Shadee Elmasry – S5 E8 Which of His Favors Will You Deny Hamza Tzortzis
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Hey guys
I'm salty. Yes. It's been a long time. I don't think we've recorded
for over a month now. Yeah, it's been some it's been a while. And
so Maureen has been he's, it's this podcast is actually one of I
don't know if it's his idea of my idea. But the idea of the podcast
was to sit with a common person and talk about matters that are on
their mind with somebody who knows a little bit about, you know,
topics of Dean. So that was idea and Maureen is that type he
represents that common man, he's the IT guy, right? So it but from
the Dini side, he doesn't get in the weeds of theology of law. He's
concerned Muslim, but that's it. That's our audience, too. So
moinian actually represents our audience, that type of person who
works, but is smart, it just not a professional in the dean, per se.
Sure. Right? We have now
within like a week or two, he came up with this brilliant idea to
invite Alex Alex Lajos, who also goes by NBS is a lawyer by
training and like a voracious reader, he does not represent the
common man.
Or any man, you could say. You could say.
Or, in his own words, he doesn't even represent this Venus it
podcast, right?
Although he does, right, he does. And I'm happy to
have him and all his takes as well. But he, what Ilyas does is
he really reads everything. He's like me, Medicaid and FIP and Dean
in general. And he's, but he's a voracious reader, and has
basically something intelligent to say, a lot of people have
something to say, right? But not everyone has something intelligent
to say, or based on some statistic or some fact. Right? So when my
kids need to know a word, they always say, could you call up your
friend? Who knows everything? Right? And that's referring to
Alex. Right? So meanings of words, stuff like that. Now we have we
go, we have another brother named sad, who also represents the
common man, but he couldn't be with us because I don't like to
have more than five people on the episode, it gets hard for the
listener. Then we have NAS. All right, Nas is a brother who
basically is he's an IT guy. But he's one of those really, really
smart in theology and philosophy. He loves philosopher so you and
him will get along. And he jumped at the chance to be on this
podcast, because he's he really loves philosophy and studying
philosophy and that
you know, is right up your alley, and I'm sure you're gonna have a
lot to say your name is pronounced last name is pronounced sources.
That will do
I'm not gonna pronounce it correctly. I mean, if you if you
tell me what's the what's the right way to do it? Yeah, no.
Look, man, if the left from the issue.
I'm not gonna teach you the 10th read of Greek right now.
Basically, you put the T and the Z together quite fast. So it's like,
don't this Oh, okay, that does take two three lessons. You know,
what's very interesting shift. The whole pronounciation of language
is actually a proof of the Islamic concept of motor water. Yeah. And
the motor what you're right. The reason being is because the way we
pronounce for example, the word love, how do we know when we see
love the letters and the word love?
That we don't pronounce it? Love, E or love? Yeah, the reason being
because it's a living oral tradition on how to pronounce
words. And you may think, oh, but you can go to a dictionary or a
dictionary that tells you how to pronounce. But that doesn't mean
anything. That's just a reflection of the oral tradition. Right? And
this is mutawatir. And what's very interesting, someone may say,
Yeah, but you know, language changes over time. But with
regards to the Quran, we have Tajweed that has preserved the
pronunciation. So when an atheist or someone who's a skeptic wants
to really understand, you know, why does the oral tradition take
primacy in the preservation of the Quran? Well, here's an here's a
living example. It's every single language. So logically speaking to
reject the oral motor, what the tradition of the Quran is
logically equivalent of rejecting any no living language. True,
totally true. And even Arabic grammar when people say why are
there so many exceptions? I really recently discovered the correct
answer to that is that the grammarians were not writing and
putting together a structure for students to study. They were
merely reflecting and trying to make sense of how it's already
spoken. Yeah. And so they said, Well, why did the Arabs not want
to pronounce the casita on this
Word write, it's because it didn't come out easily. So they just
skipped it because language has to come out easily. Otherwise, it
defeats its purpose. Its ease in reflecting meaning, rather than
coming up with a theory that is symmetrical on a text in a
textbook.
So it doesn't matter if it's difficult for the student language
is meant for the speaker to transmit his ideas with ease, not
for the listener.
It's like the way that there's timeout buta in English, even
though no linguist recognizes it or writes about it. And you're not
going to find it in the grammar textbook or a book on spelling and
pronunciation, but it exists which is what if a if a word ends with a
vowel and then a T? Yes, Mr. Gupta in English. Nobody says cat. You
don't put your tongue against your exhale. You say it in the back of
your throat cat. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah. And it's the
pronunciation of the Hamza to ya right. All right, good. Here we
go.
was salam ala Rasulillah. He was so happy woman. Well, welcome to
the Safina society podcast in an episode that I I've been looking
forward to and our team's been looking forward to for about a
month since we scheduled this. And that is an episode today we have
our guests Hamza zort, says I'm trying to pronounce it properly.
But people usually say sources, but it's resorts. It's for
everyone who knows Greek. But this episode is something which is
really up our alley, because we're really a type of Khademi type of
podcast and that we want to look at issues that are coming up in
our present day and sort of deconstruct them in common man's
language and put forth what the book and the Sunnah and our
Islamic heritage what we call a tour off, Elmi, the heritage of
knowledge puts forth so with that, let's go over to Maureen with our
introductions and a word from our affiliate Santa Monica one today
but not everyone. So a word from our affiliate. We want to give a
shout out to our affiliate Mecca books at Mecca books.com That's
Mecca with two C's me CCA B O K s.com. Right now they have a
discount for one of their latest releases an introduction to
Islamic theology by Imamura, Dina suddenly, so you don't want to
miss out on that book. It's a great book. It's a great resource
of Aqeedah on Anna sooner as well. And without further ado, I'd like
to introduce our very special guests I mean, he doesn't need
really need much of an introduction but as I've spent a
great deal of my time listening to his videos in the past I've
learned so much about him and we have him on our show today brother
Hamza tort sis I'm definitely I mean, he gave us a little touch
read lesson on Greek right before this episode, but I still can't
pronounce his name properly. I'm good. Brother Hamza has a master's
and postgraduate certificate in philosophy from the University of
London. He's currently continuing his postgraduate studies in the
field, and brother Hamza has debated prominent academics and
thinkers on Islam and atheism. his interlocutors have included
Professor Lawrence Krauss, Professor Peter Simmons, Dan
Barker and Professor Simon Blackburn. He has over a decade of
experience in articulating a compassionate and rational case
for Islam. He is also a trained boxer and Wing Chun kung fu
practitioner, which maybe I can ask him later about. But I'd also
like to say that, you know, we have his book here. I don't think
you can see it on camera, but it's called the divine reality. I think
zoom kinda just takes out everything in the background. His
great book, I referenced it often, it's called the divine reality
God, Islam and the mirage of atheism. It's a great resource. I
know, Dr. Shadi and Nazmul re reference it all the time as well.
So without further ado, us and I'm wondering what happened today
we're gonna get the Welcome Welcome brother Hamza. We are also
joined by Nazmul en la is the host and Dr. Shetty tell you on today's
episode, back to you actually. So So Hamza, welcome to our program.
And tell us about yourself. When did you exactly start debating
these these big names in philosophy in science,
evolutionists and these Neo atheists? You know, New Atheists,
and Dominus what when did that start to happen with you? And
like, how do you approach them? How does those out of those
debates come about? Exactly? That's a good question. I mean,
firstly, exactly here for the opportunity for having me on your
podcast. May Allah bless you all.
How did it stop? Well, in the beginning,
I used to have discussions around liberalism, freedom of speech,
some of those videos are still online, the very grainy and it was
like, I think 2006 2007 2008 I had a discussion or debate with the
founder of the British Yuki party. His name is Anand scared on
liberalism. I had a debate with I forgot his name now.
on freedom of speech,
and
I was discussing those kinds of social, political,
philosophical ideas, but then I realized that there was a huge,
huge challenge coming,
which was as a result of some of the fiction books from the New
Atheists. Right? I don't call them nonfiction and fiction books,
right? Because they lie about Allah subhanaw taala. So yeah, by
virtue of that their
victim books. So The God Delusion, which is a fiction book,
when that came out after that, there was a bit of a kind of
movement going on. Because the nature of movements is that they
have leaders. And if you study the sociology of movements, they also
have a repertoire of different activities that are linked to a
kind of overall worldview, if you like, or a bunch of assertions. So
you have this kind of doctrine, worldview assertions, and you have
these leaders, and then you have a repertoire of different activities
that they'll do lectures, conferences, podcasts, books, etc.
So it was a growing movement, and I felt, you know, maybe I have the
skills to respond whilst I thought at the time, but looking back now,
you know, it's been a journey, because obviously, in the
beginning, I was just basically reading Christian philosophical
books, because I wasn't in touch with our tradition properly. In
actual fact, it was almost like cut and paste. So I, I've been,
I've been on a journey, obviously, I've learned from many mistakes
that I've made for sure. And you have to realize the time I was
doing this, you know, YouTube and Facebook was starting to get more
popular, we didn't have online connected communities that much,
especially in the UK, you didn't really have connected communities
from a scholarly perspective that you could sit in on someone's
certain questions. This was before 2010.
So
that obviously was a context that affected me to the degree where I
just had to pick things from places where I thought it just
sounded right. Right. And because I've got a bit of a big bit of a
big mouth, and because if I love something, I'm going to share it
like you know, I used to love Wing Chun kung fu. And I would tell
people know, you stopped doing boxing, which was the best economy
of motion. You know, you save energy, it's faster, it's more
skillful, all of that stuff, right. So when you love something,
you share it. So when people see, I think, my kind of trajectory or
journey they hopefully they've seen, in some way, me reacting to
the mistakes I've made in a way that has continued a certain
growth, and there's much more to do. But I don't want people
thinking that, you know, I was this great debate in the
beginning. And I smacked and laid a smack down all these atheists
and these academics from Cambridge, like, Simon Blackman
was from Cambridge, he's a humean scholar, and press Lawrence
Krauss, no, I had I have, I haven't I had my issues, you know,
I wasn't really grounded that much in the philosophical tradition, or
even in the Islamic tradition. So it was when I got into my kind of
mid 30s, or maybe just before I started to take a little bit more
seriously, and I am where I am. So I don't want people thinking, you
know, I was like, a major reference point, I was like, you
know, kind of for the community, I had to defend, you know, we had to
do something, because at that time, not many people were doing
things and hamdulillah Allah, me too easy. Allah inspired me to a
degree that it came across as robust. But if you were to scratch
the surface a lot,
you know, it wasn't as easy as it seems. I don't want people
thinking, you know, it's because I come across as eloquent. Or, I
used to be a good Smackdowns. And I came across as intellectual. And
somehow I said the right thing, it doesn't necessarily mean I was the
right person, right? Or I did things in the right methodology. I
didn't. So I just want to make that clear. Well, I would say I
have a lot in common with that from the aspect that I really
don't have much patience for classroom settings. And as soon as
I get something, I want to go out to the front line. So a lot of
people that I taught
it to and fifth to I was just teaching what I had, right? And
sometimes it turned out, right. And sometimes there were mistakes
embedded, right? Not hamdulillah not blunders, right, but you know,
little mistakes embedded in there, that you have to fix over time.
But that's really the best way to, to start is just to get an
experience, see how the world is going to react, you know, to this,
how that how the how this human being in front of you is going to
react to what you're saying. That's the only way to know, you
know, find an inroad to influencing people or getting your
message across and you realize you learned from experience that all
these things don't work. I never had a mentor who came and said,
you know, as an imam of the mosque, you really shouldn't tweet
this right.
Nor, you know, before you publish this reference this book that I
never had any
that, but I'm learning it as we go on and I gotta be honest,
WhatsApp has really transformed a lot of things because I now I
talk, I don't pass a word through social media about arcade or FIP.
Except that first it goes through one or two or three of the
heavyweight scholars of the Arab world who will read it, go through
it, and we have English speaking heavyweights to know right guys
who are, you know, she youth are a bit older than me, but they've
been around the block. So now I don't filter I don't put out any
word unless it's gone through four or five people first or one or two
people. But that's we're all learning right and learning on the
on the fly. Wayne, you know, I was just gonna say you got rid of your
flip phone. I'm more shocked about No, no, no, I still have the flip
phone. This does not have anything on it except for what I need in
terms of the work and social media stuff. I'm lifting up my my iPhone
here, which is red, because when my phone broke, my iPhone broke.
My, my wife just picked one. I said, I like the red one, right?
Turns out that you're supporting aids or AIDS research, but
whatever. It's a nice red phone. And that's it. But I shut this
thing off whenever I need to. It's only for like work purposes. And I
still have my flip. So I'm still texting you on your flip. That's
why it takes like the toilet. Yeah, exactly.
kondalilla No, that's godness. Yeah, I just I just had a question
for Brother Hamza. By the way, I'm geeking out right now, because I'm
on this podcast.
I grew up me and my friends from our area grew up watching your
videos. So you're in Mohammed T jobs. So we've, we've definitely
seen the transformation of like, you know, your earlier arguments.
And then now the more sophisticated, you know, your book
and all the modern things that you're doing. The question I had
for you was,
you know, when you mentioned that, when you had these theological
questions and these issues, there were no Islamic resources at the
time. And I was facing something similar. And the people that I
turned to were also a Christian philosophers. And in a certain
sense, I knew more about Christian theology than I then I did about
Islam. So the question is, like, how did you? Like, how did you
navigate that? Because of, like, for example, when you're reading
so much, William Lane Craig, you start thinking, you know,
you know, are his ideas even compatible with Islam? Right? And
then you say something in public and then anokhi, the scholars says
that, okay, actually, that's cool for this podcast went
down.
And I mean, I've certainly had a lot of these problems. I mean,
just recently, I shared an idea with
with a scholar of Kalam, and he said, Okay, this is not actually
compatible with Islam. And then I was writing something and okay,
that I can't put that in, you know.
And so like, how did you how did you navigate that? Like, did you?
Do you follow me Islamic theology? Like, can you get? Yes, so the
important thing to do is, firstly, when you're engaged in this type
of work, it's expiring, isn't it? So you know, you're just throwing
things out there? Is this punch gonna work? Oh, no, it's not, then
you get knocked out. And when you get knocked out, you have to get
up. Right? You have to get up and you have to learn from your
mistakes, you have to keep your hands up, right? You have to learn
new skills, defenses, and attacks, and so on and so forth. So
likewise, on this journey, I got attacked left, right and center.
Obviously, it was by obnoxious people who haven't the idea of a
donkey. In actual fact, that's insulting to a donkey because
donkeys just you know, do what they have to do. But some humans
don't. They don't follow humanity. I mean, I'm so shocked that the
Muslim community, they're so quick to kill someone, man, they're so
quick to break them down and elevate them, which is not a son
of the press or something. So but hamdulillah because, you know, I
have a different personality. I was brought up in an era called
Hackney in London in the evening. That's really bad. I actually got
jumped in Hackney. Really. I went out and we just did something
naive. And we said,
let's let's take a bike ride.
No, let's take a bike ride. So I didn't know England's a London so
I will take we took a bike ride and we rented these bikes for like
60 pounds. And we're riding through in a beautiful city we're
looking at to Saturday and it was sunny. It's which is rare, right?
And all of a sudden, we ended up in Hackney, right? And I didn't
know that this was one of the more dangerous areas so I put the bikes
to the side and and went on in a park to pray vote while the bike
is little next to me. So I get up and the bike is taken. The bikes
were taken by a group of eight dudes and then I went up with I
went up to them, I'm not going to just let them take these bikes,
right. And then they surrounded by eight guys, and the guys who got
broke, he said don't even do it. Don't don't go to the hospital,
right? Don't even try to fight back. I went up to one of the guys
and we exchanged to punch
Just real quick, and then they converge real quick eight guys.
And they're like, Listen, don't even bother. We're taking the
bikes, the $300 You're gonna pay to the bike shop is much less than
the pain that you're gonna go through in the hospital. So I
thought I calculated real quick. Maybe he's right.
I went back and I had a nice cut though, because I had one of those
rimless glasses. You know, remember, remember back in the
day, the rimless glasses, and when he punched me, I had a nice,
perfect circle cut right there. I actually liked it. Right. You
know, hockey players were supposed to like this injuries, these
facial injuries, right? I just have to make up a good story for
it. But I went back and paid the guy 300 pounds, right? For the
bike that I lost. So that's that's my story about Hackney. Oh, yeah,
I'm so sorry. Now you
grew up there. It was fun. Like you said, sparring. You got to
spar in life, you have to get hit. And like, because when he punched
me, I was like, it was actually my first time outside of a hockey
rink getting punched. And I thought that was it. That wasn't
wasn't that bad? Right? So anyway, go on.
Yeah, so where was I? You grew up in I grew up in agony. Yeah. So
you know, I can take a bit of, you know, abuse, and people want you
to break you down and stuff like that. So to be honest, when I got
a lot of feedback from atheists, from Muslims, even those that
didn't like me and didn't want me around, it was one of the best
things ever, honestly, because it helped me grow. And I think the
key is anyone involved in public work is that you need to be
sincere or try to be sincere. And you need to, you need to learn
from your mistakes, and you to acknowledge them. So that helped a
lot will also will also help towards going back to the
tradition. So
engaging with Acadia to how we are, for example, and engaging
with scholars and asking the right questions, and so on and so forth.
Because it's not everything that the Christians philosophers say
that's wrong, of course not. But there are of course, many things
that you have to navigate. So I have a principle when it comes to
Kalam type of work, especially in a contemporary sense that you have
to try and ensure that the premises the presuppositions, and
the principles that you're adopting, when you are taking an
argument are in line with the Islamic tradition, namely Kitab
and Sunnah. Or the inferred from the Quran and the Sunnah in the
tradition, as long as you have that, you're going to be
consistent in some way.
And you have to double check your work with people all the time.
Okay. And so going back to the tradition, studying
helped, apps definitely helped, it definitely helped. And that's my
advice to people don't get, don't just create a YouTube channel
channel. Now, you know, learn from my mistakes, other people's
mistakes, make sure that you connected with scholars with
students of knowledge, and also that you have a decent
relationship with Allah subhanho wa taala. Because if you don't,
it's going to it's going to catch you it's going to, it's going to
eat you up. So that's when when people ask Hamza, should I study
philosophy? Sometimes to some people, I say, no, there should be
certain conditions. So I give four conditions. Number one, you have
to have a sound understanding of your own creed, otherwise, you'll
end up in a big mess, right?
Number two, you have to be connected to mainstream scholars,
not any type of scholar, because I remember you'll ask the scholar
who's an expert in fic. And actually the question, they might
not even give you the right answer, because they haven't got
the skills to contemporize what they learned, and that's a huge
challenge, right? So be connected to scholars
have a decent relationship with Allah subhanho wa taala. I'm not
just talking about the foreign aid, I'm talking about your eyes
and thinking in the morning in the evening. This is essential.
Then the other thing was,
be sincere do it for the right reason. So there's four things
that I forgot what the fifth one is, maybe it was just four. But
you have to be sincere you have to have a certain purpose if it's
there, just because you know, you'd like philosophical reading.
That's, that's, that might eat your puzzle, these these are
dangerous areas, right? So those are the four things I tell people
to do before they enter into philosophy. Yeah, and just before
we go to mind, eating you up part is not just the from in your mind,
but the sparring as well can really transform a person
negatively.
Especially if your opponent descends to a certain level. But
I've never had a problem sparring with somebody who is clearly like
wrong and the sense of being, you know, on a position that without
doubt is wrong. What I've always had a problem with and actually
get depressed is sparring with another Muslim who's supposed to
be on this. We're in the same OMA, we're on the same side. Prophet
even so I seldom has a hadith that's a crowd
Quran for itself to my leave a Kumar who recite the Quran but if
you differ on it get up from it. Why? Because differing within the
ranks of Muslims is destructive, right? Yeah now the heretics out
of that someone bringing a complete heresy is out of that a
little bit I will go up and of course the you know atheist
philosopher non believers those type of people were attacking
Islam from outside that's obvious. So I think the sparring part of
things, it can get really nasty when it's an I would say the only
time I would actually put my sword down and walk out it I'll take the
L if it's, you know, with other Muslims when it gets using Trump
style takedowns and dishonesty and all that stuff. To me that's
actually disgusting. And I would want to just I'll leave the whole
thing. So when people get into these debates, not not necessarily
to literally debating but what they call like,
you know, these issues, contentious issues that go back
and forth. They got to keep that in mind. Do not go into the ring
with your fellow Almighty because that's something that prophesize
Quran is always
connecting Muslims with Rafa compassion and dropping the issue.
But it's always connecting with the kuffaar on what Jaya he didn't
confirm on African work alone or lay him. You want to be rough and
tough. Do that with clear heretics in the OMA and clear enemies.
Yeah. So more than your point. Yeah. So I mean, it's really not a
question for, but the homes have specifically but really thought
for all of us that I'd like to, you know, get get some thoughts on
is, you know, I remember watching, you know, brother Holmes's videos
back in, like, you know, 2008 2009 heavily when, especially when I
was in college, and I think that like you mentioned, the, the
Congress, not only have you grown and, you know, changed in your, in
your approach to things as other debaters and you know, speakers on
this topic have as well feel like the world has also changed a lot,
right? And the Muslim online, their needs have changed as well
as as well as the world's needs. And I remember back in 2007 2008,
the concept of like, Neo atheism, liberalism, these were, these were
huge topics, and they needed to be covered with
strength. And now when you have like a book, like the divine
reality, most people don't want to read it, because it's most people
are just apathetic to these things now, right? It's just
I have
noticed over the course of the last, you know, 15 years, it's
really transitioned from like this Neo atheism, liberalism to now
just just general apathy, and knots, and I have recently reread
a brave new world. And it's a you know, one thing that I think now
is brought up to me earlier, it's really instead of this, this, this
idea of, you know, philosophies being pushed on you, it's really
here, it's just entertainment, this engrossment of just
euphoria, constant euphoria that people have, that's where that's
where people have, you know, have gotten lost. So I'd like to get
your guys thoughts on it, especially brother Hamza, you
know, as you've seen, sort of this, this change in the landscape
of of,
you know, theological conversation amongst different groups, and so
on. Yeah, I want to hear what NASA is first.
So let's go. Let's go now. Let's go Alex, and then we'll go to
Hamza.
What was the question? No, I'm kidding.
But yeah, I think I think I'm Wayne's pretty much right here.
Right. Like one of the one of the things that
the author of brave new worlds, Aldous Huxley, he points out is
that, you know, during his time, there was two theories of how
humanity would be destroyed, right, the human spirit would be
destroyed. So one of them was George Orwell. And his idea, which
is that you end up with putting so much power in the hands of the
state, that they just suppress you, right? They take all of your
liberties, they spy on every single moment of your life, and
they they enforce all of the rule arbitrary rules are new by force,
right? And so human freedom would be destroyed. Now, the second idea
is Huxley's, which is that humanity would be actually not
destroyed by force, but by entertainment. So there's so much,
you know, they'll basically be drowned in plenty. So there's so
much stuff that's just pushed on you so much good stuff, that you
just become absolutely apathetic to anything else. And I can tell
from personal experience that the reason I stopped playing video
games, right, like I was, I was a huge gamer. And the reason I
stopped ironically, was because there were too many good games to
play. Right? And so, I was just like, look at all of these, you
know, 200 you know, games that are really amazing to play. You have
to sink in
Add hours to each of them. And, but I have life obligations. I'm
just like, You know what, I'm apathetic to video games. I can't
I can't do this anymore. And I think the same thing has happened
in,
in the, the intellectual sphere, right. Like a lot of Muslims. You
know, there's all these podcasts. And I know, we probably part of
the problem too, you know, we have a podcast, but there's all these
podcasts, all these voices. Everybody's like, you know,
refuting everybody else. And the regular Muslim, you know, me and
mine. Were just like, you know, I just check out, Matt, I'll just go
to Dr. Charlize much either go to my local machine and just pray and
forget about all this stuff. Right. And I think that's what
happened. That's what's happened in the past, like, 10 years or so.
But I'd like about the hunters opinion on that.
Yeah, so
that's, that's that's an interesting point. You know, I
think I think it's 1984. And it is brave new world, what we're really
looking at.
They were both right. Unfortunately, we both have
governments that are increasingly repressive, and increasingly
limiting freedoms. I mean, look at what France is doing to the
Muslims. Right. Right. Or what Germany is doing to the general
population. And, you know, whatever your position is about
how serious a threat the Coronavirus is. It's, there's no
question that governments take opportunities like that, and they
act opportunistically and use that to seize more power. And the thing
about government is once it never never gets back power, even if
it's taken under emergency rules, that becomes just a permanent
thing. And also, we are being entertained to death, you know,
not not to steal a quote from an author, but we are we're
entertaining ourselves to death. And
you know, what Maureen mentioned that nobody cares about these,
these bigger issues. I think that's 100% True.
You know,
if I'm gonna give just one broad sweeping, probably too broad of a
brush analysis of it, I think that the at least the online Muslims,
right, they're more caught up in this gotcha culture. And this, let
me see what I can point out about somebody and retweet them with a
picture of something they tweeted four years ago and say this, you,
you know, that kind of thing, then actually engaging in any kind of
intellectual arguments. And I think part of it is, you know, to
tie a few things together here, part of it is that most people
have never gotten punched in the face for real. And they, they
don't, they don't believe that there's serious consequences to
the things that you do and say, and, you know,
and when you walk around, thinking that you can just act like, I
don't know, like a teenage girl, even though your 28 year old man,
and just go online and insult people and the right people,
because you disagree with maybe one word and what they said
instead of
I don't know what you can do with a group of people like that.
So, and I think it's just getting worse, right? I think it just
keeps getting it's just it's a cycle that that it's like a
snowball effect. So
yeah, and that's my take on it.
Yeah, got it. Just one other thing. People don't read books
mine. Oh, no, they don't know, regardless of the subject, people
don't even read anymore. This is a joke from from sod that he always
brings up but I mean, there's, there's a bit of reality to this
is, you know, the stage I'm at now is I mean, I've been reading this
stuff for a better part of, you know, 10 years now. And, you know,
got engrossed and really a part of this stuff. You know, we were
doing this podcast. Now. I'm at a point where it's just like, hey,
listen, I'd rather just do some Vicodin Quran rather than become a
sinker test of some sort. Right? Let me this.
It's a joke. But it's, there's a truth to this, right? Because
that's what's that's what people are on now. Right? Well, the thing
is that I found I find it really brilliant. What Alex just said
about it's both. It's not one or the other. It's brave new world,
and it's 1984. And because it's Brave New World, we don't realize
it's 1984. Right? And because, yeah, they got really smart. It's
not like one king who controls you anymore. They're just they'll give
you a new face every four years, right? Every five years, you have
a new face a new regime. And it gives it the image that no one
person is actually in control. But in fact, if you look at the laws
and look at the way things are, it really is to a high degree 1984
You can't step outside your house without having some kind of a
license the requirement. You want to build a shed, you got to get
permissions. There's everything. There's so many limitations on
what people could do now. And something that Hamza you said in
one of your in your work, why God is worthy of worship? Is that I
think it's that video. That was one of your videos.
We always say feel like obedience. When we say we have to obey Allah
and His messenger that this is the
like medieval, we just like in our modern society is the most
obedient. Modern Man is the most obedient person ever. You go, you
go back 400 years go back 500 years, 600 years, if a guy didn't
like something, the heck with this, I'll go find myself a plot
of land somewhere, I'll deal with my consequences myself, I got my
sheep, I got my swords, right? I have my wife is with me, and my
kids are with me, I'll have a couple sons, I'll buy some swords,
no one will mess with me. He was much more independent. Of course,
there were consequences, life was a lot harder. But he was much more
independent than he is today. So I found that idea. And as to Alex's
point on the way the discourse has come ties right into what Knauss
saying, because there's so much out there, the only way to get
attention is to be outrageous and simplistic. And in order to be
outrageous and simplistic, you also oftentimes have to sacrifice
truth and dignity. Right. And so at the end of the day, if you
could just get a good meat and potatoes to a couple people.
That's really good that like, you know, mine is saying, what the
heck with all this? Well, if we get more meat, it's true that
we're not going to compete in that melee, right? It's a it's a crazy
fray. We're not we don't want to compete in that. But if we can get
some meat and potatoes to 510 people, right, it really sinks in.
That's all we care about. Right? Forget the the rat race or the
digital rat race. So all right, Hamza, what do you what's your
take? Yeah, well, there's a lot to unpack there. I mean,
I think referring back to one of the brothers when he mentioned
about the online world, and you've mentioned about simplicity and
being outrageous. This is also as a result of a kind of neoliberal
culture as well, because in liberalism, the kind of premise
philosophical premises atomism, or individualism is the primary on
the primacy on the self, you're sovereign. And the whole society
is structured that way to a degree. I mean, this crude
example, you know, Loreal, because I'm worth it, stuff like that. But
you could find crude examples and profound examples. And I think
that is now affected all of us to the degree when we express
ourselves, we have a type of egocentrism, but my way of seeing
things, the only way of seeing things, and it has really affected
our knifes, our ego, what's the nature of the ego? I always want
to be right. I never want to be wrong. I always want to look good.
I don't want to look bad. I always want to impose I don't want to be
imposed upon. And this is Shavon Shavon is a teacher for us in some
way. Because he teaches us how not to be. Allah told him to bow down
to Adam. No, right? I'm not getting imposed upon. I'm
imposing.
I'm flying. He's clay, I look good. He looks bad, right? I'm
better, right? I'm right, Allah, you're wrong. Now the biller
right, so he's covered was was was was was Keba. So this is the
nature shaytaan teaches what the knifes is. So our egos are like
that now, so and we always want to be right, and we never want to be
wrong, we always want to impose we don't to be imposed upon it, we
always want to look good and never look bad at the expense of the
truth. Right. And this expresses itself on the online world. And
not only that, most people online world are most people
unfortunately suffered to a certain degree of a lack of
what's the right word to use.
They have self esteem issues. And then they they're scared. You
know, people come across like that they actually have self esteem
issues. And they're scared because it takes a kind of powerful person
to be able to react with new it's with Rama, right? It that's,
that's a powerful thing to do. Right. And they have self esteem
issues. And then they're fearful. And society plays on certain self
esteem, like the monster Lord into some degree. And people are
scared, right? The unsure the uncertain. And that expresses
itself because that's how you come across. It's like us in their
mindset, right? That's the kind of mindset that that is built as a
result of that. Or you want to be excessively harsh, right? Because
it shows to yourself that I'm on the right team, and I'm right,
they're wrong. And it makes you feel a false sense of strength. So
there's a psychological element that can be, you know, linked to
liberalism to some degree. I think the other thing is just to try and
square the circle here. The other thing is that we're catapulting
ourselves to nihilism, and people just don't care. They literally do
not care. And really one way of dealing with that is adopting of
Quranic narrative because the Quran you know, it's, it's a heavy
book. It's is a heavy book. If you read
He try and discover yourself in the Quran because you know, you
don't read the Quran is reading you, you will see some things
going on, it's gonna reveal who you are right when Allah
especially when he deals with the concept of capital, or your or
your, your so called self sufficiency, you know, wasn't
there a time with a human being wasn't even mentioned? You know,
who do you think you are, you're a nerd for 10 Min money and you came
from a despise fluid, right? And now you're somebody, right? You're
a baby, you know, think about the concept of being a baby man. If
you take a baby and you put in the corner of a room for a few weeks
and don't touch it or feed it, it's gonna die. We're dependent on
a mother's father's on the system and other people. And all of those
things are ultimately dependent on Allah subhanaw taala. Yet why do
we act as if we were cut bolted from our mother's room? Was the
briefcase in a tie in a bank balance? Right? So these things
need to be reminded? It's like a second wake up call, you know, so
when people don't care when they're in a state of roughly the
heedless, you need a spiritual and intellectual slap. That's That's
how are you going to do if people literally don't care? Then you
need to like you know, almost criminal shaking someone but
intellectually and emotionally saying wake up this, you know, you
need to? Well, that's what a lot of people are saying we need to
hit a reset button needs to be pushed out at some point. Yeah,
for sure. Which is scary. Because what does that mean? You know,
like, it's gonna, it's not just going to reset our heedlessness
about life, it's going to reset everything, every industry, every
thing that we enjoy, and dislike and dislike, or he's going to be
reset and who knows what that's going to look like? Right? Yeah, I
mean, I think like, like you mentioned along with this general
apathy simultaneously, people have existential angst, right? So I
think, you know, people are definitely becoming more receptive
to the to, to Dean spirituality, you know, all these things in
general. And, you know, you're out you know, speaking to people more
than more than you know, I am and, you know, Dr. Shetty and you are
you guys aren't you probably see this from people now. Right. It's,
even though simultaneously they're they have a lot of, you know,
apathy. They just feel blah, about life. Like they don't really know
what to do, what direction to go. So they have money, they have
family, they have all these things, but there's just just
general existential angst, like, I hate my job. I hate my friends,
like I don't know.
And I'll tell you what solutions are for that. The solutions are
for that are little, like low investment, but often regular and
predictable meetings.
Face to face gatherings, right. For example, we used to have vicar
night, in the masjid. We recite suits and Mulk. We recite the
Epcot of the evening, we do some casinos. That was one of the most
important things we did a couple times a month. And we have some
sweets, no investment, no personal investment, right in the sense
that we're not asking you for anything you just show up, do some
liquor. Don't do it. Listen, we eat some sweets, we go home. No,
like getting in your life, asking you for allegiance asking you to
do something great. We're not asking you to do like anything
major, not even thinking.
And that state law things that we actually have one of the most
proud things I'm most proud about
is that when we go out every Friday to give out some food to
the homeless, which started off with like 10 meals, eight meals,
we're now at a regular 100 meals, right? Well, we we actually have a
community there. We go there. And there are guys there who know us.
Right? We might not know each other by name, but we know them.
We become regulars, they become regulars. It's an unlike Hold on a
second, we're actually forming a little community here. Right. And
that's really what you know, is going to make people happy. Right?
Hopefully it will gives you a little dosage of happiness every
week that it erases some of the anxiety of life. And that's what I
believe that the worst thing that's happened to us is to this
individualism that's disallowed these little tiny but regular
gatherings to take place, right? Yeah, brother Hamza. You're gonna
Salem? Yep. Yeah, I was gonna refer to what you said for the
Marine about the existential stuff, I think is quite powerful.
Because now what I've seen to certain degree and obviously my
experience is limited. That, you know, sometimes I'm asked by an
Islamic Society at university to give a talk on God's existence. I
say no, I say let's do a token why Allah is worthy of worship.
Because the existential arguments now I see in their face. Like you
know, you could argue philosophy and you could split the
philosopher hair into the cows come home, right? Like, you know,
if you're going to consciousness, the hard problem of consciousness,
there's lots if you go into academia, you can't even find
Some responses online. It's like the phenomenal concept strategy by
Michael Thai. Try and find that right in any detail. This is high
level academia, the physicalists are trying to fight back. But the
point is this. You can't discuss that with university undergrad
students, you lose them. Yeah. But what I found that it's, that's
what I found in Australia that's affecting them now, is going to
the existential questions like, Who are you? Who's Are you? For
whom are you? Why are you right? And also, to take what they
believe to be non negotiables, to show that your non negotiables do
not make any sense under your own philosophy and your beliefs, and
the logical implications of your atheism or your rejection or your
philosophical naturalism or your physicalism. The logical
implications are that you have to throw all your beliefs out the
window, about human value, human rights, a sense of purpose in your
life, and so on and so forth. Even the concept of hope, right? Even
the concept of what, what you think a human being is and how you
how you elevate human being other non human animals, right, unless
you're vegan, of course, but that's a different discussion.
Yeah. So when you attack it from that perspective, something
happens to the fitrah, something happens to the roar there. So
honestly, and it's quite interesting, because Martin Lynx,
he makes a really beautiful point, he says, Man cannot not worship.
And this really is almost like a very simplistic Tafseer of chapter
39, verse 29. And I'm paraphrasing, when Allah says in
the Quran, consider the situation of two people. One man is a slave
to many masters and all quarreling, and another man, he is
a seven to one master, whose condition is best. So it's as if
the default position of humanity is to worship something. Because
if you want to know something, the most love something the most, obey
something the most, and direct your acts of worship towards
something the most like ultimate gratitude. That's your object of
worship. So even if you reject the Creator, you're worshiping
something like Allah says, In the Quran, have you not seen those who
take their own desires as the Lord or the or the other monks and
their rabbis, right, or whatever the case may be. So human beings,
by default, irrespective of philosophy is in a state of
worship. So the Quran comes down today is smack down on that ad and
basically says, You're, you're worshipping the wrong thing,
worshipping the one who's worthy of worship, that narrative shift,
with all due respect, and I see this.
You know, I feel very comfortable with you guys. So I'm going to say
as a as a Greek, the Greek Brit, right, we break things out
winnings. This narrative, this narrative, shockingly, has not
been part of our data. For a long time. It is shocking. We have
secularized our data. Let me repeat, we have removed the road
from our dollar. Yeah. And oh, I could prove God's existence to
you. Yeah. So what? So and then we're fine. It's very important.
Absolutely. But then what right? And especially in our context,
people don't care about proofs anymore. We live in a post truth
culture, generally speaking, a lot of it is very first person
subjective.
Understanding so plant those seeds in them. And it's extremely
rational. Anyway, it this existential approach is coherent,
especially when you juxtapose it. juxtapose it with the existence,
you're worshiping something anyway, this is who's worthy of
worship. Allah subhanaw taala. Then they and they get to think
they get to engage with the book of Allah. Look at his names and
attributes. Oh my God, Allah is Allah will do it. He is the
accessory loving, He's our man is the TV's al Hakim, what does this
mean? How do I actualize these in my life? What are the
implications? So on and so forth? And you get to love Allah subhanaw
taala. Right. So don't get me wrong. You know, I'm still doing
philosophy as I do. I feel we do need philosophical arguments. And
we have them we're standing on the shoulders of giants, something
that you addressed earlier, but the book and you said you take
things and you know, you don't give credit. That who cares? Well,
yeah, you know, my book, I'm standing on the shoulders of
giants to what you think I've mentioned, everyone, although I
tried to be very careful, because from experience, I remember
atheists, I knew they will go through the book with a fine tooth
comb. And I would even reference a quasi idea I got from a YouTube
clip. Yeah, if you go to the references, you see it. So I
adopted this idea from a YouTube clip here, because I wanted to be
very careful because, you know, people are Shayateen right?
Anyway, notwithstanding, by the way, I'm gonna send you guys
couple of boxes of the revised edition. It's so if you give me
the address later, I'll send you stuff. It's free.
So
where was I? Yeah, so sorry for going on for too long.
On the existential stuff, so important, we have the truth, we
have an amazing spiritual tradition it needs to be revived.
And that that narrative and the data is unfortunately missing.
Yeah, so sometimes one of the things that I found the most
beneficial that you touched upon just now and it's in one of your,
one of your, one of your writings is that worship is not limited to
Salah and Indic. Right worship is something that it's
intentionality. It's how we do. It's why we do, it's why we feed
our kids. It's why we get up in the morning and go to work. It's
why we take care of our bodies, it's all of it. And I think that
that's, that's, that's an excellent way to reach out to
people that don't know the concept of worship, despite the fact that
it's true. And we do it. And it's what we do every day with our
lives for something, a lot of people find the idea alien, right,
this this concept of servitude, of worship of slavery to Allah. So I
just wanted to point out that I think that's one of the most, most
beneficial aspects of this conversation, you have to make
people aware of what they really are, whether they know it or not.
And it's just, it's just directing them, I also would want just to
put in my two cents is that it's very defensive, you already put
yourself you framed yourself and the defense when you have to argue
for God's existence. Right.
You've already put yourself in a it basically admitting that your
back is against the wall, and you have to justify everything from
the ground up. But when you say that put the question of why is
God worthy of worship? You've already embedded a built in the
premise there. And now you're saying, Alright, we're already
doing this. Let's give the reasons why and the benefits why. Right,
which is a lot smarter. Atheism is not acceptable from anyone except
maybe like some people at a higher academic level, who have actually
thought through the implications and are sticking to their guns,
atheism from the common man, it's just laziness. And it's often
just, I don't like the religion I was raised in. Yes, it's not an
acceptable position. And you should just brush it aside,
actually, I can tell you a number of instances where I've spoken to
atheists, and, you know, so some of them are close friends of mine,
and they'll be atheists hardcore up until the point that they have,
you know, a very difficult time in their life or something's going
on, you know, you know, they'll say, I've had an atheist come up
to me and say, Hey, pray for me, it's like it, but you don't
believe in God. He's like, Yeah, you know, but just just pray for
me. You know, I'm having a tough time.
So, so it's, it's there, right? It's in the fitrah.
But I think Daksha you mentioned you were gonna play a clip. Yeah,
I have a clip just about the inconsistencies within atheism.
We're in the natural thinking of atheists themselves. And I have
two clips. It's one video, but I'm cutting up two sections, where
Susan Blackmore, who's an atheist, she's going to talk about the
meaninglessness of life, then about how she makes sense of the
meaninglessness of life, right, which is a contradiction. And then
the sort of pitiful and pathetic
seems pretty sad, of what is meaningful to her. Right? And
these are two separate clips. So here we go.
With horrible things happen to me, all right, feel, or I read some
terrible thing going on in the world. Yes, those are tragedies
going on in the world. My response is, nothing matters. It's all
empty and meaningless. This is how the world is. Get used to it. Get
on with it. Okay, so that's the first group. Now let's look at
houses. Another thing I've often done this with my students, let's
suppose you become nihilistic. Nothing matters. There's no point
in doing it. I mean, I think we live in a pointless universe, what
are you going to do? And I say to them, like William James, in his
wonderful thing about getting up in the morning, that sort of
slightly different point that he makes there. But I say to them,
Okay, tomorrow morning, when you wake up, think it's all pointless.
There's no point in doing anything. And what are you going
to do? Actually, you're going to need to go to the loo. You're
going to get out of bed and you're going to go to the bathroom. And
when you're there, you'll think well, actually, I'm hungry. I
think, I think I want to go down to the kitchen. Oh, I probably
should put my slippers on why don't I get dressed, you're gonna
have something to eat. And then you think I'm bored and you go to
university and get into your lectures. And you know, we are not
creatures who will just not do anything to me to go through that
process which I've done in the past a lot and it's just natural
now is okay, she carries on, but you see, what is her response is
that the animalistic needs of the human being will busy you from
thinking about that anymore. And those little and she carries on
and she says these little things that society we all do it we agree
on the meaning of it, it's essentially but he or she is going
on and on on trying to make meaning out of that. So it's a
paradox it's it's complete, contradictory, which is saying
That's it.
Yeah. So I mean, responding to that clip and also what brother
Hunter said, I tried to be an optimist because I'm a natural
pessimist. And what I've seen, at least from the online culture is
like what Moin said, and Hunter, brother Hunter said, and brother
Alex, that people's fitrah is still there, right? That you
can't, you can't somehow erase the fitrah. So what you see is, I
mean, people, for example, 4 million copies of a book like 12
rules for life by Jordan Peterson. I mean, that book is actually
quite complicated. If you actually read it, it's very dense
philosophy, some of it bad philosophy, but 4 million people
bought it. I mean, just imagine that, and it's not even a New York
Times bestseller. And, you know, the people like Ben Shapiro, and
all these other intellectual darkweb type people, Joe Rogan,
people are listening to three hours, right, three hour long
podcasts of Joe Rogan, right? Exploring all these different
ideas and all this other stuff. So there's a real thirst for wanting
to find some type of meaning to life. And just like Susan
Blackmore said, it's actually a biological imperative within us to
actually find that meaning like we can't, you can't somehow deny it.
So CS Lewis, for example, makes a quite a strong argument for God, I
think, just based on that need, it's called the Argument from
Desire brother Hamza, you definitely know about it, which is
that just as you have these natural desires for food, right,
or for shelter, and just as those natural desires point to something
actual in the world, right? You can't say that, you know, I'm
hungry, but then you deny that food exists? Well, no, it doesn't
make any sense, your hunger indicates that there has to be
food in the same exact way, your biological drive for meaning must
indicate that there is some true meaning to the world. Right? And
your biological desire for worship, and, as Brother Hamza
pointed out, must indicate that there is a proper object of
worship. So so we can't, we can't simply just act as if these things
don't exist and create our own meaning there is actually, you
know, we have to biologically make sense of our lives. I mean, where
else you know, we wither away. So, and I mean, I was gonna say, I
mean, ignoring all the philosophy stuff, if I was to answer this
from like, a common man's perspective, this is just seems
like a very, like, horrible way to live life. Right? Like, forget,
forget, forget all of the philosophy, right? Like, if you
were to just take to people, you know, one person, you know,
believes in God, he has families going to the masjid he has, you
know, he's eating samosas and stuff for Iftar. He's got all
these things going on. He's playing ball and in the evenings
with his friends at the masjid. And like, you have this lady who's
just like, you know, trying to get up in the morning by thinking
about going to the loo. Like, come on now. Like, this is not a very
difficult decision. Right? Like, forget all the philosophy This is
seems like a very, like, crappy way to live life. Like, you know,
just, you know, pardon my French, but I want to say something before
I get to that other point is that there was an article I read about
a woman who was a cop in England, cop in London. She's about 47
years old.
And she decided to become a Muslim. Right? She's not like a
detective, right? He like, doesn't menial level of the cop work, like
just like traffic and all that stuff. So they asked her like,
what's what's going on? Why would you become Muslim? Right? Oh,
you're, you're free. You could do what you want, right? She said,
Yes. And I did what I wanted, right? And I found it to be pretty
empty. And I found myself envying, right, these people that walk
across the street, great with these Bengalis with you know,
three kids, and the husband and wife, and I see them going from
the mosque, this is East London, she's from East London, the mosque
over to eat some food. And then while they're walking, they see
another family. And she's like, we don't have this. We don't have
that. Right. And I did the bar thing and the sleeping around
thing, right? And left me empty. So as to Maureen's point, zero
philosophy. He said, This is the best, this is a better way. It's a
warmer way to live. That's all it is. It's warmer. It's I got people
and that guy is not going to leave his wife tomorrow. Right? Of
course, we have divorces, right. But the the concept that there's
no commitment in a one night stand type relationship, or even a
boyfriend and girlfriend is a very minimal commitment, but in
marriage is a big commitment. Right? And the concept that he
just walked away, that doesn't exist, right? Built into the
intent of marriage. So that's the Moines point. And it goes back to
the issue of the actual when the rubber hits the road of a world
without God. And that's really what we should talk about. Now.
When the rubber hits the road. Yes, to a world without God. It's
very dark, and everything that people think is
Sacred will not be sacred. Like, you know, sometimes you said in
one of your videos too that, you know, non penetrative. *,
why is it off the table? Right consent? I mean, don't these kids
have consent to be a boy or a girl? Why can you have consent to
someone rubs them? No harm in that he enjoys it. Okay, so you open
world or open up a door, or you go off a cliff that really has no
ending. So maybe sometimes you want to carry on and discuss that
and what you say to the students when you show them? Yeah, this
inconsistency and that your principles open the door to this
insane world. Yes. So Miss Black, was it Blackburn, right? Black,
black, black, black, black, more sorry, black boy, yes. Because I
heard of her because she wrote about consciousness as well. And
she's obviously from what I remember physicalist. And she's an
incoherent mess, with all due respect. She's basically saying,
life is empty and meaningless. And this is an existential strategy by
some of the atheists They say life is, is empty and meaningless,
meaningless. And anything that happens to you in life, it's empty
and meaningless. And if you react to in some way you have to
understand is also empty and meaningless. And if you complain,
well, why is it empty and meaningless? Well, they're going
to say, well, it's empty and meaningless, that it's empty and
meaningless. And yet, what they're trying to say is, well, that gives
you no new realm of possibility trying to achieve what you want in
your life. But all those achievements are meaningless. And
anything you want is meaningless. So the logical conclusion is
nihilism, in my view, but what's interesting, the way she tried to
square her circle, is she basically said, Well, we can have
like small meanings in our life. Right? The problem with that is,
and let me extend it to what a lot of atheists say they say, yes,
there's no meaning of our life, but there's meaning in life. So
they make a decent philosophical distinction between the meaning of
life, our very existence, the cosmos, and meaning in life. So
they're saying, well, we could give meaning in life. And at the
same time, I reject meaning of life. So meaning in life could be,
I'm going to be a philosopher, I'm going to be a scientist, I'm going
to be a surgeon, I'm going to be a poet, I'm going to be a singer, I
have meaning from our existence. But I think the logical
implication here is this. That is the equivalent of saying, let's
pretend to have meaning.
It's like children playing in a playground, and they pretend to be
cops and robbers, they pretend to be good. And you know, the good
people and the bad people that pretend to be one army versus
another army, or doctors or nurses, whatever the case may be.
What they're logically saying is this, let's pretend to have
purpose, okay? And that, for me, is problematic. No one's going to
accept and even from an existential point of view, don't
talk about them talk about the things that they love. Say for
example, She has a daughter and ask her is your daughter
meaningless?
Right. And that will be quite shocking, right? They could adopt
the philosophy for five minutes, but when they start realizing the
implications, my daughters are meaningless. How dare you? Well,
you said everything is empty and empty and meaningless, right? You
can't add your cake and eat it. So it will get them to think a little
bit more seriously about what our key human intuitions which for me,
you know, is part of the fitrah of the human being so the whole point
of meaning, but you know what? We'll let Maureen speak I think we
should speak about this meaning then leads on to value this is the
big one. Where we spoke Can I talk about this morning, God no. So
value Oh my God, when you do this and an audience that university
people are like, you know, the like, damn. Only these beliefs of
like universal human rights are nonsense on stilts, as I think
Jeremy Bentham said, Bentham said, It's nonsense on stilts. Again,
I'm writing a academic piece with a book on freedom of speech,
right? Because I really hate the idea that these New Atheists
liberal secular law AECT extremist scumbags. They think they could
make us feel very small, because we react to the defamatory
cartoons of Assam, and they basically say, oh, it's about
freedom of speech grow up, is the more I'm quoting the essay, the
freedom of speech fallacy, right? And when you go to academic work,
they have no leg to stand on, because freedom of speech is
contingent on other competing values. But anyway, that's a side
point. But one of the books I'm reading about this by David Van
Miller, who's an academic wrote about freedom of speech and
unprincipled approach, I think that's the title. He basically
says that, you we can't even justify this so called right of
freedom of speech in biology. So it is impossible basically.
Anyway, so the interesting point here is value. Is there a
difference between me and a snowman?
Like from a value point of view, according to
philosophical naturalism. In other words atheism that you believe
there's no divine or supernatural everything could be explained by
physical processes.
Is there a value difference? Can you logically follow and say, as a
result of physicalism, or philosophical naturalism, I can
give Hamza value over a snowman? No, you cannot.
Because if you break it down with different arrangement of physical
processes and stuff, which are further broken down, arranged to
electrons whizzing around, and then meaningless, and they have no
intrinsic value, so if I get an x and I x away the snowman, and then
I turn around to myself, and I decide to axe myself, and there's
blood everywhere. The Snowman is a remake of carbon. Hamza is a
rearrangement of carbon UNDEF is a lot philosophical naturalism, they
are not intellectually justified to say, No, you have value. Yes,
they may use words like all but you're human, you have
consciousness, you can do great things, you have pain, but that is
being religious. Because all of that language is just
neurochemicals firing, which can be further reduced to electrons
whizzing around. So they don't have an intellectual basis for
even giving things value. So how, why would you want to have a
discussion? Why do you value our discussions all of a sudden and
the truth? And the irony is so according to eat ism, you can't
really have any value from that point of view, especially if
you're a philosophical naturalist is to be a bit technical. So that
for me is the profound one because that thinking, Oh, my God,
I believe in human rights. I believe in the value of life, I
believe in all of these things, but I can't justify it based on my
own rejection of God or my own worldview. That one is a serious
one. Well, the the extension of what you're saying is to say,
someone came and chopped up your daughter and killed her. There's
There's no meaning to that either. Yeah, right. And there's, there's
no justification to be upset about that, either. I mean, only someone
from the New York area would give such an example.
Makes sense?
And what is the value of these people going out on TV, writing
books and becoming university professors? And talking about
this? Right, they clearly see some value in those efforts. If life is
truly meaningless, why am I spending in Las Vegas? Pleasure
yourself until you die? Right.
Wayne? Yeah, I mean, going back, I mean, this is another common man
take on this is, look, you can say these things in a university
academic setting, right? But if you're going to say, you know,
life is meaningless in your teaching these things, look, then,
you know, let's say you're playing a sports game, you score a goal,
what are you going to turn around and tell your teammate, hey, it
doesn't mean it's meaningless.
Okay, you're gonna go after the game is over, you're gonna go out
to eat. And it's like, oh, let's go out to, you know, let's go out
to this place. And then you're like, not on all you can just, you
know, let's just let's just put all of our ingredients in a mixing
bowl and mix it and we'll drink the soup. Because it's all
meaningless anyway, if you're going to live life without any
meaning. And like you said, as soon as you start putting value,
you're using religious language at that point. Like, all of these
things come from some epistemology somewhere, right? Whether it's in
Christian theology, Islam, you're taking some from somewhere, right?
And if you're just going to pretend to have meaning, that's
cool. Like, I'm cool with that, like, if you just want to say that
you're pretending to have meaning, but then say that, it's like,
Listen, I'm just pretending I've created this made up world. And
this, you know, made up, you know, definitions, and I'm gonna live
this life. I'm like, that's cool. You could say that. But then don't
tell me that your made up world is better than this world, that makes
a lot more sense.
So which is one of the best response to when evolutionists say
that? Well, religion is merely a way for human beings to cope.
Right? So they've developed this, you know, make believe sacred, in
order to cope. I was like, Well, then why then leave it alone.
This is
everything that you just explained. Oh, stuff Hamza about
what this woman has said. It just sounds like this typical sophistry
to me, it's just like a bunch of words that you know, really, yeah,
yeah. And by the way, by the way, before we get to NAS on this, when
people have a meaning, a greater meaning, anytime that you have a
lesser meaning, you, you increase its meaning by invoking the bigger
picture. So when they say there's no meaning of life, but there's
meaning in life? I say no, when, when when you have meaning in
life, a small thing in life, the only way to give it value is by
invoking the greater meaning of life just like we as Muslims.
Yeah, we as Muslims, we say, when you do a small thing, like what's
a small good deed pick up the garbage for your neighbor? Because
she's old she husband died, pick up her garbage, right and take
back into her driveway. All right? Well, we what do we always do? We
say, Allah will be pleased with this. So we link this small little
deed that is a grain of sand in the bigger picture of your day.
And it's an atom in the bigger picture of the real world. So the
bigger world, but no, we take that and we expand it. Only by invoking
the greater meaning of Allah's existence, Allah watch the sees
that and a woman fed a dog, she was saved forever, from Jahannam
forever, because she fed the dog. Right, Alex? So I think I think
that that returns to the point that I was making earlier about
this concept of every actor being a means of worshipping Allah. You
know, one of the things that you hear sometimes from, you know,
some atheists is stuff like, why would God care about x? Right? Why
does God who created the entire universe, you believe in this
supreme being right? why would why would they care about who I have
* with? Or what I do with my water? I collect interest on my
bank account or things of this nature? And, you know, the truth
is that at the individual act level, it doesn't matter. It's
minuscule, it's irrelevant. What matters is why are you doing
things and why you refraining from doing things? Part of your
worldview as a part of your consciousness, right? This is a
part of you having being in a state of sacred instead of state
of
where you're actually conscious of what you're doing, even the little
X or the big X. And of course, you can make arguments about why
rubber is bad for society. Why premarital * is bad for society,
why homosexuality is bad for society. And there are real life
implications to these things. But at the core, why does it matter
what you do or don't do? It's because it mean, it's an
expression of who you are in relation to Allah, whether you're
worshiping Allah or whether you're disobeying Allah. So we don't have
to have an answer to it. Right? It could be that we don't have to
know that it is actually harmful for society for us to just obey
Allah. Right? So it returns to this having a purpose and our
purpose in everything that we do. And this is really what it should
be for people at the at the common man level, is, you just have to
know that every single thing that you do should be purposeful. And
that purpose should return to Allah. Because if it doesn't
return to us returning to something else that you're putting
in place all Yeah, and a soundbite level of that is to say, there's
no big and small to Allah, why did you anthropomorphize God? And
think that God relates to big and small that so there's something
really small, that means you must believe there's something really
big forgot, too big forgot, right? If you believe something's too
small for God, there must be something too big for God. Right?
Logically speaking. So you've given you put God in in the
universe and give him a size right and you can measure deeds against
that. So that's why we said there's no too big and too small
for Allah and Allah says the Quran Lionell Allah Allahu wa. Well,
oedema Hua. We're lacking Janelle who attack women come, Allah, you
slaughter something, Allah doesn't get the meat or the blood, you eat
the meat and the blood goes into the ground, right? You drain the
blood in a hole and you eat the meat. So what's it for Allah? It's
the taqwa the reason you did it. Not you had some set? Yeah, I was
just gonna go back to the Hamza. You know, an atheist. A regular
atheist, like a common man, atheists would say, you know that
this deconstruction of value that you did was the Hamza is like a
slippery slope, you know, we have to, we have to live life with
value, right? On a practical level, we have to live life with
value. So, and the slippery slope that you're pointing to that, you
know, human life can't have any value. If we just say that we're
all just atoms. Nobody's going to do this, right? But here's the
thing. People actually did do this.
When the Japanese went to war, in World War Two, there's it is
explained in a book called, I think, Zen at war, right? When the
Japanese went to war, Buddhism doesn't justify violence, right.
So the Japanese Buddha's had to justify violence somehow.
And as we know that the Japanese were the most brutal in World War
Two even more brutal than the Nazis. I really, I never know, The
* of Nanking. Right. The person who wrote a book about that
massacre, she killed herself, because it just completely, you
know, the stuff that she found out the way that the Japanese Zen
Buddhists justified, that murder is okay. And the killing of a non
Japanese is okay, is the exact same argument that was that Hamza
just gave, if we actually think about it, there is no
individuality, right? It's actually just atoms. And, you
know, when I take a sword and cut somebody's head off, it's actually
just atoms, you know, going into other atoms. So at the end of the
day, there's no individuality that got killed or things like that.
Right. It's the exact same argument that they used. And, and
here's the other thing. The Soviets did this as well. The
Soviets you know, they were materialist, the Bolsheviks
And they understood this very well. They understood that values
are constructed. So they said that
if you are a Soviet, sorry, not a Soviet, if you're a Bolshevik and
a communist, then morality is what the party defines. Right. And if
you show any inkling of a Christian morality, then you are
betraying the party. That's what they would what they would take
these recruits to do. You know, when they were hunting down the
farmers and taking their land, in the collectivization project, it's
amazing. They would take Soviet recruits, and they would say, go
to this form, right with the starving children. They kill the
kill the kid. Right? And if you hesitated, then they knew that you
have some Christian morality in you. Right? You are suspect, you
know, you hesitated to kill the starving kid. So, you know, are
you still Christian? Right. So basically, they understood this
very well. And it's not what also hams are saying is not a slippery
slope fallacy. The only reason this isn't happening in our world,
because it's already happened. People People, people saw people
experienced this firsthand the suffering that comes about because
of this philosophy, right? So it's no joke, right? It's not just an
academic discussion.
That's deep in some pretty gruesome gangster stuff right
there. It's hardcore to actually act upon it. Right? The gangsters
do this all the time, to act that you to prove yourself to the gang,
you got to do certain things like that, and actually never knew that
the Soviets actually did that with the recruits? Yeah. I mean, how is
it possible to like, I mean, the Japanese, you know, they created
bubonic plague bombs and drop them into cities.
I mean, they, I mean, just the level of brutality. Like how was
it possible that human beings could do that to one another, you
would think at least from the perspective of like, mercy, right,
like, oh, yeah, the city, just leave them alone. Right? you
conquer the city, everybody's, but no, right? You, you start putting
plague bombs into the cities, you take hundreds of people and just,
you know, shoot them, you torture them first, and then shoot them
that you didn't need to torture them. So you know, when you can
justify, right? When you can justify doing all of these things
using a philosophy, then guess what, it's just, you know, all the
gate floodgates are open. And just like Dostoevsky said, in the
absence of God, everything is permitted. And people think this
is a joke. Like atheists actually think this is a joke, but
actually, it's not. It's not a joke. The Germans, and I'm sorry,
I'm going off on this because I feel very passionate about this
topic. You know, door before the period of World War Two, and World
War One. Europe was basically humanist, and they were abandoning
religion, and also Hamza, you know this very well. And the Germans
were actually the most humanist people in Europe. Right, they had
the greatest scholars, you know, garota, and like, Schiller, and
all these other people, and they were the most humanist people in
Europe. Right. And they were the most cultural people in Europe. If
and then I forgot who said it, but somebody said, If the Germans, the
most humanist people in Europe, could become Nazis. And that's,
that's the greatest example of the failure of atheism and humanism,
right. And guess what? The Goebbels and you know, the, the
people that ran the concentration camps, in the morning, they would
go in, you know, gas, a bunch of Jews, and then the night, they
would go and have a cup of tea and listen to Beethoven.
And discuss discuss Shakespeare, this was the level of
So, so don't don't come at me and say that, that all of this is just
fiction. And, you know, sometimes his argument is just like a
slippery slope. And this will never happen. It happened, it
happened. And we need to be very careful about that.
So, yeah, I would deny that it's a slippery slope, don't don't just
because they've come up with a logical fallacy doesn't mean it's
applied in this case. We're not saying that, Oh, if you believe in
this, and act accordingly, is going to lead to this. We're not
saying that we're saying your beliefs are not consistent with
your other beliefs that you believe you have value. That's
what we're saying. It's more of a, it's more of a,
we're showing that it's non sequitur. It doesn't logically
follow from physicalism or philosophical naturalism that your
belief that we have ultimate value actually even makes sense.
Also, the comment that brother Yasser was making about you know,
why would someone care if I'm like doing something at home? Why would
God care? Well, that's the whole point. The point is
just to now,
close the circle here. Allah dignified man. Right? Allah
dignified us. This is the whole point. So you have a being a
transcendent being laser chemistry, he che creation is
distinct and disjoint from the Creator, Allah subhanaw taala is
Maxim
Any perfect, Allah Subhana Allah that is absolutely transcendent.
And he has the totality of knowledge and wisdom, He created
us. And he's saying you have dignity. Right? And that's not
subjective because by definition, Allah is objective, something to
be subjective, it means there's something outside of him that that
puts limitations. There's nothing outside inverted commas of Allah,
that places limits on him, right. So from that point of view,
wherever Allah commands or says about these issues is objective,
and that gives us a basis for why we believe have ultimate value
Allah dignified human beings. And it's not dignifying to do these
actions. And he's not dignifying to reject Allah subhanaw taala,
and also to deny His commands and reject his comments. But what is
very, was another important point, especially when it comes to
atheists and about this existential issues about truth
itself. You're arguing you're saying God doesn't exist? Okay. Is
that true? That's true. Okay. How do you get? Why is it important
for you to follow truth? Of course, I can. Where'd you get
that value truth from in this? This? Well, I want to, I want to
find, you know, especially when it appears to say science and
empiricism and touch and feel okay. I wouldn't know using signs
and periods, I'm in touch and fill the value of truth finding for me,
well, racism is an app on a tree somewhere, I mean, where I want to
know where it is. So they can't even justify the very fact that
they value truth. Right? Even as a moral value. I did an academic
research paper on this. There's a new book that's coming out chosen
20 by single and the guy's name now. Anyway, it's called
evolution, moral realism. 2020. And I would respond to think of a
new argument that's coming out. And they're basically saying that
you could ground objective moral values in biology, right. And my
argument was, well, your argument cannot ground truth as a moral
value. Anyway, there's no point we could unpack that another time.
But the point here is that even the idea of truth, you know, why
is this conversation important to you? Why is truth important to you
can't get that from your physicalist worldview. So that's
another thing that has, that really agitate some as well. So
hopefully, but by the way, this is very important. We have to come
across with the hikma and Rama were articulating these issues
because if you come across like the way we're talking to each
other now, it could be seen as oh my god, this guy's too passionate,
he's too maybe sounds aggressive and his you know, obviously you
have to be authentic with people but at the same time, we have to
be sensitive to the nature because the Sunnah is a you know, much
better than me that you individualize everybody. So you
have you have broad categories in the Quran, like majorem and Munna,
afek, etc. But that's primarily for you to see if you're one of
them so you can fix up. But also if you look at the Sunnah, it's to
individualize every human being, they have their own moral context,
and you treat them as a blank canvas, right? And that's why in
Islam, we don't have we don't otherwise and dehumanize right?
Because if you follow the sun on this issue, that you individualize
each person, you see their context and you treat them
with that respect. So and obviously obviously in the Quran,
Allah says in chapter 41 verse that you for good and evil are not
the same repelled by that which is better. And between two people
this hatred returned to intimate friendship. The Arabic word repel
here is not followed by a direct object. So it could mean repel
anything by that which is better. And there are lmsc What is better
is acting more virtuous and acting more beautiful, right? So when we
engage with people, obviously there's times to be positively
assertive for sure. But when we engage with people, we have to be
empathy Rama have, be sincere to them through your sincerity to
Allah because you want that you want to be committed to that
person's goodness and guidance. Famous Hadith.
love for your brother, what you love for yourself is an utter buy
in. We know what I know we said a Maliki scholar had been tackling a
lead. He also says this is this is your human brother. You must be
committed to the well being of all people which means you want
goodness for them and guidance for them. There are other Hadith I
don't mention, our fee brother mentioned Lynette's and it's
something in Tarik Kabir narrated by Buhari so what does it mean,
the Muslim must be committed to the well being of others. So we
must listen with the intention to understand listen out for their
context and relate to them in such a way that we can plant the seed
in the heart in mind. So I don't want people listening to this
podcast and you know, we're using you know, we're passionate about
this. I'm willing a smackdown on ideas that now they're going to
translate that to the normal average person who's really, I
listened to a lecture by Abdul Hakim Murad chef of the Hakim
Murad recently, it was called
I've always called but it was on mercy. He was actually very
profound. It was very profound and he was saying, Look, you know,
people's idea of who they are, and you know, is all about knifes and
all of this stuff. And he was basically saying that people have
been imprisoned by these false ideologies. So we
have to reach out to them with Rama, because they just don't
know, they've been so blinded. So the primary approach is Rama. But
at the same time, we know Musa alayhis salam he spoke to fit our
own laying in nicely, but when you follow through with the verses,
then he got a bit more assertive. So there are contexts we have a
moral context tradition, it's like virtue ethics, you have to base
your assessment on these things based on your relation to that
person in the context. But as a default, you have to have lots of
Rama a lot of empathy. And try whoever's listening to this
podcast, to engage with these ideas in a way that you can plant
the seed in the heart and mind. And that sometimes means you just
have to listen more, it sometimes may mean that you might have to
say, you know, different things in a different way. I want to almost
have to say that just in case people pick up the wrong kind of
approach from the way I've been speaking. No, that's a great
point. And before I get to Alex and Wayne's point, I just wanted
to say that we actually, I just had a conversation with somebody
and recorded it as a podcast, he's a youth. And he brought up the
point and he brought up the point that there are no things that we
attack, such as same * marriages. He said, Now there's an
entire generation that the reaching high school that
were the children of such arrangements, right, so a college
student, that obviously there wasn't maybe not same *
marriage, but the two women living together, and they had adopted a
girl. And she's the child of that, right. And now she's like, 18. And
he's saying, and there are some controversies between how this
stuff is taught in schools. So we had a long conversation on how
discussion on a thing that we used to bash and smash, right. But now
as the rubber hits the road, and they're innocent people attached
to those things. Now your discourse is going to your style
is going to change, the content won't change, the content will
change, but the padding has to change, because there isn't people
associated with that. So when I, for example, if I want to bash
paganism, right? hypothetical, well, what happens if, you know,
Hindu convert to Islam, say, Hey, I'm bringing my mom to the mosque
today?
You think you're going to stand on the member and bash paganism,
right? All these elephant men and eight arms on a lady and blah,
blah, blah, right? It's just not it's not the smart thing to it's
common sense. So that's the one thing I wanted to say. And unless
Wayne, Alex, you can go in different direction, but I just
wanted to throw this in there about the self contradictory can
empiricism be justified empirically? Yeah, I wasn't gonna
go in a different direction. I actually wanted to, to piggyback
off of your guys thoughts here is, so I found, you know, especially
over the last, you know, 10 years, that what a lot of people are
missing is love, right? A lot of people are missing is, you know,
just Rama and mercy. And here's the hard truth. And I know people
this sounds a little bit rude. I know, I'm probably gonna get
taught called out for this. But look, the hard truth is that a lot
of these people who you know, are on about atheism, they feel salty,
because they got picked last for their team. Okay? Like they, you
know, the, this is the hard truth, okay, you know, they, they have
some, some moment of childhood, some where there was a lack of
love, right? And they feel salty about that, that's, that's why,
you know, they this, this, their entire being is, you know, just
just just how do I, you know, get rid of this salt that I've
accumulated over the years.
And all these people require and what most people require is love,
right? And our Dawa, our approach to things our approach to
community has to be filled with love, and mercy, like I know Nazma
has been putting together, you know, the book on theodicy and and
we went back and forth back and forth about, you know, how are we
going to approach this subject because we could talk about the
problem of evil, we could talk about the artist, we could talk
about all these philosophical arguments, but nobody cares about
those things. Right? It's not that they don't care, right?
Intellectually, people care, but nobody's going to really take them
on until you know, they really understand the human emotion
behind these things. Right, the love that comes from understanding
a loss one or two Allah and His Messenger sallallahu alayhi salam
and the prophets are some is what he brought to the deen is and what
he brought to his his Sahaba and to us is love right because if you
just brought you know I had arguments you know, you're not
going to get somebody to Islam it's really tough right but until
you that's where the Messenger SAW Islam comes in right the message
of the prophets of Islam brings that that aspect of of love mercy
and Rama that just you know pure Aki the arguments and philosophy
philosophy are not going to bring to the table. Yeah. You know what
Moines the year 100%. Right. But you know who the beneficiaries of
these
These types of books like The Odyssey book, it's going to be
that 17 1819 year old Muslim. He's already a Muslim. He just needs to
see that this makes sense to him. And he needs to answer those
questions. So
it's the people mainly who have buy in already.
That needs to be supported. Just give it some strength. I mean,
even though still Hamza's book, right, I mean, it's, it's
extremely valuable. Right. Yeah. That's not to say it's not so
don't don't get me wrong there. Yeah, no, but you are right, that
someone who's way on the outside, people are brought in from the
outside to the inside, usually by love or conquest, right.
Alex?
Um, yeah, no, I don't have anything. Okay. Nice. I was gonna
say, I agree with Maureen on this. You know, we act as if, you know,
sometimes, maybe you guys can criticize me for this. But
sometimes we as Muslims act as if we're immune to a lot of these
questions. Right? And yes, that's true. If you're raised in a good
community, if you have good parents, righteous, righteous
parents, righteous friends, and so on.
That's, that's great. Right. But from what I've seen a lot of these
questions come from Muslims. I mean, in my experience, right,
what's the point of my life? You know, why do I have to deal with
my parents like this? Right? Why am I you know, why don't I have
the opportunities that these other people have? You know, why do I
need to follow these rules that make my life harder? Right? I
mean, those are genuine questions, you know? And we might say, No,
those are not genuine questions, but from a person who doesn't know
the Islamic tradition, or have experienced that love of the slow
sigh some and the sweetness of knowledge, right? Those questions
are just like, you know, they see Islam as some type of imposition
from without preventing me from playing six hours of video games,
right? And so my, my strategy at least, is that again, just like,
well, sometimes I said, reaching out to the fifth row,
when we reach out to the fitrah. And we take these questions
seriously, people respond, right? Especially when we're sincere
about it. For example, you know, we criticize people for not
thinking, right? Like, it's, it's hard for people to think, you
know, when you start, for example, you're just living life, you go
nine to five job, or you work at Dunkin Donuts, you come home, you,
you know, you're apathetic, you play video games. Next day, you
keep doing the same thing, right? Now, as soon as somebody starts
questioning your life, as soon as somebody says, What are you doing
with your life man, like that opens up chaos, right is suddenly
the things that you took for granted. Like, it's like, Oh,
snap, the ground that I'm standing on is gone. Right? That opens up
chaos, that opens up snakes, all sorts of things. And you don't
want to face that. So a lot of people they don't want to think
like it's actually hard to think. Right. And they think that where
they will end up is actually worse than where they are. And what we
have to do is show them actually know where you will end up, right?
Literally better than where you are. And, you know, at this, this
is the truth of all the mythological stories, all the
heroes stories of human history, that the treasure is where the
dragon is, right? So the places that you actually fear to go,
that's where your greatest flourishing is. So, thinking and
speaking about the meaning of life and questioning, if your life has
any meaning, like, that's a good starting point, because it will
inshallah eventually lead you to something that you will find, you
know, a greater meaning and greater love. But I think there's
sorry.
I think there's more to it than that as well, because a lot of
these questions sometimes are not even intellectual. But they use
this question as a veil to hide some psychodynamic issue that's
going on. So what I realized a lot of Muslim youth or even so called
university students, is that they have a terrible relationship with
the community, and a terrible relationship with their parents.
And that has created a kind of psychological issue, where are
they using these questions? That To be honest, if they were to ask
themselves those questions, they could answer them themselves very
easily.
But they're using them to basically hide a particular issue.
And I've seen this in so many apostasy cases, because we do one
to ones and, and stuff like that. And what you realize a lot of the
time, it's got nothing to do with intellectual arguments, usually,
right? Yeah, for example. And that's what we need to deal with
because we're responsible as a community because what develops
the social norm? There are two two main things informational social
influence and normative social influence. Informational social
influence is I have a need to feel certain. If I don't get my
certainty from my subgroup, like the Muslim community, like the
Imams the asking my question, I don't have people who are talking
to me. I'm good.
To go to the dominant group, the secular guys liberal guys, and I'm
going to adopt their views, even if I disagree with them, because
their group just gives me some kind of certainty or they're given
me some kind of quasi certainty. So we have a responsibility to
answer questions and be with people and connect with people and
not to shun them away. The other one, which is very important is
called normative social influence, which is, I have a need to belong
as a human being, if I don't get my belonging from my subgroup, and
that's why what Sheikh said earlier about the Holika, about
the vicar circles, the one to ones do not even have to think just be
with us, right? So critical, you be so shocked how critical is
that's why this kind of neoliberalism, individualism is a
huge thing we have to battle in our communities, because if we
become fragmented, it's game over. Right? So normative social
influence, you have a need to belong, if you don't get that
belonging with your subgroup, the Muslim community, because maybe
you're you're betting you're a bit quirky, they don't like the way
you dress, or they judge you or some kind of modern liberal
Muslim, or this not the other. Anyway, the point is, they don't
get the ability with the subgroup, they'll go to the dominant group.
And this will psychologist say, they'll go to the dominant group,
atheists, secularists, religious people, whatever, and they will
adopt their beliefs, even if they don't believe in them.
Just to belong, we have a we have a huge responsibility as a
community, not only to give certainty and be approachable to
youth, but also to create that sense of belonging. And this way,
we have no choice but you know, the tolerance boundaries we had
when we said this guy is like Orthodox, mainstream Muslim, those
kind of a lot of those were just superimposed by a misunderstanding
of the tradition anyway, because they, they think the Sahaba were
all the same for God's sake. Like what's wrong with me? Well, right.
So, you know, we have to have a proper understanding of, you know,
our community, yes, we have a red lines, but within that it's all
Rama and love and don't worry, and, you know, if you dress
differently does come on board, you know, you know, this is this
is a song it's about making things easy. And referring to what
brother mentioned earlier, Allah says about the process Summon, it
was out of Allah's mercy that you will find high end and soft
hearted with them. If you are harsh hearted, they would have run
away from me, the Sahaba would have run away. We're talking about
people, we're talking about a group of people that would pick up
swords, they will equivalent of some village in Oldham, in North
England, they picked up some sticks, and they took over the
whole of Europe, such bravery. We're talking about these type of
people, right? And Allah is saying that if you weren't nice to them,
they would have run away. You know what I mean? So it's upon us. So
it's so important to you know, yeah, that love and mercy is
extremely, extremely important. You know, 100 took the words right
out of my mouth, I was gonna say that this is this is the real
problem. You know, you didn't hear this kind of question from
teenagers 150 years ago in the Muslim world, right? And it's not
because those teenagers were less intelligent or less intellectually
curious. It's because they weren't being they weren't having the same
social problems that kids today are having.
You see these, you see these things happening? You know, and
this is not to point fingers, but there's a house, there's a problem
at home. There's a problem where the father is saying something to
you doesn't carry the weight that it should carry. If you're Muslim
father says you put we pray, because we because we're Muslim,
or maybe the father is not praying, whatever the issue at
home is, there's a dynamic that's that's causing these problems. And
it's not that these kids are reading too much too many
challenging books, or listening to too many difficult lectures,
they're turning to that because they already have a problem, like
star Hamza was saying. So I think that I think it's a broader
picture. And what we have to address is, you know, the
challenges of being a Muslim in a minority status, right? In a
country. For people like me, and Hamza, we can't help it, right. We
were born in these countries weren't born to Muslim families.
This is this is our, but people who've made the choice to come to
these countries and raise their families really have to make that
choice consciously, while thinking about what it's going to mean for
their children, what it's going to mean for their grandchildren.
Whether they're in two generations, their family will
even still be Muslim. Yeah, these are things that people haven't
considered, but really should have, and should start considering
now. If it matters, though. I mean, it might not matter. So one
thing that I've always
I've seen that that helps a lot is, especially I know one thing
that I remember watching and listening to those videos back in
college, and one thing he did that I've noticed, you know, strong,
strong individuals today, you know, Dr. Shetty, Alex, you guys
yourself, if honored Aveda to the dean, and a lot of people need
that. Right? What because they're really not looking for all of
these intellectual arguments and all these things. All they're
really looking for is love. And you know, someone who who gives
data and honor to the dean and I think that's, that's one of the
main reasons why a lot of people listening, listen to our podcasts
and I was one of the reasons why I love being on here. Because being
around strong intellectually minded, emotionally grounded
Muslims, gives people
A strength, right? And and when you have that, and when you when
you're around people like that right? Then all of these, like,
for example, I don't care about atheist arguments anymore. They
don't even bother me like, I don't even read them anymore because
it's just a waste of my time, right? It's like, somebody comes
to me, it's like, oh, you're gonna read this as not really, man, I
have zero doubts in that.
Right? It's like, okay, sure, I can read them and learn them. And
it's like, you know, there's, you know, there's better people for
that, and we can do that better. But it's just what people are
really looking for is just, you know, safety, security and love.
And once they have that, that's why in, in older societies you use
you have this like, pack mentality, right? And, and you
have like, this older, older clan member, or, you know, there's this
village head, and you had people going to the masjid, and people
doing these things, and you have these strong personalities,
whether it's men or women, that and that's what, that's why you
had less atheists. And that's why you had less people going off the
Dean because they had this feeling of society and community and, and
try and strengthen a tribe, right? Even that still exists. I mean, if
you're, if you want to be a politician, right, and you're in
the Democratic Party, you have to accept the entire package. You
can't go heretical and become a handler was horrible. And so I
think everyone should have a gun, right? You can't say that. Right?
So you got to be
you have to accept the entire dogma. And then they want it they
have to convince themselves of these points. Right. But in
reality is I don't think that just by coincidence, every single
Democrat has the same major views, right? I don't think that's the
case. There's a lot of people who probably privately don't have
certain views, but because they need to the alliance of the tribe,
right, the Democratic Party, this okay, we'll take those views.
Right. Now, cuz, yeah, I mean, I was just gonna respond to brother
Alex. And what's that Hamza?
People, meaning is a biological impulse, we need meaning, right?
If without it, it's like water, we're gonna drown. And if we don't
get that meaning, from our social structure, and most a lot of
Muslims, especially those that I'm around, they don't get that from
their families. Right? And well, okay, so what do you do? What are
you going to do? And the closest Muslim community is not around
here? So what do you do? Well, okay, they'll turn to atheism, or
they'll turn to something, something other to mask those
issues. But my point is that the cure to your problem is not in
those other things. It's actually in Islam, to actually truly
understand Islam and internalize it, it will make your situation
better, not worse. Right. And that's the whole point. Right? And
I mean, for me, for example, maybe you guys don't know this, but I
wasn't a very social person. But learning Islam forced me to be
social. Right, it forced me to be social, I had to go to Juma
prayer, every every Friday, right? I have to not that I wasn't
before, but it was on and off. But I had to go, right. And I had to
meet other people and smile at them, right, I couldn't just pull
them off. I had to, you know, during the core body, I had to go
get the meat, and see and you know, see all that stuff, and be
connected with nature. So the Islamic framework is actually
providing you the things that you need to build that meaning that
you so desperately want, that all these other things won't give you.
So and that was, that was my point that even if your community, your
your, like your family or your friends, they're not giving you
that proper demonstration of Islamic love, right? It's that's
not a reason to abandon Islam, because a proper understanding of
Islam will give you that, and it will connect you to people who you
can never replace your family, but it will connect you to people who
fill in what your parents can't fill in. And I always think that
marriage is a healing process to both parties, in so far that no
two parents are perfect. They might give you some they may mess
you up in a certain way. Right. But usually, your spouse helps you
fix these problems, right and any empty spot that you had in your,
your, your disposition. They sort of make up for it, they show you
hold on. You're very, you know much into this, you have a gap and
this are all about truth. And how do you get get the truth and
justice? Do you're not lovable? All right, you need to become a
little bit more lovable. Right. So this is what marriage does to
people so and Islamic community. Marriage. I mean, there are a lot
of Muslims that can't get married. That's true. But compare the rate
of young Most people who get married who are religious Muslims.
At what age do they get married and how many of them get married
versus the opposite?
Right, yeah, those traits. So let's say we don't have issues,
but we definitely have the advantage.
I think it's important to also understand that I agree with the
brothers saying,
but if we address intellectual question, and we know it's a
social psychedelic, psychodynamic question, then we're never going
to solve the problem. That's the basic point of that issue. Yeah, I
remember a Pakistani atheists who did quantum physics came up to me.
I think he did quantum physics. He did a master's in it. And he said
to me, Oh, your argument for God's existence doesn't make sense,
because causality doesn't make sense of the universe. I I've
addressed this in my book, I don't think I wrote a book at that time.
But and, you know, I knew some of the philosophy behind it. And I
didn't address him in that way, though. I just said to him, Look,
you know, from experience, I gathered that something was going
on or something, I said, Look, what do you mean by causality? And
I opened the Pandora's box and metaphysics they haven't ironed
out what is the nature of the causal link in Western philosophy
anyway? He says, I don't know. Right? And that's it. Isn't it
very interesting, bro, that you've used a key word in a sentence
denial, Allah and you don't know what that word means. So Melissa
down, so we had a more brotherly type of conversation. And he said
to me, Look, I didn't feel connected to Allah came from a
secular family that's from I remember, right. Another example,
is someone who was doing the coding for a famous,
famous social media company. Yeah, Facebook. And he were talking
about consciousness. I did that for my masters like my
dissertation on the philosophy of the mind. So we're talking about,
you know, can AI become human this that the other said, Yeah, I
reckon AI can be fully human. And I tried to reject that by saying
no, there's a difference between strong and weak AI. Refer to
Professor John Searle, the Chinese room experiment, etc, etc. Anyway,
to cut a long story short, I say to him, what's going on? Why are
you denying God? He said, Oh, you know, God has human like
attributes. They sound human. And I was like, hold on a second. Do
you know the Islamic tradition leads to capital, he che blah,
blah, blah. Anyway, I sensed a logical contradiction, the
essence, right? Because he was willing for AI to have full
consciousness, but he had a problem the other way around.
And I was like, hopeless. And really, Cofer will always
contradict itself, co four will always contradict yourself. So
when I noticed that in the dialogue, I'm like, Okay, there's
a psychological issue going on. So I tried to empathize. And I
referred it to me that, you know, I didn't have a great relationship
with my dad when I when I became Muslim. And I gave him a bit of a
nice story. And I said, you know, when I realized that, I got
awakened to it, and I fixed it and things was much better anyway. And
as in the night slowly tried to turn it to him and see, maybe
that's the same case we view. This guy was like, kind of skinny,
passive guy softly spoken. The minute I do that, he stands up
crying, How dare you, like you will lie, he brought us mad if you
know of him, he does evolution stuff. He was there in the room as
well. He says if someone pressed a button or pulled a lever, and
someone else came out, and then we found out more information from
his mother, that he had issues with father figures and
authorities, like you know,
I'm not saying is always the case. But if I address for example, a
philosopher, good question to him, it, he would have brought me
another question. And another question. Another question. So
you, we have to go to the deep roots. And many times it's
psychodynamic and social that we need to deal with. And that's why
it's so critical. It's so critical for the art on social media to be
human. Because that a lot of people are getting meaning from
that fake social bubble now. And if they're seeing this guy text,
this guy, this guy text this guy, like recently, I got this video
from a so called chef, right? Dude, respect, I'm not gonna
answer him ever. He's gonna add up. And I think he's misconstrued
what I'm saying. And I don't have time to go through his stuff. And
frankly, if he's come across that way, with all due respect, you
have to deserve to have a nice conversation with someone you
can't knock on someone's door than throw an egg in their face. And
you're supposed to come from a prestigious university and you've
got the adverb of someone that is not in line. Why, by the way,
share why a lot of like, you know, this is my experience. And it's
not a stereotype. A lot of people who study from the likes of Medina
or whatever, you know, but other men don't have a hot site. I'm not
saying this because anyone Yeah, because I got a lot of love from
people from Al Azhar from Medina, from different places from
Alexandria. Love a lot of connections. But when people come
from these type of institutions, a lot of them is like, Isn't that
like a school to enough school? So they have to go through and why
they like that, this, this urge of this. And this, like, I might, you
know, how can you say to someone that you have like, compounded
ignorance and you're there to have a conversation with someone? Yeah.
I don't.
I don't think you and I don't think you understand that when
someone is part of the only group of people that are going to be
saved on the Day of Judgment. They can do that.
But
they're shaped and a few other students have us the rest of us
are for the Hellfire they can see. This is what we are. Yeah, this is
so not in line with the prophetic approach, especially in a
contemporary context. Because it's it's pushing people away. And to
art online, they we have to be more mature, we have to show
empathy, Nuance intellectual and emotional empathy. We have to
repelled by that, which is better. But at the moment that's just not
happening. It's about winning an argument. One of the famous Hadith
I think, is an Abu Dawood. You're guaranteed a house in Jannah. Or,
or palace or house agenda. If you give up an Arabic word here is
useless arguments and debates, even if you're in the right. Yeah,
that's yeah, that's it. You imagine if you're imagine Yeah,
imagine if you're wrong. So you know, what's funny over bro is on
one hedge your person, we have to refute you. And I was like, when
someone when they're angry, it's like seeing someone that angry,
don't be angry.
It's like putting a brick in a tumble dryer or washing machine.
If the means and the medium that you're using is not conducive to
your objective, then don't use it. Yeah. And like a lot of people
there was a spot with some big dark recent do people online. And
I was like, if the medium of your Naseeha or your or you're taking
into account or you're commanding the good and forbidding the evil
yet, you've never spoken to your neighbor before by
all of these commands in the grid filling the evil. If the way
you're doing it, and the means you're using, you know, it's not
gonna work in the ultimate objectives. Why are you doing it?
It means there's an ego problem to 100% It's the Trump effect to that
feuds, feuds, get ratings. And that's how Trump got elected feuds
get ratings and I think people Yeah, I think without people
realizing it, they absorbed it. They put they use it in a field
you can do this with Doggy Dog world, but in the field where
Allah is watching, of course, Allah is watching everything but
you're representing Allah's Deen. Now, of course, you're not just,
you know, my car salesmen versus his car salesman or my sneakers
versus his sneakers. So I'm gonna have a feud to get attention. You
know, like LaVar Ball, actually, LaVar Ball is actually friendly
about it. Right. When he does these feuds, you could tell he's
smiling, right? And he's laughing. But you know, you guys know about
levar ball? No, no, no. Okay, so LaVar Ball is this some he's
basically his sons play basketball. And he promotes them.
And he promotes his brand by saying outrageous things. Oh,
yeah. Like I can beat Michael Jordan one on one. All right.
Any any my son's effect on the LA Lakers was reminded me of Magic
Johnson. Right. But you can tell he's smiling. Right? So he's
actually friendly about it. He says outrageous things, but the
Trump effect and this whole new style of marketing, that is
outrageous claims and big feuds, okay, is what's going to suck up
attention. And then you dominate the discourse because everyone
will be talking about your your issue. And without realizing it,
they'll all be talking about your subject, just like Trump, when he
says Mexico will pay for the wall. He got everyone talking about how
will they pay for the wall, right, and why we're there. And
everyone's talking about walls. It's just and people don't know
that. One of his advisors is a basically a kid with a bachelor's
degree 25 years old, at a New Jersey, who came up with the idea,
because it's it's visual. It's visual, you can visualize a wall,
right? And that's it. It was such a dumb idea. But because it was so
outrageous, and he attacked the Mexicans. It attracted everyone's
attention. And these dots, whether they realize it or not, they're
using this method. And what they should do is think twice that not
every method and every following you built. Are you building it on
Taqwa? Yeah, it's almost like saying, I'm going to build a
financial empire. Fifi. subete Allah, I'm going to use but I'm
using River. Yeah, sure. Um, if someone emails me sincerely, and
says this is for your well being, I would take it so seriously. So
obviously, you know, I hopefully I've developed to a degree that I
want feedback, and I want this, but you have to be nice. There's a
genuine, genuine civility, you know, be civil, and I've had
people who really disagree with me, and they've told me privately,
and it changed me Subhanallah it changes you It transforms you when
someone is there. And they will adapt them with humility and with
love and commitment to your well being and you feel that commitment
that they're committed to your well being. You have no choice but
to transform and accept what they say is true. You have to
reciprocate their kindness. Yeah, they went out of the way out of
their way to make you feel decent about your about yourself overall.
So you feel like I have to reciprocate his efforts. Being
considerate. I think part of the problem is you know what started
him just said earlier about how these these
When Allah talks in the Quran about monastic and right, and that
that's something for us to be self reflective and apply to ourselves,
instead of taking it and applying it outwardly and then applying it
to other Muslims and other Muslims that are clearly doing trying to
do good in life, right, try to try to benefit the Ummah trying to
benefit humanity. And you apply the worst descriptions when it
really is just there for you to check yourself and make sure that
you're not falling into that category. Yeah. And you know
what's interesting? Yeah, no, go ahead. What's interesting is
they'll say, Yes, you won't listen, but we're doing it to save
and correct your ideas to the Ummah, you know, it's very
interesting.
That still doesn't work. Because if that person has created all of
this mess, and they have lots of following, then if you're really
sincere, you do whatever it takes to
engage with that person in a positive way. So you could
transform them, so they have greater impact. So even even that
response is not a sincere response. But I want to come back
on the topic of the youth, some of our youth sometimes they don't
understand the tradition because they have a transactional
relationship with Allah subhanaw taala. And this leads back to the
idea of wildlife is worthy of worship. So they I've had this I
had someone say, you know, I used to pray five times a day or
whatever the case may be. I didn't do what am I exam, so I stopped
praying.
And this there is a subconscious, especially amongst certain
cultural Muslim communities. They have a transactional relationship
with Allah. So Allah gives you wife, house QA, job exams, you
give him salah. It's like a hidden ship, that you're both equal
business partners, Allah gives you something, you give him something
in return and who gives you something back with some interest?
This for me is one of the spiritual diseases in our
community. The first thing we need to address is we need to firstly
revive understanding why Allah is worthy of worship at all in our
homes. Yes, we focus on FIP a lot. But what was the basis? What's the
raison d'etre for fic was the reason of existence for FIP is how
to worship Allah and not has an assumption that you know, Allah is
worthy of worship and the Quran came down to actually solve that
problem or, or announce Allah's reality to mankind that he's the
only data where they worship, to be adored, to be loved, to be
obeyed, to, to be known, right? To to direct all your acts of worship
to Him alone, that needs to provide that home because we have
a very do's and don'ts, ethnocentric identity version of
Islam in our communities, which sometimes is quite powerful
because it forms an identity, but in our in our cultural and
contemporary context, we need to teach our children who is Allah,
why, why must we love Allah? Why must he be obeyed? Why must he be
known? Why must we worship Allah subhanho wa taala? If you get that
right at home, then when people face calamities, then it won't
affect them that much because they know their worship wasn't based on
a transactional relationship. It was based on primarily Yes, yes,
because Allah gives us things to blessings, gratitude, etc. But
primarily Allah is worthy of worship because of who he is. 100%
Allah is worthy of worship because of who he is. We extensively we
praise things by virtue of their limited and flawed and imperfect
attributes. For example, Khabib when he tapped out that chicken
McGregor were like, wow, Allahu Akbar. Well done. When you hear
poetry of Cabal, when the famous poet of the East when he said,
This one such that you find too difficult frees you from 1000
frustrations. Whoa, whoa, whoa, amazing poetry. Bravo. If you'd
like soccer, and you'd like Messi or Ronaldo, the score, great goal.
You're like, Wow, what a great goalie for like ice hockey. And I
don't know what you got to do an ice hockey but I don't know,
someone's gonna stick and you smashed over the guy.
All that stuff. We praise these people by virtue of their
attributes. Yet they have limited attributes is not maximally
perfect, and they're flawed in some way, and they don't even
benefit us directly in any way.
And this is not an analogy. You can't make an analogy with ALLAH
SubhanA water isn't a fortiori argument by greater reason. How
must we extensively praise Allah Subhana Allah to Allah by virtue
of who he is, he is the powerful is an ally in the knowing al
Hakim, he is Al woo dude, allative and so on and so forth. And his
names and attributes are maximally perfect, and they're transcendent.
Take for example, a loving and widowed coming from the Arabic
word would which means a loving that is giving Allah's love
transcends any known love, even a mother's love because a mother she
needs to love it complete her. Allah is Alleghany he's so mad. He
doesn't require any completion yet he loves so imagine how love is
Allahu Akbar. How can you love someone like that? Right? So being
like that. So
Allah is worthy of worship by virtue of who he is. That's the
first thing we need to realize. The second thing is obviously
gratitude and blessings but what type of gratitude
and blessings, right? We think we should be grateful for the car and
the House and the money. You know, there are fundamental things that
you can't even be grateful for. So I'll wrap up on this. Allah says
in the Quran, you cannot enumerate the blessings of Allah
individually count the blessings of Allah, take a single hobby. And
I wrote this in the book.
If you don't have any heartbeat to debt, it's one of the physical as
bad causes Allah uses to keep your life. If I told you, you have 10
heartbeats left. But in order to get 10,000 heartbeat, you have to
give me all of your wealth, you throw all your wealth at me, which
shows the prices nature of a single heartbeat. So here's the
challenge. I want you to enumerate and count every single hobby
you've had in a lifetime. So far, SubhanAllah. Impossible, because
for the first two, three years, you can't count, you got a backlog
backlog, when you're sleeping, you can't count, you got backlog. Now
let's change this slightly, I want you to be individually grateful
Alhamdulillah, for every single hobby you've had in your lifetime,
you can't, and he was interesting. You don't earn own or deserve a
heartbeat, you can't recreate a fly. So you're giving you're being
you're given, you've been given something that's free, priceless,
and you don't earn or deserve it, and you can't even be grateful for
it. And if you could hypothetically be grateful for it
individually or every single heartbeat, you'd have to be
grateful for your ability to be grateful, there'll be an infinite
regress of gratitude. And it's so powerful that and imagine we
internalize this in our homes, that Forget everything else, I can
be grateful for single hobbies I say to my family, anything about
the hobby is a bonus. So we all really internalize this, would we
be petty about what this guy said about me or what she said about
inheritance issues, or what this wife said to that wife online was
become a petty community because of a lack of gratitude. And
gratitude and gratitude is a key to worship. That's why, you know,
we have to understand gratitude in the proper context, not because
you know, I have new Versace jeans, that should be grateful.
Yes, you shouldn't be grateful. But there is something so
fundamental that we can't really be grateful for totally. It's
perspective. That's completely new perspective. It's it's a radical
perspective, shifts for a lot of people. Yeah. Subhan. Allah That
was beautiful and beautiful. I think that we should actually not
continue. Because that was onpoint. Exactly for what we were
wanting to bring that second half was to be about, you know, why is
Allah worthy of worship and these attributes, and this idea, and
what we hope is that people could listen to this. And if they have
family members in their house, if they have dependents that they can
influence is to try to let's look a little bit more at Allah
Himself. Even Islam is a wonderful thing, too. But what's the motive?
Why is it wonderful is because who created it? Right? It's a great
path. But what's it a path to and who made the path. And that's an
if we get good at that if we could focus a lot of our energies, on
the sufferings of Allah, and how to worship drawn nearer to him by
dua by vicar by contemplating his names. We get so deep that even
the family problems that drive many youth off the cliff, and many
adults off the cliff. It can be responded to by a warehouse of
Amen. And trust in Allah Tada and understanding of, you know, that
even good and bad is from Allah to Allah as a test. And if you have
the mindset that this is for my Betterment is from Allah,
therefore it's going to be for good. Allah, there's a hadith a
beautiful Hadith.
An end of an app dB, for Indiana. Hi, Ron fella, I'm in the opinion
of my slave if he
thinks good, it's his way in Thunder Sharon, Fela, if he thinks
evil, it's his right, because really, that reflects your opinion
of Allah, not of the event. It's your opinion of Allah, you believe
that Allah's is being bad to you, right? You've trapped yourself.
Because things that happen are only happening from Allah God,
because He permitted them to happen to you. And if you believe
that he is the generous, the wise, he knows better, he knows best.
Right? And he's also the just justice will come eventually. Then
that's the your reaction to those events, and you interpret those
events in that light. And so you decided right then in there, this
is going to be good for me because the source of it is good, and
therefore the ending of it must be good. And there's nothing in the
deal. That said it's going to be painless. And if you go to anyone
who achieves anything, a master of anything, whether it's Kung Fu,
whether it's law school, whether it's the military, whether it's an
artists, that they're supposed to create beauty, whether it's
marriage, they'll all tell you nobody said it was going to be
easy, and they're all tell you no pain, no gain, no pain. lessness
is not part of the deal in anywhere in the universe. And not
neither with Allah either.
Know that Allah Zakouma love Karen, any final words real quick?
You
Just Just briefly, save people like who started Hamza, a lot of
work in the future. If you are a parent of young children or about
to have children or plan to have children in the future, raise them
with love and compassion and structure and discipline, and
teach them about the Messenger of Allah.
So that when they get older, they won't have the problems that
people like, like Assad hams are trying to address, right? So save,
save people who are doing good work, don't add more work to them.
And do it by raising your children according to the prophetic model.
Not don't focus on just achievement in this life. Yeah,
when they're little they believe everything you tell them. So tell
them the good stuff. Tell them about Allah's Messenger. And he
said, Tell them about Allah explain to them this. And the
other thing I'll leave is go out and look up the literary and
linguistic excellence of the Quran and read it's fantastic.
And that is hopefully do that. When if there's a problem with
kids and their parents, they will turn to Allah to complain about
you, they won't go somewhere else. And that's a victory. If your kids
go and look up the books of Islam and the Sunnah behavior of the
Prophet, well, you're not behaving like this. And it well, that's
terrible in itself. But I'll take that over some kid who's like,
runs away or becomes in you know, finds the community on the
internet, because at least he's he's, he's turning to Allah and
his messenger in the dispute, you will always have a good result if
that's the case. Some final words NAS are mine. No, no. I mean,
other than this is a beautiful discussion, I would definitely
want to give thanks to You know, stud, Hamza. This was
it's always I've always wanted to meet you. So I'm really happy that
I had the opportunity to
speak with y'all Hamdulillah this was a great discussion. If you
ever in the New Jersey area, we would love to, you know, host you.
I think you need to move to New Jersey. Right? You fit right in?
You would you wouldn't? I think UK is much more exciting than New
Jersey. That's probably for the Muslims. He probably knows
anything else. I just wanted to thank you again. Brother Hamza, we
grew up watching you. So I mean, the work that you've done is
certainly having an impact in ways that you can't even imagine
definitely have been such an impact. I just I just wanted to
end with Can I read like a small passage from Lucy? Yes, sure
summarizes. So as you know, as soon as he asked to read something
from nursery, every podcast, I love, I Love Lucy, particularly
because, you know, he had a very difficult life. And he exemplified
what could be achieved if we worshipped Allah and have that
relationship with him. So he wrote this, when he was exiled from
Turkey. And he was in the middle of nowhere in like, an A hut
somewhere. And basically all of his family members, most of them
were dead, most of his friends were dead. So he describes this
loneliness that he that he feels
so he says,
at most, a visitor drops by once every 15 or 20 days, otherwise,
I'm alone. In addition, it's been 20 days since the Mountaineers of
the area. At this type of made and these forsaken mountains, silent
and admits the tree sorrowful sounds, I find myself immersed in
five sorts of loneliness. being old, I'm separated from most of my
contemporaries, friends and relatives who have gone to the
hereafter, and left me in a most wretched isolation. This
loneliness makes me feel a second type of separation, coming from
the disappearance of most creatures with which I feel a
connection. This loneliness arouses yet another feeling that
of separation caused by being far from my hometown, and relatives.
In addition to these, the mountain stark landscape, makes me feel a
fourth kind of separation. Lastly, I've seen my soul in complete
separation during its journey to eternity from this guest house,
the world.
I explained, I screamed all of a sudden, glory be to God, wondering
how I could endure such separations. And just that point,
beliefs light, the Koran's a fuse of grace and the old merciful
favor, came to my aid and changed five kinds of separation into five
circles of warm companionship. As I recited hospital law one yeah,
my lucky God is sufficient for us and an excellent Guardian is he,
my heart recited, if they turned their backs and another I asked
them the Quran, if they turn their back, say, God is enough for me,
there is no god but He in him I have put my trust, he is the Lord
of the Mighty Throne. And then he ends. Upon this, my soul conceded
that people can open the door to light by understanding their
helplessness and poverty before God's power and riches, and by
trusting and seeking refuge in him. I therefore praised and
thanked God for the light of belief and submission, I came to
understand how sublime a truth is contained in the couplet in even
Auto Scan. That is why saying, What has he found who has lost
God, and what has he lost? Who has found God? So that's, that's one
of the nurses letters. That's beautiful. And the Lord's really,
really powerful, said Hamza, final
comment
Yeah, that was quite moving
model. All right, let's see if we can wrap it up right here to
Xochimilco era. And I think you know, probably not going to be the
last time right since I think we dived really well, I think we
could do this more often in a logical
manner. Bless your desire for that opportunity. Don't forget to send
me your postal address, I send you a couple of boxes of the revised
edition Sharla May Allah bless you. I mean likewise Subhanak
Allahu Moby Dick shadow Allah Illa illa Anta iStockphoto Kona to buoy
Lake will also in Santa Fe, il Edina Manoir middle side hurt once
a while so we'll Huck what was so severe was
to take care, guys, alright, take care.
God bless you all