Shadee Elmasry – NBF 180 Orientalism and the Historical Critical Method w Yakoob Ahmed
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the history and importance of history in shaping behavior and culture, emphasizing the need for evidence-based decisions and the "people" of history as themes for discussion. They also touch on the "ops and confusion" of Islam'sn't the right way" and "arogous culture" themes, as well as the "ops and confusion" of "ops and confusion" of "people" of history and "arogous culture" themes. The speakers also mention the "ops and confusion" of "ops and confusion" of "people" of history and "arogous culture" themes and encourage caution when watching TV or movies. Finally, they discuss the "ops and confusion" of "ops and confusion" of "people" of history and "arogous culture" themes and encourage caution when watching TV or movies.
AI: Summary ©
It was salam ala Rasulillah. While he was on be human Well, welcome
everybody to the Safina society nothing but facts live stream
where we are filming today under unique circumstances from the New
Brunswick Islamic centre back room with our guests. Dr. Yaku Ahmed
duck Yaqoob Ahmed is a history professor at Istanbul University.
He's a fellow graduate from the School of Oriental and African
Studies. And today, he's going to be talking to us about the
historical critical method, which is a methodology in assessing
facts from fiction, right? Regarding the sources. Now, let me
give you a summary. I like Jonathan brown summary in his book
here, Hadith, where he talks about one of the biggest differences
between the Muslims approach towards history, and the Europeans
approach towards history is that the Muslims approach towards
history, it starts from the past, and it was critical from the get
go, and it passed on.
And because it was so critical from the get go, a lot of trusts
was established over time. In contrast, this was not the case
for the early Catholic history or Christian history. As a result of
that, around the time of the Renaissance, people started
realizing, Wait a second, we were duped.
The donation of Constantine was a fraud. Trinity verse itself was a
fraud. So much of the origin of the core of our origins was a
fraud. So the critical aspect of the history started, way later,
like we're talking 1500 years after the origins of Christianity,
right.
The result of that is that the default starting point of anyone
with a brain, anyone with a critical method, or critical
approach is distrust.
In the origins of religious history, that is a massive
difference. And that's what informs the mindset, and the
mentality of the critical historian towards resource or
origins of religious histories, or any past histories is distrust,
you're being duped. And that never goes away. So when they take it to
Islam, they apply it everywhere they apply the same thing is very
actually uncritical, because you're taking my life story and
applying it to your life, your life, your life. Yeah, that means
if my dad abused me, while I look at you, and you, oh, he must be
abused, you must be abused, you must be abused.
That's such an important starting point. And from there, I'm going
to give the mic over to Dr. Yaqoob. To expand on what I've
been saying here. Does it sound like?
Okay, so this is an interesting point that you begin with, because
I want to just explain some of the challenges I had as a Muslim in
Western academia, which was the fact that, as you mentioned, Dr.
Shadi, one of the interesting things is there is an assumption
by placing Islam with all the other religions, that it's a one
size fits all rule, that every every experience is the same
experience, that Islam is just like Christianity, and all of
these religions are the same. And actually, this secular, secular
religious tradition I use that deliberately,
is somehow a referee, that can sort of like judge every other
religious tradition in a way that a judge Christianity. And this is
an interesting point, because when we were when I was teaching once,
in, in Turkey, when we spoke about the Abrahamic faiths, and within
the framework of academia, even that had a sort of like,
internalized idea in which Christianity was at the top, and
Islam was at the bottom, a sort of hierarchy. And so what happened
with even within that framework, was like Islam was being judged
and compared to a another religious tradition. And so it was
being scrutinized in the same way, not recognizing that Islam has his
own tradition. It has his own tradition of scholarship,
scrutiny, and the way that I was looking at the sources, right. And
what was intriguing is when I noticed many of my Muslim
colleagues and friends, who are doing PhDs, by the way, that those
of them who didn't have a interaction with the religious
tradition themselves, those of them who were not aware of the
robustness of their own tradition, those of them who were not aware
of an alternative tradition of critical thinking, often started
to have a crisis in faith. Because they were all they didn't
understand their own faith, actually. And this was intriguing
because a lot of people criticize
people who did religious scholarship, and I noticed that
people had a religious training when they came into the field of
Islamic studies. They were cleaning up house. Right. So I
mean, they would get shocked. They said, it's just the state of
academia. Is this how they speaking about us? Yeah.
It is really, because what you notice is actually the academic
tradition in of itself, that we're looking at in terms of Western
academia is only about 100 200 years old. How old is Islamic
tradition? 1400 years. So in that sense, there's a depth to the
tradition that we have, and from the inception, and as Jonathan
mentioned, in terms of Hadith literature, in particular, the
type of scrutiny the Allameh do in regards to handwriting, in terms
of in terms of biographies, in terms of the isnaad. In terms of
context, it's all there from the beginning. And that sort of
holistic understanding of evidences was, there was a culture
around it, and it was a plurality. So when we say Allama, for
example, are the most interesting because it's a plural term. And we
use it as a plural. And what is important about why I'm explaining
it's a plural, because no single one person could corrupt or
compromise, an idea about Islam without not being second guessed,
or second judge or critique by somebody else, you know what I
mean? You couldn't get away with it. So there was a form of
pluralism within the Muslim world. And when this tradition from its
inception is emerging, so I explained this that one of the
intriguing things about Islam is both the oral tradition and the
written tradition, simultaneously, were being developed at this at
the same time, right? If, and that's the robustness. And so that
whole, sort of like culture in the way that we self identify, there's
no weakness here. There's a strength here, it comes from that
position. And because there's an absence in understanding the
tradition, on many occasions, and over emphasizing the sort of
arrogance, and yet insecurity of Western academia, you start to see
when Muslims go into academia having this problem, let me let me
bring this up, though, for the audience that is maybe not aware
of some of the basics here.
Transmitted knowledge, the assessment of transmitted
knowledge is a rational enterprise, meaning journalism,
history, Hadith, essentially, it's the same thing. I want to know if
the person telling me this information, the only source of
information is you telling me now I have to make sure that this is
verified. Okay. So each every historical methodology may have a
presupposition. So the presupposition of Islam, there's
only one really one presupposition, which is that the
Sahaba are not like
that first original generation is established by the Quran that they
don't there, you can accept them. From there, everybody else can be
interrogated. Alright, the presupposition of the Renaissance,
critical thinkers is that
people of the past are lying to you,
but be questioned.
Because there's so many. Yeah, the basis of the companions not
telling lies is that they confirmed each other through TOA.
And they may have not known each other, they may have not
even seen each other some companions. So there is a rational
component to the companions to now, here's a question, what are
the essential presuppositions
of the Western tradition?
Okay, that's a big question, aside from what I said is that they look
at the past with suspicion, or there was all historical critical
methods should be the same. They shouldn't be the same. I think
what I've noticed, and this is why I wanted to raise the idea of
secularism is that within it, there's an ingrained assumption
about the religious tradition in the way to look at a religious
tradition. And so it's already orientated, the writer or the
thinker of rejecting certain things, and accepting certain
things. And so you get narrowed down as a thinker in terms of the
possibilities of how you can think so this sounds strange, but
there's an assumption that it's just one form of rationality,
which is the Western form of rationality, there isn't actually
I mean, rationality universally is the same. So I remember must offer
somebody a friend who was an alien with the Ottoman Empire, saying,
The Beauty of rationality is the rationality of Adam Alayhis Salam
is no different than the rationality of me. And so we can
both come to the same conclusion that Allah exists, that is
universal, every single human being has that that is a
necessity. And by using that form of rationality, you can understand
that there is a Creator and you are created. But if you bypass
that, if your form of rationality just rejects that first question,
and it comes down to a point where that first question is irrelevant,
and you you have a disposition, where in your idea of rationality,
that religion is irrelevant, or religion is backwards, or
religion, all religions are the same or it reduces things
naturally, then when you start to look at traditions, you're already
looking at the tradition from a restricted, restricted river lens.
Exactly.
And one of the things that you highlighted which is important,
which is most of history is narrative. Yeah. Its narrative
when when you look at the footnotes, very rarely do people
scrutinize the footnotes in the way that we have the ISNA
tradition and we scrutinize those footnotes. Footnotes. I mean, it's
amazing when when people pick up a book, right, they automatically
assume great amount of thought. And, and when there is footnoting.
I mean, a footnote, really just one link. Well, where did that
footnote get his source from? Where did they get that source
from? So what you said earlier, I want to summarize for everybody is
that rationality is the same universally. So if I went to
Japan, 5000 years ago, if I went to Australia 4000 years ago with
Aboriginal people, if I went to Europe, 3000 years ago, Africa
2000 years ago, and I went to the Middle East, 1000 years ago,
Native Americans 500 years ago, you think a family, someone comes
in and says, there's a predator outside, be careful, right? Don't
go out today. Even though you need food and water, don't go out
because there's a wild predator running around.
You're asking me to do something pretty big to stay in my little
hut. And I need food. So immediately, we have to verify
that what you're saying is right, what if you're a competing
fisherman, right? What if you're competing
Hunter.
Every human being has the same thinking towards verifying this.
So the historical method really should be the same. And let me
tell you why. In Islam, there's a
early Islamic history there was a a stronger a finer filter
and be that there was actually more diversity in Islam then there
is an Orientalism number one
the Muslims are checking God's word and the prophets word people
can go to * if you make a mistake.
Nowhere very few other places is * on the line. This is why the
New York Times could publish stuff that for us would be like if this
was a religious fatwah who would never if this was a religious
transmission would never pass.
Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Okay, where's your
Senate? Go back to one person? Okay, who is that person? Unknown?
Right? What would they call him some? They had a name for this
person, right? The New York Times D bet the supposedly top rated
institution for transmitting news to us transmitted to us, it Hadith
that was had number one.
And MOBE number two MOPA means hidden hidden source number to one
source. And that was the justification for a war. Of
course, the war was gonna happen anyway. But that was the educated
populace is okay, at least in our time said right.
Secondly,
there is a great amount of diversity amongst the Muslims in
accepting the Hadith of the prophets of Allah who it was
sending them namely, what is so here to one is not to the another
a very simple example. Even a medic did not accept at all the
line that says birds with claws that prohibiting predatorial
animals and birds with claws, Chef as accepted as words of the
Prophet.
The medic, he say the medic said no, birds with claws was an
analogy given by the transmitter. So we have a great diversity
that have the Hadith proof of being all the books on weak Hadith
fabricate Hadith, so maybe you could talk about that. It's
oftentimes painted, the picture is painted that Muslim just accept
whatever the Prophet said, as long as you can string some names in a
chain. But we actually are more diverse. Will you go to the
Western
tradition? It's almost like there's agreement that all Hadith
with the exception of Harold masky and Jonathan Brown, right. There's
like agreement across the board had either all unreliable. What a
coincidence. The lands of the colonizers their scholars bring us
a conclusion that destroys Islam from within within like what a
coincidence. You don't find that with the with the Muslims with the
Muslims they interrogated. They discarded so many Hadees Imam
Ahmed have been humble said he memorized 1 million Hadith which
means chains a million chains of all Hadith that cannot ever be
relied upon. Before he started studying the ones he could be
reliable. So if you can expand on the diversity of of
Hadith acceptance, what wasn't true, that's a really valid point.
It's not. First let's look at the Sahaba themselves. So when a
hadith was heard by Sahaba, so forth, he was cross examined even
by themselves themselves. So you can see in the Hadith literature
of like did or so some say these are not that
You can see into Hadith literature at times, some Sahaba saying he
didn't some say not so much. So what you realize is even in that
community at the time, from the inception, the culture is already
established in that way. And that's important. Because why?
Because they are scrutinizing the evidence because they it's a live
tradition. They live in traditions right upon it, and there's heaven.
Right? Totally. And this is another valid point you made about
the idea of punishment and the consequences, which is the life
said history before that, when I'm writing as an academic, even now,
today, I'm concerned, because of the culture of Islam that I come
from, there are consequences in the way I write an idea of feeling
a sense of accountability beyond the human accountability, beyond
feeling sense of shame, or, or ego, so forth means you scrutinize
the evidence is fervor. And you give a sense of leeway. And so
when we look at the Allama, as you said, they looked at it
linguistically, they looked at it within context, they looked at
when it was revealed, they looked at who was in the chain, they
looked at the possibility of this. So they take they took everything
into consideration and even debated about it. It was
intriguing, on some matters, they came to a consensus, and some
mattresses said, there could be a difference of opinion here, and so
on and still provided a particular form of flexibility. And even now,
today, this Muslim community is equally as robust, is equally as
diverse, is equally as plural. And it looks at the evidence is in
exactly the same way. And that's what I think people don't
recognize and don't appreciate, in terms of how we do it is in terms
of academia, what I find interesting, and Muslims do this
all the time, they'll say, History says this. What do you mean,
History says, What does that mean? What does that statement mean? And
they take the idea that a book that they've taken from the shelf
in a bookshop, written by an academic is a matter of fact.
And for me, as a historian, I said, What did you scrutinize
that, but it's written by an academic. And what's intriguing is
they dismiss their own tradition, without even looking at it. And
they don't scrutinize the books that they read in on equal weight.
So in the past, as you made the point about, I think, the idea of
all his existence is important. First, the fact that the the
Sahaba and ulama, were aware that there was a particular form of
judgment that will be paused, which makes it stops you from
being disingenuous. That's a presupposition, right, we don't
negotiate. Right. So as I told you, before, I was in an academic
forum, and one of the academics choking me said it, but I believe
that that was an intention, which is one of the great things about
writing history is that people are dead, so they can't defend
themselves. And that made me nervous. And I said, Actually, one
of the concerns I have as a Muslim writing history, is because they
can't defend themselves. And they were holding me accountable in the
eyes of Allah to Allah. So you can see that in terms of this, like
critical method, that actually, the way that we use the critical
method comes from the culture of Hadith literature, actually comes
from the culture of the way that we critique Hadith literature, the
way that different scholars in different parts of the world. So
when you look at like Imam, actually, Mr. Moto, really, there
are different parts of the world. And yet they are more or less
coming to similar conclusions and certain matters, because of the
way that, you know, they they use in a methodology of coming to the
text that there could be some nuances and methodology. But by
and large, you know, you see a similarity. And that's what I find
interesting. Well, let me ask you this. Let me ask you the question,
that identity in history,
if I'm looking at facts,
what stops me? Why should there be any objection?
If I'm solely looking at facts, what's the objection of me,
documenting other people's history? Because we see that here
that you made a point earlier in your tour this week, people should
write their own histories. You people should tell their own
story, you have the right to tell your story. Nobody has the right
to go tell them. I would probably take offense if someone wrote a
biography about my family. You don't even know us, right? So, but
if that person comes, says, Wait, I'm just objectively writing,
making history based upon what would be an objection to that. And
the lead would be that that needs to be the objection to non Muslims
writing Muslim history. But first we have to assess is the object
what is the grounds of the objection?
So the first point about facts is interesting. Because in Western
academia, we play we place the idea of facts has been sacred. And
that facts to some degree cannot be manipulated. Facts can be
manipulated, because facts, in essence is just data that is then
placed within an ideology and within a story, right. So before
even understanding the idea of facts, it's
important to teach the students the idea of ideology and
narrative. So I always we talk with my students in this way and
say, Listen, so certain atheists talk about the idea of the
possibility of Roswell. So I'm going on a horse with wings. Now
we have a difference of opinion in our own tradition about this. So I
understand that. But the point I'm trying to make is, in the Western
tradition, the idea is, we've never seen any horse with wings.
There's no evidence of any horses wings, there's no evidence of a
horse can be able to do this any other? Doesn't. We didn't find any
bones. This is impossible. And yet, we say is, I always ask my
students, is Allah Tala capable of doing that? They say yes. Okay, we
have a different position on facts now. Yeah. So already, you can see
how this operates and works. I tried to explain to my students a
yes, there is a difference within the tuition. That's not the point.
The point is, is that by by them removing all in from the equation,
they remove a huge component in the way you understand things. And
that's just a basic example I'm given for Muslims in that sense.
But on many occasions, when we're writing narratives, you see that
facts are manipulated, statistics are manipulated, numbers are
manipulated in that sense. So that's the one point. But
the second point about writing your own history is this, I was
only telling the students this morning,
when he Israelis occupied Palestine, they didn't only take
away their land, take away their material wealth, take away their
lives, they took away their memories.
All right. So Palestinians have been struggling for a long time,
again, in opposition to the Israeli identity. But you had an
identity before that. You had a history before that. You had a
history that goes back. And what is it part of it's part of the
Islamic history, it's part of Islamic tradition, many Muslim
academics, they want to talk about Islamic Jerusalem to make that
point, so that people understand. And one of the most powerful
things you can do for a group of people is not allowed them to have
the right to write about their own history, and then to write the
history for them. And power does that it decides what it names and
what it doesn't mean, it decides what your identity is, and isn't.
And this is why I say for Muslims, the ultimate power is Allah, he
named our deen Islam, and he named us Muslim. So that gives us our
sense of identity. But when you see in academia in particular,
these are everyone else is right. And it's not here. For me, it's
not about Muslims only, we have Muslims in academia. But they're
still writing from a perspective, which is not helpful for Muslims
or the Palestinians. In that sense. It's a great point that you
make. And and I want to say, it's one of the genius moves by the
Israelis, to promote a new Palestinian identity based on this
flag that never existed before whatever the 50s.
And even that name, Palestinian was something that also is
relatively modern, you are just from a Shem, you are from feminine
goats a democracy or something like this. You were you had a
broader base, you had a longer history. And to put them in a box
makes it so powerful, because now I grow up, let's say from
Palestinian, I grew up and my identity is just a rebel, stone
throwing rebel. Like I don't have a rich history before this. So we
have to interrogate Just that fact that you call the Justice word,
Palestinian and that flag. Now maybe, of course, most people
don't think too deeply about it.
But what is it? What will your great great grandfather, how did
he view himself he to view himself as a Palestinian, who's against
Israel, he viewed himself as something far greater. And that's
really important. And that goes to summarize your critique is that
there is no such thing as somebody going and just looking at the
facts. Every historian you are not an AI bot, you are a human being.
I can't even do that, because it has to be filtered. Someone's got
to give the AI its its instructions, right. So there's a
human being behind that. That human being has beliefs, has
emotions, most importantly has motives. Right? He has a motive.
And we say about this is that we interrogate the historian first
before we interrogate his facts. Before we interrogate your book
and your conclusion. We're interrogating you. And we're
asking what is your motive? Can you outline for us your intent,
right? We say intimate profit, thoughtless actions or right
intentions. And this is why I always say it's not far fetched.
It's not unprofessional to ask motive. Every introduction of a
book should be What's your motive? When I look at an orientalist, ask
mashallah LOOK AT THAT good deed that was done by watch coming in
with the with the coffee unbelievable.
When I
Look at a motive, got
a historian and Orientalist. And I say, Hold on a second. You just
spent about 10 years doing graduate studies.
This is not your faith, you don't believe in it. You're getting
nothing spiritual out of it.
You're getting nothing political out of it. This is not a pre
conquest study that you're doing here.
You're not making money out of this. Right? Thank you very much.
What is the medical Loafie? Commercial? What's the latest and
salaries of a so us historian or even let's take the highest level?
The highest level is what? 150? K? 120. K, right.
You're not making money? What do you do with 150? K? 120? K, right.
What do I do with that? Right? But after taxes after wife after kids
after rent after, after mortgage? You got nothing. So I should think
I should really ask the question. What the heck are you doing? Why
are you doing this? So we interrogate the motive. What is
your motive? There's no way you're spending all that time. And all
that effort on no profit, no wealth, no power. Not even social.
Like you're not even like, famous, like YouTube star can make no
money. But he's he trended right. And people recognize him as you
don't get that.
You don't get anything. You cannot tell me? Oh, I'm just interested.
Oh, it's just, it's fascinating. Oh, it's compelling. I'm not
buying that. So your point basically is saying that the
historian himself has a motive.
And that's going to lead and that which is why we are not going to
accept, nobody will accept
a call a cabal of
outsiders, from our tradition, to write our history and tell us who
we are. So from the get go, you are X. Here's an X on you, as
historian before you bring because we don't believe in facts alone
facts are wit welded into a story. Right? Okay. Now, let's This
brings me to the other point.
Islamic history is oftentimes
perceived as the study of Muslims, right? Well, that's not weak.
That's, that's really shallow. And I'm going to put four three
possibilities, and you tell me where they stand, where you stand
on this. True, the soul of Islamic history has to ask the question of
to whom are we accountable?
What is our purpose of doing this? To truly be Muslims writing
history? Number three, what are the rights of the subject?
Muhammad Fattah, he has vocal if I'm writing about so I had a UV he
has. These are dead people. Like you said that guy. He said, how
it's good thing right history about they're all dead. Right? Not
for us. They're dead for us. But they have hook.
Their creator is watching and will resurrect everyone to judge. So
these are three principles. Now I want you to comment on those
principles will soon also Kitab it's a teddy also will retain also
the right. Again, I'm gonna repeat them. Who's the ultimate judge of
this history? Is that a panel of other peer reviews? Right, a peer
review panel?
Number two, what is the purpose of this? Why are we doing this?
Number three, the rights of the subject?
That's a great question. Actually.
Those three points are not just restricted to history writing is
to kill myself.
And when a person, especially a Muslim understands that those
three components are necessary for the one who's doing LM, then they
can write an LM which is
it's far more what I would say accountable. And it is framed
within the framework of humility, because you become a truth seeker.
And in our dean, and I said this before, we said, we're truth
seekers and with truth speakers, right? So if in your everyday
life, and LM is not just about abstract ideas that go into books,
Islam is live tradition. So the idea of Elm is that you're aware
that there is Allah, Allah exists and you're held accountable to
that. If in your everyday life, you're aware of this
accountability, when you're writing something, creating
knowledge of people who cannot defend themselves, the best thing
you can do in our tradition, is to give them a fair trial. For
example, if a brother comes to me and his older sister comes to me
and says, I want to get married to this guy, what's your opinion?
You don't just start trashing him.
If you don't like them, you try to be as fair as possible. And you
have a particular mannerism, a particular behavior, a particular
item. And you're aware, also that you're being held accountable in
the eyes of Allah to Allah. One of the mistakes that many Muslims
make is they think, just because a person doesn't exist anymore, that
we're talking about them like we're watching a movie, say,
Listen, people, relax, be careful. Be careful what you're doing. So
when I wrote my PhD, I was very nervous. I'd sit there because I
had loads of names in there. Alama Sultan Abdulhamid the second
people, and my concern was
you leaving sadaqa jariya? Behind? Is it sadaqa jariya? Is it and on
the Day of Judgment, all of these people will line up and say to
Allah, Oh, actually, he lied about me. He wasn't there. So then I got
nervous. So I told you this before in the beginning, and Allah knows
best mechanism to try to
safeguard myself in that sense. And I think, for Muslims, this is
not just shared, an idea of how they judge the past, this is how
they should behave with the fellow brethren when they live. And this
is a really valid point, you make that on every aspect they do that,
are they being held accountable to Allah to Allah? How are they
speaking? And what's the point of it? So you can go into every
single detail of one's life and and start pulling it out? But is
that how we operate? Is that how we want to be? And I've been
called, I remember I was in an academic forum. And the guy said
to me, you're just biased because you're Muslim?
And I said, No, our viewpoints are different. You're you're under the
assumption that because you're not Muslim, that you have an authority
to speak to me as being objective. Because your mechanism tells you
that that's what being objective is. I said, No, no way, no chance
of viewpoints are different. I'm talking about my community, you're
not. And but you think that your position is more valid than miton.
I reject that. I reject that. And I tell him all the time, I
remember, sorry, to keep going. We were talking about the Allama
ones. And they'll send you know, the Aloma this, this, this and
this, and in history, and I sat down new workshop, and I listened
and I stuck my hand up, if any of you like, met any Allama, they
went No. And I said, so. Do you know that many of these people who
you talk about in our tradition, they fit all?
I said, How do you judge that? How do you measure that? Without not
having a tradition to tell you that? They said, well, that's not
that important. I said, but it is though. And they say, Well, do
these people really exist on Yes, because I feel like I'm here in
this room, and I fit all, and they are better people than me out
there. And I've met them. And so you've just reduced a tradition to
information that you saw on paper. And I said, That's not the way
that our tradition worked. As I told you, before, our tradition
was written and oral. And there was a particular actor ROM in the
tradition in the way that you speak of people, even if they're
people you don't like. So they have rights. Exactly. We have
rights, they have rights. And the rights of the dead, you know, are
really important in that sense. So this was an intriguing point, the
issue of your up your worthiness of talking as a Muslim, when
you're going to talk about Islam. The one of the first points that
we're going to ask is, who is judging you. If you don't believe
in God, if you don't believe in Allah, and you don't believe that
you will be judged on the Day of Judgment, then
your words about Islam,
your fatawa are unacceptable are not accepted. If you discover
something demonstrable,
we accept it. That's the big difference. We will accept the
finds of an archaeologist, whether he's a Catholic or Muslim.
But his analysis is something totally different. Because now
that's going through a filter. And that's what we have to separate
the historian is not going somewhere and discovering an
objective fact. He's he's taking snippets and sewing them. And
essentially, it's it's an essence very similar to a fatwa in the
sense that he is telling you believe this about your past.
Whereas Affectiva is telling you worship your God like this print,
avoid this.
I think believing something about your past is really important,
too. It's a testimony, your testimony is out your your
analysis is out for us because you don't fear what we fear. We can
accept your commentary on what happened in an earthquake, your
journalism, your history of your secular history. But once you
start talking about sacred history, like the origins of
Islam, or what sacred figures did, for us, like who we consider has
rights, in the sight of Allah like ourself, we're going to
interrogate your personal motive and your personal status before we
accept anything from you. We will accept from you however, a coin
that you found in the ground,
a whole building the you know, the omegas had buildings that were
covered by sand and Jordan right
There are they ended up being like pleasure houses, right? They were
like clubs, or maids or something else. And they were just covered
by so we how can we deny that that's demonstrable fact.
Facts Only come to us through transmission, through sense
perception and demonstration, what we call science and through reason
you can be whatever faith you want, if you bring me something
demonstrable or rational, the equation on the board whether
you're Hindu or Muslim doesn't make a difference, right? It's an
equation on the board, we can all judge it a discovery that you
discovered a while I went to Damascus and I found a coin from
the Omega era, the coins right in front of us we're not going to
reject that. Now for you to come and so together a thesis that you
stop right here. Now you can talk all you want okay, but we're not
listening. And here is where
I went through this very similar things to you. I took this on the
classes at Rutgers Islamic Studies courses taught by zindex This is
indeed because name was the man something right. Professors a
minute. I don't know if you want Drucker's I don't know if you
remember professors are men, right? There was professors and
men. There was Professor nominal, Huck, I'm gonna Hawk he was like
that type of Desi uncle. He was very smart guy trained in England.
He loved Islam. He really did love Islam, except he had his own
thing.
We took us to his house one time. And he said, I know that you pray,
I need to tell you. When I pray, I get so
enraptured, that it may trigger a heart condition. So I don't have
to pray.
I was like,
I was like, I've never heard anyone bring it like that. Right?
Like to get so enraptured with Allah, that it can trigger his
heart condition. So he gave himself the rasa. No, Salah is
obligatory.
Yeah, it's a matter. Yeah. So anyway, these are the professors.
I'm thinking myself this, this needs to be changed, right? But
then very quickly realize that it's not going to be changed using
these methods. They're their power doesn't come from their thesis,
their power comes from the institution that's allowing them
to talk. It's, it's about this is about power. It's not about facts.
Right? If I, if we have GE Dell with a group of folks,
I can act we can argue on I am, and I know they will submit to
evidences, or at least we can talk about the evidences. But if you
can't even say the word Allah in the field,
why am I afraid to say that, right? It's because there's an
entire institution backed by an entire civilization. So the way
that this to be undone is going to be by brute force and power, as
opposed to playing the game within their sandbox. And I said this
earlier, orientalist, they built a sandbox with their rules. And then
they declared victory inside that sandbox, they declared victory
there. And that's,
that's an interesting point, which is when it's not just the
institution like one university, or here, it's a machinery, right.
So as a historian, as you said, when the rules are already made,
I've already restricted myself as a Muslim to the rules or the other
side arbitrary rules in the way that they speak of me. And I've
accepted the rules. And then I've, and what you see what happens is
when those rules are narrow, when those rules have a lot of holes in
it, like Dutch cheese, when those rules have a particular, the way
that the system is designed, is to have an opinion of you, as if you
are an objector. Because one of the things about the West when
they were colonizing the world or so forth, they came to the
conclusion that they are the power that has the right to judge
everyone else, every other civilization. And when you go into
that machinery, you're not given the permission to write from your
own perspective, that you have to write from a perspective of their
gaze on you. Even if you said you have Muslim professors, it's
irrelevant. Now. You can be a religious Muslim and still not
write the things that you want to write. So I've said this before,
like an example in I think, one of the journals of Islamic studies.
You can't use the word Allah is the journal of Islamic studies. So
whatever name Why would, you would get confused we suppose. Right?
Right. That's why, you know, Allah subhanaw taala says, Well, my
Erica Baba Malachi Abraham elimine, Sofia NAFSA. No one goes
outside the way of Ibrahim, except someone who belittles himself. No
one willingly enters into this playground, and plays that game of
theirs, and writes history according to their rules and their
style, except someone who was throwing dirt in his own face, who
was humiliating himself willingly. So it doesn't matter if you're
Muslim and you're trying to attain an Islamic or the right
conclusion, the fact that you accepted these rules and these
precepts
questions you've dropped in all of our sites look like? Why would you
even accept this? Right? And let's not forget, the it's not of
Orientalism of the study of Islam, what was its original purpose? Was
it not originally a political institution, a military connected
institution, to go study the people so that we can conquer
them? Was that not the origins? Right? Is that not the origins of
so us, as a government school to go and study people before we
conquered them? Right? So that's the it's not of that. So all of
this goes back to the concept that when when someone an outsider is
writing about you, in Islam, our concept in Islam, we interrogate
the individual and his motives, right.
So that's what I mean.
So history, I keep telling my students is ideology, a historian.
So I've said this before, in many talks here that I was told by a
family member who's going to pay you to think, because in our
communities, we focus on the STEM, STEM subjects are more important,
go get a job, get married, make money, and they gave away the
agency of their own identity to somebody else to talk about them.
Then they come to me and say, Did this actually happen? The book
that I just read, is that actually true? Let me human being I'm not a
machine, how many? How many fires am I going to put out? Because we
didn't invest in writing about ourselves. And instead, when we
now picking up books that we're aware, we haven't written that's
coming from a particular machinery, speaking of us, and
then we're looking for people to say, is this true or not true? The
fact that we've been reduced to asking those questions, there is
this. That's a problem, right? That's a problem. And in that
sense, as I said, and you've heard me say this before, that
hamdulillah Muslims have the illiterate, they've got money in
this part of the world anyway, and they become knowledge consumers.
But where's the knowledge production? And in this part of
the world, I see many Muslims writing about Muslim identity,
because they feel a pressure about being Muslim. When did they write
about Islam? Yeah. And you know, for me often becomes Islam is my
personal religion, my quiet little space and so forth. You're part of
a large civilization, that's going to continue. And you have to have,
I mean, what I say by Ross Wilson, he was front foot with his Dawa.
You don't see any defensiveness, you don't see any apologizing. You
don't see any of this stuff, like, you're not on the front foot with
the Dawa. People accepted it hamdulillah they didn't keep
going. And this sort of like confidence, or the lack of is
because of the lack of knowledge and the inability to, to know what
is right and wrong and giving away your agency, not just to people,
not just to institutions, but to a alternative civilizational project
is a problem. And that project, it only take took off because you won
the wars, right? If we really analyze this, even it's economics,
it's all the same, like what gives $1 any power, the military that's
behind it, right? That's really where that's where you track it
back to what gives the orientalist
for framework, any validity, the institutions that are behind Well,
what's behind the institution's, the great wealth that your
military allowed for your country death and produce and your country
did produce wealth by itself generated wealth by
its own genuine and Goodwill means, right and inventions, etc,
but nonetheless, backed by your military. So, when we look at the
examination of Islam, we're looking at a civilizational
project known as Orientalism that for anybody to say, no, no, it's
just facts, and we're putting the facts out there.
It's got to be one of the biggest lies out there and untruths that
are spoken, because it's totally not that it seems now shoddy.
Before there was a harsh, sharp understanding of what Orientalism
was, yeah, it's now is Orientalism 2.0. You're getting a form of
Orientalism with kindness. You know, one of the things that you
notice in academia continues continuously, is there may be a
sympathy towards Muslims. But intellectually there's an
antagonism towards Islam. You can write knowledge. Exactly. And when
I come to universities, you can see a nervousness in the Muslim
students. They're aware that if you're going to speak hot or
truth, you're going to rock the boat. Don't do that. So then if
you've gone into this institution to learn, what is it that you're
trying to learn? What is it that you want to do? And so you you
feel that and when I go to the universities, I tell Muslims,
listen, we have countless Hadith literature speak to truth.
Your risk is in the hands of older is not going to be affected by
this don't worry about am I going to get my IV job or not? People
might think that I'm being bit flippant here. But you know, I'm
on the dialer, I say before His mercy, trust his protection, He
will protect you. And now many Muslims in the past who have gone
for many challenges for speaking the truth for for LM of Islam, and
for the sake of Islam. And I just hope that, you know, the other
communities here I've noticed who are very front foot in regards to
defending their identities, defending their culture, defending
their traditions, that Muslims thought to replicate and resonate
in the same way that this is a tradition they should be proud of.
I mean, you can ask you a question, what is the if a
documentary series was announced on the history of,
of Mali?
And it turns out that the guy behind it is Dutch, and the
financier is French? What's the reaction going to be? Right? And
is it a valid reaction?
I think I mean, maybe the people of Mali because they subjugated
may not say much, but in this country, the reaction would be,
they'll go off to them. And it's a valid reaction. Why not? Because
somebody else
is writing about you from their perspective. And, you know, these
communities have realized that enough is enough. So why are
Muslims not doing that, and, you know, been here for a few weeks,
and they sort of like tit for tat that happens amongst Muslims. In
that sense. It's low hanging fruit, there's a bigger picture,
the bigger picture is to go off to the roots, the roots of the
problem, you know what I mean? So you know, just your motive,
exactly like what your French and Dutch got? What's your motive? You
can't love us this much. Right? And if you do, you are weird,
right? So in a religion, you love the religion, like you would
accept it, right? You cannot love it and reject it at the same time.
So that's how I give you an example. So when I was at so as
new dizziness, so when our professors used to talk about
Islam, they didn't care that we existed, they didn't care they
were they there was a sense of arrogance in sticking it to us.
I've heard this before, I know you're Muslim. But for now, we're
just going to keep you all outside the classroom. And we're going to
talk about this and you're just going to accept it, you accept it.
And I remember one time, I was given a Joomla hook, but not at
source, but in Turkey. And a non Muslim entered the room. And
Muslims got nervous.
You know, teacher, listen, they've given me the eyes, take it easy,
jumbo click. But it's intriguing that when I'm in that environment,
I have to make the, you know, adjustment and just suck it up.
And when I'm in my environment, I have to make the adjustment and
suck it up. Come on, this is the issue telling you where the power
lies. That's exactly what ends up being a power.
Dynamic. That's really the problem. So I mean, this is one
thing that I think the woke agenda actually got, right? The idea that
people should determine their own narratives and you go after they
go after with reckless abandon any man who's trying to talk about
womanhood, right? Any man who's any non African American talking
about African American history, you will be chased down,
rightfully so. Right?
When is this going to spill over to Islamic Studies department? We
don't trust your motives, right? The only motive you can have is
destruction. Like you're trying to take this down and apply your
filter onto our history. And I loved what you said earlier, too.
I think you said this on Friday. History is truly not about writing
the past. It's framing your identity, so that you can power
forward.
So if I framed for you a destructive identity, that makes
you feeling suspicious of your past,
doubt about your past, then I have hampered you moving forward. What
other the colonizer one? Yeah. So yeah. So this is something that
really triggers me in the sense. I said, Don't let somebody write
about who you were. Don't let people write about who you are.
And don't let people write about who you ought to be. Right. And
this is exactly what's happening in much of history writing, and we
noticed as historians is,
as much as it is about the party, it's about the now. Because when
you see what questions people are asking, because history is a large
repository, why are you making the choices of studying these
particular topics? Why are you asking these particular questions?
Because it interests you now, what is it now that's so interesting,
interesting for you, for you to dig out about the pawza. So it
says a lot when a book is published, understand, what is it
published for? What is the context and so look, don't get me wrong.
There are a lot of books out there just for that they just come out
and there's some geek out there just writing stuff and so forth,
but buy in
Like, the machinery or the institution of history, writing is
not about that it's about a particular framework. And you see
many Muslims who go into the field of history and Islamic Studies and
come out, confused. And that's a problem, I think, let's turn to
the q&a. Right? If you could not meet my red phone over there, just
so I can start reading the YouTube questions. We'll take q&a from
everybody today, on the subject of history, only
the historical critical method and all these other things that
subtopics that we have covered today, we covered a lot. And let's
No,
I like this red wall. Actually, it's not bad.
All right, let's take your q&a.
Go ahead, right? Someone is interacting with someone who
rejects.
So how does one justify and prove using the Quran? Okay.
The first thing is that Chase traced back the chain of
transmission to the idea of rejecting Hadith. And the idea of
rejecting Hadith, I would say was probably getting Muslims to reject
their Hadith was probably part of the colonial project in India.
They went first with physically taking you over, they physically
beat you in wars.
Afterwards, they want to get you convinced
to slough off your religion.
And one of that was through literally the the first people to
do this were Indian Muslims who read Joseph shocked. Right. So I
wanted to comment on that.
I mean, to be honest with you, you're you're more of an expert on
this. But I was teaching these guys an issue in that when in the
Ottoman Empire, when the hat rule came about to ban in the hat and a
clothing that many of the Alama. And one of them in particular, he
was executed, because he refused to take off that.
Yeah, execute. Right, he was hung for not taking it off. And his
argument was, first a take up. So for him, he said, clothing was a
uniform, which shaped you in the way that you behaved. So the
colonizers, first they take off your uniform, then they get inside
your mind, and then they get inside your heart. And so that a
lot of people don't realize this. But if you look at any photos in
the 19th century of anybody in that part of the world, they had
the hips covered, they had them covered. And that was an
intriguing idea that they will use in methodologies of bit by bit of
stripping people away, to only leave them and the notion that the
Quran is it and nothing else. So it's closing like so history is
interesting, because if you see the majority of the attacks on
Islam, that take place, take place via via history. You Muslims did
this, the Muslims did that. You didn't know this, you didn't know
that. So it's intriguing. Hey, as a historian, I mean, in terms of
how do you feel you're far more knowledgeable than me and I'm
actually learning a lot just by listening to you, but
it was comprehensive in the way that they stripped Muslims of all
agency of everything in that sense and this is why the Allameh for me
are important, I say this all the time, the living tradition, you
see it and you know how to behave and act because not everybody has
access to go to the books and when you can see that and when that is
stripped away from you. Then this the community comes absolutely
dislocated is the word completely dislocated, you have no
continuation and no details of who you are. And and it is the Sunnah
that brings us together now from the Quran, Allah to Allah commands
is to follow the messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam very
brief refutation of Quran, the Quran only philosophy, and there's
a brother here, his name is refuting orientalists. And I
haven't started watching his videos, but I do plan to watch
your videos. He sent them to me. I believe he's out of India. But we
are commanded in the Quran to follow the messengers of Allah
when he was telling them, the Quran itself was preserved where
who preserved the Quran? Physically who preserved it?
Right, was it? It wasn't not the companions? Well, when the
Companions died, what happened with the Quran? Who preserved it?
Of course, Allah preserved it, but he used humans, right? He used
publishing houses, he used scholars, those same scholars that
you are accepting their preservation of the Quran
preserved the words of the Prophet slicin, who preserved the Arabic
language. What how are you going to unsend the Quran? I'm gonna get
a dictionary who wrote the dictionary? Right? Why are you
trusting the words of the dictionary? So you're trusting the
preservation of the Quran, you're trusting the preservation of the
dictionary, the lexicons in the Arabic language, but you're not
trusting them on the Hadith of the Prophet when a witness takes the
stand.
And the prosecutor and the defense recognize them as a valid source.
The jury must accept everything he says he cannot accept the time,
the glove, the testimony on the time the testimony on the glove,
but not the testimony of who it was what was wearing the holding
the knife? No. If both sides accepts this witness, you accept
everything from the witness. This is why I said, assessing fact from
fiction is a rational thing. It's like everyone on the earth has a
saint will use the same faculties built into us that it's a meme
because it puts it like this. He says that when we assess the
truthfulness of a report, it's very similar to going from hungry
to satisfied.
You slowly get there, but there is a point that you are absolutely
certain you're satisfied. Right. And it's and hunger
dissatisfaction, it's the same worldwide, right? You're gonna
eat, eat, eat until, okay, I'm satisfied. All right, this person
said it that person said it was verified by this verified by that
we're satisfied. Right. And it's quite arrogant, you know? Because,
like over a prolonged period of time. Yeah. Like,
all,
all the Allamah using this methodology, which they endorsing
across the globe, in every corner of the world, that they don't know
each other, across time and space. And in today, somebody comes
along, it's quite, there's a sense of hubris here and laziness. And I
find that absolutely
appalling, actually, that you can just say, well, that's why you
haven't now because today is inconvenient to me. You're
reducing a you know, I hold Dean and I use the word Dean
deliberately here to, to just that that part and you're reducing
Russell seldom
are you I always find it strange when I say or you just reduce your
atheism as a mouthpiece for Quran and Quran only. I mean, this is
why we say Quran we and we say Quran sunnah, like the connected
we, when you listen to people to Clemson, it rolls off like that.
So this modern phenomena, which is a phenomenon, more so now and is
being pushed around that comes out of the fields of academia is
interesting because people have internalized that it's okay to
critique the Alama. But, but I'm going to take something from
academia even though which is explained that a whole culture has
has huge problems.
Let me tell people this when you look at something, you can examine
its evidence for evidence point by point, methodology by methodology,
etc. There's another way to assess things and this to me is the
divine scorecard. The scoreboard of Allah subhanaw taala.
The fruits okay, what up the great Mohammed said Hajj nomadic scholar
what Albert said hudge, who is a Zen hidden an ascetic
was invited by a peep crit he criticized a group of people. He
said that group that and they were, there was some funny
business in there too. So if there were a Sufi group of medic ease,
but they had a lot of, you know, things that led up to it didn't
like that they were doing excessive Bidda. And they call it
of course, Bidda, Hudson, etc. So they invited the young Roberts at
Hajj to be with them for a couple of weeks. In their camp, he
traveled there, and he spent time there they hosted him. And for
every single thing that they did.
They brought him the pile of evidence, right. As you said,
facts can be manipulated, there's no such thing as just a bare bone
fact, it's manipulated to sewn into a story.
At the end, the Sheikh said, Okay, we've we furnish you with all our
evidence, what do you have to say? He could say, As for your legal
defenses, I have nothing to say. And then he said this amazing
statement, he says, Well, I can add a bruh to build h bar.
Which means however, I have none say about your legal evidence,
you're very cleverly putting evidences together. However, the
true reality is by your followers, just look at them. Right. And so,
the truth scorecard of Allah subhanho wa Taala is in the
fruits. So if you believe that the Quran only is the way to go as a
Muslim, then I ask you,
who is preserving the Quran today?
Quran only right? If you want to learn the book of Allah in any
capacity to read it, to get the publication of it, right?
To memorize it, and to read its explanations list me on the earth
today. How many of those institutions how many of those
shoes are Quran only people write? Zero.
You cannot memorize you cannot get a book of Quran most have
published itself except by people who recognize the Hadith.
Let me ask you this
If Quran only is the way and that is the truth, then tell me exactly
which army was Quran only that defended Islam you would not have
the Quran. If the Crusaders were not stuffed, you would not even
have the Quran if the Mongols were not stopped. You would not even
have the Quran or any Muslims in the West if the Reconquista was
not stopped, right, who stood up to the colonizers?
Although their project has continued, we could say the
Mongols project ended Crusader project ended Reconquista project.
It ended but not well. Good. But it did end.
Who fought well, the Reconquista was pushed back for 300 years it
was pushed back by the use of Ben Tashfeen. And then what I'll be
doing then then we're doing
okay.
Who did all that who did all the work? So forget the debating for a
second because a good chess player will just drag out the game.
And that's why I like what he from the woods said here. Power only
new negotiates with power if I trace back
Orientalism and its presuppositions, Darwinism,
Darwinism will not be just negated solely by evidence, it's going to
be negated when Western civilization is reduced to
irrelevance. Because Chinese don't buy into it. By the way, they're
not interested they criticize Darwin all the time. Rest of the
World is not buying into it as religion as the as the way the
West, the ones once Western economic once the economy wants
the military once the general civilization is brought down to
earth, their presupposed theories will also be brought down to
earth. Let's take the next question here. Shoot
a list of all the things that they would be excluding that they
probably do. Like or you know, it's not there.
Are those specified?
Even
with the hitch, like how would you know and
you wouldn't even know what month we're in. What how does the Quran
tell you what month we're in? So the Quran tells us to fast
Ramadan, right? As in the Quran, how do you know where where that
month is? You are going to now propose a religion that doesn't
have a holiday. Like oh, you go till you know what I tell kids,
when they talk about Quran only said, you like to eat? Right?
There's no eat with these people, right? Is that what's absurd? How
do you have a religion without a holiday? Right? Allah subhanho wa
Taala has made intellectual proofs for intellectual people. And
communal community and demonstrable proofs for regular
people. Allah guides regular people, how does he guide?
Let me ask just randomly what field are you in it? It?
Like, as I've always said, the common Muslim does not mean he's
dumb. He's just not a specialist in Islam. He's as smart as anybody
else in his field, just not. When I ask you to make when you make an
assessment about a masjid, you probably don't go and look at the
theological points of this mosque. You just look around and see if it
smells funny, right? You start people praying on stones, or doing
some funny business, right? And you're like, there's no way this
is Islam. Right? And you see like something like, I've been
worshipping Allah for 30 years. I know how to pray, right does know
how to pray. I've been around the block. Allah furnishes and he
makes innovations become a straight physically in your, in
your eyes. You see it when I was young.
For a long time, I don't even know my religion was to be honest with
you. We were Egyptians. That's what I knew. We once watched and
we were watching us stay up on Friday and Saturday night with my
dad on the couch. Right. And we'd watch hockey games once I'm after
a hockey game was a National Geographics, and they had a thing
on hedge. Now this is the 80s this like 1987 This did not happen
right? Here woke me out. This is us. Right? This is Islam. It's a
whole documentary about Islam. We watched it. I saw the kava for the
first time. And he's like, this is us, right? My dad was so pumped.
That it came the Shia. They bought Shia and their weapon, right. And
I was like, oh, that's definitely not part of it. Right that week.
And we're like, Nah, that's definitely not part of like,
intuitively, you know, that's that's gotta mean, there's no way
God's telling people to do this. Intuitively, you know, or you're
disgusted by like, please tell me that's not us. Right, your fifth
hotel, please say that's not us. Not us, not us. Okay, good. The
first part was good. Going around the cabinet's wonderful, right.
Smacking yourself hitting yourself? That there's no way
that's I hope that's not us. And I'm looking closely at my desert.
No, that's not us. I'm really
fitrah fitrah. That's how you judge. Alright, so let's take the
next question for Dr.
Yaqoob. Let's go with right. Do you have anything or should I look
it up here? Go ahead. Go ahead. Right
Okay
okay,
how can we read more of your work?
Yes. Tell us about your work. Tell us Do you have a website? Do you
have you said you're a recluse? Yeah. You know, tell us tell us
about where people can access your works.
Because then he's not out there having a website going on Twitter,
having battles, living, he's living in peace. So.
So I finished my PhD, and I'm turning that into a book right
now.
But actually, for the last seven, eight years, I've been living in
Turkey, and I focus on teaching,
I find writing really difficult, I'm not going to lie to you, this
is hard for me, I come from a regular working class background.
And reading is tough for me. And my students will get surprised
when I said, when I walk into a bookshop,
I get anxiety. And I walk into a library, I hate it. And all my
friends are scholars, and they collect books over and over, I
give books away. So I say, Look, I'm done with this, you know, I've
read it, I've read it 20 times, you benefited more from me, and I
give them away. But the point I'm making is I came to the conclusion
only recently in his last year or so that I want to write for
Muslims. So my idea was now and now I've had, I've got some time
to sit down and start writing is that I want to start publishing
for Muslims. So I have my PhD, which is turning into a book of
sending into a publisher, I'm just waiting on that. So that will come
out. It was on your mind the constitutional revolution of 1908.
Looking at how the Allama in particular looked at
constitutional theory in Islamic history, and so forth. But that's
a very technical piece. What I've realized more and more now is how
could and the only reason why I got exposed to this is because of
platforms like this when Muslims started asking questions. And I
started to realize, okay, we don't know. And it's only now I'm
starting to sit down and starting to, to write work. So I haven't
written much in that sense. It's just my PC that's out there. A
couple of articles in newspapers, and I'd probably some people
yuckiness too, and so on. But now slowly, slowly, I'm, I'm going to
be working towards writing for Muslims as a Muslim in the way
that Muslims had written in the past. And academia just my day,
I'm not. So I always say I'm not an academic, I just do academia.
Okay. Right, in that sense, because I want to be, you know, I
want to write for the community. So that's why you don't see much
from me, because I emphasize much on teaching in that sense. And I
that's what I did. Let's take this question. And before that, let's
plug patreon.com/safina society.
If you'd like to stream you go to patreon.com/safina Society and
you'd be a supporter, a monthly supporter.
Secondly,
Dr. Harrison mean, if you need laser work done on your eyes, you
go to Dr. Harrison meet in Toms River.
And then you come up here and you hang out with Safina Sadie. And
it's going to be a medical tourism to the to the most expensive
country in the world. But that's okay. Probably England's more
expensive.
But do medical tourism here, go down to South Jersey, get your
eyes fixed. And then come up to the studio and you can hang out
with us where we have stuff going on.
Almost seven days a week. Okay, now, let's get the next question
chocolate Wallah.
How does Dr. Ahmed feel about Huntington's clash of civilization
thesis? It was dismissed widely by scholars.
But doesn't it seem to be making more and more sense lately, um,
when he wrote that there was like, it's not obvious, isn't obvious.
We have a clash of civilizations. But firstly, tell us exactly
define for us his thesis, summarize for it and tell us your
views about it.
So Huntington's ideas was, as you said, there's a clash of
civilizations of Western civilization, and then
predominantly non western civilization. But Islam in of
itself was intriguing here is, on many occasions, Islam became
reduced as the other. And many academics who were liberal at the
time came to the conclusion that it is not a fair reflection of the
world that we live in. There's no unified West, there's no uniformed
wares, there's no uniformed, other and so forth. But what was
interesting about while academics dismissed this idea, in real time,
in the real world, regular people started to say, well hang on a
minute. That doesn't make sense because they could see it. They
could feel it, they can express it. And for me, when I was
teaching my students I said, whether we're talking about
physical wars, or physical civilizations, or so forth, and
yes, in essence, for me as a Muslim, this is always a conflict
between email and Cofer. Okay, that's how I teach it to my
students, Eman and Cofer. an aquifer can be anything, it can be
the culprit of the Mongol invasion. tocopherol
crusades, communism whatnot. And so long as Muslims understand what
Iman is, and what I mean by the idea of Islam and the idea of non
Islam, and what that means, and they could be spillages, they
could be crossovers and so forth, that's fine. But you have to have
to some degree as a Muslim, a clear idea of what it is that you
belong to. And, you know, I talk about the Palestinian issue, which
is interesting when I talked about the Palestinian issue. One of the
interesting things is when it was an issue of the Ummah, there was a
clear marker of you belong to the Ummah and what was not part of the
OMA right.
But now what they've done is they've created an inclusionary
and exclusionary attitude, which is quite different, which is, for
example, inclusionary, is that we belong to humanity. So Muslims are
just reduced to that. They no longer exist. And exclusionary,
this is just a Palestinian issue. So either way, what you noticed,
is in inclusionary, identity, the Muslim identity is not there. And
in the exclusionary identity, the Muslim identity is not there. So
what is it? How does this fit in regard to that paradigm, what you
realize then, is that this is not the paradigm in which we judge
from. So for me, I came to the conclusion when I teach my
students, they look, when you're learning something, whether it's
Hunterdon theory or not, is irrelevant. The Islamic theory is
quite simple. There's a world of Eman, and then there's a world
that is not. And you have to strive towards establishing that.
Check. Not many people were asking about book recommendations, even
myself, Islamic history books, and books on Orientalism, from this
perspective, what recommendations do you have?
So this is the number one question I get. And in this part of the
world, and, you know, it's difficult, like, you know, we
started this talk with the machinery and so forth. And, you
know, like I, I gave this analogy to the kids the other day about
general Pyxis, and Attack on Titans, when he says in order to,
to, in order to have a convincing lie, you have to mix the truth in
it. And so one of the things that you have in Western academia is
these challenges. So what I try to do to people is I give them a list
of books that, that that I think are good, as an academic and a
historian, as myself and somebody who's a graduate, I then try to
explain to them what problems I have with those works. So I don't
just carte blanche, give them two books, I say, okay, these are the
books. And these are the problems that I found in these books, from
my perspective. But overall, the machinery is what we were saying
it doesn't speak of any slip of Islam, and our history in a way
that resonates with us. And so we still feel disjointed and
disconnected. And so we're at that stage right now, for the stop gap.
Right now I can write a list of books. Things don't come off the
top of my head because Islamic history so wide, so people need to
tell me what they want to know. And I can, there is critique
literature in academia in of itself, to be fair, there are
academics like while Hala who critique,
modernity, and Orientalism and so forth. There are other thinkers
decolonial thinkers like Salman, Syed, and so forth, that critique
the way things are written. So there's a lot of work in the
academic tradition. Surprisingly, Muslims notice stuff already, just
by the everyday experience, but don't articulate it in the same
way. So I joke, when I say for example, that
Dave Chappelle is a vernacular intellectual. He, he's saying
nothing different than what's been said in the academic books. He
just makes it real for people in society so they can understand. So
we have those experiences. I guess what we're looking for is those
books which are lacking. But what I can do for the stock cup for
now, is I can help by making a list of books where and help
people navigate that. But in the long term, what I the point of
this podcast was to encourage people, to encourage people to
write our own words, from our own voices, we have our own criticism
and so forth. Just a quick follow up on.
Yes, good.
Quick follow up on that.
Just for example, I'm sure you've heard about it last Islamic
history is merrily khateeb.
This is what I'm familiar with in Islamic history. And then also in
Sierra, I was wondering if there's anything, you know, there's the
Mohamed Salah Salem, from the authentic sources, I believe it's
called is do you have anything to say on these? So philosophy teams
book is
it's a general primer. I'm sure he his intention was not for it to
become as popular as it did. And I'm sure he has, you know, many
positions in which he would like to write something better. But it
what it tells you is the lack of something, the fact that our book
became so popular is an indication of an absence, right? That's,
that's the book that people always tend to, in that sense. So, once
again, that's an indication as for the critique of
that book, I think it was written at a particular time where
it did a particular service, but we need to click on for that. And
you know, there's no criticism to finance in that sense. In regards
to biographies, I always remind everyone that the main by first
main biography of Russell solemn is the Quran.
So people mustn't forget that whenever people ask me what Bible
they read the Quran actually to understand, you know, I, when I
was in Syria, when I used to live there, they used to be an island,
he used to, he used to teach Syrah in the order of revelation,
and then go along and teach and that way, it was beautiful. I've
never seen that done before. So that was one but for my students
who are studying English and so forth, there are many Syrah books
in English nowadays. I mean, I use Mohammed Al Azhar is fickle Syrah.
I like that because he explained something. And then even Sheikh
boaties jurisprudence of Sierra is not a bad book. And I tried to use
them together in that way, as a way of helping so yeah, what did
you cover so far?
book recommendations. Let me talk to say this about the motive
issue. Amazing story about that chick, North Saunders gave us
Sunday, about how the Mohammed had done just an example of motive. He
came out he went to a certain area called Badal. And he started doing
Dawa. And he enjoyed immense success doing though,
right away, it was fire.
So much so that the scholars then said,
Well, he got arrested,
he got arrested, and he went through a trial. And he came out
of it. And he returned to do his data. So the scholars wrote him a
book, but wrote him a letter, one of the scholars.
And he said that
we were worried about you, when you had all that success,
because it was like you're getting success right away. So we were
worried that some insincerity and love of the dunya love of the
popularity would become your motive. We didn't know what's
where your motive was, until you got arrested. And you went through
that trial, and then came out still doing Dawa. Now we know that
your motive is good. Like now we know that you're not doing it for
the popularity, you're not doing it for anything else.
The love of people, etc. So that's the concept and idea of that part
of our religion is the issue of the motive. Right? So the history,
the historian is not some machine.
Who was purely objective, everyone has an agenda. Someone had asked
something about ottoman, what is this? Ottoman missile? Was Ottoman
missile perfect. What is this? What are they saying? myjalah.
Much medalla is what a newspaper. It's a civil codebook that the
Ottomans created. So this is an interesting. So basically, for the
Magellan, for those of you don't understand is the in the late
night in the 19th century, in particular, when the Ottomans are
getting involved in international law, and borders are being defined
and the world is changing in regards to trade. And so on. That
in terms of civil law, initially, there was an assumption that these
laws were positivist laws, and so forth. So what the Ottomans did is
they created a book a primer, on the issue to do with trade and
civil law, from the Hanafi perspective. And there's a section
in it, which says that, you know, that law has been borrowed from
other parts of the field of jurisprudence. People assumed that
that was the other schools of thought it wasn't. He was on
earth, in particular, drawing from the ideas of Aberdeen, the Hanafi,
jurists from Damascus. And they created a book, which is a one
size fits all, because the scholar at the time the Justice Minister,
I'm tempted Pasha, was under the impression that there were not
enough qualified scholars across the Empire, that were able to
adjudicate law and civil matters due to the introduction of the
changing conditions of the 19th century. So he created a one size
fit all primer for them. The problem is, is somebody complained
about this, because they believed that the book format will take
away from the format of the use the judge using their own
jurisdiction, and so forth. But since then, it's become an
accepted
form of law. It was used in many parts of the world for a very long
time. And then after the nation state was formed, many other
nation states removed that
they still have it in the southern state of Georgia bottle in
Malaysia that they still use it, parts of Afghanistan highly
forward. And it was intriguing when the Israelis had occupied
Palestine, that they were the nation that used it the longest in
the region, because they didn't have another local to use and they
will use a net which is interesting, which they took from
the Palestinian. So it's an interesting
study that people do on
And there's an academic buy in here in America called Samia Ube.
He sort of written about the Islamic origins of the Medallia,
because many previous academics made the argument that it wasn't
Islamic. But it was a secular locode. But it was because he was
a book of codification. And that was new. I gotcha. Let's bring up
the subject. Sh says, is it fair to criticize criticize Muslims,
rejecting the historical critical method about the Islamic sources
yet to embrace its conclusions? The Bible being corrupted? Now
here's here's my first answer, then I'm going to give it to you.
As I said earlier, the premise of history is separating fact from
fiction is a rational endeavor, it should be the same everywhere. The
presuppositions are what is a weaken attack, the presupposition
is something that is not a rational basis, you just believe
it.
You may have your reasons for believing it. But
for the further Western Renaissance onwards, historians,
it is suspicion towards any religious institution, because we
were lied to by the Catholic Church. Therefore, we go to the
Japanese religion, and we have the same attitude towards their
authorities. Your authorities are trying to do you like someone who
got abused by their parents. They think all parents are bad. Right?
That's, that's really the summary. That's really what I believe about
what, in relation to the Renaissance thinkers and
Catholicism. It's that complex, right. So that presupposition is
what we cannot accept, we don't we have no reason to suspect our
original scholars
of duping us. Do we have that? Firstly, our we don't have a
church, all of our Hadith. And Quran was a public endeavor,
anybody could go and become a hadith and study and come to
critically, who was Bukhari in the first place, a boy from Persia,
who because this endeavor is public money study with the
Persians and studied in Mecca, Medina, wrote in Medina, his first
book of religion, at the age of 17, you couldn't have done that in
the Catholic tradition, you would have to have signed up for the
organization within a specific organization is no free for all.
So the way I would look at it is that we don't have a
presupposition that the Bible is corrupted, we have a fact that is
corrupted. Not only a fact that it's corrupted. And it's not
something that is taken on faith, it's demonstrable, will show us
the original Bible. You don't even have it in the original original
language for us to assess if it's corrupted, whereas the Syriac
Bible, it was in Syriac, where is the Syriac Bible, right? You don't
even have it to prove it was corrupted, you have translations
of translations of translations.
So upon that, what the critics of the Bible will tell you are just
the details that we think the author of this book
is the same as the author of that book, and we need to get audio tie
on here, right to do this, because he's the expert on this, right?
And you say, Oh, well hold on a second. You just said that nobody
should tell your history except those people right? And I don't
accept every non Muslim talking about the Quran should be shut
down. Right? Then why would I accept for Ali a Thai
to talk about the Bible? Because I'm not here to defend your Bible.
I'm here to defend the Quran. I would not accept it for me, right?
If What's that,
sit, thank you. Save now, Isa is our Nabhi you are lying about our
Nibi. And indeed, We are eligible indeed. The injeel we are older,
we are more worthy of the Bible. We would honor the Bible more than
them. The Bible just put in like, I go to a pizzeria and I see Jesus
picture on the toilet like on the bathroom like in a frame. like
wait a second what? I want to take it down I didn't believe in it.
Right? I literally took it and I put it somewhere else. Even we
don't depicts a nice so we don't believe in that. Right?
You I still took it from this pizzeria.
I took it down. I would not accept it. Right. The Bible is our book
in the sense that it is the word of Allah, not the current Bible,
obviously. So we have a concern for it, so we can't speak on it.
Secondly, Let's hypothetically say there was something totally
different than Christians defend yourself. Stop him, right. I'm not
gonna stop him for you from saying the truth. You stopped him. So
that's my response to how the historical critical at this point
that the presupposition towards Christianity was true. It doesn't
apply to Islam. That's why we're not accepting the presupposition
that we take with suspect the authoritative religious narrative.
For me, the issue
Use the Quran and the Bible are just two different books that have
two different traditions and operate two different ways.
Actually, the historical critical tradition was a way of critiquing
the Bible that we Muslims didn't invent. It was invented from your
own tradition, that's what you did. We had a different
methodology because of Quran, when Quran is collected is step by
step, every single single way, we have a particular historical
record the way we did it, they like apples and oranges. And the
idea of comparing the Quran to the Bible's, to some degree is, is not
helpful. I mean, only now, in the more modern period, a comparative
could be the idea of the translations of the Quran. Right,
but even then source proper, we still say that's the Quran, that's
a translation. And there are problems regarding translation
because there is a power in regards to translation, either you
have a literal translation, or you derive meaning from translation.
And if you're deriving meaning, that's where the issue is. So this
is, and that's different from topsail. So in regards to the way
the Quran is, as a book, and historically how it's collated
and, and it stands, it stands alone, independent from that
methodology, and that methodology was designed to actually go after
its own Bible. So these are two different books. And I think
Muslims need to be aware of how the, the history of the Bible is
how the Bible operates, and how, what its function is as as a book,
and what the Quran is. And I think that's, sometimes I asked my
students, and they seem to assume the Bible and the Quran are the
same. I said, No, these are totally different books in the way
they are. But this is verbatim the words of ALLAH to Allah. The Bible
doesn't make that type of claim. These are the words of Allah. So
in the way that the Quran is compiled, collected, and, and
stands, it's different. And I think we need to understand that
was there any time when the orientalists deemed the Quran, a
book that is
unreliable?
I mean, they've tried to attack the Quran on many occasions.
But what's interesting here is they fail. You know, the Quran
stands independent still. So this is what's intriguing as a
historian, is you realize that actually, the way they go off the
Muslims is not Quran. It's by other methods and means, right?
Because the Quran is so standard. And every time they've gone off to
Quran, it stood independent, and it stood independent from us and
even Muslims, you know, they they have had a critical eye on it on
tradition, but the Quran is stood independent, and I haven't seen I
haven't seen a successful Orientalist to this date, even
before they made all all types of assumptions. And you've spoken to
orientalist, what's intriguing, is they make assumptions in the way
they speak to Quran. And the minute they come across a Muslim
who knows what he's saying. They just crumble
consistently crumble. Just write anything like it. And I'll give
you an example when I was in Syria once and I was learning Arabic.
And I've said this to
a friend of mine who's a Krishna came to me. And she said to me,
how can you follow a book you don't understand? Now at that
time, I was a young kid, I didn't understand much. And I got really
annoyed. And because in England, that would be a triggering
question. So I turned to and say, How can you follow a book? You
don't? You do understand? I cannot follow book, you do understand
that. She just looked at me and walked out the room. That's
amazing. Right? That was a great answer. And this was the
difference. She came back the next day. So I'm really sorry. I didn't
mean to offend you, but blah, blah, blah. I didn't, I was fine.
But can I just ask you a question? My question still stands. Because
now you're asking me, I don't understand some asking you you
understand it, right? Explain it to me, whose words are they? Are
they not the words of ALLAH to Allah. And they also just, I don't
want to talk about this. And this is not me trying to be aggressive.
It was me trying to learn. And this is what I mean, when when you
see people talking about Quran. I mean, they did the critique
culture collapses overnight. And Muslims are exceptionally robust.
And you can see that they can't touch good. And so then they go
through these other nefarious ways, like Hadith literature, like
history, like morality and so forth as a way of going after
Muslims. And, you know, this is why I keep telling Muslims have a
strong connection with the Quran. There is risk of late there was a
guy who was I think, it started off as a shear. I think he's an
atheist. No, but he was actually my boss said, Yo, and he was nice
to me, right? But eventually he thought I was an Allawi. Right.
And when I heard that's what he said about me, honestly, my heart
flooded. I was so happy that he said that I owe a loved bear
witness. Right? Because Allah was like an Arab term. It's a
derogatory term of someone who loves Allah. I was like, He's He's
the witness. Right. And the witness of your of your enemy is
the best as the saying, and I was I didn't have animosity to him at
the time. And I still haven't we left on fine terms. His name is
Shadi Nelson, and he's now I think, at Oxford, but he his
Arabic is powerful. He really knows his Arabic really, I
I didn't read his thesis. But his whole thesis is that the Quran is
not the same as what we imagined it to be. But
my lay response is, let's go around to the world, pick up the
muscle off the shelves, say myself, right? So if what you're
saying has any truth to it, that's why I said sometimes you don't
always need to look at the evidence is point by point, look
at the fruits, if your claim has truth to it, where is the
divergence? Now, if you're saying there's a divergence, okay, if I
went, if I'm trying to go north, and I went, one degree, off, one
degree off, north, straight up, I was making, I'm driving straight,
but I want one degree off. After an hour of driving, I should be
far away from my location, after two hours of driving. If I'm
driving from Texas, to Montana, whatever is above Texas, after
three days of driving, I should be way off course, just by one
degree. So where are the opposing massage if? Where is the confusion
of a Muslim? That's why I thought, you know, this is not really worth
my time, this argument, this attack on Islam is not really
worth my time. Because where's the result? If there truly was a
divergence, as he says, that should have trickled down? And
there should be like four or five, six books.
All right. There is another one. He's a German, right, a German guy
on Twitter. And I'm thinking to myself, What is your business? But
what you should be? Does this person should not be talking at
all? You have no interest? You're not a Muslim? You What is your
business talking about our book? Okay.
I would go do that with the tota or with Israeli sources, see what
will happen to you, your life will be shut down so fast. You don't
even know what happened to you. If you went and tried to do what the
games you're playing with us with Israeli sources, or their original
history? or what have you. Your life will be shut down completely,
right?
Faster than Kanye. Kanye has been shot, how many billions? Has he
lost? For talking about just a word he said on a podcast? Right?
So in any event,
there are attacks on the Quran. The problem with it is that where
is it? So when I go to South America, when I go to Pakistan,
give me any Muslim nation throw me in any city in the world, any city
in the world? Within an hour I could be in a masjid.
Right with the technology that we have today. And within an hour I
will have the Quran in my hand. It's the same Quran. You give me
half swash duty you might even the Quran that's what they bring us
99% of the Messiah have on the shelves of the world or between
Hudson wash. And that's the practical reality of things.
Right? So the attacks on the Quran,
they they fail on that practice standpoint, that there is no fruit
of it. Right? And you won't go into a masjid and actually find
any debate on the Quran. So that's why they as you said they have to
go on the Hadith. Alright, let's take a couple more questions then
then we'll be finished. Would you say that Orientalism presupposes
the falsity of Islam? Yes. He said that. All right, he answered that
it presupposes that God doesn't exist.
Islamic history has presuppositions Allah is judging
the writing of this book.
We are only justified in writing about past peoples What is good
about them and what we can benefit from them. Of course, if they if
they made a public blunder, we can talk about the public blender like
a Khalifa or sometimes salt on or whatever. And three
okay, what is the third one that I said is that the subject has
rights.
So turn this on that he has the right his private life is off
limits us. We can we can talk about his public policies and we
should everything should be on the record exactly what he said and we
should analyze it. Okay. But his public is private life that's off
limits.
The dead have rights over us.
I think that not enough is is telling us or in the fees is
telling us that he's at Harvard. And I think that there was a
brother, what was his name? Who, who went back and forth with him?
If you're her?
What's that? No, he's Fareed.
What's this name for it? Yeah, he's a seller. He's a Salafi
activist on Twitter, but he went after shedding also and he went
toe to toe with him. I guess. That's what it seemed like to me
showing. Here's a PDF. Here's what the quote is in your book. But
here's what I think it was like.
It was, but he actually said so he has videos on that. Again, I never
actually went into this
Because the fruit isn't there, right you're you're showing us a
divergence, or the entire OMA has arrived at the same spot. After
all this time, a millennium and a half a millennia people don't
understand what that means. Because the word 1400 years has
been said so much. But a millennium, the United States has
only been alive for like 1/3 1/5
of Islamic history 1/5, a millennium and a half.
And we have arrived at the same location with the Quran. Now go we
show me in the tafsir.
Let's go back 700 years, let's go back 1000 years and give me 10
Tough secrets from 1000 years ago, the same book, right? So we know
that it's the same book. So on the ground, there is no evidence for
what you're saying. And that's more powerful than for you to give
me a manuscript here and dama there. That's that's the terrible
argument, right? That's not moving the the rate of the needle at all,
that does not move the needle at all right? Can I just say, just
really surely in our tradition, the Obama didn't feel the need to
continue to facilitate this. So I was reading the works of Mustafa,
somebody, I read it often. And he said, the day that the island
becomes encapsulated by the feelings of the mob, then that's
the day the album is lost. That's called the shadow. Right? Right.
So the only time the Obama used to get involved in these debates is
when he was a real sickness in the community. But apart from that,
you're going to be putting fires out all the time. And then you're
going to be occupied by these things, rather than the real work,
did, did these things are just attempts to try to keep Muslims
busy so that they can do the real work. I'm not saying not to do
this from time to time in your communities. But just be aware
that continuously feeling the need to continuously prove your
existence, you don't need to do that, okay, just start working on
your tradition for your communities and strengthen
yourself. You don't need validation, from academia about
your existence, you don't need that. And the more you start
getting a bonus all the time, it really takes you in it takes the
best minds away, which is constantly, it's like a quagmire.
They just get dragged into it. And that's all they're doing. And on
this podcast on this, that podcast Can you keep on top of and you
just see these, we're draining the life out of these people, because
we as a community, are not taking responsibility of what's actually
important in life. And you know, the funny thing when you say about
that is that I would say that a good percentage of the students
have knowledge in our community.
This stuff is like the entry This is the break. This is the the
peripheral
thing that they may pay attention to when they're taking a breather.
That's because actual Islam and Islamic communities we have meat
and potatoes.
We have Quran to study and memorize. We have thicker to that
we have to hedge it to get up for. We have a good month to do. We
have Shabaab and youth just to cater to We're busy. We have a
soup kitchen, we got Fick to be learned. Right? I'll tell you that
to be learned. That's the meat and potato that is a positive. So
which what makes you ask to these groups again? Where's the positive
that you're bringing to the world here? Like you're all in the
deconstruction, it's all just destruction. All right, last
question, why you bring it up for us? What is the last question that
we have here? Shoot?
Yeah, I'm not being heard. Yeah, I'll repeat it. No problem. I'll
ask you about the series on assaults on Abdulhamid and maybe
just
at the end,
I've mentioned that your own work instead of just deconstructing
other things, what can we learn from
you know, what your your studies in Ottoman history?
So as I said, My own work is I'm looking at the dilemma. So one of
the things that I noticed in late Ottoman history in particular is
the narrative of the older man was absent. So I'm trying to in
particular write works about the alma mater as a way of reminding
people of the relevance of the ALMA as part of their memory.
There's a huge, like blind spot we got in that period. And these
people are important to us. They produce wonderful works, but they
were very active. So I did collect work on writing on a particular
island called Mustafa Sabri. And then I realized I was too young to
read his biography. So I backed off, I felt I didn't have the the
sort of like sensitivity to be able to give him a fair shake out.
But at the moment, my like I said in the book I'm working on is on
the role of the dilemma of the 19th century, that's one and
waiting for that in terms of publication, these things are very
slow. And the new project that I started on is the impact of the
Ottomans on the Asiatic society, the 19th century. So that's
Malaysia, Japan, Afghanistan, and so forth to try to see that
So how the Ottoman Empire in particular was the center of the
Muslim world, what sort of impact it had on non Muslims that are non
western, as we've seen how Islam was was sort of like, understood
in that time, people would be surprised. I said, you know,
there's, there's a lot of Islamic history in other parts of the
world that people know very little about. So that's what I'm doing in
terms of my own work. So
yeah, so and that will be held to a particular standard, and people
will scrutinize it in the way that I scrutinize other people's work.
And that's okay. In terms of the, the TV show of the family, the
second, it's, they've tried to stick to
the history as much as they can, because a lot more evidence on the
reign of Abdullah Ahmed. So that's why some people didn't find it as
interesting as Ultra rule, because they could be less what you could
call licence to, to move away from that. But it's still TV. And I
have to highlight that, you know, we've been speaking about history
in the books, but television is no different. So when you're watching
people shouldn't if they have to be careful if taking books has
been an authority, they have to be twice as careful in terms of when
you're watching TV or movies as being an authority. This is a
person's life, like Malcolm X, put into a three hour snippet. And so
what can you expect people to be a bit more rounded, but it's not a
bad TV show? In that sense, if people want to just get a general
interest in a grain of salt on
different people in different places of service, right? So one
person might be working, giving Dawa, and you're working, you
know, behind the desk, and reading and studying and producing works,
what's the advice that you can give us from your window, looking
at the OMA and everyone else in their communities? What's advice
from this perspective, I'm gonna give a piece of advice that
someone gave me yesterday. And I really appreciate it. I mean, I
use this analogy that we're all parts of a clock. Some pieces are
just bigger than others. But all the pieces need to work together
for the clock to function. And I believe that and somebody else
said to me that, you know, if the OMA is a body, different people
are different organs and different parts of their body. And so this
is how they function and operate. And I appreciate you that reminder
for myself as well. Because there is a time, there are times where,
because I keep saying this, I'm a recluse, I like to my mom,
business, and so forth. And the guys here today, when they pulled
me out, they were telling me, you know, you don't realize that you
are actually making a difference and so forth. I can't see that.
Because I'm so caught up in my own brain that I keep a distance from
that, because I'm, it's not for me to judge.
But I believe this that first and fundamentally everybody should do
is I said this before, there's no need for any for any of us to
defend Islam. Islam defends itself. It doesn't need that. So
when I said Olson was front foot, he was never defending it. But we
need Islam. So in that sense, it's not. We don't need to be these
type of people are thinking I'm going to defend it in.
This is a problem and thinking that way. Islam is there for your
salvation, turned to it. And if you whatever your capacities in
life, if it's just anybody that go into the masjid in a corner, and
that's your thing, fine. And if it's somebody else who has another
capacity, then do that what I've noticed in my life, like I said, I
didn't want to do any of this. And it feels like always just pushing
me forward. And Allah Allah does that. Sometimes he takes people
and, you know, when I was 2526, I was working in retail. If you said
to me that I'd be sitting here with Dr. Shady right now I would
laugh in your face, no way, no chance. And here I am. So in that
sense, you know, just try to please Allah to the best of your
ability. Put your trust in Allah to Allah. And if you're sincere to
Allah, Allah will see you as a, as a necessary agent to, you know,
put his work out there. And I said, you saw a sister came to see
me when we gave the talk here. And she was quite nervous about
Illman. How do I do this? And I said, Look, Imam Ghazali Rahim
Allah said that
the the worshiper is putting his dunya to worship Allah to Allah.
So if you want to do EBA, and get close to Allah to Allah, he's not
going to put obstacles in your way to stop that. That's your purpose.
You might be tested in life to shape your character in the way
that Allah Allah shaped the Gambia and everyone else, but he's not
going to put obstacles in your way to get closer to you. So LM is a
bad, try your best is not easy. It's not supposed to be easy.
You're gonna find challenges and moments where you feel like you're
struggling but you keep going. And the benefits are in that. So, you
know, whenever you have a moment, and you think you can't do this,
just have your trust Nonlin keep going. And because in terms of
Quran when I was learning Arabic, my Arabic teacher in Syria uses it
so difficult. And then another friend of mine from Dagestan goes
but don't always say in the Quran, he's made his Quran in Arabic so
that you may know it. So what's going on here?
I used to laugh golf course. So when to get out of a mentality
just keep pursuing Inshallah, let us now talk about what happened
yesterday and we'll close with news on a second earthquake this
time and takia this time it was a 6.4 earthquake in a lightly
populated part of town or a part of Turkey, which is on takia and
six people are dead the earthquakes to the previous
earthquake killed 44,000 people so far so far.
I mean, what a number that is so every home in Istanbul must be
shaken by death and it's also in was a symbol No, it was not a
symbol but I meant it was east I meant Turkey must be shaken
because the that number count Syria to
so every home in that area, that Eastern part
on the on the turkey side, sorry, the Syria border must have a death
which is extremely something that we have to keep them in our minds.
Although you know, we people are now following up on this
earthquake which was
really the third if you count the 5.8 aftershock three minutes later
and then there were dozens of smaller aftershocks that were not
five five point a or or above that but this one was big 6.4
There were six people so far that had been pulled under rubble and
they had died. Okay, I thought the earth was going to split open
under my feet recalls a resident
who told Reuters Alim of low May Allah accept his dua if that's his
name, Mother loom depressed he told the news agency that he had
been looking for the bodies of his family members from the previous
earthquake when this earthquake hit. Now you don't know what to do
we grabbed each other and right in front of us the walls started to
fall you actually were in did you feel the earthquake or now 90
sample newer you weren't you weren't in this district at all
where it happened Okay. So let us close with our with a dot for the
May Allah subhanaw taala ease the burdens
of all those who suffered from this earthquake, we ask Allah
subhanaw taala to render all of those who passed away in this
earthquake, all of them every single one of them as shahada as
the messenger of allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, that those
who die with building collapse, collapsing upon them are Shahada.
So may Allah to Allah, count them as shahada and make them
intercessors for their families. And we ask Allah to Allah to grant
Sabra to all of the families, extended families and the
neighbors and everyone who has suffered deaths. Likewise, those
who may have suffered, who have not died, but have suffered major
injuries, major injuries, we cannot forget them. Their lives
have been altered permanently. There have been people who have
lost their homes, their lives are altered, permanent people have
lost their businesses, their lives have been altered, may Allah to
Allah be with them, and give them Sobor and grant them the Imen in
handling tribulations, just as we handle what is good from Allah. We
know he gives it to us with the wisdom likewise, he hands he hands
us, we receive trials and tribulations in life, what we
don't like and we believe that Allah has wisdom in it. And our
view is not just dunya, we ask Allah to expand our view to dunya
and akhira. This is the Muslims view of of existence is that what
happens here may not have what we want of the dunya but it will have
what we want of the ACA. And we ask Allah to increase our Eman and
Accra and increase our Eman in the life that is coming after this
life so that we may bear the hardships of this life. Lastly, we
ask that Allah to Allah bless all of the Muslims who are suffering
outside of Turkey who may have taken our eye off of at this time
and give them
ease in their hardship and their difficulty. And for all those
enemies of Islam who are harming these people such as the weekers.
And then and the Rohingya Ian's and the Palestinians We ask Allah
to Allah to busy them with themselves all of these oppressors
May Allah busy them with themselves so they could let go of
and live off of their oppression of our brethren was subtle
Allahumma barik ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa early he was abused by
them. Subhanallah Baker believes that your male seafood was salam
ala and was said Mercedes