Proof Of God – Ireland Tour
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Channel: Mohammed Hijab
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers stress the importance of understanding the dynamics and laws of nature, as well as finding one's curiosity when learning about complex subjects. They caution against using backwards language and caution against using scientific language in a way that is backwards. The speakers also stress the need for sufficient conditions for every religion and caution against using scientific language in a way that is backwards. They highlight the importance of finding one's curiosity when learning about complex subjects and finding one's curiosity in learning about complex subjects.AI Generated Transcript ©
Salam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh
just like everyone for joining us today for this special event that we have with our brother, Muhammad hijab, it is a very great honor for myself to be hosting this event. Today. There it's it's almost historical. In fact, it is historical this event that we have, not only in terms of the the physical stature of the guests that we have, but also in terms of the grandness and the significance of this particular event. This event is being hosted in situ in the southeast Technological University, by the Muslim Students Association, in the Waterford campus. This Muslim Students Association was just set up recently in the last few months. And this, in fact, is the second event
that they're hosting. So quite a big event. And it's an absolute pleasure to personally have this event being hosted in my own city where I grew up or was born in Waterford, the best city in Ireland might I add.
So also it is not going to hurt to all those who came traveling from different cities, I know that a number of people came from, from Dublin of course from Cork, we have a number of students from UCC. Actually, I didn't really mean to mention Dublin to be honest. But we also have brothers and sisters from Galway, I was very impressed that we had some brothers from brothers and sisters from Galway and Limerick to attend this particular event. So inshallah in many ways, this is quite a national events that we are hosting. This is part of a tour that we have with Muhammad hijab for his Arlynn tour yesterday we are in the
prestigious Trinity College Dublin. And tomorrow we will be in Queen's University in Belfast, so we'll be back in in the UK, but we don't need to delve into that second part of the statement. Inshallah.
Just one thing that I want to mention before we begin with recitation of Quran as we usually do for our events with the ALI brothers and with any of the MSA events that we have. I am very impressed by the work that this particular committee the MSA of CTU have been doing as a president for the last two years in Trinity College Dublin, the MSA there and being a part of the committee for the last two and a half years. I know just how difficult and how time consuming and how much effort it takes to arrange events like this and to arrange them in a way that is professional in a way that they are successful. So I do want to ask all of you to join me in giving a big round of applause to the
committee or the Muslim Student Association here in the southeast Technological University in Waterford.
We dove into Allah without further ado, we will begin the event with recitation of Quran
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without further ado, I'd like to introduce our guest of honor for this evening. Muhammad hijab is an author comparative religionist and philosopher of really
Jim, he is the co founder of the Sapiens Institute and a researcher and instructor for the organization. He has a BA in politics, and a master's in history. He has also acquired a second master's in Islamic Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies.
Mr. hijaab, has also completed a third Master's Degree in Applied theology from the University of Oxford, where he focused on the philosophy of religion in applied settings. He job is now pursuing his PhD in the philosophy of religion on the contingency argument for God's existence, he has amassed a whopping following of over 1.1 million followers or subscribers on YouTube on his main channel. And recently he has gone viral with a number of interviews that he has done, namely the ones with Piers Morgan on the issue of Palestine and the debate that he has done recently with Rabbi Shmuley although Mr. Hijab will correct me in saying that his true name is actually on Holy smoly.
But that is for him to explain further, just a little higher, please join me in giving a warm air Irish and South Eastern Welcome to our brother Muhammad hijab.
everyone hear me quite well, Hill, is the microphone close enough for Sheila.
Today's topic is going to be about the meaning of life. But what I really want to do is interact with everyone in this room. So I'm going to try and keep my speech to a minimum so that I can interact with you guys in questions and answers, because I think that's really where
the benefit is.
Oneness off by saying in terms of the meaning, or the purpose of life, is the following. What are the things that almost every human being from any worldview would agree with human beings from other worldviews on? Number one, that there is something rather than nothing.
Number two, that we live in a universe.
Number three, that the universe is regular, it is uniform, and is stable. And its regular, uniform and stable, to the extent to which it allows humans or any kind of life to exist, these are what you would really call incontrovertible facts. These are things which doesn't don't seem to be controversial.
So number one, that there is something rather than nothing. Number two, that there's a universe. Number three, this universe is stable, it is uniform, it is regular, the extent to which it allows life to exist within it. Now, I have one question and one question only, which is, what is the best explanation for that? Now, there's really two things, two exhaustive things that one can say about the state of affairs, A, that this is due to an intelligence, or B, that this is not due to an intelligence.
Now, if I were to put it just like that, without even making an argument, effectively, this is just me asking a question. If I were to speak to an atheist, for example, or a materialist, or an agnostic or something, I would start with these facts laid bare in this cold, rational manner. I would say, Let's agree on the fact that we live in a universe. Let's agree on the fact that this universe exhibits regularity and stability and uniformity. Now, what is the best explanation for this? Is it intelligence or lack of intelligence? So if they say, well, lack of intelligence, to be honest with you, I don't mind absconding from the conversation altogether from at that point,
because
I don't see that as a reasonable reply.
Because if someone says is lack of intelligence, what is it then? Someone may argue that it's chance, it's loose just by chance and randomness that we came into this position?
My response to that is chance doesn't actually exist, there's no evidence that chance exists. What is chance? If you look at definitions of what chances are, chances are effectively randomness is interesting because if you look at definitions of what randomness is, they use the word chance. And if you look at the definitions of what chances do use the word randomness.
What is chance and active force is chance something which can be empirically verified, is chance something which I can see that I can touch that I can smell, but I can interact with any of my five senses, chances are none of those things. Were any of those things. And so what is chance exactly what is it an expression of? It's an expression of things we don't understand why
And Simon Laplace is a very interesting philosopher
19th century philosopher, he's written a book about this, actually. And he talks about the fact that if he calls it the demon hypothesis, he says, if there was a creature, and this creature knew everything about the past, and the present, and the future, knew everything, all the variables, and he says that this creature
had all this information, then he would know, or this creature would know, the future.
Effectively, that which we label on this view, as randomness and chance is just simply that which we are ignorant of, since everything has a cause, and has an explanation, the things that happen, which we don't understand, which we call chance, and randomness are in fact things which we don't know why they've acted in that way.
We don't know why is it that a cause b in this way, we don't know what the effect of cause or the efficient cause of the material cause. Or the final cause of that thing is, we don't know what that is. And hence, we call it random, it happened randomly we say.
But that is not a good explanation as to why this thing random exists in the first place. In short, therefore, randomness is not some substratum that you can put under a microscope or some force which you can detect, there is no evidence that randomness exists. If an atheist says to me, this universe, can be described as uniform and regular and stable. As a result of randomness, I will say, Please prove the existence of such randomness. I myself am an atheist, or an agnostic or disbeliever, in the concept of randomness, which you propose. And the burden of proof is upon the one that's making the claim. So randomness cannot be an explanation for why the universe is uniform
is regular and stable. So then, what could be another explanation? Someone can say the universe is as it is, because the universe is like this, by necessity. Necessity is that it's like this
without an explanation without a cause. It just is. That's what Bertrand Russell said. He said, the universe just is.
Okay. Why is it the way is one of the universe just is, even if someone proposes this idea, the universe, the laws of the universe, the laws of nature,
as a result of necessity, there is no contradiction in believing that this universe was designed. And it was necessarily designed.
So necessity does not negate design. There is no contradiction between necessity and design. In fact, the theists would agree, say, look, it's all capital of Allah anyway. It's all determined. Because if you say the universe is determined the way it is, then the question is what determined it
if the universe is determined, these laws are determined the uniformity and the regularity in the stability of the universe is determined. The question is what determined it you say nothing determined it? Then I respond, how can something come from nothing? In which case, you've got nothing to say?
And so, if you do an exhaustive disjunctive analysis of the options that are possible, in explaining, in best inference terms, why is the universe stable? Why is it uniform? Why is it regular? To the extent to which it allows human life or any kind of life to exist? And continue existing? Why? What's the best explanation for that? We go back to is it intelligence, or lack thereof? Is it no intelligence? And if someone says, it's no intelligence? Well, that's no explanation at all.
And so we will say that the best explanation for why the universe is the way it is, and facilitates why facilitates is in fact design. That is the best explanation. Richard Dawkins would disagree. And he would say, Well, hold on. That's what we used to think back in the day. Now we have the evolutionary mechanism. In fact, he wrote a whole book called The Blind Watchmaker.
By the way, if I mean if you think about it, if it's a Blind Watchmaker because he was responding to someone called William Paley and William Paley said that if you walk in a particular desert or something like that, and you see a watch, I called it the watchmaker argument. He says that this watch exhibits traits of we called contrivance was designed.
So if you see a watch, exhibits design, compare a watch with a rock the rock doesn't have such design. The watch does have the design
So you know that there's been some kind of manufacturing process
that has been imposed on that particular watch. You don't know that when it's a rock.
And you don't even need to think about it comes intuitive to you that there was some kind of manufacturer for this watch. So Richard Dawkins responds to this. And he says, well, actually, we have now the evolutionary mechanism. If you watch either one of those National Geographic programs, the word evolution we mentioned, David Attenborough, and he'll talk about this evolutionary mechanism. First thing I will say is that, even if one presupposes the evolutionary mechanism, a mechanism is different from agency. Just because there's a mechanism, it doesn't mean that it's unguided. If Richard Dawkins is responding, he says, actually, it's a Blind Watchmaker. But there's
still a watchmaker analogy. It doesn't matter if he's blind or not, there's still a watchmakers ad agency there by calling of a Blind Watchmaker doesn't solve the problem,
if that makes sense. The second thing I will say is this.
You can call you can speak about evolution or your life when it comes to biology. But when it comes to physics, there is no evolution. And the Quran, interestingly, in response to this kind of thought process, where it says the Hulk was somehow it will at the bottom unhealthiness, that actually the creation of the heavens in the earth is bigger than the creation of the human beings. Why are we focusing on biological species? When there is no such thing as a theory of evolution? In physics, there is no because with celestial spheres and inanimate objects, there is no evolutionary mechanism doesn't even apply. So still, the question will remain, how can you explain the uniformity and the
regularity and the stability of those inanimate forces? And there will be no response? So when you think about this, all of the proposed responses to this very basic question of why is it that the universe exhibits these traits? They're all non starters self refuting?
They don't go that far.
So one doesn't need to spend a long time making arguments for God's existence. All one really needs to do is ask one simple question.
What is the best explanation for what you see around you?
And if someone responds in the ways that I've just mentioned, which, frankly, are the only ways ones can cut, someone can respond. Someone can say, well, there's a multiverse. That's another thing someone can say, by them ask about a multiverse. I asked about this universe. Say, Well, if there's a million universes just like this, it's one of them is bound to be have these proportions and be regular and stable and uniform. But that's not the question I asked. I'm not asking you about a million universes, which are unproven. Anyway, you haven't seen a million universes. I'm asking about this universe. So they've changed the goalposts. Is that okay? Well, if you have a million
universes having one universe that's like this, it's not that it's not that special. That's the response that some of them give. My response to that is that, well, I'm not speaking about a million imaginary universes, which no one can prove. I'm talking about this universe.
What's the explanation for the fact that this universe is uniform, regular and stable? So when you exhaust all the possibilities, I'm sorry to say there is no excuse for thinking that this universe came from chance? Or came from nothing? Or is necessity necessarily like this? Or is because of a multiverse or something like that? There is no excuse for believing these fairy tales and myths, notions,
the delusions
that you're trying to run away from the reality and the easy answer. You're trying to run away from this, because really, and truly, it's not about the intellectual thing, you know, that the moment you acknowledge that there is a designer of the universe,
there's going to be some kind of ethical and moral responsibility on you, because the question will then be, so what does this designer want from us? Why has this designer done this? Why is he created? Why is it designed?
Well, the Quran asked that question. It says, I've asked people to and number Halacha, Nicoma Abbath. And when Nico Elaina, led to down, do you think that we have created you purposeless with our aim, and that you will not be returned to us? But if you think about it,
with care,
the same entity that put things in the right place, in order to achieve an effect and the effect of having life in the universe?
Surely, a deliberative
entity like this did not put human being on a planet like Earth, imbued that human being was freewill and done all of that for no reason whatsoever. Surely that's not the case.
Because if that is the case, it's almost inexplicable.
So what is the purpose of life then? The purpose of life for the human being, is to do that which everything else is doing.
and which is submitting to the laws of nature. The only difference between the human being, according to our narrative, as Muslims, and everything else in nature is that everything else is nature in nature is compelled to do that, through the forces of nature and through the laws, whereas the human being has a choice
whether or not they would submit to the laws. Now, from then on out, we go into a religious narrative, and there are competing religions, which try and explain how it is, what the purpose of life is, of course, Islam is one of those religions.
And we can go into a discussion about what the specific proofs of Islam are. But the main point is to realize that there is a purpose of life. Once one realizes this point, then we can go into a discussion about, okay, what religion is true, which one has the most evidence is how do we find out that's another discussion. But at this juncture, all we need to do is realize that the notion the universe is here and facilitates life. It's stable, it's uniform, it's regular.
And that the entity responsible for this
act in aimless and purposeless ways that that proposition is a ludicrous proposition. It's a nonsensical proposition.
And so therefore, the human being does have purpose objective, but not subjective purpose, objective, anchored and solid purpose. Once we get to that juncture, then we can discuss, okay, which religion is the correct one, and all these kinds of things, but because I have spoken for about, what, 1015 minutes now, I think that's where people start losing their attention span, including myself.
So what I'll do at this juncture is open up to questions and answers immediately inshallah.
Yes, go ahead. Yeah.
So
I've done some speak, spoken some interviews before. And so what are you sometimes even me is, when you'd make this argument about how like STEM is the causes of truth? Can you compare it to the other two other religions out there when you're out there? They agree that Islam is close is the truer of all of them. But disciplines, like the Black Swan problem of what if there is maybe there, that is the correct one that we just don't know him? Why do you do this then the truth just because the options that we have are even worse? So the way I would do this is the way I like to do this when, since you just ask the question.
In trying to establish Islam, as the religion of Truth, apart from its competitors, is I distinguish between necessary and sufficient conditions, okay. Now, unnecessary condition is something which if it's not there, then the thing will not be there, the entire thing will not be there, or a sufficient condition is something which is required as a higher burden of proof to prove some things exist. Let me give an example. Right? In Islam,
you need a man and a woman to get married, you cannot have a man and a man. Okay? And I know many people don't understand this, and we can discuss that maybe in some other question. Or it cannot have a woman and a woman. Okay? What you need a man and a woman. Now, if I bring a man here, and I bring a woman, I say, come sit here. Okay, so now pronounce you husband, well, it wouldn't be acceptable, because that's not the sufficient condition. So in order to make it a sufficient condition, all I need is two witnesses. two male witnesses. And that's another discussion. Why is it made everything there's another discussion?
Over Ah, yes. And I also need a Maha, which is a dowry, the man will give it to the woman
according to the Hanafis, just enough now, by the way,
but if we go one step further, say okay, and she needs to speak to her father or her Willie. Once these three things are there, that's it. And the German couple would by the way, any people will be surprised, because we will think that this is that all it takes to get married in Islam. That's actually all it takes to get married in Islam. I mean,
really, and truly, I know this sounds ludicrous. Some of you say, that could take 10 seconds, it could take literally one I've gotten people married in one minute in 60 seconds, because I was busy.
Honestly, someone comes to the office and say, Listen, I need to get married this and that. So listen, I need to go to the toilet. So this is going to have to be a quick one.
You know, say 123. Okay, husband and wife.
I've even tell you the truth. I've even gotten people married on WhatsApp. And that is difference of opinion on the matter. But I was Yanni driving and this guy called me said look, I'm going to commit haram. That's what he said to me.
He said I'm going to commit haram. He goes, I've got two witnesses ready on this one?
SAP group, can I add you and you do the thing?
I didn't know what to do about the situation. Oh, my chef and he said, yes, there's some scholars this discussion about you can do it. So I brought them in. I said to the woman, I said to her, Listen, this guy is probably going to leave you. I know this guy.
And he's like, what you're doing, you're here to try and make things easy for me. I said, but it's not fair on the porn. Because we know that you're pernicious man. Yeah.
Why is the Ordos is a habits, your habits?
Anyway, so it happened, marriage happened, and I said, What's the MA? And the guy said, you don't want to hear this one. This was before McDonald's was on the boycott list. He goes, I'm gonna give her a meal. And
I said, Sister don't do this. I said, at least have some.
No, she said, I don't mind that. Okay, you know, whatever. You know, it happened. And he did. In fact, they've also unfortunately, but I said, I told you so. And that was it. But that's how easy marriage is in Islam. But that's not the question you will ask.
So if I had a man and a woman here
and then I got two witnesses, I've got the Mahara.
So simple. The marriage, they can go to the hotel after I'm not saying they should do it like this. This is not culturally sensitive to many of the cultures a lot. But they can. I mean, this is all Islam us to do. I mean, Islam doesn't say all of the other things that are, you know, has to descend that one and walima Ha, Islam doesn't say that any book, of fact, doesn't say any of that. Just to let you know, but it's not so if I had a man or a woman here, and necessary condition as well, that they have to be man and woman.
But it's not a sufficient condition. You see, for it to be a sufficient condition, you have to have two witnesses and the dowry, and according to the drummer for the wealthy as well,
that would make it now a full, fully fledged marriage.
For example, when I got married,
and are in Pakistani culture, I was in Pakistan, so I keep talking. They have this thing called rasa tea and this and that, and you didn't occur, and that after her, you have to wait a few months. For the I want to tell you the same thing. My wife, she's Moroccan, this where she's from, originally. And they had the same thing.
They said to me, you have to wait three months before from from the NACA until the walima. So I just Oh, really? Oh, very interesting. All these kind of things. Yes, I have to wait. So then when I done that, as
soon as that happened, I went, I called her I said, the lessor.
She goes, What did you hear what my dad said? I said, your dad is not in charge anymore.
So it's none of his business what me and you do?
I said, What are you gonna tell you that every time we do this, I said, How dare you?
I said, I'll be waiting for 20 years, if you want to fight me fight these tears.
You know, at the end of the day, like,
so we had to break the customs. And
whatever, you know, I'm not saying you should break the customs.
But I did. I broke the customs or hey, I'm not gonna wait, no, no, three months. Sorry, brother. My attention span is in great order. The question again.
I don't know why I've gone into this.
So necessary, sufficient conditions, right?
In Islam, you can say there are unnecessary things in order to prove that the book is, if this exists in the Book is not from God. So for example, contradictions, you cannot have a book that claims to be from God, but it's filled with contradictions. Like, for example, if I open the Bible, the first very first page of the Bible, very first page, it says, God created the day in the night, right? On the first day,
but lo and behold, you look on the fourth day, and he created the sun.
I want to know, how is there a day in the night without the sun? Okay, maybe it's just maybe I'm reading into it too much. No problem. So I look in the third day, God created the word, the plantations in the shrubbery. But how can they be shrubbery without the sun because of photosynthesis? Okay, put that to the side. It gets worse because i next i flip the page over. And I see Genesis chapter two verse five, and it says no plant had sprung up yet.
I thought you just said that those plants and day three. So there's plants, no plants, sun, no sun, this contradictions, so much. So that origin of Alexandria who's seen as a huge figure in Christianity, he's like the Abu Hanifa of, of Christianity, and he said that this is a contradiction. He admitted it in his book on first principles. So the first thing is you can't have contradiction.
in a, in a book that claims to be from God, the Bible, the first couple of pages has at least five or six contradictions, at least.
The second thing is that the book must be preserved. That's another necessary condition.
Now, we all know that the Bible has not been preserved, there is no discussion of whether or not the Bible is corrupted, there is effectively consensus now.
And we don't even need to talk about Torah. Because by the way, what I've just said that relates to the Bible, or the Christian faith also relates to the Jewish faith.
Because the first five books is effectively the Torah.
It's not preserved, it's filled with contradictions. So You disqualify actually, the majority of religions, when you just use the necessary conditions, you don't even need to go to the submission conditions. For example, the idea of God in Christianity, that you have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and all three of them all powerful, for example. Now, that's a contradiction, because how can you have three all powerful beings, if all powerful being one,
try to supervene on the will of all powerful being two, which of them is going to be successful? If it's a over b, then b is not the true God is B over A than a isn't the true God. If A and B draw in some kind of a fight, they have a fight, and it was a draw, then both of them are not true Gods because how can I got draw in a fight?
You know, this is. So what I'm saying is the idea of the Trinity, the Hindu gods, all of this stuff is there disqualifiers to the true religion,
they don't fulfill the basic criterion of a true religion. So with just the necessary conditions, you cut through most of these false religions.
And by that, by the way, you can just use that to to find out if that was true. But then we say that's not enough. Because just because the book does not have contradictions, and it doesn't have is preserved, it doesn't mean it's true. So we have what we call sufficient conditions.
I'll give you one example of that, because I could be speaking for a very long time, which are the prophecies, prophecies of the Quran, and the Sunnah.
Some religions, they talk about the future and they get things wrong. Once again, if you look at the Bible, you look at the Olivet Discourse, you can Google that in your own time. And the Olivet Discourse is about talking about the end of days. That's it, one generation everything is going to finish.
Many religions, especially in the 18th, and 19th century in America, these kinds of New Age religions, they predicted the last day, and they got that wrong. They'll say the last day will be at this time, for example. Now,
what I'm saying to you is, if you look at the prophecies of Islam, just looking at one prophecy, in chapter 30, verses one to six, the holy basil room, the Admiral of the human body, Allah BMC, only bones, but Icynene, DeLisle AMRAAM, a couple of Babylon within Niflheim momentum, this verse, which is that the Romans had been defeated, in a nearby low land, and in three to nine years that they will defeat the Persian Empire. This is a very risky thing. Because if the claimant of such prophecy got it wrong, it would destroy his credibility, especially if that claimant is saying that he's getting this information from God, the old knowing one, the one who designed the universe and
regulated it since stabilized it.
And so what I'm saying is, even from non Muslim sources, you find that this prophecy came to pass, many prophecies came to pass, there's a book you can read, called the forbidden prophecies by Abu Zakaria, which goes into detail about that. But this then formulates the second part of proving Islam's truth, which is the sufficient conditions. Obviously, we can speak a long time about just the prophecies and other things which prove Islam to be true. But suffice it for me to say that when you employ the method of looking at the necessary and sufficient conditions of each religion, Islam as the only one that comes out on top, just like look, I will take another question from the
splitter.
Say that again, sorry, a bit louder.
Dear
destination of college.
College. So my question is about what we do. What is preventing the vice versa? Okay.
So this is a very common question about okay, so God knows what's gonna happen in the future? Why didn't he prevent the bad things from happening? Or what if God knows that we're going to do bad then why does He allow us to go to hell or there's different formulations this question, and it all goes back to a discussion about free will and determinism. Okay, so God, we believe, he knows the future. He has written the future, he wills the future, and he creates the future, but at the same time, we believe that we have free will. So how is it that God knows the future? He has written the future? He wills the future and he creates the future but at the same time, human being has free
will? How can these two things
Come together? The answer is the mechanism by which these two things come together. No one knows. Because it relates to one of the attributes of God, which is the Wheeling of God. How is it that human being can have a will which is compatible, and works in symbiotic fashion with the will of God, the mechanism of that is unknowable, not even just unknown, unknowable to the human being the same extent to which if I were to ask, How does God see? How does God hear? How does God know? All of those questions are unknowable to the human being? So to the question, how is it that human beings will, and human will are compatible with one another? Suffice it for me to say, though, that
these discussions are being had outside of the Islamic theological circle, in fact, they had an every single sect, secular and non secular.
For example, in philosophy, you have three schools of thought. One of them is determinism, the other one is compatibilism. And the third one is libertarian freewill. And all of these schools, schools of thought, they postulate something different about human beings ability to, to will freely and that's the connection between that and the antecedent causal chain. The point is, is that this is the mechanism of how this works is something which has plagued philosophers for the last two to 3000 years, no one can spell out exactly how that works. I've seen so many analogies, about the teacher about this, about that, none of these analogies will be sufficient, I can tell you that for sure,
none of these analogies, they can bring you closer to the fact that there is no perfect analogy, which can describe the relationship between Qatar or godly will and human free will. However, what one can say is both of those things can be in there can be proven independently. For example, the most famous probably School of secular philosophy is something called compatibilism. And this postulates that human being has free will, but at the same time there is determinism there is a kind of determinism how they come together they will tell you themselves, we don't know exactly how they come together. But the reason why we say that there is freewill is because we have first person
subjective experiences. And all of rationalism starts with human beings ability to realize that he exists, and that they are doing things willfully. So freewill is seen as foundational to anything else. At the same time, there's antecedent causal chains, how these two things come together. Even though compatibilism is the most popular school in philosophy, even people who are non Muslim believe in it. For example, John Locke believed in that he wasn't a liberal. I mean, John Stuart Mill believed in that many people who have compatibilists, who are not even Muslim. So they believed in the equivalent of
free will and determinism, but they won't tell you the the underlying mechanism, because a full understanding of that is unknowable to the human being.
is going to take another question that is not in the front.
So basically, when I talk to atheist here, and they tell them about the purpose of life, and you need to wash your point,
they just answered by like, you know, if you're a good human being and you're good, you know, inviting other people. That's it, you know, you guys by yourself. Okay, so get to know your answers. My answer was the atheist wanted to believe in paradise in the first place.
Most important, yeah.
Yeah, that does come about like you say, Well, I just don't harm anyone else or something like that, so long as I'm minding my own business. And what they're doing is they're parroting what you call liberal ethics. Okay? So the religion of the West nowadays is not Christianity anymore. It used to be in this country used to have serious infighting and all this kind of thing, because of the Catholics and the Protestants. Now, I don't see how that can be relevant when a lot of the people are not even religious anymore. You see, so people have become more religious throughout the western world, and especially in Europe, and America. Not so much the Bible Belt, but that's the case in the
West. So the point is, this is that they will if they if you ask them, What is it to be good, say, so long as you're not harming anyone else? You're good. That is we call it liberal ethics. That's how they justify things like homosexuality. So if you ask them, what is what is your what is the status of homosexuality is morality, they'll say, it's fine, so long as the person is not harming anyone else. There are two consensual adults, what have you got to do with it? You know, you can be a good person and homosexual at the same time. So no problem. All you have to do for me right now is explain why the harm principle is true. Because what they're actually saying is something which
requires evidence.
This idea of the harm principle itself requires evidence. The idea that you are you You are good, or you are doing good so long as you are pleasing yourself or somebody else, and you're not harming anyone else.
So what's the evidence that that's the case?
So what's the evidence that that constitutes true morality? What's the evidence? Now, if you ask the top philosophers, they will try and provide evidence like John Stuart Mill, he tried to provide evidence for that. And that evidence which he wrote in his book on utilitarianism was inconclusive to say the least. In fact, I was just reading a book recently, by John Gray, who is an atheist himself, he wrote a book called The seven types of atheism. I was reading a new book of his called the new Leviathan. But in this book, he was critiquing John Stuart Mill on this basis, he himself as a philosopher, he was saying, How could John Stuart Mill as an empiricist, someone who believes in
the scientific approach, he tried to
effectively prove his ideas through non empirical means
he didn't have a scientific way of proving any of his philosophical ideas. So this this proposition that you can do whatever you want, so long as you don't harm anyone else, is unscientific. Even though its Proponents claim to be empiricists, there is no way of proving that. And in fact, you could prove the opposite of it. For example, let's go back to the case study of homosexuality. Because it's a sensitive and controversial case study at the same time. You could argue that on consequentialist reasoning, because look, Western morality that's religious, non religious, is one of two schools, there's two schools of thought effectively,
what you call consequentialism. And what you call, if you like, categorical imperatives of Immanuel Kant, yeah.
consequentialism says something is good or bad based on its consequences. Who gets to decide what are the good or bad consequences? It's arbitrary, they don't have a way of doing it. But for the sake of argument, they'll say if some something causes harm, for the sake of argument, it's bad. If something doesn't cause harm, it's good for it's okay, can be done. So we look at homosexuality as a morality, we say, Fine. If you look at it on a communal level,
is there more evidence that it causes harm? Or is there more evidence that causes good? Almost every study that has been done on sexually transmitted diseases has shown that homosexuals have 10 times more likelihood of contracting the disease than a heterosexual person? For example, what about homosexual families, when you have a family and then you have like children and so on?
Are they more likely or less likely, yes, to have pathologies, to be happy or sad to have life satisfaction. Most psychological investigations have shown
that it's not actually a favorable position to be in as a child, that homosexual Father, father or mother Mother relationship. In fact, I was having a conversation with one of the demographers His name is Nicholas Wolfinger. And he showed himself as an atheist, but he said, frankly, from my data, it is clear
that a nuclear family which is religious is the best
thing for children in a society in terms of criminality, delinquency, pathology, all these markers. So, from a psychological perspective, from a biological perspective, from a societal perspective, all the consequences which you could see as being harmful, you cannot really make an argument that homosexuality is consequently good for everybody, when all of these markers indicate the opposite, for example. So then one will say, Okay, I don't care about that, what what was the other option, the other option is categorical imperatives. And Immanuel Kant basically said that if something
is seen, to be if everyone does it in society, the society will be dysfunctional. For example, lying if everyone lies, a society will become dysfunctional. He considered suicide if everyone done suicide, the site will be dysfunctional.
So he said these things are cardinal sins, you can't do them. He doesn't believe in religion, an atheist ethic. Kant was probably an atheist, we don't know for sure, but he's probably an atheist. He said, That's how you know what right and wrong is. Okay, so let's use exactly the same methodology. We say, if everyone was a homosexual, there would be no. Yeah, future iterations. So that must be wrong as well then.
So on a consequentialist morality, it's wrong. On a categorical morality, it's wrong.
So on what basis now? Is it right? Because so long as you're not harming anyone else, you can do what you want. But how do you prove that is true? That is how you establish monetarists that's how I would argue with them, because they assume that you are wrong in your morality and your morality must conform with their liberal moralities. But their liberal moralities have assumptions that are uninvestigated or unproven. So if you remember the way I've just done that, this is how I would because morality itself has to come from somewhere.
If I can just probe further into that question.
There's two concepts within Islam the concept of one concept is the concept of marmelade. So the rights that people and the creation have over an individual that ALLAH SubhanA, Allah has given. The other concept is the rights of Allah. So about that. So a common question that you've probably gotten in your travels in Pakistan, was that similar to this issue that Why does God need us to worship Him? So perhaps you can analyze that question, perhaps discuss why it's not an appropriate or a correct question to ask Whenever someone asks a question, you go investigate the assumptions of that question. Now, if we look at it, in terms of form, a question can't be right or wrong. Okay. A
question cannot be right or wrong, but the assumptions of a question can be right or wrong. This is actually if you look at Aristotle's book, the organ on the organ on this book was he mentioned these kinds of logical propositions, but this is basic stuff, basic logic, a question can't be right or wrong, because it's not making a truth claim. But a question can have an assumption which is right or wrong. So for example, if someone said, Who created God? Now the question is not wrong to ask that you can ask that question. You're not making a truth claim. But the assumption of the question is that who created the uncreated one, the assumption allows for the possibility of impossible state
of affairs. It's like square circle.
For example, if someone said, Can God lift? Can God create a rock so heavy that he can he can't lift it? The question itself is not wrong, but the assumptions of the question are contradictory. Because the existence of such a rock would disprove the God's existence? Because the idea is God is powerful of all things.
So on this question, which is, why does God need us to worship him? We're effectively saying the following we're effectively saying, Why does the one without need need such and such?
The answer is, just like we did with the other two examples, we would say. The question has contradictory assumptions, that God is needy and not needy at the same time. We've never made the claim that God needs us to worship him.
You know, when Allah says, oh, mahalo to Jin Nolin Zilla, the Buddha and we have not created the jinn and the INS except that they may worship Me,
man or woman who may risk and I don't want any provision from them, and I don't need them to feed me. So he made it very clear that this idea of worshiping God is for the benefit of humankind is not for the benefit of God.
So that's how I would answer the question. Just like the parable, taking other questions, perhaps from the sister. Yes. Let's get some from sisters as well. Please, we have any questions from the sisters?
Don't be shy. I mean, this is
gone. Whoever said spoke continue speaking.
No questions for the moment?
I'll come back to them and come back,
I guess.
Yes. Is it a Good Idea usually to like using manmade laws or like scientific like, looking at the current state of scientific knowledge, using manmade laws, for example, the conservation of energy to prove the existence of God?
No, I mean,
these laws, scientific laws, I wouldn't use them to prove God's existence. Usually, they are using objection to some arguments of God's existence. But for example, the laws of thermodynamics, the conservation, the conservation, the zeroeth law, the first law and second or third law and fourth law, sometimes people can use those laws as a means of responding to some of the things. So for example, entropy
is the tendency of something to move towards disorder. Yes, that's effectively what it is. And they'll and some even use it. Some scientists even use the term randomness. So it's randomness, they will say that they say, I thought you said there was no such thing as randomness when entropy, for example,
is movement towards disorder. You see, well, actually, first and foremost, the what they when they say, disorder order, they don't mean the same kind of disorder that would negate a regularity of stability or uniformity, because when they say disorder, they mean something which is non correlative, something which we don't understand the correlation of, well, then you go back to an epistemic claim, if you're saying we don't understand the correlation of it. We can only say is disorder visa vie, the human beings understanding of it. We don't understand the order of it. We as human beings, so as we go back to Laplace, because Laplace will tell you that yes, that's the whole
point. If you don't understand
something it doesn't mean it isn't true.
So for example, if I, he gave a billboard billiard example or like a pool example, I don't understand how all these balls came together and touched and all this kind of things, I don't get it. I consider that to be disorder, I consider that to be randomness. But we go back to the point that this is an epistemic claim, for example. So why would say is usually I would not use these laws
to try and prove God's existence quite the contrary. And especially when you get into quantum physics. I mean, a situation becomes even more complicated, frankly. And because within quantum physics, you have all these different schools of thought competing schools of thought, you know, which, frankly, it just throws the cat in with the pigeons. So I wouldn't use because especially with physics in general, it's quite a volatile science in the sense that
every 10 years, they change their ideas. Genuinely, I remember going to school and doing physics, some 1015 years ago, I was looking at a level, I don't know if you guys have a levels here is the same system. Yeah.
Something like that. Yeah, I was looking at a level physics, as physics, I was looking at the book, genuinely, like 30% of the book is out of date, meaning the new ideas of physics would now replace these ideas. So if something is susceptible to this level of change, how can I use it to prove God's existence, because it can easily change. Physics is a very volatile science, it can change very quickly, what you consider to be fact today is unlikely to remain as considered fact, next 2030 years.
So and it's all depend, because you have a very famous there's a book called the structures of scientific revolution, right, by Thomas Kuhn. And he was talking about the differences between Newtonian and Einstein, in physics, where there's a paradigm shift is complete paradigm shifts in physics, something so volatile, I would never try and use. You see, for proof of God's existence, I would only use in response to those who object using certain principles or laws, which maybe they've misunderstood or equivocate in a certain manner with.
Next question, let's have some female participation. Do we have a question?
I have one question that I'll ask at the end, it's more appropriate to ask at the very end of the talk. So it's the brother there in salary, of
course. So the question is, what is your view about using the scientific evidence and science in the Quran to prove that?
Yeah, so it's gone back to the issue. I wouldn't use it in the way that has been used by the likes of Zakir Naik and Morris polka. I think that's an incorrect it has many problems of using like that, because the way that they structure the argument is as follows. They say these are scientific facts. For example, Big Bang, okay. And then the Quran says Flm Hola, Mara Latina, Cafaro Anna Massimo, he will out they cannot harass ComforTech no homo Jana, medical Alicia and Hi. That you got a and the Quran says that the heavens and the earth was sewn together. And then God clothed them asunder. And that's referring to the Big Bang. And therefore Islam is true, because it's talking about the Big
Bang. This is the structure of the argument. There's a few issues with this. Number one issue is the Big Bang itself is a model of the universe and how it started, right. But there are many different models. In fact, like I was, I was listening to Penrose recently, Roger Penrose, and he was having a conversation with William Lane, Craig. And they will, he said, I changed my mind. He literally just said, I changed my mind. Like 10 years ago, I had this idea because he's an authority in physics. And then now I've come to another idea. You see, so some people even move away from Big Bang theory as an explanation of the universe, beginning of the universe. So if we try and use that as some way
of proving the Quran, one objection could be well, we don't even believe in the Big Bang. And that could be an objection that some atheists can bring to the fore in the next especially 10 to 15 years, when new models are the beginning of the universe can be, can be found. The second and more problematic thing is, I'm giving this example because it's a common one is that if you look at Sephora, Tabari, for example, which is one of the most authoritative and ancient have series on the topic. He mentioned that this verse could have four different meanings.
And meaning one is this meaning two is this meaning three is this meaning four is this. So this is an ambiguous verse. And if it's an ambiguous verse, it goes to Allah and Quran. Meanwhile, he and Mark Emerson, who now mill Kitab, were Ohara, watershed Behat, that there are some verses in the Quran which are ambiguous and some of them which is unambiguous families in if you follow him on faith on amateur Shabbat, homeopathy, fitna, operativa leiomyoma, Allah, that there's some people that will follow the ambiguous verses. So what I'm saying is, a lot of the naturalistic verses are frankly, they're ambiguous. You don't know for sure what Allah means
For sure. So you cannot say for sure this is talking about Big Bang, and it gets quite out of hand sometimes and wrong. Because I'll give you another example which he uses and he's used many times is, well Avada Delica the HA, in sort of the Nuzhat he says that means that Allah created the earth like an egg like an ostrich is egg. Not sure Have you ever come across this?
Yeah, like this, these are some of the scientific miracles stuff. Now the word the HA HA does not mean osteogenic in Arabic language. This is a lie actually on the Quran. Isn't the one that said that sorry to say, it's wrong to say that this means ostrich egg. It doesn't mean ostrich egg at all, it just means that Allah He smoothes the earth. Now, if someone wanted to say
that. Therefore the Quran talks about the earth being around and now you have the Flat Earther that was going to make coffee.
But anyway, that's different story. I always believe that the earth is flat. But what I'm saying is this is that. Number one is ambiguity. Number two. You can't say for sure that the same the science is not going to change. But there's a third issue as well.
Which is when someone does this over and over again, if someone then is exposed to the opposite Tafseer
for example, I'll have to be surprised to find he says the earth is flat. He is a professor of the Quran. He says we'll admit that the now well kinda fear rsum. But he says I better than that he means the earth is flat. He even says a kotoba is a big big time faster, says the Quran says the earth is flat. And this Ishmael on it.
So okay, so now you've tried to prove the Quran is true round from the Quran.
Using AI and whatever the non believer was the enemy of Islam, you can do the same thing with a theory which says the exact opposite of what you want to do. And you can have some kind of a claim. So what how would you solve this issue? What I'll say about the naturalistic versus as follows, I say there are some scholars of the past who looked at the Quran, for example, the redundancy of the Earth, the issue of the roundness of the Earth, who said the earth was round. For example, if it hasn't, he says, if you look in chapter 39, verse five, you you call with Leila under her, will you call them Hara lado Sahara sham soil cover? Kowloon. Yeji, really Edgerly Musa that he wrote the day
into the night and Rhodonite today even hasn't who's 400 450 He's very early, he said this, there's no way that this rolling process can take place because there was your code where it comes from Quran means ball, he says it cannot mean anything, it has to be round. So it hasn't had the complete opposite view to adhere to when he came before him. In fact,
if Ben told me I had the view, he said, this, is you mad that the Earth is round? In fact, Al Ghazali had the views of this. Okay, so what we're seeing here, we've seen two different approaches to different opinions among the ancients as how to how to explain the shape of the earth.
So we have wheels going on, because clearly, if it was so clear cups, there would not be these different opinions.
Now, what kind of argument would I make, I would say the Quran is the only religious book that has the capacity for will on issues relating to modern day science, which are observable, like for example, the Bible. There is nothing in the Bible that indicates or can indicate, though anyone has taken to indicate that the Earth is round, only that the earth is flat. Now the closest someone can find is in the book of Isaiah, chapter 40, verse 2022, which talks about the circle of the earth. This is in the Bible in chapter 14, verse 22, John Walton, who is one of the scholars of Christianity and biblical scholar, he said, This doesn't mean the Earth is round, it means it's like
a disk.
There used to believe the Earth is like a disc, Jonnie, there's nothing in the Bible to even allude to the fact that the Earth is round, no scholar of the past that have used Biblical verses to say that the Earth is round. In fact, all of them said it was flat glitch map, that is a true ish map.
Whereas the Quran was certain issues like the redundancy of the Earth, the universe in this expansion, all these issues, you'll find some scholars saying this, and some scholars saying that.
And it seems to me that Islam is the only ancient religion which has this capacity. So for example, you can be a Muslim and believing Big Bang, you can believe in the expansion universe, you can believe in the tendency of the earth, you can believe in dinosaurs. You can believe in all these things. It doesn't go against your religion to believe in any of these, because there's nothing in the Quran to contradict any of that. Whereas if you are a true, literalist, Bible believer, you couldn't believe in any of those things. That's why they have young age creationist. They don't believe in the dinosaurs. Because they say how can you have dinosaurs when the earth is only a
universe of 6000 years?
Because that's the belief that
and
Have these museums in America, with Adam and Eve walking around with a dinosaur?
Because they say it was 6000 years. So what I'm saying is, the way the argument is made, is not sophisticated, I'll be honest with you. But there can be an argument that is made, which is sophisticated, which, because sometimes they also say it couldn't have been known at the time. Like the fact the earth was run could not have been but there's many people that said the earth was round before Islam, Pythagoras to the US was like, I can give you maybe five, Aristotle, Pythagoras, this one that was many people that other Greeks believed in the earth was around so couldn't have been known that time is too strong of a claim to make. So they need to be more academic the way this is
phrased, but the way I will put it is, is to say that it's the Quran is the only book which your terminal will that allows you to believe in current cosmological and biological realities, without committing blasphemy because the text itself indicates a possibility of those notions. Whereas the Bible for example, if taken on literalistic grounds, does not have the same flexibility.
Yeah, okay. Well, after after, it'll be haemophilia
actually had Hamza here last year as b2b investment institutions, that topic would be one or two, I would have it okay. I agree that he should use scientific arguments, because it's very weak. There's a lot of people that keep them and publish them and release them through that sort of through.
I'll just say to them the way I just expressed it, because it's not like everything that these guys were saying was false.
It's not like everything, all the examples, use what or Jan them and they'll make equilibria. And even the alaka, you know, the human being is clear from Africa, I don't see them as bad examples. But you just have to be a bit more nuanced in making the point. You can't make strong claims without strong evidence. So for example, you can not say it couldn't have been known at the time, whether I can find you someone who said it before. Like, you know, if we did we call the history of science, you can find some, well, you could say
it only has one interpretation, or this is talking about the Big Bang, don't be too categorical in these things. Because
if you soften up actually becomes a stronger argument.
If that makes sense. It's not like there's nothing there. There is something there when it comes to the science and the naturalistic phenomena. But it's just the way you package the argument. You see the point,
because an argument is only good. If it's not susceptible to a counter attack.
You see, what makes a good argument and argument is good. If it's not susceptible to a counter attack immediately. There's no point throwing a punch, if you're going to get a punch back, that's going to knock you out.
You know, what kind of punch is that? You know? Yes, sir.
Can you just tell us about the
artificial intelligence in Islam? Is there an incompatibility with the chimney a lot? We're talking a lot of nowadays?
Okay, your opinion about my opinion about this is that artificial intelligence is just a matter of input and output. That's all it is. So all of computer science is two things. It's two things, including artificial intelligence, it's loops and conditionals. That's all it is. It's loops and conditionals. I mean, the whole thing is loops and conditionals. Artificial intelligence has a limit. And that limit depends on the inputs, artificial intelligence, robots, all of this stuff has a limit. And the limit is, it will never develop first person subjective experience, will never have consciousness, it will never have any of this stuff. It's impossible, for example, this stuff,
because it does not have consciousness. And so artificial intelligence is effectively loops and conditionals. It's an elaborative calculator. It's like you have another calculator that you have, that you put two plus two equals four. It's just like that, but it's more sophisticated. So it's nothing to fear we should embrace in artificial intelligence and use it for our own purposes.
Just like her there's one question a personal question I'd like to ask, but I think everyone can really relate to this question. There's a lot of talk of theory. They've been discussing on practicalities as well. And you've been using a lot of big words like
theories and other long, long words.
Other Oh, that's my
so again
the question I'd like to ask is a personal question on your own experience, dealing with this question for yourself because I feel in the day and age that we live in. We all tackle this question me not maybe not head to head but we all have to rationalize or deal with this question about religion and Islam the true religion. It's almost like we have to accept Islam.
before us, even as a Muslim, you have to accept Islam. So from my perspective, I memorize the Quran Alhamdulillah. So when I was starting to ask these questions I don't have to to put on. And it's free from contradictions. It has a very simple theology, there's one God that He sends messengers, it's very clear, then I look into the Prophet of Islam, and understanding the Sierra, it becomes clear that this isn't a person who is a lawyer. This isn't a person who is who has any kind of bad character. And that helped me understand any of the, the issues that non Muslims or even Muslims they have about some aspects of deceit of the Prophet Salam. What was clear to me was that this man,
he cannot be immoral, might be difficult for us to understand why something was done. But that was clear for me. So I wanted to ask you personally, yourself, how did you start asking these questions? How did you go about answering these questions and rationalizing Islam for yourself? Perhaps at a time when you were younger, and at a time if you can recall when you weren't exactly six foot seven as you are today? I know, that's probably difficult.
I was still quite tall.
I think I started my personal journey, I think really started when I was 13. I believe that because we had
we had YouTube and all that kind of stuff like then 1314. I'm 32. Now I'm not that old enough. So this was I don't know how many years ago that was like almost 20 years nicely. Really, if you think about and what happened was, it would come down a bit.
Well, I just started asking questions. I started listening to all the
all the different worldviews atheism never was attractive to me. I thought it was always false. Like it was I didn't understand what
because I was kind of growing up at a time when you atheism was on the rise, right? And I as a 13 year old I think, actually did see through some of the behaviors of the new atheist propagandists, as I knew that this was evangelizers probably making money from this. So I wasn't attracted to that. I just wanted to know for sure, I think my gripe was the question that was asked before which is how do we know that the Quran and Islam is true? That was something I really wanted to, to understand for myself, and I'll be honest, one thing that really when I started to get into it
be powerful as the best argument for me the best one, not, not the prophecies, not only that was actually the language of the Quran.
So, when I was growing up, I was exposed to nominally Han, okay, he's a very famous, and he was doing this Tafseer of Quran and stuff like that. And he kept mentioning this guy's name his father last summer, right? Right. And this guy is like an Iraqi American. He's still alive today. By the way, he's from Iraq. He's clean shaven. And he's written his books in Arabic. At that time, I couldn't even read them, I understand that. But I wanted to get to a stage where I can't read and understand what this guy is saying. Because I was very interested in in it. And so I started kind of learning, like classical Arabic, because I come from Egyptian background, but we don't speak
classical Arabic, we speak egyptian arabic, there's almost a different language altogether. So I had some time to deal with my mother and very blessed to do that. Then afterwards, I started looking at his his videos for the samurai. And he had this very interesting book called admin of Shakeela. Cain, from doubt, to certainty, this book that you can still get from this to this day. And he goes through these arguments. And basically what he's doing is he's showing why the verses of the Quran
that they are linguistically superior, like the delicacy of why the word choice of each word, and it's, I mean, if you want an English alternative to it, probably the best thing that is out there now is divine speech by Noah Callahan. I think it's in part or in full taken from further the summary is effectively a translation of his some of his works in Arabic language. But I started to get really interested in that. I think I exhausted this guy's videos, I love them. I love the linguistic stuff. So after a while, I started realizing that this book
could not be the product of human design, or artificial intelligence so could not be because it had to be is there's no way a man could produce this effectively. Now, why and how that requires seminars and I've given you already some some references that you can check. But I'm pretty I was pretty sure a young age okay, there's no way this could be manufactured by human being. So it was the link for me it was the strongest thing was the linguistic argument.
I started to get into that. When I got into that there was a point where like, even now when I recite the Quran, sometimes I just, I think deeply and say there's no way this can be human being can make that. Look, I've read a lot of philosophy in my life.
I'm not at that age. But now, I've read a lot of like the greatest thinkers in the Western world and the eastern world. Like the literary literacy stuff. I used to teach English. I know what good prose looks like, I know good poetry looks like, I get it. But this when it comes to the Quran, I was pretty sure that there's no way that human being could construct this. So for me, that was the strongest thing. Once that argument was made to me, I was convinced, but there was also a spiritual aspect, because
I did suffer from belts when I was younger, as well. And I think Subhanallah when you suffer from doubts and stuff like that, sometimes you come back stronger. And because you start having this curiosity, and this thirst and you want all the answers, and all these kind of things. And I do remember going to Alexandria, where I'm originally from, from Egypt, and they were doing tarawih prayers, I made dua to Allah to keep me very certain, and I believe ALLAH responded to that, da. So there was a spiritual component and an intellectual component. I think they came together. And yeah, that's, that's how I got to the stage where I'm just like, love her. That's very, that's perhaps a
method that many of us who don't speak Arabic, country do relate to. But it's interesting that was unique to yourself. And there are so many different aspects you can approach to the Quran, whether it is true, the scientific
novel, The Quran mentioned scientifically, whether it's strictly prophecies in the seal of the prophets of Salaam. Yeah, there's so many ways they can be attracted to the religion of Islam, which is very beautiful. There's one question that I have from the sisters in sha Allah.
I believe they were slightly intimidated to ask you the question. I don't know what they don't want patronize them. Okay. I just want to I don't understand what the reason for that is? Because
I understand. It's just when I sit behind you in the car, it's, it's gets quite squished. I'm definitely not intimidated. But, you know, it's something to consider.
The question was, what is if there's one thing that we should take from this gathering today from this talk, and from the q&a, that you would like all of us to take from this gathering that we have? What would that be?
I think it's I want people to be critical.
I want people to be critical of those who are critical of Islam.
Because I realized that a lot of us, I mean, when I was in Pakistan, I was doing this this tour. And I realized that I have what is referred to as the Goro. Complex. Now,
which is this inferiority complex to white people, and white civilization, or Western civilization, let's be more specific.
And a lot of the questions that are asked about Islam, whether it's to do with gender, or whether it's to do with punitive laws, whoever, whatever it is, they almost always have assumptions, which come from the western knowledge productions.
And so what I want people to understand, to question the question, I think the main thing is, you need to be critical to those who are being critical. That's why I would say, the main thing is because we're asked a lot of as a community as Muslim community across the West, we're asked a lot of questions about our religion, about ourselves, but our religion, visa vie community, society, etc. And we're always on the backfoot. And I feel that that's a posture that we don't need to no no longer be in that posture, we can now respond.
And we can ask, and we can criticize as well. So that's what I would encourage. Fantastic.
I will take one more question inshallah.
I want to ask two different questions
you emphasising to learn on your healthcare team, just want to highlight how important was your focus into philosophy, and he said, I was too much into linguistics, when he talked about philosophy and you go back to the original Arabic of numbers earlier and so on,
to learn from those people. And to highlight the importance of moving from Arabic and the likes of those people who did
fight against the other reengineer all of those and the likes of them now in the West.
The second part of the question, when we talk about gender and gender identity,
whether it's right or wrong, and some people
we have the contact and they can move to male and female and so on our position towards those in a couple of speaking the woman when you meet someone, like this person who claim to be machine one,
and how we have to address those people. Okay, so
On the first question, to be honest with you, I think the best kind of learning is that which is done through curiosity. Like when someone is genuinely curious to know the answer of a question. Like in pedagogy, they refer to this as discovery, Discovery Learning.
And it's interesting to see like, I teach my kids how to swim. But I realized that I don't actually teach my kids how to swim, I let them discover how to swim, because they know how to, like my son knows better some of the meat, so hasn't always done it is doing these flips, and all these kind of things. And he's only seven years old. I put them in the water, I showed him a couple of moves. And now he's doing all this stuff. And I'm thinking, What the hell is going on here? How can how can the pupil out run the master in such a short space of time, because he's discovered new ways of swimming that I hadn't discovered before. In fact, he's taught me now Yanni is now becoming quite an
embarrassing, they have to get him a swimming instructor because so you can get to the next level. But the point I'm making to you is, the best kind of knowledge is that wishes on the back of a genuine curiosity that someone has, like someone is genuinely curious. And I was genuinely curious. And that's why whatever I'm saying to you right now is that I sit and memorize these verses and these names and these things. No, I didn't memorize any of that. It's just that I was curious to find out the answer when I was 16 years old or something. And the answer was so significant to me that I remember 16 years later, that's, that's basically it. Like most of the questions I've been
asked, I have had a personal and emotional relationship with the answer to these questions. So that's the first thing I think that you know, when you're curious, and if you make learning fun, as cliche as it may sound, if you enjoy to learn about something, and you want to, or if you're curious to learn it, if you make it like this, then learning becomes a much more interesting thing. If you feel if you don't find interest in it.
It's not about learning, then it's about learning how to learn.
It's not we don't need to learn, we need to learn how to learn,
you see. So that's the first thing. The second thing as it relates to gender identity. Look, there's a difference between someone who's intersex Jani, a hunter who's got like, for instance, Jani, male genitalia and female genitalia at the same time, and there are some people like this. And the the classified them in books as the hunter Mushkin. Okay, there's different types of Hunter. So this intersex person holds the Bushkill is the one who exhibits both male and female DNA, organs or whatever. So what the FDA has traditionally said, is that they will be identified with that which is more dominant.
What about those, for example, you have a very equal amount of like Yanni, male and female,
you know, reproductive tissue, or however you want to put it, and it's not X Y, or X X, Y, Z is like x x, y Oh, and there are people like this, this situation,
I might go move to a psychological discussion. If it's so balanced biologically, then, this is the only situation where we would actually go to somebody say, What do you identify with more?
Seriously, if someone is in that scenario, what do you identify with more joy? Did you feel like this more or do you feel like this more? And in this situation?
Something can be done by way of, okay, well, if you identify with this more, then you're not this, you have to negate the other aspects of your personality. Because all of us have some
feminine and masculine traits. There are androgynous women, androgynous means masculine. There's another big word for you to write down in your piece of paper.
And the other one was attended to that one. Yes.
And there are very feminine men. And you're one of them, of course, yeah.
I'm only kidding. I don't know I'm beginning. But
we all have some of that, you know, there are some men with so much masculinity,
which they need some more femininity like so myself, for example, is I suffer from this problem?
Well, the truth of the matter is this is that in terms of those who do the surgery, like if that's what we're talking about someone who actually does the SRSA This is obviously not allowed in Islam is irreversible damage. If you look at it, there's actually a book written by
by Abigail Shriver, I think her name is called irreversible damage, which shows you the amount of people that when they do this surgery, they regret it afterwards. It's not a good idea. And now, like they're talking about doing it for children. I mean, for people under a certain age, I mean, this is this is abusive. I mean, frankly, I mean, they talk about FGM in Muslim countries. Why did they talk about FGM and Muslim
countries when they're doing FGM
in the West,
this is FGM. This is effectively few female genital mutilation. Now what can someone could argue? Well, they're doing it through consent, because they're mutilating their genitalia, but their own consent. I will say in response when the WH o the World Health Organization, when they speak about FGM for the Muslim world, they don't differentiate between the ones who do it consensually and the ones who don't do consensually so for them any kind of circumcision of a female is considered to be female genital mutilation. So if that's the case, tell me why Labiaplasty is not, for example, that or SGS is not that see, you see the package, the amputation effectively, of male
or the reconstruction of female genitalia.
They package that as liberation in the West. But when it happens in the east, it's mutilation. So one man's mutilation is another man's liberation.
So unbelievable, really, isn't it?
With that we'll have to conclude because we do have to evacuate the building by five o'clock so if you can all assist me in doing so Angela, Masha, Allah, thank you very much. Thank you.
Fantastic, excellent. Oh, Oh, fantastic. Oh, beautiful. I appreciate this. I'll take that one as well. Okay.