Mohammed Hijab – Liberal Teaches Muslim Human Rights

			In Western society today and documents like the United Nations, human rights, human rights
documents, yeah. Is that going to be the best basis? Or is kind of Islamic scripture going to be the
best basis? I think it's, I think it's very easy to show that it that, you know, the Islamic culture
is
		

			producing is inferior to producing, you know, accessible, equity tolerant society that doesn't allow
slavery doesn't allow.
		

			Can I come back a few points? Because I think what you've done there, you've done it, done a really
good job and trying your best, okay.
		

			Have to give you credit, because I mentioned sorry, he was kind of like the the narrative of whether
it was kind of
		

			the, you know, the Western countries who cost impressions and advise the Muslim countries to
actually abolish slavery. And he said, Oh, no, that's rubbish. And I think kind of like, you know,
history will say that. No, I said that the time you're talking about was ironically a time where
Western countries had been colonizing the
		

			West, okay, the Western countries in like, 1850, you know, they did all these bad things. So Who are
they to say to Muslim countries,
		

			bad things, but still take the good things that they did not know which, which, which Muslim
countries was slow. So you still need to know if you're going to make the case that it is, you know,
an Islamic, you know, doctrine to end slavery because of this verse in the Quran, that says that
kind of some of the Zakat money should go towards freeing slaves, then you need to try and account
for why it is that Muslim countries ended up being so much slower than Western have allowed us to
speak. So I think, okay, I should I have to say, you've tried your best and based on
		

			what you've tried your best and you have, you have made some points, although some of you've made
some equivocations and I have to point them out. Okay.
		

			First equivocation that you made you use the word good and bad. Now, good and bad on liberal basis
depends on what's legitimate and illegitimate. What was acceptable was not acceptable, was mandated
and was not mandated. So if I say it's acceptable is mandated and legitimate on political
liberalism, that you can have slaves, for instance, and I can make that I can make the argument
using the social contract. If I say it's legitimate,
		

			it's acceptable and so on,
		

			on liberalism, on political liberalism, to have colonies, right, just like john Stuart Mill would
agree with me, just like john Locke would agree with me, just like Emmanuel Kant would agree with
me, just like Montesquieu would agree with me, just like the American Founding Fathers would agree
with me, the rise of the Federalist Papers would agree with me, and so on and so forth, then it's a
different case to make, because when you say good and bad, now good and bad is defined by
liberalism, if you're a liberal, now, you have different kinds of liberalism. So you have political
liberalism. Now, what's desirable on political liberalism might be differentiated, by the way,
		

			by what is desirable on social liberalism. Okay. And I'll give you an example of that not
utilitarian based liberalism, the type of witch that john Stuart Mill, defended and wrote a book
called on utilitarianism and chapter four, he talked about how to how to prove your titles called
proven utilitarianism. And then he talked about that which is desirable, which makes you happy is
that which is good. That's why he said, so if you talk about social liberalism, having a slave on
social liberalism could only be objected to on the basis of the harm principle. Now, if there is a
structure politically, politically legitimize structure on liberalism, of colonialism, for instance,
		

			which entails a kind of exploitation of slavery, in essence,
		

			that could be acceptable both on political liberalism and on social liberalism. So I think the idea
here, because there's two things we're doing, we have to look at the principles and then we have to
look at the history, okay. Now, the history might not always be in line with the principles and vice
versa. It could be the case that in abstraction, in philosophical abstraction, that the principles
allow these things to happen, but that in historical reality, those things did not happen and vice
versa. Now what I'm saying to you I'm putting to you is that there is nothing for example, in
liberalism, which abolish is or does anything to do with racism. There are many liberals are racists
		

			and there's nothing within liberalism, social liberalism, political liberalism, of any kind of
economic liberalism. Can you stop, sir? Okay. Oh, political liberalism, which says For example,
racism is wrong. So if someone wants to predicate an exploitation, exploitation or economic
relationship, on a racial system on liberalism, then
		

			That could be justified philosophically, in abstraction. There's nothing and that's why you find up
until Winston Churchill, you have racist people in this country and other countries in the West.
Why? Because there's nothing within their worldview, which stops racism, they were forced to be
multicultural, when they begged, you know, the second world countries that they want to colonize
subjects from those countries to come back into the country, so that they can build their
infrastructure. And they knew that they had to get along with them, in order to make societies work.
That's why racism was was seen as bad. It's nothing to do with liberalism. It's not new as human
		

			rights, because human rights is an extension of liberalism. And in fact, I don't even I can't even
recall in the human rights document that which explicitly condemns, you know, this kind of attitude,
inherent attitude within a human being. So the point I'm making to you is this, as if I said,
slavery is a good thing, as a liberal, you couldn't even refute that statement. And if I believe
that to be the case, you can't say that's good. And that's bad, because good and bad is something
which is determined by the mechanisms that different liberal philosophers put down. And you can't
prove philosophically that that is bad. According to liberal communism is bad colonization is bad
		

			slavery exploitation relations. In fact, you could argue that the kind of supply side economics that
you that you want to refer to that was espoused by people like Adam Smith, and that was objected to
by people like john
		

			Maynard Keynes, who, of course, has a different model yet, and so on.
		

			That kind of liberalism actually facilitates the exploitation of relationships, which which you
could argue, compound, compound, what I'm not going to use is terms, but this this relationship
surplus, surplus value, Marx call that surplus value, right? So the idea of the worker and the
worker and all that kind of stuff, exploitation happens in capitalism. So you could even make an
economic case against liberalism and say, Look, this is what's happening. Now, the IMF bank, which
is legitimate from economic liberal perspective, where they're given the Africans of continental
countries, these big loans that they can't pay back, and that that's effectively putting half the
		

			population into slavery. And now they have to do this and that and the other in order to pay them
back. There might not be direct slavery, but it's an economically sanctioned slavery of
exploitation, capitalistic exploitation, which is legitimate on put on economic liberalism,
sanctioned by political liberalism, and not contradicted by social liberalism. Therefore, we have to
be honest, what we're saying is, I think you have this trajectory of Okay, the white savior ism,
complex that the white man came with his Western ideas to help us brown people understand what true
morality was, and what isn't, is actually a false notion on liberalism, because there's nothing
		

			inherent nothing which in here is within that philosophy, which objects to racism, which objects
whose exploitation which objects to colonialism, and so on. So I think that the argument is a flawed
one. It's a good attempt to refute me about it wasn't it wasn't
		

			a philosophically satiating one.
		

			It wasn't nice, right? But what I will say to you what else is is is is that in Islam, I repeat
this. We don't we're not apologists to the liberal world, because I said to you, I'm quoting
scholars from the medieval world before
		

			he died. 1111 Yes, he died 1111 he wrote a book called al Mustafa, talking about the soul and this
and that and, and the objects of Sharia. He Himself said in both of his words, that slavery, the
objective of it is to do away with it.
		

			Yes, he said this, this is not a response to the liberal that's forcing us to say this. No, this is
we said this before john Locke even lived, you know, this was five or 600 years before john Locke.
So the point is, the systems were in place, we have a justifiable moral reason to say that freeing
slaves is a good thing. And that's what the Quran says, Well, my other aka Malacca Sakuraba, what is
the good way freeing slaves, that's the Quran? We don't have any alternative liberal reason to say
that slavery is wrong if there is one, or exploitation is wrong, or colonialism is wrong, or that
freeing the slave is a good thing? I would like to hear it. Yeah, I would like to hear it. So like
		

			the main, the two main points he made Oh, like, just to summarize the points that I've noted down.
He talks about racism and in Islam versus liberalism. He talks about
		

			slavery in Islam versus liberalism. And you said that kind of mentioned al ghazali. At the very end,
I talked about something which you missed out, which is very important, which was actually the crux
of my argument. I said that you, you you were saying you were using the words good and bad. Yes.
This is a good law. apostasy Good lord is a bad law. Whatever. I'm saying good and bad is that which
is conceivable
		

			acceptable and legitimate within liberalism, you have to address this point. How can you say that
you as a liberal, you believe that apostasy killing the apostate is wrong when actually philosophic,
political, social and economic liberal liberalism does not object to it. From a principle
perspective, i'm john Locke, just because he said it was wrong. I'm using him as a as a
supplementary evidence. My question is, from a structurally philosophical perspective, how can you
prove that killing the apostate in a state which claims to be say, for example, Christian or Jewish
is wrong on liberalism? Okay, great. So the thing is, your conception of liberalism is
		

			anachronistic, because you're only looking at the kind of, you know, 200 year old, liberal thinkers,
and yet you've constructed this idea of liberalism, that hasn't advanced whatsoever. Okay. And so
yes, it's true that back in those times, there were people who, at the same time were like,
espousing ideas of like, kind of the, the, the sanctity of the individual and like being
individualist, but then also being contradictory in terms of slavery and racism, and so on and so
forth. Okay. But, you know, we're not beholden to those people. And so the, I agree with that. Yeah.
And so, your, your concept of like, you're a liberal, so why don't you think like these people, 200
		

			years
		

			of social contract that you've taken this concept?
		

			Okay, that's the wild. He talks about liberals today. Why is liberalism? It depends, okay, is
liberalism, social contract? Can you have liberalism without social contract? Yes or No, I don't
know. If you take away a social contract from liberalism, you have anarchy, okay? It becomes a
different ideology. I am saying the existence of social contract allows for the universality of law
to Trump, the Trump over and above the, the individual's right to let's say, for instance,
		

			freedom of expression of it, you can take this liberal argument, but you can take this individual
idea of liberalism, of the, you know, the sacred individual, and that you shouldn't infringe on
other people's freedom. And then extrapolate from that towards a caveman outcast or anarchist
society where that's left liberalism. You've left what you have to reject your you have to reject
your ideology. So you know, I did a review because like, Yes, because if you if you're if you're if
you're trying to do is debunk
		

			200 year old people.
		

			Today, you want the bunking? You have people who like, value? You know, you don't understand the
argument. I'm not doing that. I'm saying that all liberal contract terian by definition thinkers,
they have to believe in a social contract. No, but
		

			I'm saying that principle hardly exists today, though they all any liberal that lives now, whether
they're constitutional. Now, whatever, you call them social liberals before, could you could you?
No, no, no, no, I'm saying that any liberal from from this idea of the individual, being, you know,
having rights, which would be considered like, you know, in some respects, a liberal idea. They
have, like, from that kind of game, these ideas of fairness, and
		

			what's the word? Not entropy, entropy? You know, the word empathy? Yeah, they've they've gained
empathy, like treating people the way that you would like to be treated, and so on and so forth. You
know, and what you're saying doesn't apply to them whatsoever. I'm saying, You don't understand the
argument. When you have a political liberalism, you managed to knock down like, No, you don't mean
the 1800s. You had like, hundreds and still managed to like, forget about those people. I'm asking a
simple question, then the
		

			question, is it possible to have a political liberalism without a social contract?
		

			Will? No, no. Okay, okay. No, it's too much. Yeah. If, if you have a contract area, if you have a
non contract area understanding of liberalism, which you want to promote to us, then you can you can
do that. But what I'm saying is that my argument is, it's not actually possible to have a to have a
non contract terian version of political liberalism, and maintain a full liberal character, you
cannot be a liberal without believing in a social contract you you step into an anarchy, that's my
idea, which means you have no government might as well kill it is the law of the jungle then? So I'm
saying without social contract, there is no government, there is no authority, there is no
		

			suffering, there is no universality of law. Therefore, what is what is pertinent to a liberal
discourse? is a social contract a political liberalism. My if you're saying that if we don't know,
but I'm saying to you this my argument, that it's not possible to have a political liberalism.
Without it that is the case, then then the laws that are
		

			sanctioned by the political authority or the sovereign
		

			Laws are sanctioned by the authority and becoming universalized. By law. They are legitimate. They
are the good thing. They are what is seen as good by liberalism.