Shadee Elmasry – Kalam 3.0 Shaykh Hamza Karamalli NBF 278
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Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. Welcome everybody to the
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Hospital, you have a lot of action. So it's a beautiful area
to be streaming out of. And today we're going to be talking to one
of the automa that I believe everybody here should be studying
with take his classes with Bill Syrah and learn HTML column and we
had a he came up in the podcasts with shifty acid ecology and check
a straw Rashid, in which took us Rashid said he didn't believe in
anything called Kalam 3.0. And I think it was sort of a minor
difference on whether or not there was a clear or unclear gradation
gradient continuation nonetheless, we will have Kadem scholar himself
with a sheikh Hamza cut him out he is with us on the program today.
Live from a stumble he studied with Sheikh Hassan hito who was
one of the students of shifts aids Ramadan booty he studied with he
is oh sorry, one of the peers what you can you can bring him on now
on
Welcome to the program Sheikh Hassan Karmali well I do a quick
intro he's one of the students hasn't heater was a peer of shifts
items out of booty. And he studied mainly with automatic Shem who are
without doubt the flag bearers of animal Killam. Really since the
past 100 years, several 100 years I should say. And it's an honor to
have you on with us. She comes out of Mali, welcome to the Safina
site is nothing but facts live stream.
Thank you. Pleasure to be here. Let us begin with with straight on
the issue. I'm a regular guy. I don't know much.
Why do I need the medicine that you're offering?
That's a good question.
So I was I'm also curious, though, so maybe we can start with? I
heard that you sent a reconnaissance mission?
Find out?
What What motivated you to do that one of our we have a brother who's
part of our community. He's actually coming out with a book on
the problem of evil. And he loves animal kingdom.
And he said, Look at this program, look at this new class guy. He
said I want to take it I'm thinking of taking it I said not
you thinking you should take it and we'll sponsor you to take that
class. And and we basically want to keep stimulating him. And
knowledge of Kalam and especially ultimate Kalam is something that
has to be in a sense, there is an update. It's always updated,
because it's a response to Fitton. Insofar as the atheist
philosophers come up with new tricks. We have to have the
answers. And that's why
we believed in constantly getting every new book every new course on
the matter of responding to these attacks on Islam.
That was what was the feedback that you Well, he was blown away.
He was totally blown away. Maybe we should Hey, I'm gonna see if we
can bring NAZAM NAS wants to be part of this. Yeah. jolla because
he was so excited that he sent us basically the minute by minute of
the programming of the course and that's why we ended up promoting
it here on the stream. And he basically said that
really every is most everyone who leads a Holika everyone who
teaches a course everyone who has an imam in the masjid everybody
who will ever deal with Muslims,
Western Muslims even it's all it's global now.
must learn what's being taught here. And I'm very happy to hear
that Kalam is is the most important
Science, when you read any, any science, like all of us scholars,
they always say like, you know, this is the definition of the
science and it's the most important science because of XYZ.
But I think like the crown, people like click on the moon, it's
really the most important science because Kalam it enables. It's the
science that helps you bring about a man in the hearts of other
people. And without demand, there is nothing without demand. There's
no prayer without you, and there's no fasting without demand. There's
no superuser. Without human, there's no spirituality. Most of
us agree who I consider to be one of the greatest miracle the moon
of the modern age was last year for the love of the Ottoman
Empire. He wrote a magnificent work called Mocha, arco and
Mulholland. And he, he learned this he said that the problem that
we have now is that we are giving exhortations we are trying to
inspire people to pray, but they don't believe. And this is
something that I've discovered firsthand. I've been involved with
us. Since I was a teenager myself, I used to read lead youth articles
many decades ago. And the Not that many, actually not at all, but a
couple of decades ago, and the parents used to come to me, they
used to say that my son isn't praying, my daughter doesn't wear
hijab, can you make them good, have good company and play
basketball and have a picnic and used to do all those things. But
over the years, and I'm sure that you've seen this, too, everybody's
seen this, the problems have now changed. Now there's not like they
don't pray. It's they don't believe they're not Muslim. Right?
They've left Islam. And whenever that happens, there's it normally
it's unfortunate that it's a very ugly ending there. It ends up you
know, the parents get defensive, the Imam gets defensive. The
scholar says, you know, how dare you ask that question. It's rude
because they don't know how to answer. Right? And so and when
they don't have the answer, and the questions are good, they're
strong, they're intellectual.
The end, the person who's asking the question feels robust, and
they feel that Muslims they don't believe based on evidence, they
don't think so. So the thing I think, the most important science
that we need to revive, it's called us blue Dean.
Hospital, Dean, it's the foundation of Dean, the most
important science to revive is the science of color. So the science
of Quran you know, we talk about economics now becoming sort of,
it's strange, it's now becoming fashionable when I started
studying it, you know, decades ago, it was controversial, but now
it's, it's, it's cool, you know, it's cool. So but so but what is
it? You know, what exactly is Quran? Quran is the definition of
the science of Quran it's Edmon your tender V. Allah is batted aka
denier and agility hallelujah. Taenia. It's a science that
enables you to prove the religious creed true from their certain
incontrovertible argument. So it's a science that enables you to show
that Islam is true. And so as a Kalam actually it's not for it's
not for the masses. And I think like you brought that up very
nicely in your question when you said, what's the medicine, right?
Because the role is that it's the science. Kalam is the science that
studied, and there's people who become experts in it. And then
they have medicines and these medicines they employ, they employ
these medicines. When somebody comes with a ship when somebody
comes with a doubt. They use their training to answer these questions
to remove the doubt and help help them come to their own
realizations that Islam is true, but it actually has a I think that
it's it's often misunderstood in our times as being a defensive
science that you wait for somebody to come with a doubt and then and
then you and then you respond, but in its initial in its original
formulation, it's for if that is for if bad will occur. denier it's
for affirming the Aqua ID Dini up and then we'll take on the moon,
they have a discussion at the beginning of the books of Quran on
the Eman of the Mocha lid and is it safe or is it not? So here
these areas are here, but but the dominant position amongst them
with a Kalamoon and this is it represents the majority of the
scholars are going to Nojima is that it there is an aspect of
animal Qur'an that is personally obligatory on everyone because
it's not permissible to do the cleat. It's not permissible to be
Muslim, just because you're born into a Muslim family just because
the Imam of the masjid is Muslim. Because when that happens, then
your Eman is going to shake. It's going to waver you're going
seems to be susceptible to doubt so in the genre Emanuela Carney he
said famous line he said, If coolamon colada Seto Hedy Eman,
who will mentor Didi, everybody who has to plead who merely
believes based on imitation without coming to their own
personal realization, that this is a truth this is Allah subhanaw
taala is Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam agenda to have a
now without coming to that realization themselves, Eman who
let me assume into theory that his Eman will always have some kind of
a hesitation, some kind of a doubt a difficulty will come they will
say Does God really exist. And so the there's a widespread problem
of, of a cultural Eman being born into a culture. And and we need to
change that into an Eman that is based on a personal conviction.
And the science that enables us to do that is the science of concern.
And that's why it's important. Now let me open up some topics. And
then we're going to branch from that. The first topic is the
question of
that some people imagine that there are new concepts, Kalam adds
new ideas to Islamic creed. And that can't be right. Because the
Prophet came with the final creed. Nobody shouldn't alter anything.
But we find in Kadem, books, concepts and terms that we don't
find in the words of the sahaba. How do you answer that question
that how could you tell me something is necessary? Bell
prasidh Perhaps you're even saying obligatory by Sharia. When we
don't find these words, terms, concepts, notions? In the words of
the companions? Yeah, excellent, excellent question. And that's not
specific to Quran, it's general with all of the sciences. So in
the science of Hadith, we have a jerky with daddy we have. So here
we have life, we have no doer, we have all kinds of terms in the
science of Hadith that were not used by the Companions, companions
didn't need to use them, because either they don't need to see
whether it's another. So here it is right?
From South, so that over time, there are conditions that
developed and it was, and we needed to verify the words of the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. So the scholars of
Hadith, they developed a rational science, people don't realize, you
know, they think that a decently Hadith the science of hadith is a
rational science that was invented by the Muslims. That's one of the
pride. So one of the sciences that sets us apart from all other
religious traditions, right? We have is not
to, and we've answered, so. So the so in the same could be said, of
the science of flicker the same conditions of the science of
grammar. And the same is said, of the science of canon. It's a
science that developed over time, in response to particular problems
that arose at that time. So when, when Greek philosophy entered into
the Muslim world, then
people, they started to learn it, they started to teach it, they
will start to translate it. And it was a sophisticated science that
had its terms that had its concepts. And in order for Muslims
to respond to these questions that were causing doubts, Shewhart,
causing people to have grave problems in their Eman, even leave
Eman altogether. They had to speak to them in a language that they
could understand. So in our times, when somebody comes and says, you
know, I don't believe in God because of atoms and molecules and
laws of nature, then we have to talk about atoms and molecules and
laws of nature. And that's going to be part of the science of Kalam
today, even though the prophets of Allah, Allah, and he was the
limited companions didn't use those terms. So in the same way,
the the science of Kalam, it was speaking to people who were being
confused by certain words by certain concepts. And so the
scholars they had to, to research to understand what's being said,
they had to understand the objection, and they had to sift
their way through it and say that, okay, this is right, this is
wrong. This is the reason why it's wrong. And that's how the science
of Kalam developed the scientific era was a conversation. It's an
intellectual conversation that our scholars have had with people for
a very long time, and it's something we should be proud of,
because
You know, like that conversation, you don't find it in Christianity,
because in Christianity, if somebody said something that's
heretical, you burn their books, and you burn them on the stake.
And so now you don't know what they said, there's so many
heresies that you find you have no idea what they believed in. But
for us, the Morteza you know, what they believe in, you know, their
arguments in and they're, they're studied to death, and they are
still taught, and then you respond to them. The same with the
philosopher same with all of these things, these other sects and
groups. So it's really something I think, that we shouldn't be proud
of. So it's funny that you actually may end up being able to
say something that would sound so ludicrous, which is that next time
somebody says,
what's the, what's the soundness of that hadith? What's the grade
of that hadith? You could also just say, Hey, listen, the Sahaba
never said this. Yeah, no companion ever asked for a chain,
more verified Hadith. But just by use of logic, when a problem
developed, and liars began to develop, in Islam in Islamic
history very early on, then great scholars from the second
generation, like Muhammad had been CDN began to say things like,
name your men, right, which is like, set verify the Hadith. Tell
me who told you this hadith. And he that is one of the first types
of necessary innovations that we could say is are unnecessary
developments in the transmission of the Sunnah? No, so have you
ever said it because he didn't have to? Likewise, no, Sahabi ever
had to defend Islamic creed from an atheist? Because there weren't
atheists in the Arabian Peninsula? Right? There were pagans, and Jews
in the Arabian Peninsula, and probably very few Christians. Now,
let's go to even something more fundamental.
What is the meaning of the word Kalam? What does that word mean?
And it doesn't seem like it has anything connected to defending
Islamic beliefs. Because if we say the science of Hadith, we know
it's the science of prophetic words, the words of the Prophet
peace be upon him. Fick understanding so it's
understanding the law. But seems like Kalam, the word does not
match with the topic. So why is it called Animal Kingdom? Yeah, it's
like no. Right? So they have a discussion of why NAFTA was called
knuckle knuckle means a direction. And they'll say they say that I
live in Abu Talib. He said, who had an aqua go this way he gave
initial exposition have nothing to do early. And so it came to have
that that name. So sometimes the name of a science is not, is not
does not reflect what's actually being done. But it reflects a
statement that someone made regarding it, or it reflects a
famous problem. So there's actually we're not sure why the
science of Kalam was called The Science of quantum Columbian
speech, Kalam in speech, and in his circle, accorded human element
of designing
the most important work of Quran ever in the history of God. So, so
he studied all over all the seminaries like 5060 hashes on it
hashes hashes on it. So he has an important discussion in the
beginning where he says that if Kalam means speech, why is the
science which has to do with arguments for the truth of Islam?
Why was it called canal? And so he gives many reasons, and that shows
that he's not sure so he just mentioned possibilities. So here
are some possibilities. One possibility is that there was a
famous debate amongst between the martyrs era and Muhammad even
humble over the issue of Kalam, over the issue of kalam the speech
of God. So the mortar Zilla, they said that the Quran Kalam Allah is
is created. And and I have been humbled along with a Synology ma
he said that Al Quran who Kalam Allah, they will not look
at the Quran in the meaning of the speech of God. It's out of ban
Quran in the meaning of the speech of God is later must look and so
there was a famous Inquisition, there's a mortality like
Inquisition. And and so it was something that that was a turning
point in our intellectual history. And really important, all of the
alumni were involved. And it involved the mark does Allah who
used rational arguments and so the science it came to be known as the
science of Kalam, this is an important issue related to it. So
another named after the topic of Kalam Allah Yes.
Yeah.
Others other opinion was that when the early scholars of Kalam do
used to write their books, they used to put some headings, they
would say Al Kalam goofy,
like talking.
So then it came to be known as the science of Kalam. Others they said
that it's something that enables you to speak. Because when when
somebody when a man doesn't he comes or a fatal SUV comes, he
says all these things, everybody else is like, what do I say? I
don't understand. But if you if you learn this, it enables you to
speak and there's other other positions as well. I like the
concept that
the subject is about logic, logic of why these beliefs are sound.
And yet you never know someone's logic until they talk right. So
that may be a link. So is there a link between speech because the
word Calam for those who are non Arabic speakers, the word Qlm
literally means words or speech, I should say, speech, and Montek is
logic. So in our talk today, these two Arabic words you need to know
Montek is the study of logic. Kalam is speech. So is there a
link between Kalam and Mantap?
Yeah, so this actually excellent question, right. So it goes back
to logic itself. The word logic in English comes from Greek logos,
and logos is logic mind, it's also the word so Christians talk about
the word and all its logos, so in Christianity are actually English
or Greek, rather, the word for logic and the word for speech, the
mind they're related. So Montek also means speech in the Quran.
And the Quran sentence for the man he says, are Limni multicopy. We
were taught the speech of birds. And so Montek mean speech. And in
the, in the famous versification by after he, he said, What bamboo
fell in Montego, little Janani. Nice, but too, who cannot really
listening. He says that month that to the mind is like grammar, to
the tongue. So there's a relation between speech and between
thought, and that comes in logic. In English, it comes in Montek in
Arabic, and Kalon. There, there's, it's, it's also I think, it's
related, definitely related, because in order to speak, you
have to think, and in some colloquial speech, Kalam refers to
logic, because if someone gives a speech, right, people praise His
Kalam. They're not necessarily praising they say, like, you know,
I like his cut up there. What they're actually saying is, I like
the argument that he's making. They're not saying his words.
Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah. So now that we've covered some of
these basics, now, let's ask the question of how are there three
eras of Calum in you in the history of this subject? Who are
the themes? What are the three issues or, or reasons that there
are these eras? Who are the
villains behind these errors?
Yeah, so, so I called glam, the my new book that will hopefully come
out called the Kalam 3.0.
And it's this name is inspired by Shakalaka it of Imam of the moment
of destiny, in which he describes he says in his book that there's
two phases of collapse. He calls he says the kalam will boot up
adenine. And as the Columbian water affiliate, is the clan of
the early scholars of collab and is the kalam of the late scholars
of Kalam. And he said that the kalam of the early Scholars, this
is column 1.0. It was developed in response to the more Tesla so the
more Tesla these people, they were actually they're actually
they actually the first vertical limo. And which is and this is to
be fair to them, right? So the martyr Zilla because what is
Caleb, the essence of Kalam is that you use your mind and you
engage in rational inquiry. And you have you make formal
arguments. So the more the more Tesla, they used to make formal
arguments because they studied Greek philosophy. And they did a
lot of good things. They wrote a lot of good books. They defended
the Muslims against many other religions and many other
philosophies. And that's actually why they were they rose in the
court ranks during the reign of the Abbasids. Because the Abbasids
they wanted somebody to defend the faith because their whole their
government was based on faith. So so but
Although they did this, they had a couple of mistakes, a couple of
serious mistakes. They made mistakes. And so in response to
the Marta Zilla in order to correct these mistakes, this is
where I will Kalam was born. And they were two great scholars of
color, I will have an Ashati and a woman Sorrell not already. And
these two scholars have Calum, they both engaged with the
mortality light mistakes, they corrected them. And so this was
column 1.0. The more doesn't like they, their system logical system
was pretty good. But at this stage, most of the confusions were
scriptural. They had to do with the interpretations of Quranic
verses. Like for example,
seeing Allah subhanho wa Taala in the afterlife. Is that possible?
Is that not the Morteza? Like they said that it's impossible to see
Allah subhanaw taala and afterlife because that would mean that he is
a physical object. And so there are verses in the Quran and Hadith
of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that are very explicit
about this, they negated them. And when and it's not permissible to
negate something from Scripture. So this created a controversy. And
so the scholars of Hadith and Quran they said, Well, they're
going into the Quran and Sunnah, but you needed someone to
understand their reasoning and speak to them and correct identify
okay, this is where you went wrong. And, and, and the early
router Kalamoon. They did that and they said on this issue, for
example, they said that sight is a perception that ALLAH SubhanA
Huhtala creates within US visa vie something that exists in this
life, he creates it within US visa vie physical objects that occupies
space and time. In the next life. Allah subhanahu wa taala will
create it within US visa vie himself. And it's even though he
does not exist in space, he does not exist in time. Women who hon
I'm sorry, lacking de la que Phil Wallen Hey sorry, in the in the in
the Joe Hara, that that he will be seen among the things that are
obligatory that he will be seen, but without resembling anything
else. And without any encompass meant. So there's they went back
and forth and said, This is the nature of the early column, this
is column 1.0. Okay, then.
Yeah, should know on this. Now to give people a quick summary on
some of the context, the Sahaba, the canal of the sahaba. And did
the Omega dynasty began domains were not very much concerned with
matters of knowledge, the Besitz took over 80 or so years after the
omae it's the best it's love knowledge. And they wanted to
defend Islam now. They they eventually came to sponsor and
encouraged this group which became called Mata zeolites and the
Martez lights were defending the faith but against whom
who were the WHO ARE THE Morteza lights defending the faith
against?
Okay, that's, that's really good. And let me just clarify one thing,
which is that OMA yards they did they were interested in knowledge,
but at that phase, the knowledge that they were interested in was
the knowledge of Hadith gather first the first step so a lot of
bin Abdulaziz you know, he commanded even she has zody and
others and Imam Malik and his and so so. So the, as we and this this
was going to it's going to get to your to your mashallah very
insightful question that the there is in the era of the omegas, it's
just after the companions. So the first so the Companions, they have
the mood of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, the strong Eman
of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that they disseminate
amongst the people that they meet. So someone in a society that has
this strong Eman, they're not going to have any major Arpita
issues, they're going to be visited with worshipping Allah
subhanaw taala. And so and so the first thing they're going to say
is, well, how do I figure out what the Prophet said and what he
didn't say? And so that's the concern. Then as the as distance
grows long, that node becomes weaker and weaker. And as the node
becomes weaker and weaker, there's more serious aqidah issues that
begin to emerge. And those emerged in the time of the Abbasids. And
so they they busy themselves with engaging with these ideas. And so
your question was, who were they speaking to? So they were when the
Muslims when they said the capital of the Muslims, the first capital
of
The Muslims was Medina al Madina, Munawwara May the blessings and
peace of Allah subhanaw taala be on it, bless that inhabitant. And
then it moved from El Medina to El Kufa in the time of segnale. And
then it moved from Goethe to Damascus, which is the capital of
the OMA yet, and when it moves to Damascus, Damascus is I think, you
know, it's like the longest continually. Yeah, exactly. And
so, so it has many, many different civilizations, it has a rich
history of Christian theology and Christian theology merged with
Greek philosophy. So Muslims, when they went into these towns, they
were initially a minority, and they were actually a minority for
a very long time. There's a really good book.
What's it called, there's a really good book on that study is
conversion history.
The name will come to me, let me know if you if you remember, but,
but it, it makes these these curves of conversion how long it
took for people to become a so it took a very long time. So Muslims
were because they didn't force Muslims didn't force people to
convert. So they, when they're in Damascus, there's a very, very
large Christian population. And this Christian population is in
the court, their governing with the Muslims there, their ministers
are learning from them. And there's natural conversations that
happen between them. So and with these conversations, wisdoms comes
to learn these new ideas that they weren't aware of before that and
these ideas are couched in philosophical language. And so
they begin to learn to have conversations, and this formal
structured argument, it takes you to certain conclusions that aren't
correct. And so now you need to deal with it. And so this is, this
is why the Abbasids and the scholars at that time they began
studying the sciences, there's also actually another another
reason is that is that, you know, today, we understand the
importance of studying math and science and, and, you know, on all
of the modern sciences, because we need doctors, we need scholars,
you know, scholars are more important than doctors and
engineers. But But, but we need doctors to treat people
physically. And so we need people who are going to go and study
these things. And so in that time, the equivalent of the modern
university was Aristotle, and his, his Organon. And so if you wanted
to study science, you studied Aristotle, you studied physics,
you studied botany, you studied all of these things. And it was
merged with all of these, all of these ideas. And so the Muslims
need to study medicine, they need to study the science and
technology of that time. So and this is very analogous to what's
happening today. So they were forced to, they were forced to
engage with these ideas. And so that's how the more visit I came,
and that's how the science of Graham was born. Okay. Now, is it
important for a Muslim to know?
What degree is important for Muslim to know, the nature of the
more tessellate doubts and issues?
So let's say a person, we know that a student of knowledge should
know those matters, right? Yeah. But is it important for non
students of knowledge? To know what were the issues that the
scholars had with the Morteza lights? And if so,
what is the basic summary of the error of the Morteza lights? What
is their basic error?
So
I don't think it's, this is actually one of one of the one of
the reasons why I developed Kalam 3.0. Because what I found was that
when we read the old books of Kalam, then what we're actually
learning is doubts that existed in the past. And we're learning those
doubts and problems that existed in the past. And we're learning
the responses to those doubts and problems that existed in the past.
Some of those doubts and problems are relevant today. But some of
them are not relevant. And so what happens in a column education, and
it's not specific to Chiron, so in the science of Flickr, right, so
if you studied soccer, we talked about wells and chickens, and what
happens if a chicken falls into a well, you know, and it was very
practical, you know, and it's very practical in that time, but when I
but I don't need to study it today, if I'm not a student of
knowledge. And so in the same way, the the scientifical and there's
many, many issues that are responses that are responses to
problems at that time. And if we for a for somebody who's not as
good
have knowledge, it's not beneficial to introduce them to
problems that they don't have. So, so those things they need to be,
they need to be taken out. And what we need to do is we need to
understand the problems that they do have, and speak to those
problems and solve those problems. And that's part of the part of, of
okay.
Now, let's do a quick look at what is Kadem 2.0. And then we can take
the dive into Kadem 3.0, because that's what matters to those are
the subjects that everyday people are facing today. Yes. So, Golan
2.0 is, is a conversation with a group of people called the
philosopher. So philosopher are normally often translated as
philosophers, but it's not a good translation. Because now when we
talk about philosophy, you have the philosophy of science, you
have the philosophy of economics, you have philosophy of history or
philosophy, you everything, right. So philosophy now just means to
think deeply about something. But in in what we're talking about the
philosophy here, it's a particular kind of philosophy, we call
Neoplatonic philosophy. So I'll explain what that what that means.
So what happened was that you had the most influential philosopher
of all time is Aristotle, or Plato, like you can like they
compete with each other. So Aristotle was really influential,
and in Western history amongst Christians, there's a history of
trying to reconcile Aristotle with Plato. Or Aristotle says this,
Plato says this, who's right, who's wrong? How do you work it
out? And, and so that was their intellectual endeavor. Like these
are like the two philosophers that they know.
It's all out of date now. But this is what they were doing. So in
this conversation, they they're developed a modification on
Aristotle, that introduced certain ideas of Plato into that
philosophy, and that philosophy, it came to be known as Neo
Platonism, Neo Platonism, it became part of Christianity. And
it came through the Christians into the Muslim world. And there
was there was, there were some, some major Muslim philosophers,
most prominent amongst them, alpha, Robbie, and even Sina.
These two philosophers, they, alpha, Robbie, he, he was
basically was mostly a translator. But even Cena was original, he has
some original contribution, some good contributions.
But he also has a number of serious mistakes. So these, these
scholars, they introduced into Arabic, the ideas of the
Neoplatonist. And this was a complete philosophical system. It
was
the new Platanus, just to review is a type of merging between
Aristotle's ideas and Plato's ideas. Yes, okay. Yeah. And this
infused and it was a full structure that entered into the
Christian religion, theology, I should say, yeah, yes. And it came
from there into the Muslim world. Because what do you mean by
entered in there? And like, what were the ideas?
The ideas are. So this is what this is what philosophers that
philosopher has a definition. And definitely philosopher is a very
broad definition, you use your mind
to learn about everything that exists,
as much as human beings are able to. And so what it says you when
it says use your mind, it means you don't use revelation,
no place for revelation. So put revelation aside, just use your
mind what can you discover about the world? So they so they had a
so in, in the system, they had they began with logic. And so they
said, This is how logic works. You have syllogisms, you have
conclusions, and they had very sophisticated analysis of logic.
Then they had metaphysics. And in metaphysics, they established the
existence of something called a necessary being, why people would
so the philosopher, the new Platanus, they believed in, quote,
unquote, God, so it's not quite the idea of God. We believe in but
they weren't materialists like the atheists of today, and this is
really important to understand. They weren't materialists. They
believed that the universe depended on something that is
is independent, and they constructed arguments for it.
So they believe this, this was their metaphysics. And then upon
this metaphysics, they built their science, which is called natural
science. So they built their science,
medicine and how the changes, or the world changes the four
elements of Aristotle, they explained it, you explained that
there's a lot of Aristotelian thought in there. But they
grounded all of it, in this necessary being. And they said
that the necessary being is like a, cause, it doesn't have a
choice, it just, it just results in the universe. And it results
in,
in the universe and things in the universe, they have nature's
essential nature's, and these nature's, they determine
necessarily what that thing will do. So, and from this, they
constructed a logical system that described everything in the
universe. And so this is Neoplatonic philosopher, and, and
so if you wanted to study science, or math, math is part of this too.
And they also had a system of ethics and politics. So they, if
you wanted to study all of these things, and benefit from it,
there's a lot of beneficial things in there. You were exposed to all
of these ideas. So um, so then, this is where Imam Al Ghazali we
use called Pooja to Islam, he wrote his famous book, the
halftone philosopher, the incoherence of the philosopher,
which is translated into English, in a fairly good translation by
Marmar Mora.
And,
and so he, he, what he did was, is really phenomenal. He understood
philosopher, and then he used logic. And he critiqued the
conclusions of the philosopher using their own terms. And he said
that there are certain branches of philosophy that are not
problematic at all, math, there's no problem with it. And he said
that it's really important for us to say about the parts of
philosopher that are not problematic, it's really important
for us to say that they're not problematic, because if we just
say that the philosopher they hold these beliefs that are an Islamic
and they're all bad, then then we will lose the trust of everybody.
And so the introduction of nominal values that have to philosopher
really important to read, it shows somebody who very balanced very
fair uses his mind, and then he, it's a philosophical study, and he
corrects the mistakes. And he mentioned, like 17 mistakes. And
he says that three of them, they take the person outside the EU, no
longer a Muslim. And those three major things were believed belief
in the in the eternality of the world. So the philosopher, they
believe that the universe did not begin to exist, because they said
God is eternal, and the universe follows necessarily from him. And
so therefore, it's also eternal, it never began to exist. That was
the first insert that goes against what is
definitely known from our religion, like we believe that the
universe was created after not having existed. The second point
that he said, takes one out of Islam is the denial of the bodily
resurrection. So they said that, because they believed in necessary
natural causation, they said that anything that goes against the
laws of science, if you want to call them according to what they
believed in, there is impossible. So the bodily, there's no such
thing as a bodily resurrection, just some of them believed the
laws of science were absolute. They did more so than modern
scientists, because for them,
it says, This is what they what they were doing was they if you
can logically wrap your mind around God and turn him into a
cause and relate that to the things in the universe. You can,
logically, rationally through a series of syllogisms and essential
nature's of things, describe all of reality. So that's what we were
trying to do. That's what so it's not normally well understood, but
that's what they were trying to do. So that was the second one.
The third one was they said that God, they said that God does not
know does not know the universals. He only knows certain specific
particular so they denied the knowledge of God. So in other
words, he said on these three points they went, it would take
them out of Islam. So he was booked to Harford. He corrected
these things rationally. He showed rationally why they're mistaken.
And then from the work of Imam Al Ghazali glam 2.0 was born.
I'm from Imam Razi developed it and others followed and it reached
its peak in the work of designing an EEG. These are probably the
most important Qalam 2.0 scholars and their works have many, many
commentaries and super commentaries all derived from
them. And what they did was they basically they took all of
philosopher, they swallowed philosopher. So you have Danny, he
has a famous statement in South Africa, that if it weren't for the
inclusion of the summer yet of inclusion in the books of Golan,
things to do with the afterlife, the books of Cullen are
indistinguishable from Philosopher because they basically took all of
it, swallowed it, understood it and critiqued it from within. And
so Qalam 2.0 That's what it is. It's a really an it's an it's,
it's really, it's, it's a very impressive intellectual
achievement. It's very impressive. Okay, now,
what happened in the worlds
of cover? When I say the world of Cofer, I'm not saying that the
world of people trying to tear down the OMA and trying to tear
down Islam, I'm just saying, in the non Islamic world, the
philosophers, the non Muslim world, the philosophers, things
changed. Okay.
What happened to Neo Platonism? That cause the novel non believing
philosophers to transform such that we would need a Kalam 3.0?
Yeah. So what happened? So it's a complete difference. So what
happened was that Aristotle is now irrelevant to the modern world, is
based on a refutation of Aristotle.
So it's modern science is based on a refutation as to the initial
church science conflict between between Galileo and the church.
What What was the problem with Galileo, Copernicus, they're
saying that the, it's the sun that's at the center, and the
Earth goes around it. But Aristotle, he said that no, the
Earth is at the center, and everything else goes around it,
and that was consumed by the church and stated as official
Church doctrine. And, and so modern science was born out of a
refutation of this modern science was born out of a refutation of
many other Aristotelian positions, such as, for example, Aristotle
believed that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects. And,
and this was also disproven, the birth of modern science involves
disproving Leaning Tower of Pisa.
You know, they try to drop heavy things and, and light things.
There's also this idea of essential nature's, and this is,
this is critical to modern science, because what Aristotle
used to do was that he said, he used to look at things, he used to
say that the nature of a of a seed is that it should grow into a
tree. The nature of an acorn is that it should grow into an oak
tree. And this nature, you arrived at through philosophical
reflection. So this is in its nature. And from this
philosophical reflection on the essential nature, you can figure
out what's going to happen in the future. So he just said, it makes
sense for heavier objects to fall faster than lighter ones. And so
he used his mind a lot. And to come to these conclusions. And
modern science said that don't do that. Forget about essential
nature's Don't, don't try to discover what's going to happen by
philosophically reflecting on essential nature's just to
experiment. Just so this is the shift from assessing the world by
Ockel. To to tentative.
Yeah, and as I always say, the first thing a person should know
about epistemology is that the sources of knowledge are either
transmission reason or observation. And he's sort of over
extended reason.
Whereas into the realm of observation. Yes, it was really
what he did. Yeah. Whereas you don't need to think about certain
things you can use that that can be observed by a demonstration.
Yeah, yeah. So and so and this is why when when we find in the books
in the multicolor moon when we talk about in column 2.0. We're
refuting essential nature's because that goes against our
theology. Well, people don't believe in essential nature's
anymore, we are refuting the fact that the world is eternal. Nobody
believes the world is eternal anymore, that even atheists
believe the universe began to exist. The Big Bang Theory we are
all
What else are we doing? We are, you know, there's this discussion
about, Does the world really exist that comes at the beginning of
books of Canada? So first, that's not the problem anymore. The
problem now is that we believe that the world is the only thing
that exists, right? So materialism is like it. It says, this is the
physical world that exists. Don't be stupid, of course, it's there.
But nothing else exists, I only going to believe what I'm what I'm
going to see.
There is there's, there's another
there's another thing
it'll come to me.
But But like, these are just these are some examples of how the scene
has completely changed. So, so the scene has completely changed. And
that's why Qalam 2.0 Even though it's an amazing intellectual
achievement, it doesn't speak to the needs of the time. So and so I
so that's why that's why that's why I say that, that you know,
that when I say that, so I have a statement, which I believe is
true, that is Columbus that because if Can I was dead? Why is
it dead? Because when I say so cannot when I say Kalam is dead.
It's not a new statement, Imam Al Ghazali. He said, All of the
sciences are dead. That's why he wrote here. We're gonna Dean you
know, so if you read mufti, it was money and his book in his book on
one minute, and Flick, flick on the URL McGraw Hill ABA, he says
that, that the books of Flickr used to be alive, because they
were dealing with real issues, but now they don't. So he wrote this
new book. So in the same way, can I was dead, because the books that
we are studying, which are really important, they're very impressive
achievements. But if our goal is to train students to master the
problems, and questions of a long gone age, that are not in the
minds of people now and mastered the art of refuting them, and if
that's all that Kalam is, then there's something wrong, you know,
like you have to, you have, and that's why we need Quran 3.0. So,
by dead you mean, irrelevant? Not answering the questions of the
day.
Yeah, yes. It's amazing that how you mentioned fifth of Bua,
because the moment you said that it's dead, meaning it's not
answering the questions of the day. So much of Islamic economics
feels to me like a bandaid on cancer.
Where it's, it's there's not a actual genuine
solution to it. It's almost like you're banned dating, or you're
just giving some life support on someone who's dying. And it's
interesting, I was thinking about that, and you mentioned it right
away. So this is a good now moment to now say, Well, what are the
issues of today?
Before we get to answering them? Right? What are the main issues?
Can you could you say that they are three, four or five issues or
two issues that really come to the fore, of what, what Cofer is
today? And what is it that a theologian, a teacher and Imam,
even a parent, even a college student really needs to know?
Like? Yeah, actually, it's it's one issue. And that issue is
scientific naturalism scientific materialism, this is the issue and
scientism?
scientism, so success in we so Now Aristotle, used reason where he
should have used observation, and of course, he rejected
transmission. Now we swung to the opposite end, where it's all
observation and demonstrable demonstrations, the only source of
truth reason is sort of pushed to the side, let alone transmission.
That seems like what the West that's, and that's based on a more
fundamental problem. So it's based on a more fundamental prohibition
philosophical problem, which is naturalism or materialism or
physicalism. So materialism is the belief that the physical universe,
the observable universe, is the only thing that exists. So. So the
things that science can measure are the only things that exist.
And, and if they're the only things that exist, then these are
the things that are making other things happen. So it's the it's
chemical reactions that produce the chemical product. It's
medicine that produces the cure. It's nuclear fusion that powers
the sun. And so and this is something that all
All our children are learning. Anyone who studies science is
learning this. Because science in our high schools in our
universities, it is taught on top of this idea of materialism. So
this it's this materialism that needs to be dealt with. And it has
many everything. All of the problems are basically a fetter.
They're a sign. They're the Federer of, of materialism branch.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And what is? So yeah, so
what are some some Why do people so right now, so let's let's look
at
let's look at, let's look at atheism. So what is the source of
atheism? Today? The source of atheism is naturalism. It's the
belief that the physical universe is everything that exists.
What is the source? Or what is the problem with, with evolution? The
problem with the theory of evolution is that when it's
understood within a materialist framework, then what it's saying
is, there's no space for God. And we human beings, therefore have to
come about as a result of this, of this, of this natural cause and
effect system that's that we've discovered through reason, and
therefore we have ancestors, we have non human ancestors, because
miracles are impossible. It's because of materialism, that
miracles are impossible. It's because of materialism, that
prophecy is also impossible because you prophecy it's there's
a miraculous elements to it miracles confirm prophecy, and
prophecy. It's a it tells you something from a, from a not from
a necessary being. So all of our all of our problems. So you think
of the multiverse. So where does the multiverse objection comes
from? Actually, that's another thing. So which is that? What's
happening is that the problem is materialism, you have these
branches from it. And then we have Christian remote responses to
materialism. So Christian responses to materialism, they
come from a different worldview, than our worldview. So I have I
have a course it's called Why Islam is true. And it's it's an
it's a level one ticket on 3.0. It's, it's basically it's the it's
the Kalam, it's the arguments that the average non polygon needs, and
hunger by the grace of God, there's a couple of 100 teachers
that have been trained to teach it, they're teaching it on the
ground and classrooms and massages. 1000s of students have
learned from it, there's a textbook as well. So the if
anyone's interested, you can you can go to Weiss, Thomas true.com,
to find out more. But in part of this part of this course, there's
what we do is we divide
thing, that people's perspectives turned into three worldviews, you
have the atheist worldview, which is based on naturalism, you have
the Christian worldview, which is based on something called Super
naturalism. And it's the same as as polytheism. And you have the
Muslim worldview, which is based on contingency and contingency is
really important. And I think that's, I'll maybe unpack that a
little bit. But the Christian Christian worldview, from the
Christian worldview, there are responses to materialism. And what
Muslims are doing because they haven't studied Quran is that they
are taking the Christian responses wholesale and using them because
they don't see an authentic Muslim response. And that puts them into
problematic situations regarding their own Arpita. Because they
don't understand the implications of the Christian arguments. And
actually, also, if you look at it fairly,
in the Christian atheist debate, there are a number of issues with
atheists, the when, and I think that to be fair, you have to say
that, but that's because the Christian is not using the correct
argument.
It's not because the atheist has, has the upper hand over, over over
the Muslim. So I'm not sure how I got here. I think we went a number
of No, yeah, we're saying that naturalism scientism, the concept
that the universe is the only thing that exists, hence, that
actually gives birth to Darwinism or evolution, in that the human
being must have only come through the laws of nature which are
absolute.
That because I had asked what is the core of the modern philosophy
of Kufa, and you said, is this naturalism and scientism. So just
one more thing like that reminds me why I've talked with the
Christians, which is that when you have the Christian responses, then
Muslims embrace the Christian worldview, and then that gives
gives rise rise to problems like the problem of evil or
which is a uniquely Christian problem, it's never been a problem
in our history. So what's happened is that is that we are stuck
between naturalism and a Christian response to naturalism. And so
that's now the, they're like, they're like the martyrs. What are
what are the problems with the Christian premise?
So the Christian, the problem is, so let's let's first understand
the Muslim Muslim premise. So the key thing in the Muslim worldview,
and this is a this is this is part of the move to cloud 3.0. So in
column 2.0, the main argument for the existence of God, that's front
and center is the argument for the existence of God from the fact
that the universe began to exist. It's the real hoodoos. It's
entered Western philosophies known as the Kalam Cosmological
Argument.
And the reason why that was the central argument is because the
Muslims at that time, they were speaking to people who believed
that the universe depended on an independent being. But they didn't
believe that the universe began to exist. So they use this argument
at that time. But today, when we speak to materialists, they don't
believe in a independent being, they deny anything beyond the
physical universe. So they are worse than the philosopher. They
are one step removed from the philosopher. So the main argument
that needs to be front and center, which is also part of our
tradition, is the argument from contingency, which is an argument
for the existence of God from the fact that the universe is needy
and dependent, and there needs to be a being that's independent on
which it exists. That's so the summary of the contingency
argument.
That's the summary of the contingency argument. Yeah. And
so, so the and I have if somebody's interested, I have a
free series called Khurana case for God. And you can you can see
the contingency argument in action and how it corrects a, a Christian
atheist debate. Khurana case phagon.com. So the the contingency
argument, what it does is it shows it refutes materialism. And it
shows that the universe the physical universe depends on
something that is that doesn't need anything is transcendent. And
it's a complete and utter dependence. So that, that that
that independent being is the one who makes the sunshine, he is the
one who makes the wind blow, he is the one who keeps the birds in the
sky, just as the Quran describes it. And this is the Muslim
worldview. It's a worldview based on the complete dependence of the
universe on a being that doesn't need anything. The Christian
worldview is not like that. And the reason why it's not like that
is that Christians, they believe in the divinity of a human being.
So they and so what that means is that their belief in God is not a
belief in a transcendent, independent deity that does not
resemble anything on which everything depends, in fact, they
believe God died.
So so. So their idea of God is not the same as our idea of God. And
their idea of the universe, and its relationship to God is also
not the same as our idea. So they believe in something called
supernaturalism, which means that they believe when they say that
they believe in God, they are affirming the existence of a being
that is more powerful than nature. That is more powerful than nature.
So nature has the power. But yeah, nature has a power. God is more
powerful. Nature runs things, God puts the laws of nature apart and
intervenes. And that's not our worldview, our worldview,
everything is completely dependent on God. So this is the Christian
worldview. And from this perspective, when they are arguing
against the atheist, they're not trying to prove the existence of
an independent being, but they're trying to prove the existence of a
supernatural being. And so their arguments are going to be of this
nature. So their arguments are going to try and the way that
their arguments work is they say that is there something that's not
explained? Can I find a hole in science? And that's why the theory
of evolution is so important in Christian atheist debates today
because the Christians what they're saying is that the design
in
it in in the complex design and living things cannot be explained
by science. Therefore God did it. And the atheists are saying it can
be explained by science, therefore we don't need God. Mustafa Sabri.
He said, The last year for the start of the Ottoman Empire, he
said in his in his work, he said that, if the theory of evolution
were to be true, then it would not disprove the existence of God, it
would strengthen the argument for the existence of God. And because
the main argument that he put front and center was the argument
from contingency, a lot of my work is inspired by the work of Natural
History. And so the so it's this this debate that's between the
Christian and the atheist. It can't happen in that way between
the Muslim and the atheist, it's going to it's going to take a
different form. So and we need to give it a different form. And
that's, that's what, that's what the economic report is about.
Also, I do this in my lifetime is True course for for non scholars
for the average person because everybody needs to know this,
because evolution is everywhere. Speak to us more about the
contingency argument. And I'm going to ask two questions. Number
one, is it put in a traditional syllogism is how can you summarize
it in a nutshell, or And second question is, what are the Furukawa
or the subset issues that it applies to?
And I share my screen share your screen Sure. Yeah.
Me? Yeah, he'll show you Yeah, I can I have I have to have
permission to do that consecutive. Let me show you something.
Yeah, when it shows the screen, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So
can you see
here
so this is my this is an upcoming book I hope to finance took took
this course and with his help, and with the help of many other
students on refining it, and then inshallah I'll release it soon.
But But what is what I do here is I take the key arguments, and I,
which are I show here, and the first one is the Quranic
contingency argument. There's a number of others who design
argument oneness argument, and I express them in a syllogism. So if
we
go to
here's a chronic condensing argument. And here's a syllogism.
So, a syllogism, it works like this, it says, ASB the universe is
contingent.
All B is C, every contingent thing depends on a necessary being to
make it the way that it is.
Therefore, ASC therefore, the universe depends on unnecessary
being to make it the way that it is. So then you take each
syllogism, each statement in the solution and we could you call a
premise and see on the right hand side, you can label it as being
inferential or non inferential. Inferential means that it's
something that needs another argument. Non inferential means
it's known without argument, but only. So this year, then you can
unpack it. And I have another I have another syllogism that
unpacks it. And the conclusion of this other syllogism is this is
the syllogism, it's and this is this is what so what you asked
like this is what the syllogism would would look like. So. So the
way the way that this works is we use it uses terms and uses
technical terms. So I can I can what I prefer to do is let me let
me not. I'll come back to this in a second. I let's not use
technical terms for a moment. Let's try and understand this
first, at an intuitive level, because first we grasp at an
intuitive level, and then we learn the technical terms and structure
so that we can defend it. At an intuitive level. The idea behind
the contingency argument is that everything in the universe is
dependent contingency means dependency. So what does it mean?
It's dependent, it means that it needs something else to make it
how it is. And we see this
intuitively. So I look at the sun I say why is it shining? The fact
that I say sun, why are you shining? means that I can see that
it needs something to make it shine. I look at the wind and it's
blowing. I say wind Why are you blowing? The fact that I asked
this question means that I see it needs something to make it glow.
So the entire scientific enterprise, it assumes that
everything in the universe needs an explanation. And
yeah, sorry to interrupt. But I just wanted to clarify, before
cutting you off there.
We don't need to really prove that. Number one. It's self
explanatory, self observable, but also, the world's view that we're
talking to scientists, the scientific world, or that we're
talking to scientism also admits that. Yes. Okay. Good. Exactly.
And that's actually so So somebody says that what if somebody denies
this? And then see, the most effective way to kind of combat it
is to say that, well, you can't really do science without it. And
since everybody believes in science,
we both sides agree to the concept universe is in need of things,
everything in the in the world that we see is in need of
something else. Exactly. Okay. That's the first step. Now, the
second step is we want to, we wants to show that the thing that
it's in need of cannot be in need of anything else. And that's what
we call a necessary being.
So and this is where we differ with the materialist with a
scientific materialist. We differ with them, because they say that
there's that other dependent things in the universe can make
things in the universe the way that they are. So they say that
it's medicine,
me makes the cure, fire causes the burning. That's what they say. We
say, No, we dispute that. We say that, no, we agree that there was
dependent but the dependency of things can only be explained by
something that's independent. So there now this argument is made in
many different forms. And I chose the one that was actually actually
I take it from Mr. Sabri in his biography he uses, he uses this
demonstration, he thinks it's this clearest one. He says that,
imagine a long line of leaning people. He says that if you have
one person, and that person is leaning on someone else, now what
you have a situation where this person who's leaning is dependent,
and he's being held up by someone else. Now let's lean this other
person back to lean this other person back to somebody else
holding them up. And now what's the important thing to observe
here is that this person is that the thing in the middle now isn't
doing anything. Because if the person at the end goes, they all
fall down.
And this illustrates a principle. And the principle is that if a
depends on B, and B depends on c, then you b isn't doing anything.
Yeah, a really just depends on c. Correct. So that means that if you
explain something in the universe with something else in the
universe that's also dependent, then that thing in the universe
doesn't really explain it, it's the thing that it depends on that
that is explaining it. And if everything in the universe is
dependent, then nothing in the US then you don't have anything to
explain what's happening. And so what you need is you will need
something that doesn't need anything. And it's that thing
that's making everything the way that it is. Yep. Okay, so
in this example of dependency, if they're all connected in a circle,
okay, so we didn't get we I, we submit to the line of leaning
people, the line of leaning people has to have a wall or a person,
leaning them supporting them. What if, though they're in a circle?
Yeah, so circularity. Yeah. So, circularity is in the physical
example of circularity.
In that physical example of circularity, the people who are
leaning are not really completely dependent on the thing behind
them, because they're actually supporting the person ahead of
them. So if you actually work out the laws of physics and the way
that they work, there's a each person in the line is doing
something to the person in front of him, and then being held by the
person behind him. So it's not a situation where things are kind of
are really completely dependent on something else. So the so that's,
that's so this analogy of the long line of meaning people. It is an
analogy. It's not something we're not saying actually, that the
things that contingent things in the universe are all depending on
each are lined up and God is at the end, what we're really saying
is that God is holding everything else up immediately. This is a
proof by contradiction. It's saying that
If contingent things were the only thing, then there would be nothing
to hold them up. So the situation that best describes the situation
that scientists materials are dealing with is the long line of
leading people. But you can use other analogies too. So one of one
of my one of my students, he said, he said that, you know, the way
that what helps him is to instead of having a line of people to have
somebody standing on the shoulders of somebody else, and that person
standing on the shoulders of somebody else, and then you keep
on doing that, he said, there's no ground, what happens, they're all
falling. Now you can't get in a circle.
It doesn't help you. So, and you have other analogies too. But
there's this general idea, there's, it's an intuition that if
a depends on B, B, depends on c, b isn't doing anything a depends on
c, if you get that, then you can get the conclusion. What have some
atheists said in response to this?
So atheists have yet to respond to this. But there are some
responses, I'll come to them. But this form of the argument is not
made in the mainstream. There is a contingency argument that Thomas
Aquinas made like that's made, but they're they're not. They're not
the same because nobody comes to the radical conclusion that the
Muslims do, which is that the universe completely depends on
God, completely and utterly. But the objections that they normally
make are, they can, they can only make one of two objections.
Because if you put everything into a syllogism, if you put everything
into a syllogism, and that's that's this is why syllogisms are
important. If you put into a syllogism, what is the syllogism
it says that if you accept the first premise, you see one, and
you accept the second premise, QC two, you have to accept the
conclusion.
If you if you agree, ASB, if you agree BSC, you have to agree that
a is that ASC. And if you don't agree that ASC, you're only
allowed to do that if you disagree with one of the two premises. So
what we want you to do in this way is you can find the debate and
that debate now happens on your terms, you're not. So now I've
confined a bit. So now, in order for an atheist to disagree, he has
to disagree with the first premise. Or he has to disagree
with the second premise. So the first premise, the universe is
contingent, the only thing he can say the universe is not
contingent. And we already talked about how to kind of respond to
that to say that, well, science presumes contingency that there's
other ways to but the second thing here, there is the most common
objection is the most common objection to the second thing is
something called the fallacy of composition. Okay, so the fallacy
of composition. What I've done here is I've actually cataloged
all of the possible objections and their answers. So you can object
here or you can object to the fallacy of composition. So the
fallacy of composition, it says that, that, okay, this thing in
the universe is contingent, and this thing in the universe is
contingent, the individual things in the universe are contingent,
but the universe as a whole, is not contingent. Because for you to
go from the contingency of the part, to the contingency of the
whole committed logical fallacy, you cannot assume that just
because the parts are contingent, that the hole is contingent,
and and they give an example. And they'll say that the bricks in a
wall are all small. Does that mean that the entire wall is small? No,
it doesn't, to say that because the bricks are small, the wall
that is composed of those bricks, commits the fallacy of
composition. So this is a this is a an objection that they will that
they will raise. And so the answer to that objection is to say is you
can answer it in a number of different ways.
The first way is to say that, actually, you don't need to say
the entire universe is contingent, just as long as one thing is
contingent. It means unnecessary being so you just kind of sidestep
the whole thing. Another way, is to say this is the most
comprehensive way. It's to say that this gets a little bit
technical, but, you know, it's a hopefully, like, it's okay. But
it's to say that the fallacy of composition is an informal
fallacy. An informal fallacy means it's a fallacy that's not related
to the abstract form of the argument A is B, B and C, A and C.
That's the form. An informal fallacy has to do with the subject
matter. So there are cases where
inferring extrapolating the property of the part to the whole
is fallacious, such as when you extrapolate the smallest of the
brick to the smallest of the wall. That's fallacious. But there's
other cases where it's not fallacious. The bricks in the wall
are red, therefore the whole wall is red.
Correct, the bricks in the wall are heavy, therefore, the whole
wall is heavy correct? The bricks in the wall are hard, therefore
the whole wall is hard. Correct? So the question is that if we say
the things in the universe are contingent, therefore the whole
universe is contingent, is it like saying the bricks in the wall are
small? Therefore, the whole wall is small fallacy? Or is it like
saying the bricks in the wall are hard? Therefore, the whole wall
was hard, correct? Like the latter. And I will clearly correct
and one would also be able to say that every hole is contingent,
because by saying hole, you were inferring the existence of parts,
therefore, it is dependent upon parts. You can say that so a hole
can never be separated from its parts and can never have a
different essence than its parts. Yes, then, by nature, a whole must
be dependent. Right? The entire object must be dependent, because
just by definition, it is consistent of smaller objects,
therefore dependent upon them. Yep. What what? Let's let me ask a
question. Now on
the laws of nature, how do you prove that something like gravity,
which is a law, it's a, it's a description of behavior, right?
It's not even a thing itself. But we find that people have a
philosopher physicists always go back to the laws of nature. How do
you prove that the laws of nature are what what would you say when
somebody says, Tell me prove to me that the laws of nature are
contingent.
So a law of nature, first, you have to define what a law of
nature is. So our science, our scholars, they said, I'll talk
more alleging in federal an anticipatory before you can say
something about something you have to understand what it is. So what
is the law of nature. So a law of nature is a mathematical,
this description,
of
regular of regularities in the universe,
of the way that things regularly happen in the universe. So if you
take the law of gravity, for example, the law of gravity is a
mathematical equation. And that's really where the confusion is
coming from. Because people say that math is necessary and that
relations are necessary, therefore, but the math, the
mathematical equation,
itself, it has necessarily relations, but its application to
the world is not necessary. It does not have to describe the
world. But what we do is we observe regular relationships
between things. And we see that the pattern of these things that
happen in the universe, it can be consistently described by a
mathematical equation. And we call that a law of nature. Go ahead. So
therefore, it would be fair to say that the laws are not the source
of anything, the law, a law of nature is merely a description.
Yeah, of the behavior of two objects. Yeah. Hence, it's what we
call out of, not a vet. And it's not it's, it's not it's Can you
explain to everyone what is the difference between the odd and
let's say, just more an essence of things. So what the law of nature
is a description? Really, you said it really well, he said, law of
nature describes the behavior of things, and those things are
contingent.
So problems off. So those contingent things depend on the
necessary being we've just proven that and the law of nature, just
describing a pattern. Yeah. Which relationships pattern of demonic
action? Yeah, essentially, we're, we're saying that this chess piece
that the philosopher or the, or the, the sign of the physicist
just moved, is an invalid chess piece. It's we're not invalid, but
it's not even a standalone piece. Right? It's not even a piece to
begin with. Alright, it is merely a description of a piece. Alright.
So
it's just it's merely just the real discussion can solely lie
upon things that we know that exist unto themselves. Yeah, laws
of nature don't exist. Yeah. So the laws of nature is merely a
description of things that moved now. Can we go into
your the other objections to this argument? Yeah, because I'm
benefiting a lot, just by the objection and the reaction, the
ping ponging back and forth. So I think the there's only two this
argument there's the objection to the first premise is objection to
the second part.
I'm interested the fallacy of composition. And then there's an
objection to the conclusion. And this you'll find, if you Google
the argument from contingency, you will find it everywhere. And this
this, this objection will say that fine, unnecessary being exists.
But that doesn't mean it's God. So, so and this one, and so this,
this objection has a history. The history of the objection is that
the argument from contingency that's known to Western
philosophers is the one that was formulated by Thomas Aquinas, he
has his famous five ways, and one of them is a contingency argument.
That's not the same as ours. But he makes it and at the end, after
proving the existence of a necessary being, he has his famous
words, Famous last words, he says, and that is what everybody calls
God. Yep. So So what they do is they latch on to that form of the
contingency argument, they say, wait a minute, wait a minute, you
know, necessarily being you saying it's God, and that God is Jesus
and that Jesus died and all of your other things and like,
doesn't make sense, you're not allowed to make that jump. Right?
So that's where it's coming from. So so they'll say that the
necessary being, but you can't say it's God. And here's where here's
where, here's where it's important for us to detach ourselves from
the from the Christian worldview, from from we just separate
yourself from that whole thing. If you separate yourself from that
whole thing, then the answer to this question is,
you're right. Yeah. Yeah. Because the only thing you've proven is
the existence of a necessary being. There are additional
arguments that you need to show that that necessary being has
attributes of life knowledge will power that necessary being is one,
and that that necessarily being its name is Allah, You do that by
proving Muhammad Rasool Allah, we haven't got there yet. Just you
know, you wait, you, I'll take you there. Yeah, you're right. You
arrived at basically you traded one problem, for a lesser problem,
right, you the problem of Kofa, you're basically traded that too,
okay, we submit to that there is a necessary being, essentially, we
have another problem. Now, the solution to which is Naboo
prophethood. Yeah. And now it's much easier to talk to somebody
about prophet hood and the Quran than it is anything else. And one
of the simple reasons for that is that there's not a lot of
candidates in the fields, right? There are not many people who
claimed to have spoken to that necessary being, or make any
absolute claims about the necessary being. And so we now
enter the realm of proving the Quran. And Wu and hence, reason
has arrived us at the need for transmitted knowledge.
Right, otherwise, we remain at this dead end, right? Without
transmitted knowledge, we would all remain at a point where we
recognize only a few attributes of God, or what we philosophical God,
or God, the attributes of God determined by reason that he
exists, and maybe we can even prove that has knowledge that
lives that is alive, etc. But we can't prove anything else merely
by reason. And that's where we go into now.
This deep dive into the Quran and the Hadith as a proof, and also
into anecdotal evidence, and many other things that would show that
the messenger Muhammad salallahu Salam is true and correct.
So
that basically sounds like that's the summary of of your course.
Correct, that you've summarized? The the almost the Rudy knowledge
of the contingency argument, would you say that's accurate? Or is
there something else that we didn't look at? There's four. So
in the level, one Wi Fi is true, there's four arguments. There's
four rational arguments, there's the argument from contingency,
which proves the existence of unnecessary being it's a formal
argument. There's a second argument, which is the argument
from design, and it differs from the Christian argument from design
because our argument from design which was made by the motorcar
limo because when you do tickling will make it they made it against
the philosopher because the philosopher negated the fact that
God had knowledge will power life. And so the the the the negated the
fact that Allah is a fine without. So the second set of arguments
taken from our collaboration which goes back to the Quran, all of
these arguments are in the Quran. It proves as a formal argument
that shows that this necessary being is an agent has will
knowledge power and life. Then there's a third argument which is
that which shows that that being is one and so you have one and so
which is we have a delete called dilute the manner and
So what this leaves us with is that now you view the universe, US
view everything that's happening as the freely chosen action of one
being on whom everything depends. And now you can now there's the
argument for the genuine messenger of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alayhi salam. And there's many ways to do it, as you said, But
traditionally, the way that multicolumn, when used as also
inspired by the Quran, is the little mortiser, which is
miracles. And so you have to prove that miracles happen, use
historical methods to prove that, who that Prophet existed. And then
when the Quran is a living miracle, and, and a miracle is,
what it does is that it is the that one being interrupting the
regular associations, and in sign language telling you that he's
confirming the prophetic claim. So the analogy that the multicolumn
would give is they say that imagine that somebody is in a
room, and the king is there, and somebody stands up and says, I'm a
messenger from this king to tell you that your taxes are doubled.
And then the people say, Well, what's your proof, the king didn't
say that. And, and I say, if I'm the Messenger, then don't kill the
messenger. So if I, if I, if I'm the Messenger, then people will
say that, I'll say that we'll look at the king, he's going to do
something that he doesn't normally do, he's going to stand up and sit
down three times. And so people turn to look at the king. And lo
and behold, at that moment, he stands up and sits down three
times, since he did something that he doesn't normally do. When I
claimed to speak on his behalf. That thing is understood as
confirmation of my claim. So in the same way, when a messenger
claims to be a messenger from this being who I now I know, everything
depends on him. And then when he claims that, that being said, does
something they don't normally do, which we call a miracle at that
point, in this context, that miracle is understood as
confirmation from that necessary being that that this is a genuine
messenger. And this argument can also be formalized. So if you take
these four arguments, contingency argument from contingency, the
Quranic design argument, the argument Quranic argument for
Divine oneness, and the argument for the genuine messenger, would
you come to the end conclusion through a series of syllogisms
that, that, that ilaha illallah, Muhammad Rasulullah. And now Now,
Islam has been shown to be like a fact for you. So this is like a
basic thing. Okay. Finally, my final question, who are some of
the major, popularly well known philosophers who are out there
that you believe should be responded to?
publicly? Because they have a following? That's leading people,
you know, down this path of disbelief?
So I think that,
so I have a, I think that there are, we have to proceed proceed in
steps. And so the first step is that what we do is we look at the
average Muslim, and we help them see that Islam is true. That's the
first step. Then the second step we do is you look at the problem
of naturalism and materialism, and naturalism, materialism, this
pervades everything. And this is the most important thing because
it's not one philosopher, but it's in our science curricula
everywhere, and everybody's studying it. And then on top of
that, after you do that, then you can look at the more more complex
arguments of the philosophers. You can look at the classical
philosophers, no content important. All of modern
philosophy comes from Him. Humans important, Descartes is important.
But then, I think more modern philosophers. It's important to
look at the works of Christian philosophers. Alvin Plantinga, is
an important philosopher who's done a lot of a lot of good work,
but it's, there's there's many issues and I think that that
dealing with his philosophy is something that will reinvigorate
our grand tradition, and there are others as well. But this needs to
happen at level three. So I'm currently on level two.
Level three will come after and then after that, that's when the
old works of canon mashallah is interested in applying William
Lane Craig is somebody that many Muslims go to? Yeah, thank you for
mentioning Yeah. Yeah. for that.
For these for these responses, what are his I think you've
already mentioned it, but what are the
Main flaws of his philosophy like Where Where does he fail against
atheists? Okay, this is really good. So I actually have a section
in column 3.0. Just on that I have a section I call it a real Kalam
Cosmological Argument, which is, so let me just tell William Lane
Craig, who is he? What did he do? So what happened is that in modern
science, there is the discovery of the Big Bang. And the discovery
with the Big Bang is really significant, because because
people for the first time, they have scientific evidence that the
universe began to exist. And so if the universe began to exist, then
that that has natural implications for the existence of God. And so
what do you mean, Craig, as scientists are talking about this,
he said that, wait a minute, there's actually a group of people
called canonical imune were Muslim Kalam scholars. And they, they
developed philosophical arguments for the for the fact that the
universe began to exist. And this is only done by the Muslims, that
Thomas Aquinas, the most important Christian theologian, and
philosopher, he didn't believe that you could make a rational
argument to show that the universe began to exist. Moses may not
Maimonides, the Jewish theologian also didn't believe so the people
who carried this, this argument through history were the
motorically moon, and that's why we remain crag says that he
christened the argument, the Kalam Cosmological Argument. So he named
it the Kalam Cosmological Argument for the existence of God. So he
gave it this name, and it entered Western philosophy. And since that
time, it's been the most widely debated and studied and published
argument for the existence of God in Western philosophy. And he's
come to become an authority on it. He defends it against all of his
all of the objections, his best defense, the best place to look
for people are interested is in the Blackwell companion to natural
theology. It has like 100 150 pages on the Kalam Cosmological
Argument by William Lane, Craig and somebody else, and he details
the argument and responds to all of the Shewhart. So William Lane
Craig, he is a Christian, and which means that he is committed
to the idea that God is contingent, and he came into the
universe. So when he makes the Kalam Cosmological Argument, he
makes it in a way that supports his belief, the way that the
Muslims made it, this conclusion is unthinkable. But William Lane
Craig, he makes this argument. And he says he has a famous
formulation of it. He says that the universe began to exist,
everything that begins to exist has a cause, therefore, the
universe has a cause for its existence. And he says that causes
supernatural, but he doesn't say that that causes unnecessary
being. He doesn't he doesn't go there. And then with the Kalamoon,
what they do is when they make this argument, they return it at
the end to the contingency argument. But because William Lane
Craig doesn't do that, it allows him to say as he does in this in
his 150 page, paper, he makes an argument he says that this God
after creating the universe enters into time, he enters into time, he
becomes part of the universe. And and that's part of his argument.
And it's because he doesn't take this step. So I think this is
something really important that Muslims should be aware of. And
his he frames the argument in a way that fits with his with his
worldview, this is the most important flaw. Then there's other
more minor ones. They're a little bit more technical, he actually
ends up having to negate his logical methodology. Yeah, right.
And that's a problem with Christianity. And it's also the
problem with with touch seem in the slump. Anyone who is a
majestic them, who insists that upon the concepts that God entered
into his creation and his with his essence in the heavens, what
there's no difference between God being with his essence in the
heavens, and in the as with his essence in a min.
So, touch seem, just as we said that the philosophers Aristotle,
Plato, Neo Platonism, was an excess in reason. It took us the
intellect where it doesn't work or doesn't belong.
Contemporary scientism is in excess in indulgence in observable
data, observable knowledge like this is limiting all of knowledge
to what can be observed. Philosophers limiting all of
knowledge of what can be reasoned. Well, likewise we also have
there's a third the third error in understanding the world and
understanding God is it transmission isms that the only
source that have anything that we can have is transmission, and
there's no room for
accolades for intellect in it. And so would it be fair to say that,
that we have three sources of knowledge transmission, reason and
observation that the first Kadem 1.0, the MATA Zilla, and though
the Watts as it were initially reacting to the rejection of
literal lists, or sorry, they were reacting to literal lists. Yeah,
they just reacted to littoralis in the wrong way. Yeah, right. So
it's like first to the market. You don't want it's not always good to
be first in the market, right? In any field because you're going to
make mistakes and you're going to be stuck on those mistakes. The
second guy is going to come around, see your mistakes and pass
you right back because he's not making those mistakes. So, so and
this also answers the question of why early scholars rejected Kalam,
they were rejecting the erroneous Kalam, the kalam of the Morteza
lights, that's what they were rejecting. So Morteza knights came
to fight the literal lists. The Usha came Ghazali came to fight,
not just the correct the literalist, but also the
rationalists the philosophers today, our main foe is the those
who went indulged in observable knowledge. scientism the
naturalists. Right, which did exist, because at this time, but
not they were not the main players. So is you think that's a
fair breakdown? Cuz I'm 1.0 2.0. And now 3.0. They're facing three
different indulgences, essentially.
That's a good approximation. Yeah. Yeah. And there's one final.
The one final question that I wanted to ask or
observation that I had, actually, I think you actually answered it
already. So
let's talk about your course, the website.
Yeah. So I have a course called Why farm is true.
And this course was developed a couple of years ago. And it I
taught it to students. And then students started teaching it to
other students, or trainings. It was textbook, it's an Islamic high
schools as a teacher training system for it. The next teacher
training course actually begins at the end of this month. It's a
female only cohort, taught by one of my one of my students. And so
if somebody's interested, they can apply. And you can also go to
Weinstein is true.com, to learn more about this course. So this
course it is for the average, I want a human being Muslim or non
Muslim. it quits polemics that are not it's avoids polemics, and I
don't think polemics are, are useful. So for the average Muslim,
there's like real problems on the ground. And those are the problems
that we should be focusing on. So it just focuses on La ilaha
illallah, Muhammad Rasul Allah, these four arguments, and it
applies them to modern atheism, it applies them to the problem of
evil applies them to the theory of evolution, it applies them to
Christian arguments for design, it corrects those arguments. It gives
you a evidence based belief, and it gives you a language to
communicate effectively with people in the world today. So, so
the Canon 3.0 project, it's still ongoing, it's like level two, it's
like the theoretical underpinnings of this explanation of that. But
the place to go is the Weinstein is true Weinstein is true.com. If
you want to get a taste of it, you can go to Khurana case for
god.com. And there's a free video series that explains one of the
arguments and also applies them to atheist objections. We also we
have a financial aid program, this is important knowledge, critical
knowledge, nobody is turned away for lack of funds. So if somebody
can't afford the course, don't make that a barrier. Just
communicate with us, and we'll work with you and show. Wonderful.
We took up your time, just a colloquium, but this was so
important. I remembered my final question.
Do you want to respond to anything specifically regarding
the podcasts that we had with Chaka Suraj? And Chef? Yeah, so
cloudy, but I think we talked about everything. We talked about
everything and how we explain. I just wanted to explain what it is.
And this is, I think everybody has a good understanding about it.
Yeah. And if anybody has any questions, you can contact me
directly. I'm happy to talk to them. Yeah. And just to summarize
for people the the concept that Kalam 3.0 has its basis with
previous scholars like schicken Bucha, Sheikh Mustafa, somebody or
any development always has a gradation right? And it eventually
solidifies today. It would be your be wasting youth time a young
person irregular Muslims time discussing the
refutation of Morteza lights or the refutation of Aristotle, you'd
be wasting his time. I think there there is still a need to review
literalism. In this within the Islamic Ummah, that still does
exist maybe its major thinkers don't necessarily exist but
popularly it's out there it's necessary. And it's definitely a
fun and I think everyone
from from the people who sort of kinda sorta flirt with literalism
to the SATs, there is a no doubt, they come to the same conclusion
that scientism needs to be refuted. It needs to be unpacked,
it's false premises need to be highlighted with a flashlight, so
everyone could see. You know, it's it's,
it's error. And then Islam needs to have its own responses, which
cannot be responding on a group of people, we sort of laugh at their
theology, the inconsistency of the Trinity with how can they be the
leaders in responding to atheists who makes no sense, they only
started earlier than us, but I think as soon as we get to it,
they will be copying Muslim responses to scientism, but in the
process, they will have to negate their own Trinity.
And hopefully, they come to realize that too, because you
can't use a tool or use a stool, okay to get somewhere. And then as
soon as you arrive, you kick that stool out and you say, no, no, we
have no need for this tool. Right? So that's exactly what literalism
or the Christians have to do and likewise them would just simmer
within our OMA if there are any,
you know, left in our OMA, I know most of them flirt with it, but
don't necessarily, you know, explicitly hold on with to
anthropomorphism, but they have would have to do the same thing.
Right, you use certain rational tools, and certain reason and
certain amounts of reason and logic to disprove your enemy and
prove Islam then within Islam, you throw those tools away now it
doesn't make any sense and it's not accepted. So does that allow
Quran and lets everybody try to go and take this course benefit from
this class. I thank you very much Sheikh Hamza for coming on. And I
hope to have you on again in the future, any new developments, new
books, new
videos, new courses that you have that shed more light on this
subject?
You just contact us and we will bring you right on inshallah Tada
we are a Kalam based livestream made for the common Muslim and to
have you on was was perfect. So does that go off here and again
for your time? Thank you for having me. Particle epic. All
right. Cool. All right, everyone. That's okay. You can put my camera
on it's frozen but that's okay. We are wrapped up and hamdulillah
thank you all for listening. I hope you all benefited. And I
would like in sha Allah to Allah for everybody to not forget
our ombre we are we are taking youth to ombre I know everyone's
been busy with
with
Gaza and of course that's deserve it. But we are also taking youth
to ombre. And we we need to do those that fundraising. Let's take
a quick look at where we are in this in the fundraising.
Let's go to the launch good page automata for youth.
And we are we're at 17 out of 25. I mean, if we can just get to 17
Five, we're at 17,000 out of 25,000 where the prices are out of
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To see the deen by its in its truest deepest form. So we're at
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All MRA for youth All right, you can look that up. We need your
support. All right, can you put that we're not going to do the the
GRT right now because we're going to focus just on that could you
put it in the chat on camera for youth launchcode.com/ometer For
you just put that link in the chat there.
Yeah, that's okay.
That's right.
There's no visual here anyway, so.
Alright, so does that come Lokeren
hermit Isley says shame about no q&a. We can do q&a later
inshallah. Tada.
But we will. We'll do q&a Some q&a tomorrow about this. But
essentially I think we covered a lot a lot of this subject. Does
that cool off good and everyone Subhanak Allahu mobilehome Deke,
the shadow and Illa. illa Anta, the stock photo corner to a class
in Santa Fe, who's in Alladhina amanu ah, Amendola middle side hot
water while sobered up whatsoever sober sober, was set up on a coma
rahmatullahi wa barakato.
Joe
got eBay see