Want A Happy Quran Marriage
Date:
Channel: Nouman Ali Khan
File Size: 26.27MB
AI Generated Transcript ©
Okay, you guys ready?
Let's do this.
So tell me a little bit about myself. In this session, this is supposed to be an introduction to the salon.
As the way it is very personal. It's not a generic, like, pre made PowerPoint presentation or a book that I'm using as a basis, I'm actually using my own experience as a basis to introduce you to this book. I was actually, as I was raised, I was raised. But I wasn't really raised in a tradition where I studied the on or learned its meaning or even went through the whole thing in translation. So I didn't really know what it was. And I wasn't exactly religiously affiliated. By the time I got to college in New York City, I went to school in New York City. And when I did kind of decide to rediscover my faith for myself, I actually happened to be living on my own, my parents had already
moved away, and I was living on my own. So I kind of have learned the religion on my own terms, not on the family's terms, or the terms of any sort of mosque or religious institution is kind of a self discovery type of thing. And I realized very quickly after reading, and translation that seems very Shakespearean. And I'm not going to be able to relate to this book, because the text is too difficult for me to process. Okay. So there are some challenges that any reader including myself have already faced in trying to understand.
And the first of the ones that actually doesn't read like any other book, it's, it's got 114. You guys call them chapters, we call them sutras. But it's not really chapters. I mean, a chapter by definition is supposed to be progressive. In other words, when you finish chapter one of a book, chapter two should build off chapter one, right? And if something comes up from chapter one, again, the author simply cites go back to one there is this and this in this right? So that's typically how chapters work. And sequencing of chapters is totally important. You can't take a book that was made of 12 chapters and make chapter three into chapter 12. You can't do that the author's intent doesn't
come out the same way. When you look at the Quran, first thing you notice is there are different kinds of orders like these 114 sutras soon I said a chapter, right as you are a which, by the way, those of you that are writing this down surah instead of what,
how many of them 114, right. You could have organized them a number of ways. Maybe they could have been organized in subject order, which would be the typical way to go in and book, organize book a book by subject. It's not the case, it's clearly not the case as you studied abroad. Another possible order could be chronological, obviously, we believe that the Quran was revealed over the course of 23 years, little by little revelation came to the Prophet, and it was memorized. Because it's originally an oral tradition. It's not a written tradition. It's an oral tradition. So it was memorized. And so you figured the first thing that was memorized must be chapter one. The second
thing must be chapter two, etc, etc, etc. The fact of the matter is the first revelation that came, you will find it almost at the very end of the book is 600 pages, you'll find it on my 187 or something. That's the first revelation. So it's clearly not in what kind of order
in a logical order. So it's not in subject order. I just mentioned that it's not in chronological order. That's a second challenge for a modern reader. A third time for a modern reader, is that a certain size order? You think it may be the biggest chapters are in the beginning, and the smallest ones are at the end? No, not the case. The first one's really small. The second was pretty big. And actually the biggest, the third one's a pretty sizable, and they're big, and then they get smaller, and smaller and bigger again. So it's not in size order. It's not in subject order. It's not in chronological order, a Western reader like myself, for the first time when I read the whole thing, I
said, there is no order.
There can't be any order. This is I can't figure this out. This is too encrypted. It's all over the place. Plus, there's not to mention on top of that, I told you how many passages about Moses, if anybody remembers, what 70 passages, guess what?
They're all over the place. And even they already put a logical order. They're in all kinds of order and you're like, how is this a book?
How is this a book I don't get it. That's how I felt when I first but
I not an error. I don't know everything. So all I could do.
Then I decided I don't know what crawled in my brain. I decided somehow I was motivated. I'm gonna learn Arabic.
Arabic to read this book without translation. That's why I decided to and so this was the year 1999 that I had the good fortune and allows grace to give me with a really, really talented teacher. I was going to school full time I was working full time and training every three hours a day with this teacher of mine so I have basically basically 18 hour days. Okay studying Arabic just to understand that was my sole purpose. I did not want to speak in Arabic. I did not want to order a shell or mine Arabic. I did not want to travel to the memorial.
To hang out with their friends, that was not my motivation, my only motivation was directly understanding this text without the filter of translation. Long story short, it's been since that I'm studying Arabic.
And it's been since that I've been studying abroad. And when I got a little taste of understanding the Quran in Arabic, I realized something incredible. I realized this book is organized and language, this discourse of the woman is organized in a way no other book has ever been organized.
It is unique in every form. And it has certain literary nuances that you cannot compare to other literature. If you want to appreciate them, you have to look at it on its own terms. You know how sometimes it's not a good parallel, but I think it will give you some idea. Sometimes somebody invents a new kind of music. And the first time people hear it, they're like, What is that, and then it becomes rock and roll.
You understand? Like some somebody does something that's never been done before
their previous presidents presidents, but it's something entirely new and unique.
And you cannot judge it on the merits of Mozart.
It's different. It's not what it was. It's still music, but it's something else. It's kind of like that for honest literature. But it does not, it's not conformed to the standards that you might be used to from other texts. So I want to highlight to you today what makes the four on unique and to me personally mesmerizing, I To this day, and mesmerized by this book, the more I study it, the more I just sit back and go Whoa, where to go. Because what I do personally, I don't push that on down and shut that down anybody else's throat. I do this for my own fascination. Islamic Studies. Incidentally, for those of you who don't know, Islamic Studies is many subjects. When somebody says
they want to study Islam, they can study a slew of subjects.
From since 1998, almost 15 years ago, I decided I'm just going to study Arabic and the foreign. And I've been so fascinated by these two subjects, that I haven't studied anything else.
I have questions about other subjects in some of these studies, field studies, history studies, there are other studies, Legal Studies, and er studies theology study, when I have questions about them, I asked my friends that are scholars in those fields.
And their answers are enough for me, I have a one on one tool, one time understanding of those subjects. But the one I just went through, I couldn't help myself. I just couldn't help myself. So I want to share some of that stuff with you. To give you give us some idea of how is Greek literature.
I told you, was it originally oral tradition or written tradition? for
oral tradition? So first thing that fascinates me about this book, it's an oral text. Now you tell me
is it harder to preserve an oral tradition or a written tradition?
It is clearly more difficult to preserve an oral tradition. Everybody agree here.
To give you an example,
if I was to whisper something in Erica's here, and ask her to whisper it to the person before the person before, and we go around the room,
and we get to the last person. And I said to Erica, Bob, push Joe.
And she was brilliant. And then she was brilliant. And then he was brilliant. And they kept going around what was the original sentence.
By the time we get to the end, Bob burned Joe's house down
and destroyed his car.
Until the whole village, everybody in the village.
Something happens in oral tradition. Nobody intentionally changed the message. Somebody just decided to save in their own words and change half a percent. Somebody else another half percent. Somebody else 1% somebody else to present one 2% an artist isn't it. But when it's passed through enough people it becomes unrecognizable. This kind of experiment is done in communication psychology all the time. oral tradition is almost impossible to preserve. And the word travels the word buried because in every case,
it's only logical the word travels.
Now, by comparison, written tradition is saying
without entirely safe, it's not like they have backups scans and you know, cloud drives back then. So even if you have a written book, a page could get smushed. A page could get read the book could get torn, it might have to be rewritten from memory, right. So even if you have a written archive, it still may not be 100% hence some skepticism about the authenticity of a text logical In my opinion, that you can have skepticism about what the origins of the texts are. The argument of the Quran interestingly enough by the Quran.
Name of the Prophet himself and those around him. And actually even some of the skeptics of his own time, how can he receive a book he can't even read. The problem of him not being able to write the book is clear. He can't even read how can you write. So it was only a, an oral expression.
On top of that, when the book is actually compiled, it's compiled in a way that's not oral. It's written now. But it's not in the world order, as I mentioned, right, which adds another layer of complexity. Here's what's fascinating. By the time this man's career, the profits 30, or 23 years as a messenger, by the time it's over, between 10 and 100,000, people are becoming Muslim. The vast majority of them are memorizing a huge chunk of them, a couple of 1000 of them are memorizing the entire plot by heart, which is the equivalent to the about 600 pages. The most popular tradition in the Muslim world today is the memorization of the entire block. These people don't just memorize,
they travel far and wide, they leave the Arabian lands, they are cut off from the mainland, you know, it's not like they're staying in touch by email.
This is ancient time. So once you're cut off, you're cut off. And if you want to send a message, it might take a couple of months. Because verses take their time, right? These people move out and they're teaching karate in their own villages, their own towns. If you go from a logical perspective, then the assumption should be that it within a year, within three years, you should have 1000 polygons. That's what you should have. You should have an uncountable number of variations. I'm an oral tradition. That's what you should get. Fast forward to 2013 today.
The Urban mosque has a prolonged memorization program.
There are children here that memorize the Quran, my daughter memorizes the Quran part time, I memorized the plan part time I've memorized about half of it part time. lazy bum, I should have finished it by now. Remember, as a part time not because I have photographic memory because it's something about discipline. It's easy.
It's awesome. It's crazy. Now here's the even crazier part. I memorize certain passages from the Quran. I traveled to Malaysia, I don't speak Mali.
I go and lead prayer. And when we lead prayer, we recite a passage from the Quran from memory.
I go into the crib, I recite the passage out loud. There are a bunch of kids behind me that I've memorized if
I mispronounced one word three gets correctly
noticed this way.
I don't speak their language. We've never met before. They saw me praying at the airport. So they join me in prayer. That's what Muslims do. Muslim CV praying, and this type of prayer they can join in you. Instead behind you encrypt. So we pray in congregation even if we don't know each other. That's how it works. And the longest part of our prayers standing and extending, we recite the Quran from memory. And if one guy messes up one word, one syllable of one word, one syllable of one word.
Three in the back. No, no, it's actually illegal. And you correct yourself
by the syllable by the syllable is even crazier fact of life. We're living in Irving or I live in ulis at least but serving right now imagine all the internet is internet is gone, all the libraries are gone, all the books are gone, all the cell phones are gone, all the computers are gone. Every every data, all the data and everything is gone. Okay, the homeworks gone, there's no copies of the US Constitution, there's no copies of the Bible, no copies of anything, no book, no data.
I can challenge that within 24 hours we'll have to put on
interview
interview.
Actually, we don't even have to look at all of our events
within five blocks of you
will have the title on that. Why?
Yep. And when they reproduce it in writing,
because handwrite the whole thing and we got we got a bunch of kids. So each will take one page and we'll be done. Right? And when they're done and they match it to a library copy of the Quran Guess what?
Same thing by the syllable by the full stop by the comp
that fascinates me. How can you
be this? How this this ingrained into the hearts of human beings that it can be recovered like that. And this is not just an Irving thing I can do that you live
in Fort Worth.
I could do it even in McKinney
you know
this is insane. It fascinates me that an oral tradition is this well protected and this unified were logically should have really millions of work versions really and that's that's a logical assumption. Because the written tradition got unifies a lot later. The memorize tradition was was there for a long time for a very, very long time. any case, it is a it is an oral tradition. I believe the Prophet did not have what capability but that I mentioned
He could write, he couldn't write Oh, yeah, he couldn't write.
So now,
a surah, how many schools
114. They're long and short. Some are long, some are short. The longest one is 286 verses I'm using verses for you, I wouldn't use versus, but for you 286 verses, it didn't all come at the same time. As a matter of fact, a little bit of that came down. And while it was being revealed, some verses from some others who also came down, and some verses from some others who also came down, and the Prophet would recite, and he would tell his companions, actually, these verses belong in this surah. And those verses belong in that Soma, and this one belongs here. And he would do this continuously. So he's got
all of the partial, although coming out little by little, right. And he's telling his companions, what goes where, and he has no paper in front of you. And even if it didn't, it wouldn't matter. Because you can't
follow this is happening. Then it's all said and done. Now, some book, and it seems like it doesn't have a logical order size order. It doesn't have subject order, remember all of that. So I get to
the longest sword, which took according to historians of before, it took 10 to 12 years for this sort of to come down. While this was coming down, a good chunk of the bottles that came up others.
This came down, people memorized it, they didn't have verse numbers. Now I say 286 verses, I say that it was a printed version of the first numbers on your right, but the original, they have verse numbers, No, they didn't talk to each other about a
chapter.
They didn't have a scheme, they just recited.
Second,
and one day I'm studying and I'm looking at one of the nuances one of the literary nuances of this book, what type of one or 286
what's happened to
you, okay. 143 100 and 43rd verse of this book said, this chapter says, we made you a middle nation. The word middle is not mentioned anywhere else in the entire chapter, except in the middle verse
of an oral tradition revealed over 10 years that didn't have verse numbers.
This was put in front of you is what's called it says, it's a rough summary of one verse. It's a rough summary of one verse. It's called it Luke received the the verse of the throne. It talks about God's attributes. It's made up of nine sentences, one verse made up of many sentences.
The first sentence is Allahu La Ilaha, Illa. God, there's no one to be worshipped or obeyed in any way, shape, or form, except he, he is the living the maintainer for you. He maintains all things, nothing stays intact until he keeps it intact. That's the first sentence. That first sentence mentions two attributes of God. The first of them is the living and the second, the maintainer. The second sentence says that
no, drowsiness does not get ahold of him. Neither does sleep. Now tells us meaning the stage before sleep, sleep, and soon default, right like this thing you feel when you're sitting in a classroom, drowsiness and then comes to sleep. Right?
Then he says the second sentence, if you're not clear about a sentence, let me know. third sentence the home life is similar to mopping up means he owes all that is in the skies of the earth. I summarize that as Hold on. Okay. He owes whatever lies in disguise.
For a sentence that is fair or in the evening, who will make intercession I'll explain the word intercession because I didn't get it the first time I read it. I'm guessing some of you won't get it. Who will intercede on his behalf except by his permission. What that means is when you get in trouble at your job, and you're about to be fired, but the managers your uncle, as he steps in between the CEO and us as a it's my nephew, just in one more chance. Let's go. He's young. He just intercede in
interest if you're about to get in trouble. You had a good hookup. Who was your uncle? I mean, he helped you out there. Okay. Are you just got pulled over?
Police Officer shows up at the window and you're trying to get out of tickets. A nice hat officer didn't work.
And then you're taking out your license and Yo, by the way, my brother's a cop? Oh, yeah.
Okay, just be careful. All right.
That little ID card from Frank interseeding. You understand? When you have when you use someone to hand to get you out of trouble. That's intercession. He says who they are.
intercede before God except the one he gives permission to interesting. Nobody's gonna come in here, Lord, hold on.
Hold on him. He's with me.
I'm not gonna happen unless he will allow that to happen except by his permission. Okay. So you mentioned something that won't happen but mentions a small exception. And we don't know what that exception means yet just says that except by his permission. That's all. That's all he says. That's your fourth sentence, the fifth sentences, he knows what lies ahead of them, meaning what's in the future.
And whatever's behind them, meaning they're What? He knows the future. He knows that.
When he says when he told me he loved Russia, and they control the incumbent, nothing of his knowledge, except what he lets them know.
He knows all we know nothing. And whatever we know is because he lets us know. So what we know is the exception,
the luminary, let us know.
Okay. Then, he says was yakushi, who somehow it was, his magnificent throne, expands the entire skies of the earth being all existence is actually under his kingdom, his throne. throne is a very small part of a castle. It's the innermost part of a castle. The throne is fun. You can have a larger or grand throne, but still, it's a very small architectural piece inside the castle. God says his throne itself is the spirit of the universe, the throne, which I speak of the castle, that's what he's describing his magnificent glory here. In any case, then he says, whether you're
guarding the skies, guarding the skies and guarding the earth, guarding the heavens in the earth doesn't exhaust him.
Now, the idea of exhaustion is associated with protection. What do you find security guards doing an action movies all the time?
That's how you build a peace pass through security, how security guard policy when you're guarding your tendency of policy, he says guarding the skies of the earth does not put into does an exhaustive search. Then he says,
and he is the autohide. The Great, that's the last thing are the 912-345-6789. Everything it says, here's what's cool about this, the first sentence have two attributes of God. The ninth sentence has two attributes of God, you see that? The second sentence says he doesn't get hit with drowsiness or sleep. And drowsiness and sleep are directly associated with what
a sentence What is that? exhaustion. The third sentence says he owns everything. And the third life sentence says his flow extends.
The fourth sentence says nobody will make a case in front of him except and here's the exception, if he gives permission. The fourth last sentence says, what does it say they know nothing.
Except what he lets them know, a sentence about exception here, a sentence about exceptions. And the middle sentence conveniently says he knows everything that lies ahead, and what lies behind.
It's actually even almost alliterations he knows the sentences that are coming. And what were you mentioned symetrical. This is not an isolated incident in the Quran. There are hundreds and hundreds of examples of literary nuance in the Quran like this. And this is just one aspect of literary violence, I want to give you another.
This is an oral tradition. As I mentioned before, and in an oral tradition, when something gets memorized, you don't change this order. You just say like it is repeated hundreds of times. So there is no time for an editorial process. There's no time. One of my favorite declarations in the Quran is one of buck Africa, roughly translated declared the greatness only of your master that within you write that for me in Arabic on the screen, separated letters, please, you know what I'm going to do, right? But while you're doing that,
I'll go to something else for a little bit.
just erase this.
For our for example, give you another example
of how the bonds organized.
You have several stories. One of the story one of my favorite stories is story of Joseph.
Sorry, Joseph.
As the 12th soul of the bride is dedicated to the story of Joseph. Okay.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
untempered
You can use anything else. You put in a bad marker
that you forgot to cough up in the
back up. Yeah, got it.
And let me fix this now.
Okay. I know it's really hard to see. But I'll try and explain this to you anyway, then I'll come back to the story.
It sounds like Oh, thank you. That's great.
Declare the greatness only of your master
declared the greatness only of your master is what the verse says.
It's one among many verses. It's a part of a conversation. So it's like, I'm taking one sentence out of the passage, right?
What's a beautiful declaration declare the greatness only of your aspirin, nothing else is worthy of having greatness declared like your Lord does.
The cool thing about this is, even if you don't know how to read Arabic, I wrote this. This is actually separated letters Arabic letters originally connected. When I actually blocked letters when we separated them out. To make a point to all of them, you see that first shape over there?
That's like the letter R to them.
In the word, well, it's the first letter of the verse or have the sentence at least in numbers. What's the last letter, you see a similar shape?
Then there's two bolts with dots at the bottom.
Notice the end
to multiple dots at the bottom.
Then there is this weird Superman thing.
And skip a letter and there's another weird Superman thing. The sentence itself is what's called a palindrome.
a palindrome in English is Bob
icewater racecar.
And
now when you want to make a palindrome, what do you have to take into consideration?
You want to make a palindrome in English? What do you have to consider?
I will wait I love letting things get awkward. It's a thing.
So you want to consider spelling?
Because you know, when we speak, typically we consider our content. What are you going to talk about, but
to compromise your content, and you have to concern yourself with your spelling. And once you concern yourself with spelling, you have to compromise your content is no longer going to come out in what you want it to say. Because now you're more concerned about how it sounds. That's what your primary concern is. So when we do come up with palindromes in the English language, clearly meaning function communication is not.
That's not at our forefront, we're not thinking about that.
The declaration is declared the greatest only of your master. There's not a meaningful statement.
Is that mean? Yeah. And it's actually within a passage. It's not a separate sentence. And the Prophet comes out and says, Hey, look at this. By the way, he can't even do that. Because he doesn't know how to
read and to be able to say, look at the letters, you'd have to know the letters.
It doesn't know. He just says
he just says.
And so we have and this this kind of thing was discovered, like centuries after the Quran was put in print form. But oh, look at this. Look at this symmetry over here. Looking at symmetry over there. Look at this passage is symmetry. I told you the story of Joseph. Right. I was mentioning something about the story of Joseph. Joseph, beautiful story. It's just absolutely fascinating. The
12th
it is in 12 parts.
Story, Joseph isn't well parts. The first six parts create a problem. The next six parts in reverse order solve the problem. The first part is he saw a dream. The last part is his dream gets interpreted. And everything works its way towards the middle. And
that's what I mean when I say and symmetry is just one thing I wanted to highlight today. symmetries is one of those things that people just don't know about.
It gets lost in translation or people you would want to say the literature, but this stuff fascinates me. Oh, boy. I am just blown away by this stuff. I'll give you an example of something that doesn't have to do with symmetry. It has to do with how nuanced the language of the core is and how sometimes integration stuffs missing.
Okay.
You guys know the story of Moses, you know, this was coming.
So Moses has to, he had a little bit of an extreme sports adventure early on in his childhood. What am I referring to
those investors. Now this mother who's got 100 child in a flowing river, inside a basket that has previously been tested for extreme rafting.
No,
no.
And has the poor woman has no choice. And she's got to take this baby. And she's got to put this child inside the basket and let it float away. And as it sails away, a time comes when she can't see it anymore.
She can't see it anymore.
And at that point, our heart sinks.
Who are the who are the who Musa polygon incarnate?
Meaning
the universe says the Musab Moses, his mother's heart
was emptied out.
It's like she became emotionally paralyzed. She was emptied out, you know what that means. When you go do something so shocking. To hear something so shocking and hurts you so much, that people do this and you don't blink? That's the expression. You're just lost it. You don't eat, you don't talk back, you're just quiet, you're a vegetable, that you're in shock. You're just in a complete state of shock. That's the expression that he says in Canada that to believe he or she almost gave up her secret. In other words, she almost ran out of her house parhaat running to the water and saying my baby, my baby. But the problem with doing that is if she did that, who would find out?
soldiers would have motherly instinct of wanting to run after a child she had to crush within her. And that in that itself, first of all, the child is going second she can even cry about it. She can even scream about just a fight her most natural motherly instinct. He says her heart was empty voided out. She almost gave a procedure. Lola robot,
he says had been meaning God not tied her heart together, have we not kept it together.
In other words, she would have run out doing what she was going to do as a mother had we not kept her together emotionally.
Lita tsunami that would mean so she could be from those who truly believed. Now, the reason I mentioned this particular Beautiful, beautiful ayah is because her heart is talked about twice.
Moses his mother's heart is talked about twice, once when he got empty out.
Once when God held it together, right, you guys following along? Once it was empty out once it was held together. The thing of it is there was only one word in English for heart. Art.
The Arabic language has a number of words for heart. And the first time her heart was mentioned a different Arabic word was used.
And the second time her heart was mentioned another word for heart is using the the first time the Word of God was used. The word for God is using Arabic The origin of that word is to roast
to a piece of flesh engulfed in flames is called for us. God describes her heart as one on fire. In Arabic When a heart is overwhelmed emotionally by anger, fear, sadness, rage, you name it. If your heart is overwhelmed with something, it's no longer called just a heart. It's called a piece of flesh on fire.
That's what it's called.
When your heart is calm, however, it's just called the thing that beats and literally comes from alteration or change because the heart is constantly changing its position. It's being
the first half of the verse uses the word plot. The second half of the verse uses the word love In other words, in English the first half of the universe uses the word heart on inflamed in gold overwhelmed, overpower what was happening in the first time.
On the river, she was holding herself back in the second half of the verse, God take puts the fire out calms her down so she can keep her cool. Now's the time to use what word the regular easy beating heart.
This is the kind of stuff that Heart Heart entire emotional journey is captured inside two words for the heart.
Our psychological state has been described by these two words. That is not seen in translations. It's gone
as well. You don't see what's going
incredible stuff. At least to me. Yes. 25 minutes work. Okay.
So last thing about the line transition. My personal
Project, as was mentioned previously, was when I started studying some of this stuff, I was like man, people need to know
not to not to proselytize people, I'm not interested in converting people this.
No, I just feel like this is a monumental work, have, you know, a contribution to human, you know, the human library, we believe it to be the Word of God. That's what I believe it to be. That's what Muslims believe it to me, I feel like Muslims don't even know what this book is talking about.
So many of us don't even know what it has to offer. So I wanted there to be kind of a literary education about this book. So when people talk about it, at least they talk about it in an educated way Muslims are not, they should at least know what he's talking about. Like, and not lose out stuff from the filter of translation. And that's why I did the series that I did a video series on just the entire walk through the whole
walk through the home. And especially I try to highlight the parts that are particularly controversial.
Like, here's a fun quote from the Quran, kill them wherever you find them.
You don't have to watch the news to hear that quote, I'll tell you myself, it says Kyla, wherever you find them. And I love talking about it. Do
you know why? Because I believe that that's properly explained without Washington, meaning that without watering it down, genuinely talking about the text and its original historical context, I have no shame in talking about it. And I'm actually proud of it. And I think any civilized human being would be too. So I think it's just not talked about it that way. Is it possible that a text can be manipulated? Yes.
Tell me about it.
Tell me about I'm sitting on the plane, sometimes person sitting next to me, I'm reading up on an Arabic don't like what you're reading, they're, like come career.
You know, it makes for some fun conversation.
Sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it's awkward silence.
Or sometimes a bit for some one conversation.
Books, kill everybody.
You're alive?
What is it actually talking about? You know, what, if it's, maybe some other sessions, I might explain that stuff to you guys, let's take all the verses that are quoted all the time, that are used as a basis to say these Muslims. These Muslims
are what their book says.
You know what, I don't like to play that game. Because if you want to play that game, with any book you can,
with any with any religious tradition, it's easy to play that game.
But to actually go and talk to someone and say, I've heard this is what it says, What's it actually talking? How have you guys understood this for 1400 years and not had a problem?
And how come nowadays, there's this
that's a discussion to be had, on something we need to understand. I honestly, in my final comments, I just want to say this book deserves to be understood for what it really is, or what it really has to say. And I you know, I hope I can make some contribution towards that. And I hope that you guys, those, especially those of you that are visiting us today, I welcome you to stay in touch with me with the people here that the wonderful people here that have put this program together, I actually am not an official part of the mosque, I'm just a community member of my schools across the street, it challenges across the street.
Used to be the old Nokia.
But I can't help out whenever I can. But you're welcome to try and stay in touch with me, I'm gonna leave my email address on this on the board, because it should be emailed. Because we talk if I get tired, we've got a lot of times I do a lot of traveling, and a lot of teaching. But if I do get time to get together, sit down, have a chat. I don't mind. I don't mind doing that. Because I honestly believe that if people knew that we knew like Muslims, new non Muslims and non Muslims, new Muslims could become an example of
communities that not only live with each other and tolerate each other. But actually communities that can cooperate with each other and show mutual respect to each other. Tolerance is not enough tolerance is not an accomplishment. I don't think tolerance is an accomplishment.
I think respect is an accomplishment and respect doesn't.
It takes work and it will take work for Muslims, it will take work from non Muslims, those that are interested in so I honestly I commend you for making the effort to come. And I commend you for trying to inquire more about this case, and the people that carry this faith. You know, I hope I was able to be of some benefit, you know, in your in your own inquiry in your own journey. I'd like to open the floor up for 15 minutes of questions and answers now and then we'll call it because the prayer services gonna start. We'll start with you. Okay, well, I have a comment first.
I found really interesting another thing about the secret symmetry and the funding
to cover the uniqueness of the court. But you know, with a translation is that any single tradition for any book is gonna lose sense assurance, either, you know, for example, Jesse, Jesse, Alaska, they have many different words for the worldwide that you don't have English and you don't have any Spanish My background is in Spanish. And when I was able to learn English was amazing because you lose a lot of the stuff in with a translation. Exactly. Now, my question is, you mentioned
a tradition before about that God, he builds houses for everyone, right? Yes. They just said that he already knows what's gonna happen in the future. He knows everything that's coming, right? Sure. So if he is on the science
of heroes, that some people are not that amazing. Isn't that a contradiction? Sounds like a contradiction. He knows some people aren't going to make it to heaven. Why are you building the house anyway? Because he's all knowing. We believe Actually, it's really cool. And we believe that God is all knowing, but he also gives human beings to change the course of their future. We believe that prayer can change predestination,
part of our
part of mercury is the only thing that can alter the change of your course of your future because God knows anything's gonna happen. But he can decide to change that course. On one condition. Yours, your requests, and it's pretty cool. It's a very unique nuance to the predestination discussion in Islamic theology. Isn't that a poster? Yeah. Isn't opposed to free will? No, because it's that decision to change what is plausibly Okay, so the freewill questions we always question in philosophy, right? Our our response to it is actually very practical. So there's two issues here. We believe that guidance is a component of two things, human beings making a decision, and God
assisting them two functions, but the first of them has to be the human being making this decision, according to Quranic text, the decision to do the right thing has to come from you that help will come from God. We don't believe success comes from human effort. We believe effort is the necessary ingredient to qualify for God's help.
So if I, for example, I'm successful in my business, it's because I did a lot of work which qualified that hardware qualified God's help to come.
But it's not my hard work that got there. It was actually the the divine aid that got me there. So let me combine both of those issues in assemblies.
Yes, thank you very quickly, if it's possible that you said,
Where are you? Oh, my God. I've never heard that. So.
So cool. I'll tell you what it's talking about. I will tell you what he's talking about. So
anybody ever seen red dot? Yeah, the old one or the new one?
It was,
it was better.
I had the craziest experience watching red dot
watch watching this film.
How many people don't know? Oh, my god seek forgiveness anyway.
It's a matter of perspective, right?
North Koreans are invading the United States and parachutes are landing in 13. northern half the country is crazy. And these poor high school kids are running up into the woods and they're taught dad taught them to use a shotgun or something. And they're now considered Guess what?
terrorists
and they're considered insurgents.
And like, what a matter of perspective?
No, they didn't just make that move.
I mean, it's just a matter of who's wearing what flag
Do you see what I'm saying? perspective changes everything. Now, the thing of it is, in the,
in the Islamic tradition,
and the Islamic tradition, the prophet
SAW it, peace be upon him peacefully started a call to Islam in a city called Mecca.
inviting people to this religion started reciting the revolution that was coming to him. Some people accepted it, most people didn't. People got more and more offended as he continued to recite it. So there were attempts on his life. Then there were attempts on the lives of people who follow the state. It got to the point where they couldn't live there anymore. So they had to actually secretly escape to another city, leaving behind their businesses, their homes, their families. In some cases, some people were killed, tortured to death, while not fighting back. They made it to another city where they were welcomed. Most people didn't accept the faith. They're a sort of conglomerate
government was formed with the with the cops
the cooperation of Christian and Jewish communities within society was formed. And then they started preparing for battle with the city, they ran away from it.
Now from a political science perspective, they have every right to fight the city is stronger, because what's their their homes, they were kicked out of their home for no reason.
They were the they were the ones aggressed against for no crime that they committed on their own except for believing.
Nobody should be oppressed for what they believe, no matter what it is. Now, this is a universal thing. It's not just in the song thing. So they're in every right the United Nations was back then they would be okay with it.
They'll be okay with it. Now this war starts, and it's going on. And it happens. There's several battles that take place, and eventually, the Muslims win. And how do they win, they actually peacefully marching to the city of Mecca 100 100,000. They're overwhelmed by the numbers and they walk in and they don't kill, it actually prayed.
And everybody drops around. There's too many of these guys. And then the Prophet gathers all of the enemies, all the chief enemies that were in battle, just use a year before two years before they were out for blood. He gathers all of them and says, I will say to you what Joseph, Joseph said to his brothers, there's no harm coming on you today.
Then revelation comes this other prophet talking about his Revelation. Revelation comes and says, these criminals that follow you all this time, give them four months, give them four months to think about the faith, take them to a place that's safe, so they don't feel intimidated, if they decide that they want to do some fine. If not, they better not come back. And if they do, kill them wherever you find,
but they have how much, four months, four months, and in those four months, if you want to leave, go ahead and pack your bags together. If you want to accept this out, if you come to that decision yourself, you know what, you're an equal citizen. And if not, you're not gonna you're not going to we don't take prisoners. We're not taking prison, whatever, until those four months you're free to do what you want. This is the specific context of that declaration. It is not a universal, most important policy. It has actually nothing to do with what will happen after the prophetic tradition. Because we believe that the punishments of God you know, like the flood of dawn,
or you know, earthquake or fire from the sky, or the town's sinking into the ground, those kinds of punishments come from God, you know, when they come when a messenger is in the flesh with the people and he's rejected, then God's wrath comes. When the messenger is not there. Those kinds of unique punishments don't come on people when they're annihilated. It's only at the at the final rejection of a messenger. And by the way, looking at something else, when the flood water water reaches up to here,
up to here, in the case of Noah,
right, the leading of all borders and those now
this guy hit the pause button and say you learned your lesson. Now.
Let me take the water back down. You watch it this time, does that happen? There's a fire raised from the sky and right before it hits the guy on the top of the head stuff.
You wouldn't joke about that you can enjoy God's wrath now. You think it's funny now? Does it ever happen? Once it starts,
you can't stop. This is a this is God's tradition. In previous nations. This is true of Slavic tradition, and the same stories that are mentioned in the Bible. This is what we believe. Now in the prophets case, the punishment was not coming from the sky or a rain or flood or a typhoon. It was the Muslim army that took over the city of Mecca and the gods tradition fulfill all criminals who fought against the messenger should be wiped from Kill, kill, but the pause button is pressed and told for months.
The pause book was never rescued for
four months. Think about it. If you want to leave the room,
somewhere else go ahead.
Otherwise, you will face Star Trek, which has been coming from previous profits. And this is the messenger and God does not forgive those who violate His messengers causes. Those who have been hardened criminals. It's up to you.
Then a guy came up to the Prophet said I don't know where you been. I was in my house when you were preaching. I never came out. I never even though we were until you just took over.
For about me. I mean, he was the head of Xbox at home or something.
Yeah. So anyway, he says, What about me? I didn't do anything. I didn't fight you guys.
You know, Allah says What about them is a specific person what the exceptional case Listen, I was talking about battle. Evil, you know, warring combatants, and I gave them those four months. If one of the other comes. What do you do? What are you waiting
for?
The idol worshipers comes to you saying listen, I have no idea. I don't know what this stuff is, then you leave him be and keep him safe means two things Leave him be and keep him safe.
until he gets to hear God's word.
Then after he hears God's word, take him to a safe place.
That he can be unknown, Camila Mendes because there were people that didn't know.
That's because there are people that didn't know, people that didn't know you are responsible to protect them. Let them know what this is because they didn't know. But you're also responsible to protect them.
context. without context, you can pull anything out.
without context, I'm running around after my child playing with her, and I was gonna get you
on the line. And
I said all the time you record now why don't you call told his children? He's going to eat them?
We have a direct recording I'm going to eat. Did you say that? Sir? Yes, I did.
guys
know, it's so easy to manipulate a text. And the beauty of it is when I see people relating a botanist text, I find fulfillment of God's Word in that, because he says you ludovica, Ilan, Stephen,
king, he guides with this word many and he missed let's other people must be misguided with this word, many of them. And the only one who go and Miss into misguidance by using the word are people who are inherently corrupt.
People that have corrupt intention will use it for misguidance. And when they do that, I feel you told us thanks for the heads up.
So I'm not shocked by like I told
you. Yeah.
many interpretations like the King James
interpretation, text is unified. So the text is across the board the same. There are scholarly scholarly attempts to understand the word of God. And there are 1000s and 1000s. But none of them are actually considered sacred. The difference between sometimes the biblical analysis or exegesis and kohan is that, you know, some, like some group of scholars have argued that, you know, these few lines are actually explanatory. They're not the original Bible, they're explanatory. But the line has to be drawn for you. The like a common reader won't be able to tell where the line would end on the line with the line, the line is clearly wrong. This is his word. This is my attempt to
understand it. And what's beautiful about that is every time a scholar would write about a single verse, and explain it, it is to the best of his understanding, he ends the passage with with love, and God knows better.
In other words, what I'm offering you as a human effect effort to understand God's word, but my word doesn't constitute God's word. My interpretation cannot be considered final. My interpretation can't be
heard the principle of abrogation as
you describe them. So yeah, abrogation is the idea that God would reveal something when people were ready for it at a certain point. And then as the majority will reveal more specific commandments, or commandments that would say, Okay, now you need the final version of this. So for example, Arab society, you think they have a lot of drinking water in the middle of the desert, not a natural resource, not easily accessible. And in that kind of a society all drinking liquids, juices, wine, etc, are very expensive to come by. Right. So wine was a very exotic item, and also something that was very much even revered in Arab society. vocalion came and tried to leave the Muslims off of why
they didn't say don't drink because of my nose. And we don't know. We don't know. You can't just tell someone don't drink and they stop.
doesn't work like that human beings operate like that. And he says,
Doesn't he know who he created? He knows what we're like. So he first said, Look, the evil that comes from it is much greater than the benefit. He didn't spill out and say, Stop it. Isn't listen. It's the bad things that come out of it are far worse than the good. And then a few years later, he took another step and he said, You know what, don't be drunk on your credit.
Don't come near the prayer while you're drunk until you know what you're talking about.
So to at least respect the prayer. Another thing with prayer is Muslims pray five times every few hours, which practically
are they going to drink but you're gonna pray?
You know,
and even if you aren't going to drink, you can drink too much anymore. Why not? Because if you drink too much, it takes a while to wear off, your prayers coming. So if you're going to fulfill this commandment practically it came to the end of
Final commandment about alcohol came. And that was it is the sawmill upon which that evil
is from the abominations of the work of the devil stay away from it.
You're gonna stop or what?
That's what he said, you're gonna stop. And this was the final word. That's what we mean by abrogation. In other words, something was given in lighter form, the more the solid, the more so it didn't start that way. He didn't start evil is from the devil Stop it. You know, I again, personally see it. Are you free to disagree? I don't call you say to people, if you drink or whatever I say that. I see the I see the evils of alcohol in my community, though. I can see I remember when Irving was a drug company.
And I can see the difference when it's hot. I see it.
I mean, look at the crime statistics to tell.
You can tell the effects of alcohol. You want to know the effects of alcohol go to an ER on a Friday night.
How many lives how many lives I believe it
doesn't doesn't take me any convincing.
places the harm is greater than the benefit somebody built was good for your blood supply is good for this reason. Good for that. And, you know, it's a good relaxer. Well, you can watch football without it, etc, etc. Okay, well, you know what, God doesn't say the first step wasn't Stop it. The first step was, look, the harm that comes from it in a society is greater than the benefit that comes from evil. The evil consequences of that are huge.
Prayer coming up, so we have to stop now. All right. Thank you so much.
Hope to hear from you. Thank you so much for listening.