, he had this idea of the golden mean that you got to two sides of the extremities, and then you have the middle. But what is it all this moving towards something he called eudaimonia. So it's what is referred to as the good life wellbeing, welfare, satisfaction, fulfillment.
His idea was that if you act in these ways, you're going to be fulfilled in life if you act in these virtuous manner, and he was half right and we'll come to that he was half right about that. I mean, the performance was absurd in them O'Brien who attended macadam, Allah clap, I have only been sent to I can perfect good character. I've only in them. I've only been sent to perfect good character, but there was a missing ingredient, Aristotle's concoction, which we'll come to in a second. And some of the things that he proposed are problematic. Before we get to that though. He had 18 virtues 18, which he said are the most important virtues. Okay? And are these 18 He said nine of them.
Nine of the 18 are the chief most important kind of virtue, so I'm gonna go through them with you. And then we'll explain how he came to those conclusions. So the first one, and by the way, the most important one, according to him was courage. Because he said that if you don't have courage, you can't do anything else.
And for him, the main virtue was if you don't have courage, you cannot you cannot implement anything in your life. If you're a coward, is the worst thing you can effectively be. And in fact, there's a Hadith from Moussa salah. He says shuttle misogyny Brooklawn Hala wajib Nan Carla, the worst thing is an A man is stinginess and cowardice. So in a way that is some level of Islamic corroboration of this, but courage was seen by ourselves to be the most important thing, but in addition to courage,
tempt temperance now what is temperance? Temperance is the idea of self control among the the desires. And there were two designs in particular that he referred to and many others after him refer to refer to as the irascible
and referred to as the the irascible size, which is basically your anger is being angry is being your irascible if you're angry, angry. And what's the other one?
And your sexual desires? Yeah. Which there's a technical term for which I forget now.
It'll come to me with chastity non
school, there
is another term for it. I'll come to it. Yeah.
It's gonna come to the next slide. In fact, what Temperance is where you're able to control those two designs, let me show you the next slide.
is
Missy.
My next slide.
Okay, well, we'll come to the door. But basically, due to sexual desires, if you and all other desires, like anger, sexual desires, Temperance is your ability to control those two. And we'll come to how to process something to that.
In fact, we can mention it now because it's quite easy to mention. I'll mention three examples. Okay. One example is that the actual ID Alana.
She said that The Professor Is In Bali. So I should mention this hadith has been hiding. And she said that the prophets will how Salam used to kiss his wives in Ramadan, obviously, why she's mentioning that is because there's different rulings for different people without regard. Like a platonic, it's not a romantic or, or a sexual kiss. It's just a platonic, as she said that he used to kiss his wives and Ramadan, and that he's left a company LP, he is the most in control of his sexual desires. In other words, it wouldn't faze him he wouldn't feel like he needs to do anything. He was, um, let her calmly I'd be and this is interesting that I She's the one who said this,
because of what kind of attacks that we have the process and and visa vie Ayesha, as if he was, you know, trying it was lusting over her and all this kind of things that they're trying to say. But if that's the case, why is she the one that's testifying that he's never communicated, but he's that and she's speaking with confidence, he's the best of you.
And she's referring to all of the men to his sexual desires, she knows that there's no higher that he can be than that.
And on that point, by the way, that this might sound a bit
unusual. I came across a hadith footage of it, but I actually said that she's never seen the process on his private parts.
Now, you might find that Yanni unusual but I don't know how that came about. But Yanni she says this.
So it shows you the sensibility and the privacy and the potential of the shyness that you have towards him says
Hadith I'll bring the Hadith everybody but there's there's that aspect but it's the first time I want to bring it applicable it'd be somebody that's well known Hadith the second half he says the following there's also Buhari where there was a woman that was married not to know her name and has been to John
Jonah yet or they give her a different names and she basically said in the in the night of conservation she said all the polemic she says it was a solemn I seek refuge in Allah from you.
Now the scholars of Hadith they discuss why does she even say this word? madrasas. For example, last Kalani, he says the actual Raja Lavon had said to her this is something that prophet would enjoy it for you to say, this weird thing to say. But she said that to try and make Frank great this this chord and create a divorce.
Maybe, and this is her she was divorced. So what happened is part of him said in a hadith it happened or go back to your family, which means it was divorce. Now, this is very important Hadith for many reasons. There are many anti Islamic apologists effectively, who are liars who lie about the product or some say that he forced woman in a manner that is indecent. Yeah. But this hadith itself is a great refutation of that. Because if that was his proclivity and his temperament,
then why is he telling another woman in the heat of the moment to go back to your family, when she indicated in the in not even a clear, fully clear manner, that she didn't want to be in that situation? He didn't say, No, you, I am your husband, and it must be and you must give me my rights. He said, If you don't want to be here, then you leave. And she left and it was a divorce. And so there wasn't a consummation of that marriage.
So the so called the record a grateful allegations, whatever. This this itself shows you how feeble those attempts are. And by the way, there's no one Hadith. It Lacan that indicates at all that the prophets of Salaam, ever forced a woman to do something she don't want to do in that regard. So it shows you not only that these accusations are false. But it also shows you that when the pros are Salam, by the admission of the women around him, and the testimonials around him, he was never taking advantage in that manner.
And that he was in control of himself. And he was tempered in that in that way. Another thing is to see his behavior before he married Khadija, by all accounts, as we'll find, by all accounts, as we'll find, he was known in the community for got going with women. What if his behavior and his temporal if his general disposition was that of a man who was lustful, and so on? So why don't we have any report, not even one, saying that he was engaging with a woman before Khadija and when he was with Hijjah, that he was only with Khadija, for men of that age, until 25 years old. In that society, it would be seen as unusual for him to be chaste for that lot, for that long, effectively.
And then when he's 25, to 44, how to continue just with one woman, and there's no indication that he even married a second. But that shows you a degree of discipline, at grift, temperance, and degree of controlling your desires, especially a situation we think we have a bad they had a bad as well, they had prostitutes, they have women, they had people naked, they had slave girls in the market, that everything. We think we're the only men in history that I've seen women on billboards and naked people, they also saw naked people walking around the process, and I was shielded from that, and will not engage in that culture. And there's no one report that indicates anything to the contrary
of what I've just mentioned. So these are just three examples of the Temperance of the courage, I'm going to end with a treat separately. That's why I've left it for now, because I want to define what that is, I want to talk about it. And this is one of those virtues that I think is we need to talk about in a bit more detail.
liberality and this is something which is kind of in the Quran. So it's between what is being stingy and profligate, which, which is the idea of being extravagant or spending money of no reason without wisdom. And Allah says, the Quran will attach Allah, yet they come on Earth, and in our honor, our letter was otaku must not bring your hand, you know, to your neck effectively. And this is like, obviously, metaphor, metaphoric scription. And do not extend it all the way, which means don't overspend. And don't keep it too close. But if you look, and we'll talk about the Prophet, my son was generous, and he was the most generous, and I'll show you some of the Hadith that relate to the
generosity of the Prophet you'll be very surprised. You'll be extremely surprised, which by the way dispels and dismisses the Hadith I'm going to present dispels and dismisses the idea that person was doing this for money was for doing this for material gain.
And we'll come to those bodies in due course, obviously, we did if we did this with every single one of them will be problematic. magnificence is basically SN
proficiency in doing a good job of something. So this is one of the things that Aristotle talks about as well. And you can see the connection there between the Islamic paradigm and there's many Hadith of 40 No, we, you know, you know, if you're going to do something then you
Yeah, in some
ways, I mean, this idea like, you know, Fastenal Kittler, like, you know, if you're going to slaughter them, do it with SN because this, in fact is a very interesting Hadith. You know, because it shows you that there are some things that you have to do more professionally than others.
For example, if you've got to store an animal and you do that and proficiently, without prudence and competence, you're making the animals suffer.
But likewise, if you if you are a surgeon, and you have to commit, you have to perform surgery and you don't do that with their son, you can cause death. As the Prime Minister said, mantha Baba will let me come back tomorrow from fossa for Diamond, whoever does who pretends to be a doctor, and he and he causes injury to somebody. He's not actually a doctor, then he's actually responsible for that.
And the same thing applies in down and defect can all this kind of fit when all that kind of stuff because why not? At the end of the day, if you don't do with SN, if everything is haphazard and whatever, then you are also if people go astray if people are misguided, then you are held account. So sand is something that the religion of Islam very clearly and that's why no we put it in his forehead, because it's one of those things, which are very clear important things the religion of Islam mentions greatness of soul he mentioned
which is effectively being high minded, or the idea of not being a fit afflicted by travesty and we know the very famous hadith of in a solid to the right sidebar, witness Alberto's savoir sari in a suburb to suburb, Chicago, when a suburb to the right suburb of Chicago, that the prophets of Salaam is advising everyone that if difficulty befalls you, then you have to be patient, if difficulty if good things happen to be have to be patient, thankful, and it's difficult to perform, you have to be patient and thankful. But if you think about the process of his life himself, and we'll come to this baby, in what follows, but just this thing alone, like all of his children died, except for one.
Tell me of a bigger travesty that you can imagine happening to a human being. I mean, I cannot imagine something was happening to another human beings. If you've if you've got children, you know, I'm talking about you, there's nothing more difficult than you can imagine then losing your child.
There's nothing more all of his children except for Fatima La Jolla, and all of them died. He had to go through the pain that many times and his wife and his uncle is one year and his wife and his uncle's. Yeah, exactly, exactly the year of sorrow and stuff. And how did he handle that child, your spouse's? How did he handle that the fact that he handled that with grace and with patience, and that that was documented? Well, he shows this man is practicing exactly what he preaches.
And it's very important, also to note that there was a very interesting and famous Hadith of the prophets of salaam go into the graveyard. And there was a woman wailing and stuff like that, because she had lost her son. And then that particular woman, she started saying, you know, that you don't know what I went through, you don't know, whatever. He walked away. And then they told her, that's the Prophet of Allah. And then she went back to him and what he said to us very powerful, he said that a Sabra and a sudden Miss Lola, certainly patients is upon the first calamity. So it has, see, look, these are Sicilian principles, you can see how Islam is actually much more advanced
in telling us how you can implement them. Lesson is telling us where and when to implement this. And more importantly, when it comes to high mindedness or so called magnificence is Thomas telling us actually, how can you implement patience and high mindedness at the highest level, when you first get struck with a calamity. That's where the most pain is. That is when you're going to be that is when the test really is. And the process solo, he went through all of those tests, and he passed all of those tests in front of the people.
And that shows you it shows you resolve it shows your depth of character, and it shows you that he's not he is practicing exactly what he preaches. And that's something that if you're a fraud, you'd be completely exposed. If you're doing these kinds of things, and then your children die and stuff like that, but you didn't have what you claim to have patience and high mindedness and stuff like that, then you would crumble
screaming and now how can my kids and bring the people around me that you know, I mean, if he didn't have those characteristics, and how would somebody who doesn't have this growth versus B, respond to five children dying, his wife dying, his uncle's dying, so many people in Jihad dying as well? His close relatives
will pick themselves up and continue. We will never been to five instead of five. John I mean, which we're going to cover in more detail of course as well.
gentleness and kindness. Now, I mentioned some hands on this separately because I think Jani it requires a special treatment. But that's another thing that you mentioned, truthfulness about yourself self self accountability. There is something called psychology of delusion. I'm not sure if you've ever come across it. There's actually studies done on the psychology of delusion.
And the psychology of delusion, you'll find that most researchers, they rate the the fine delusion as someone actually having false beliefs. And they differentiate delusion with what is referred to as highly valued ideas.
So you can have a highly valid ideas, but delusion is different. And it's so shocking, because if you look at all of the definitions of delusion, the transgender movement, it effectively fulfills all of them. Because if you think about it, look, one of the main delusions is, for example, schizophrenia, like that is, in terms of the mental disorders that somebody can have what is a schizophrenic person? Someone who sees things that are not there, they're hallucinating. I'm not sure if you ever engaged with someone who's a phrenic.
But the schizophrenic person is what was one of the hardest things to deal with. They're given drugs and just kind of endless warfare to antipsychotics. Get because when you're in a psychotic state, you're seeing things that are not there. And this doesn't let I mean, there are some things called episodes, episodes. But one thing which characterize this schizophrenic episodes was bipolar episodes, manic episodes with a psycho psychotic
with a psychotic character, is that they don't always happen. They're not they're not coherent. So for example, not because someone will say is most known as we'll come, we'll come to this right. Because what is the
when you're when you're insane, in your material, that it's affected effectively, your psychotic? What is the definition of psychosis, according to the DSM, the DSM being the main thing that the psychologists use?
The definition of psychosis is some this is the standard definition. Someone has lost touch with reality.
That's definition. Okay. So let's propose that somebody has schizophrenic episodes or, or let's say for example, bipolar episodes, or whatever it may be. And they and they have these manic episodes and they become psychotic. Okay, so I'm writing down whatever they see when they're psychotic, the schizophrenic person, or the bipolar person, or whatever, maybe, is it consistent?
It's not usually consistent, let alone coherent.
So for example, like if you take a hallucinogen, right, if I got some mushrooms, and I give it to you guys, right.
And I think for the for the Tao, we have to do this experiment.
Only one way you can find out.
reselling is not the same as you trying is it? So if I give, like everyone here, like magic mushroom or something like that, right on what's called LEDs, right?
LSD is Yeah, so I'm very interested, I don't know.
But I did suffer hallucination on top of that sort of camera. But the point is, is that when that happens, okay, you're not in control of what's going on here.
Maybe you'll see this and you'll see that and then you take the drug again, you're not gonna see the same things over and over again, with and it's not gonna tell a story. In other words, the first thing you saw the second thing you saw the third thing you saw, like put it this way, let's say you have a dream.
Today, you have a dream, right? What is the chances that you have a dream every day, and it's like episodes to a Netflix series. In other words, everything is connected to the next dream. There may be a human being that has that kind of experience. But that experience is rare, if not non existent. In other words, every, every time he goes to sleep, now, you have a dream, and it's like episode one. And then before that is the next, the next dream you have is like, what would you call it? It's like the last, the last episode of
your dream, this happened. And then the next next, what I'm saying is, I feel dilute, there's two claims that you have to make when you say differences, one is delusional, which known, his delusion has to be consistent. Like his hallucinations have to be consistent and tell a story. But we don't know that have mental health disorders like that. We don't know that if you take hallucinogens like that, we don't really have dreams. So they would have to be, they would have to be imposed and kind of delusion, which is extremely rare, if not impossible. We haven't even seen in the human condition. You see what I say? When you look at the psychology of delusion, delusion is basically
when when the thing that you say happened can be falsified, which is why they differentiate it by the way in which there's a differentiation between delusion and highly valued ideas. Because highly valued ideas like religious ideas, there's no way of disproving heaven and hell.
I mean, obviously, the famous leverage book is what The God Delusion he wrote, but you can't call that a delusion psychologically, because I have called that highly valued ideas. These are highly valued ideas, even according to psychological literature, they don't delusions because they're not if they were all due to order Israel would have to be in the mental hospital.
Like
80% of the world's population should have been a mental hospital, they should all take antipsychotics and Richard Dawkins and his atheist friends 2% of population of strident atheists, according to Linda Woodhead will be the only ones not taking it. In fact, everyone should take n psychotics. Majority of people should be taking antipsychotics according to that.
So we know how to differentiate between highly valued ideas and delusions. This is the point I'm making to you. And highly valid ideas are different to delusions, because in the case of the latter, they can be falsified. So when a transgender says I'm X, Y, and he's x x, that can be falsified. On an empirical level, that's delusion. Now, you're the same as that psychotic, you're the same as a schizophrenic, because you are saying something which I can falsify.
You see the point you can falsify what you're saying was the religious person he is, he is believing it's referred to as highly valid idea. So I did it was I was deluded. There's no There's no evidence that his temperament or disposition, or that his behavior is the behavior of a deluded man.
When did he do you know, when you suffer a psychotic episode, you sweat, you scream, you do this. You know,
if you've seen it, especially if it was you have Bipolar, you think if you have a bipolar is the only thing you will do be psychotic, and that's it.
psychosis is is rarely ever, in a vacuum. Psychosis usually happens in an array of different things happening at the same time.
So they clearly have no mental health.
And we're living in an age of mental health where mental health can be seen as some of our religion, and yet they don't even know about that.
So to call him deluded, he's not and in fact, you can see, a deluded persons can be obviously in the virtue sense, overconfident of their own ability to a level which is unprovable to a level which is complete.
But every single one of the calculations the Prophet Muhammad Salam has has has produced positive results.
So in other words, if he was deluded, then how could this delusion produce that level of positive results? Because the sooner konia we know that you cannot actually get somewhere without putting the work
and will come to a better for example where the front of salon right before bed that he was making dua to Allah so much so that our workers don't have to tell him like you know, don't need to come to him because right like this, any Allah will listen to me didn't say that when you say like any he's trying to. But if he if he was overconfidence ability would make a die like that. He put it in Allah's hand.
No matter it doesn't matter like in Allah Rama, for example, you didn't throw when you threw about Allah through.
So his behavior is not somebody who would make strategic decisions? Wasn't let's just go haphazard. And isn't it if that's the case, then why didn't history see every leader as a deluded person? And this should be the top leaders that have the best results?
Yeah, well, that the phraseology or when people say you have to be deluded to be successful and stuff like this i Big entrepreneurs, big innovators, they're deluded. How do you unpackage that from from that? It's until you make it fake it till you make it fake it till you make it is that phraseology, you cannot fake it till you make it in certain fields. It's impossible. Okay, fake it till you make it, go to a mathematics exam. And see how good you are fake, you've done no maths. And you go and do like a top level mathematics or the speaking to make a supercar. I'm
not gonna fake it till you make it.
So okay, in fact, as we make a boxing match here, you'll see everyone has a plan to get punched in the face, you can fake it. So you get
some figures. If you've seen that, like, for example, these guys that will go into Deontay Wilder, and it knocks him out in the troll, and this and that humiliation, that's the only way to get these people to understand deluded people need help. And sometimes solution is not psychological like that. Sometimes the person over is actually overconfident with their b&b ability, but that process has never showed that
is what I'm trying to say his temperament wasn't like that it was very measured everything is you will see as we go through the zero that was the case.
Obviously one of those is equity, which is like added and so on being and being just an equitable and fair will come through that forgiveness. And there's lots of examples of that. Metcalf atomica and why she and all of them say Hadith.
And obviously, someone could say well, the author Tameka Isabel, Fanta Mottola, caught this particular one he said live where your your particular phraseology some Islamic anti Islamic apologists say that this is life, this hadith, even says life. No problem is life. Even Benny says I have no problem that he's died. But still, there's other Hadith which say that whoever goes the Khaled, Abu Sufyan For me for example, the hadith of Bokhari whoever goes into the DAR of Abu Sufyan he's safe which means that that particular hadith is not is not needed and we know for a fact we don't even need that Hadees will even need any of that is because we know for a fact that that
happened that problem has I'm forgive me. They will say what about these people that he assassinated and this was every single name that you can bring, and we can come to this and we will come to this. They had either been physical attack the process is daughters. A lot of them actually attack the other one of them killed the the baby or they tried to kill the Prophet himself, or they were trying
To kill the Muslims, or there were a threat. And existential although they were a real military threat.
And how comes there's a few of them only. So we'll come to that it doesn't mean don't cancel the forgiving gesture pronounced Salam put forward. We'll come to that. And modesty, which is something that current age views Pamela, we don't have much of, frankly. And what is modesty is refraining from shameful and lewd behavior. And we've come to that where he spoke about the solemn. And by the way, modesty is something praise in Islam. And it was praised by Aristotle, you'll see that a lot of the stuff nowadays, we're living in a shameful age. And that's because modesty is not emphasized as a virtue anymore. There's a book written by someone called Alistair McIntyre. And it's called Archer
after virtues. Okay, it's seen as one of the most important books and more philosophy in the last 100 years, the guy used to work in London Metropolitan University, he wrote this book, and it was about he's basically saying that within liberal age, and things have gotten worse after the time of Aristotle and stuff like that. And he mentioned Aristotle. And if you look at chapter 12, and chapter 14 of the book, he describes the virtue ethics of Aristotle and Savannah. But what I'm saying is that
you can see why a lot of the things that are happening today
are happening because we don't have this was a more developed, even though it's 2400 years ago, and it was in the West, it was more developed than what they have now in the West.
Now, another point, which is interesting is that a lot of these things can be argued on consequentialist grounds, and deontological. Guys, remember, we said that there are three things in the Western tradition, there's deontological, ethics, there's virtue ethics, and then there's consequentialist ethics, right? There are three things virtue ethics, what we're talking about now. But you can actually say that the virtue ethics, although they're not prescriptive, a lot of them, you can say, well, if people were not courageous, you'd have these consequences negative. If people were not modest, you'd have these consequences negative. So in other words, a lot of the virtues can
be said to be art, you can argue for them on a consequentialist level. It's better to have people in the world who are courageous, who are modest, who are whatever, on consequentialist reasoning, even on deontological reasoning. So that in many ways shows you the power of the virtue ethics because it enjoys widespread support. Having said that, there are criticisms that we can bring to the table, but we'll come to that in a second. What
Aristotle does
is he says, Look, you've got two extremes. And then you have the middle ground, right? So I'll give you some examples. He says, you've got you've got rashness, you've got rational, someone who's reckless, effectively, someone who's reckless, right. And then you have someone who's a coward. And the middle you have someone who's brave. So the virtue is somewhere in the middle. That's what he's saying. So you have someone? Well, this is the word licentiousness. Okay. That's what we're someone can't control and sexual desire. Remember, I've seen the irascible and the lie sensuous. Yeah. Someone who's having is an addict, sex addict. You have six evidence of any woman, he says, like
Russell Brand Used to be back in the day, so to say, and it's not virtuous. It's not virtuous. I mean, you I'm not talking about allegations but if you're going to have 60,000 woman, and then you come back and talk about the consequences, frankly, I'm sorry to say this is bad behavior. It's not virtuous, you should someone should have told you this is unvirtuous behavior.
So this is like sensuousness. And he's you know, doing this and doing that this licentiousness. So you have licentiousness on the one hand,
and indulgence and then and then you have insensibility, which means this guy don't even he has no vigor. For example, doesn't wanna have sex with his wife. He's at home is everyday is sleeping on the couch, you should have been.
This is what I would rather be a sex addict.
No, but obviously the halal Well,
I'm just saying like, you know, that's worse because then you're taking the hack away. At least with this one you take, you're you're you're harming yourself, but you know, I'm with a woman. And likewise, if you're the same thing as a woman, like you're not gonna say it so long, he's not doing it. The point is, is that this is deficiency, and I'd rather be rushed and a coward. I know that sounds better. Usually, I would, I would put to you that a lot of the excesses are better than the deficiencies because deficiencies render you closer to being a dead man
than being alive, but the excesses are something that you can refine, I'll put to you that
you know, anyway, the next thing is
practicality and meanness or liberality or sorry. So, this we talked about this like, not being stingy not being we talked about the middle ground, vulgarity, yeah, and pettiness. And then you got your magnificence, this high mindedness that we spoke about
oh, look at this one porcelain image.
Okay, and vanity, okay. Then you have the middle ground, which is magnanimity, right. So, it goes on and on, but the point is irritability, lack of anger, this and that. And the point is, is he also mentioned next slide.
He also mentioned some intellectual stuff, you have to be intelligent this
wise have understanding and all these kinds of things. The thing is we as Muslims see as different way.
Yes, it's true that if you have more knowledge, Allah raises you in levels when it comes to Islamic knowledge because it's the knowledge guidance, alpha level, letting the abdomen commodity, you know, to Lima dynajet. Allah says that Quran Allah who raises in degrees, those who have been given knowledge and those who have believed in being given knowledge among you, certain Mogera.
Right. However, having said that, we don't consider you to be more virtuous only by having more intelligence. Because that is, intelligence is really seen as a gift from Allah, like in the sense that it depends on the opportunities in life. Like, if you're good at certain things, now it is a virtue in one sense, by another sense, it's really to do with where you live, and what opportunities you are given.
Whereas a lot of the other things, it doesn't matter where you live, so long as you're interacting with humans, you have an equal opportunity with everyone else to try and be that thing. So in other words, you can be humble, for example, you can be humble, wherever you are, in whatever part of the world, you still have that test.
And you can be a very virtuous person without having the opportunities of the elites. So a lot of the discourse of Aristotle and virtue ethics, you can see moves or leans towards the kind of elitist discourse. So the more clever you are, the better you are, then you can see okay, the snobbery will come in, and the inequality will come in, and this and that, and thinking you're better than other human beings, because you're more knowledgeable than them. And I can see where I'm coming. Having said that this idea of Eudaimonia coming from when you're virtuous, we will say no, it's not just when you're that you have to have meaning and life purpose.
What better purpose and the only purpose you can have is the purpose of life is to worship Allah. So being virtuous by itself is not virtuous.
The only way to be virtuous is to believe in Allah. So you know, amen. And then I'm gonna solve you by just having a hammer salah? Well, that the man is, how about a month? All right, in fact, it's not good enough, because you're doing it to what end? To what goal and to what objective, for what reason? It's meaningless. So being good is only good if you're doing it for reason.
And we don't believe in just doing good things frivolously or capriciously, we believe that it has to be done for the ultimate goal and objective in life, which is to believe in Allah. If you think about something else, and I'll be thinking about this myself.
What is the ultimate for example, let's just take one thing, what is the ultimate level of ingratitude because ingratitude sins of life's by everyone, if you're ungrateful advice, the most, the worst kind of ingratitude is in gratitude towards the Creator. So you can be virtuous all the creation told him of beings, but if you're ungrateful to the Creator, then that will tip the balance towards ingratitude, that you're bad. In fact, rather than good, you're not virtuous.
What's what's kind of cowardice worth was kind of cowardice is not to ask yourself, why you're on this planet, and what you're doing here. And to come to the conclusion, actually, we're creating this on you, all of these virtues and vices can be directed to Allah subhanaw taala. Because if you're not showing it to the Hulk, to the Creator, that the Halleck, then show it to the Hulk is not
it's not going to compensate for that, unfortunately, because of the loss that you're so if you don't have any man, you don't have the belief in God, God,
then, then it's all this will always attack. And obviously, as we know, goodness, Islam we believe is good link to God, and that he's a builder, all but he is the goodness so everything good comes from good, from the good, which is Allah.
Now, having said that, we have our own tradition. And it's interesting that Allah has Allah is saying this is a matter of opinion, but you could argue, but his book on this HetLand Medina, which we have a copy of that, if you want to read it, but here on the deen is probably the best thing that was produced in this regard, where you're talking about the vote in Islam or probably because he compartmentalizes the finds that he gives examples because now we know that you know, a lot of the Hadith there are weak, we were spoken about that at length and stuff like that, which which Tamasha would you recommend, which doesn't have weak Hadith?
There are a couple of summaries Yeah. For example of intervals, he has a book Cosman has a Cassadine disorder here on Medina. And then came along given Padana another figure not been damaged this year, who authored the Mooney, the well known hamburger scholar of another, so he summarized what
Josie produced. So we have the summary of managerial custody. And, for example, John Madden customer has a book called more a little teddy bear, morality moment, teddy bear.
Actually, it's another summary. So why don't you think we should get rid of all of that because we know this week had eaten and what happened? There is a well known figure of the NRP he has actually a book with courage and mentioning, just commenting on the Hadith that are within
Hey Alamuddin lol Morgan young Hamlet as far afield as far
yeah, he's just proposing a title that you through this book, you will not need to
bring other books in order to identify the weak narrations and the accepted integrations within a Alamuddin. So usually the majority of the additions that are produced over Hamdeen, they just mentioned the comments of of will have that out of the upon those Hadith. But the problem the best addition, I would say it was an addition that was produced through a woman has Darmon had. But the problem with that addition, especially they didn't include what have the karate
route. So we have a good addition on every front, other than the issue of Hadith. And the majority of other editions are,
are not the best additions in conversion with that edition. But at least it contains lyrical book on the matter. Well, that's for the Arabic readers, I mean, the English unfortunately, we don't have any of that stuff translated into English, but it's gonna be a lot of people that will be watching that and stuff and trying to get these additions. So that's thank you for that. Suddenly, there's been translated this book has been translated into English. But when you're reading in English language, beware that the Hadith are problematic. There's a lot of weekends in there and stuff like that. So you can actually do a work homework and see which ones are not and literally underlying
them and see what was going on. Nevertheless, it's probably the best in terms of the spiritual psycho spiritual aspects of the human being. Like, for example, to give you a bit of a taste of some of the things, obviously, the book is divided into four different quarters called quadrants, so quarters, yeah. And the third and fourth Quadroon, effectively about, you know, vices and virtues in a way, right you in a ways, things that will destroy you, and morally, carrot and Manji yet, which are things which will save you, but really what they are vices and virtues. I mean, the first and second book were about transaction. First is about worship, and the second was about transaction.
Then about Moon Jetson and Molly cat, but this is so this is the third and fourth quadrant, give me an example, condemnation of rancor and envy. See, Aristotle doesn't really emphasize that as much as a vice as much as rank and envy. Do you see what I mean? Like girl has a lectin acid for example. Then you have miserliness. So we know stinginess, right? And he does condemnation of the love of wealth. So loving the dunya too much. And so for us, there's a book their
pride and conceit pride is Kibera and conceit is effectively our job. So he puts them both together. Our job was self grandiosity or self amazement or was self aggrandizing, whatever it may be, right. And it's breaking the two desires, which we talked about already, the sexual nd anger, these have all been translated, I think Abdul Hakim or others want to translate it that one, Timothy winters. But it's been tried, these have been translated to English language, it shows you like brings a hadith together of what the purpose of Salam said, and stuff like that. And I'm only bringing this to your attention to show you the Islamic resources on the matter. And this is probably the most
important one, obviously, we can talk about
other resources, the fourth quadrant, as you can see, on patience, and thankfulness, because what it tells you is, effectively, we're trying to show you what the mistakes could be that you're making. You could be you could be a jealous man. You could be an envious person, you could be an angry person, you could be someone can't control your desires. That's your problems. Okay, so what artists get rid of that expunge yourself from this, like, you know, if you've got rubbish and if you've got some contaminant in this particular
bottle of water, then you remove, attack, Lian, Talia, as the pupil of letters get mentioned, you remove the impediments and then you try and put the good in there. So yes, remove the expunge yourself from the bad and then add on to that patient's and thankfulness, fear and hope, you know, repentance, sincerity and truth and so on and so forth.
So having said that, I want to just take a couple of minutes. How long have Okay, all right, yeah. Okay. We'll get we'll do a little bit a couple of case studies with at the end or tail at the tail end of the discussion.
But
I wanted to take a couple of case studies of the problem house and some of his virtues. Okay, and, and just spend some time with them. I know we have already done that some extent, but just maybe, just to emphasize the point little bit more. So we said courage. Now what is courage and Josie says he has a button called bind the nihilism. It's a very, very good definition actually. He says courage is when you your heart is firm when the calamity strikes. That's what his definition. Another definition. And some people have differentiated courage between military courage, physical courage and moral courage. Yeah. He says this guy called Matthew Pelto. He says moral courage
includes act
in the service of one's conviction, in spite of the risk of retaliation or punishment, Aristotle says that the sphere of action are feeling accessible.
So it's as we said, this is between the two is rationalism. Recklessness on the one hand and cowardice so courage is in the middle. Yeah.
This guy Putnam,
I don't know who he I don't know, he's my father. He says that high levels of fears and a coward is somebody who would experience high levels of fear than the situation calls for and low levels of confidence. I don't agree with this, by the way, I agree more with custom matter who was actually, I don't know if you guys know, but he's the, he's the trainer of who's the the trainer of Mike Tyson, right? And listen to what he says very powerful. It's one of the best quotes and cards I've seen. He says the hero and the coward, both feel the same thing. But the hero uses his fear projects into his opponents while the card runs. It's the same thing, fear, but it's what you do with it that matters.
It's not about feeling fear, like this guy Putnam, who's an academic, he probably has no idea about this situation. I don't know why he's even writing about it, you should be ashamed of themselves.
I mean, someone who's never engaged in any kind of confrontation is talking about courage and stuff like that in a theoretical manner. But really, what what courage is, and I think custom matters, right? It's not about feeling fear, you can't control that. Someone, a lion comes in and we're all jumping on tables. If a dog comes in, you're all jumping on tables. You know, I'm saying like a vicious dog. It's not about feeling fit. It's about what you do with the fear. It's about how you act despite feeling that fear. So a courageous person he feels the fear by he, just like he was able to, for example, a person who's Temperance is able to control his sexual desires, even when it's,
it's calling for you, or your anger. The courageous person is very similar to that person and so much is that they can control their fear.
Effectively, courage is about controlling fear. That's all it is. It's not about eliminating it, not controlling it. Just like Temperance is about controlling sexual desire. You can't eliminate it, it's about controlling it. It's about what you do despite feeling that emotion
and I want to bring this to attention because
we're gonna look at some Hadith Okay, so like for example, the MaHA Salam right
so this is this is olive Nebuta all it is is a heightened Biharis. Is that in a study the best Yeah. And then we're like I'll call home and then if if the two parties meet in Battlefield Yeah.
And the situation gets heated in the battlefield that the profiles are Salam
he says my econ Edna
Mae a corn Minh that I had on Edna Malecon mineral that does nobody closer to the other side than the postman masala. That is for me that is crystal clear.
If there's two groups fighting, and he's putting himself at the front line, that's it. What can you say? This there's no better there is no better test of courage. There is no better no one can say that man is a coward. We're talking about
so much thought in the Battle of her name. And this is another Hadith that I've put out there as well.
In the Battle of humaine, okay.
When the when the companions were seeing that they had failed, the Prophet Muhammad, Salah Salem was in the battlefield and calling them back, saying no Naboo EULA Cataplana Abdulmutallab, I am the true prophet. No lie. I am the son of Abdul Muttalib. So he's saying come back to fight. So me he's fighting. He's telling them to come. So it shows you level, courage has levels and the process alone, he was at the top level of courage. Unfortunately, we're not even gonna be able to. There's a virtue we can't even test in the modern age.
Which shows you that panela we have not been chosen for this. We have not been chosen to nurture that virtue because we don't have the opportunities that they had our best opportunities in sports and some some moral courage as the guy was talking about saying the right thing. Well, our levels of courage as men in the modern age can never even be tested at the level that these guys were, were engaged. No way.
So what I'm saying is and even the supports of this hadith as Hadees have broken and I came across this weekend. Okay, so we've had this however, if the cathedral says is a jade salad, I came across the cathedral.
He says, he says that the sun is actually like James, okay, it's not that bad. And I know there's one particular Hadith which Alberni also makes Hasson anyway, the hadith is that this guy was a champion wrestler. We're talking about champion wrestlers in my house, so I'm engaged with them in wrestling, which shows you that he because courage is context specific. Courage is context specific. So if you can
Do it in the battlefield doesn't necessarily you can, it's conceivable that you can be great on the battlefield. When it comes to public speaking you find it scary. In fact, the surveys have been done that shows that people that are more scared of public speaking, for example, Barbarossa and done both. He went on the mountain of suffer. And he's saying, If I were to tell you that I was such and such, would you believe me? There was an unknown the other side was you believe me? They said, Yes, we believe you imagined going in front of your whole town, and making an announcement like that. So now that requires a kind of confidence and courage when it comes to the public speaking that realm.
But also, he's in the battlefield and the frontlines, that shows you that his courage was across all categories. So that's a virtue you can't deny the problem Amazon, for example,
I'm giving you and then in sports, I'm imagining you've got the champion wrestler, undefeated, undisputed. And then another person beats him in the wrestling match, but says I've never my back has never reached a hit the ground later. So he's engaging in sports. He's engaging in running this that fighting public speaking, he's putting himself out there.
And if you're a person who didn't believe in your own ability, and you believe Allah was helping you, you're making it all up, you wouldn't have that courage. Where would it come from motorcars come from his courage came from telecoil from reliance on Allah subhanaw taala.
This is very important. I was talking to the sheikh about this hadith I put it there as well. And it's very powerful Hadith about the sincerity of the poor man.
Because we also have to ask question about sincerity because sincerity is one of the virtues as well right? As I mentioned, because Allah has a book on sincerity and intention and so on.
And this is very powerful because what it is is that
after Alyssa and Manoj happened, hadith is say yeah.
So narrations and most of them are but is Hadith that after a lot of mileage, how would you guys know the nice journey and stuff like that the process of salaam was Hasina was actually very sad about situation. And there was like, Why Why so sad about the situation is because he knew that people would not believe it.
And when John came in, he knew this very interesting because what think about if you're a fraud, why would you want to say something which the people are not gonna believe? You're trying to bring people to your religion? Why are you saying something which you know, that people are gonna believe that shows you sincerity? And then Abuja hell came along. So it's gonna tell the people going to the people.
And that he went and told the people because he had the moral courage as we were talking about moral courage, and Yanni, something is true, it's true.
And also, he's a true prophet, and that was obligatory upon him. He went and told the people and some of them were putting their hands on their head like that. Some of them are clapping.
They're shocked. Some of them left Islam.
So what I'm saying to you is, why would you do why would he say something of his own volition that had the net effect of letting some people leave Islam such that the enemies of Islam would rejoice at it because he had to say it because it was part of the deen because he had, and it shows you as moral courage and sincerity.
The fact that his temperament was has in his sad is a very, very powerful Hadith to that effect.
And then you have more, for example,
and this is a famous one, but I'll just mention anyway when his son died, and this son of the moon eclipse and he could have used that it could be opportunistic, and he didn't, but also shows he's not delusional, because we know that sunset we could all make the argument this shows you sincerity is not opportunistic and other kind of stuff. Because they were he was he could have been delusional if this is true, delusional person. Why is the year that that happened is because of my son. Of course, it's
it also strikes out the delusional card as well. So when you look at the processor, and Sierra is shows you sincerity, lack of delusion.
And we talked about the sufferer, Hadith, and this is there as well.
And so look, he, his whole of all his virtues were being attested to by the closest people to him. So for example,
had the general Delana she says never Allah, never will Allah disgrace you. You keep good relations with your kith and kin. Tell the truth help the poor and the destitute. serve your guests generously and assist the deserving calamity afflicted ones. He had the track record of this thing. He was known as a satirical I mean, he had the track record of being sincere in that way.
And there's lots of Hadith on modesty and humility, which we can which we can cover, because I'm cognizant of the time
because I'm cognizant of the time
I will cover some of these anyway
I'll just mention some of them.
Isn't that long to 48
So I just want to mention some of the Hadith here about
about this because this
is really powerful light like
the prophets of Psalms The mattress on which the Prophet SAW Salem used to sleep on consists of 10 heights and stuff to fibers. He wasn't living the luxurious lifestyle, even though money was coming in from the state and stuff like that. This is how he chose to live on 10 fibers.
A woman came to the province Isola, since I'm Muslim as well. And I said to him, I'm in need of you. So he said, sit in whatever road you wish to have the city you wish and I shall sit with you.
Which also destroys this idea that you know, there was such a strict gender relations that the man was one place in those barriers and he said, I'll sit there I'll speak to you. But look, he considered speaking to this woman
to be like, she wasn't our I'm the leader. What are you talking about? Like, you know, there's no he actually this was genuine. He went and sat with her he considered her needs to be important.
And this is a woman so for those who say that Islam discriminates against women doesn't care about them. Obviously we know that time had a day where he used to teach just women on Thursdays mentioned bodies. Well, actually, what this shows you that even the individual woman who had her concerns, the process alone would go and try and meet those concerns.
Allah's Messenger, so forgot that hadith to check the authenticity of this was mentioned actually.
These other ones here.
Usually the rule of thumb is and Biharis usually say less is more luck and has some discussion about it, which I haven't seen.
So let me quickly this is very interesting idea. We were told by his Huck Finn Musa on the authority of what blah, blah, blah. And I'm Robin last the Allah's Messenger. Salam used to speak directly with the worst people, thereby winning their hearts used to do the same with me. So I thought it was the best of people I said, O Messenger of Allah, am I better advocate he said, of a worker, he said, O Messenger of Allah. So Omar is anomalous. Obviously, if alarm goes off nice Northman is wherever I asked the Messenger of Allah, he told me the truth. So I wish not to not ask him. But the point is, is that he thought
he the way the person was dealing with him, he thought I was the man.
I was the man, he must love me the most. But then he had to tell him the truth because he had the moral courage, and it was also part of the religion.
And so there's many, many of us like that. Look at this one, for example. Allah's Messenger never struck anything with his hand unless he was struggling in the cause of a law, nor did he ever strike a seven or a woman, which was already dispelled so many of these myths that we've heard from these disbelievers who are antithetical to Islam.
Yeah, sure, actually, there's. So you know, we were talking about his children, and so on and so forth. And for tomorrow's your loved one was fine. The one the only one that was living Yeah.
You as a father, and there may be people had that have children. The love to your child can sometimes make you make decisions. Yes. They are not. In line with your values. Maybe? Yeah, you see.
So
there was a time where far tomorrow they are low. And it was working so hard to the extent where her hands were getting, like, cracks and that kind of stuff. And she asked for one of the slaves so that they can help help. And what did he reply? He said, Don't you see the offer exactly what it was, but I told you, this has to be ethically through SubhanAllah. Thanks. Bye, bye. And so why didn't he make it easier? Yeah. And you reject To be honest, he rejected Yeah, he rejected the request. And what happened? So if you think of this guy, who has who was a lie, or a scammer? would he lie and put his daughter? Exactly very difficult situation? Exactly. Do you see?
Another one was actually his wife when she asked for us. I don't know extra slave or something like that. Now, that was fun.
Yeah, well, that's absolutely good point. I mean, I wanted to mention what your father fought the mother, the other one, whenever she entered to the room, the prophets of salaam will stand up, kissed her, and sit out in his place. So that's a respectful woman and children.
And the fact that he rejects of the being, you know, such a loving Father shows how much he was dedicated to this path himself. And all his family and friends were suffering
as a result, beautiful, I think I want to mention a couple more things here as well, because sometimes we think
we think of him in a very unrelatable manner,
that we've tried to create some level of relatable illness in mentioning for example, that his children died, they had this this grief in his life. He had the difficulty his life and he was courageous and he had
impeccable moral virtual or in the color when they can add a clock and it was ALLAH says no Quran about him that you have impeccable virtue. But we don't see him as a person who smiles and is laughing and happy and these kinds of things. And if you look at Muhammad, Salah Salem, for example, he was referred to someone who smiles like, I'll give you give you some ideas on this. I think it's very important as well, right? He was a person that is joyful. He was he was had a positive demeanor, do you not? I mean, it wasn't it wasn't negative and morose. And this is very important because nowadays we're living in an age
Yeah, so like, for example, I mentioned you hear like Allah's Messenger Salam would not speak.
So this is about the speaking about cancer. I can mention that as well. He will not speak on on the way you do rather, he would pause periodically. And so he was very stoic and he will only speak when necessary. Right. And listen Buhari? Will not this is actually mentioning he wouldn't be there will you do? So notice the trend of that I should always compare. Like, you know, you guys in control of yourself like he was he wouldn't speak like you guys, you're speaking for no reason. He would just speak you know, when there was required for example, and he sat there he's paused periodically and he wasn't he had Joe ml Kelim. As we know, we had the kind of comprehensive speech look at this one.
There was a slenderness in the legs of the ProMaster Salaam and his love always took the form of a joyful smile.
So when I looked at him, I said his eyes are black and with
though he is not black I
look at this one for example.
The Loft the loft of the Sun was nothing but a joyful smile. There's a lot of these Hadith talking about him smiling. He was a positive
he had this this kind of positive behavior this one is there is behind it as far as you mentioned.
Allah's Messenger Salam did not shun me from the time I embraced Islam. And this is Abdullah, who's this gentleman in Abdullah
Abdullah
Abdullah Abdullah right. He said that Allah's Messenger did not shun me from the time I when I embraced Islam and he never saw I never saw and he never saw me without laughing.
It was laughing obviously, the laughter wasn't like a you know, like our laugh. Unfortunately, it was too loud and stuff like he wasn't interested in that. It's only if you had these where you see him as like, you can see his molar teeth and these kind of things. He's more smiling, you know, periodically and stuff like that shows us a very positive character who's in control of himself. He was positive. He was helpful is kind. I want to mention a few more hotties I know it's, you know, I don't know how many
talking for two hours, no problem.
So I'll just mentioned that I've had this look at this about the generosity of the protocols.
So the Prophet Muhammad Salim there was a time when this symbol HollyWell or sorry Muslim, that he there was a herd of sheep that filled the whole valley.
And there was a Bedouin dare to aspire for the sheep in the family. So he asked him, he asked the Prophet of Solomon, he gave him all the sheep. He just gave them the sheep. I feel like if you if you're really on this whole material, so you're not gonna give everyone like you've got all these sheep that filled the valleys give it to the man. He the man was so impressed by that he returned to his people. And he said, oh, people embrace Islam by Allah gives a charity as he has not fear, poverty, he doesn't care. She gets, he was shocked and generosity. This guy became Muslim, just based on the general sale pronounce
the person I'm used to give wealth to new Muslims in order to reconcile their hearts. So that's one thing.
And listen, this is a Hadith of his son. For example, Allah bless. He gave him a lot of money in the hustle. And he said, do not do you feel that I have become stingy by Allah. If you share, if you share camels.
Where as many as trees in the hammer are distributed among you, you would neither find me stingy nor coward, nor liar, because these three things are connected by the way.
And you'll find that people who are cowardly are usually stingy as well. That's usually connection because you fear something. One guy face gets pain and the other guy says poverty. If you're you'll find that the bravest people you've ever met, also the most generous, that's usually a rule of thumb.
And then they speak the truth because they don't fear anybody. They just speak no problem, unless it's a strategy of war or something like that.
Now this is a very powerful one right?
And incident that indicates is Genesis the hadith of antiseptic turmeric.
Money was brought to the professor Salah from Bahrain, and he ordered that it'd be dispersed in a mosque although it was the largest amount of money that the Prime Minister has ever received. He went out for prayer and did not even turn to it. Yeah. After finishing the prayer, he sat by the money and gave some to every person he he saw he did not get up until the last coin had been distributed body and this if this go is Subhanallah if this man to live salaam was trying to get money then why don't you take it straight for him?
He was distributing and sleeping on the power of found fibers. Humble lifestyle money was coming in, but he was distributing it to people he was using it for for for the state and all this kind of stuff
while I was walking with the process of lamb who was this somebody Muslim, who was wearing a Nigerian garment with a thick hem, a Bedouin came up to him and he pulled his garment so violently that I could see the marks on his shoulder caused by the violence. And obviously, he had the seal of the Prophet is something we did, I mentioned the physical description, I had the seal of the Prophet. He has a seal between these two shoulder caps, which has some coloration and colors. It's like in the it's like a dove. It's like a market but it's like a it's like the egg of a dove, for example.
Then the Bedouins had ordered for me the fortune of Allah, the Almighty which you have a price on so I'm turned to him and smiled and ordered some of be given to him, doesn't faze him at all smart money.
And this is just one thing. We could talk about the kindness of the Prophet Muhammad Salah Salem
we have all the hundreds economic, I know you guys are looking for example, the Prophet Muhammad Salah Salam, I mean, think about it, right.
He was kind and gentle to the animals, to the human beings.
For example, there was a hadith
says fit a lot in the treatment of animals and they will they would fairly, there is a heavenly reward for every act of kindness done to a living animal lover providers themselves. And
there are so many things like that, which we can we can point to
the neighbor, the animal and all these kinds of things.
I think, I think that's enough for one day. But I just wanted to give you a taste. I know. I've got lots of I've got a collection of honey, I can read only a few. But this shows just gives you a flavor taste of the characters in the virtues of the Prophet Muhammad's Islam was you would say not only magnificent, beautiful, aesthetically beautiful objectively. So in fact, and this is in itself, an argument for the veracity of Islam. And this is the second session where we're talking about the virtues of the Prophet Moses and we only give you a taster of that. In the next session, inshallah we'll get straight into the thick of it. And we'll be talking more in a narrative manner and going
through the Hadith and so on. I hope this interdisciplinary approach has been useful to you. Because it has been for me in preparation for this particular session of salaam aleikum wa has Lightworkers