Tariq Ramadan – Islamic Ethics How we Know Right and Wrong #2
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AI: Transcript ©
Okay.
Are you okay?
Amdulela.
It's a light program,
isn't it?
Lots of rest and
not so heavy sessions.
Okay. Can you please take the page 11?
Yes,
the chart here. You have it?
Okay.
That's important because this this is a chart
trying to summarize
what we call Islamic Sciences.
And by the way, even with disqualification
and the way we are talking about Islamic
Sciences, there is a problem.
But this is what we call Islamic Sciences.
And when you have to ask so some
they are not happy with Islamic Sciences. That's
it. They call them sacred sciences.
And
you have to ask yourself, what is Islamic
in Islamic sciences?
So when you do now physics,
medical science,
mathematics,
what is not Islamic in mathematics?
What is not Islamic in Islamic
in medical science.
So
where
does disqualification
come from? It's something which is a question.
And we have a categorization
here of sciences, which is problematic.
I will talk about this. This is exactly
what we are trying to do
with Kyle,
bringing together what we call
scholars of the text and scholars of the
context at the same level
by saying
there is as much
Islam in any science when it comes to
ethics that in any other science. So so
we have to ask ourselves, why do we
call them Islamic science? And why
are we, at the end,
falling into the trap of fragmented
knowledges and sciences?
Critical question here.
But I don't have I I will come
to this tomorrow. Now we are dealing with
this chart of what we call Islamic science,
and then you have in the middle,
Al Quran was Sunnah, the 2
acknowledge,
references in the Shia and the Sunni tradition
is,
Al Quran Was Sunnah and the definition of
Sharia which is not only,
and I I really think that here we
have to come with a wider definition of
sharia.
Sharia means this
source, it's the,
which is
a source of water which is protecting you
and giving you life, protecting your life.
And especially in the desert, when you find
the source is this
living
the source that is protecting life
in a
hostile environment.
The very essence of Sharia is the path.
It's,
and this is why,
So we put you in that path, so
follow it.
Tabiha means follow.
So it's not only the legal. And be
careful,
because what I was saying about the means
and the path is critical here. If you
end up reducing sharia to the limits,
God's law, you are force focusing and talking
about the legal as being the essence of
everything, which is defining the path, which is
not true.
So it's a concept of life and death,
and get it from this
general concept of the creation, what I was
talking about right now. It's,
the universe, and we don't have the ownership.
We are holaffer, so we are vicegerent.
And,
sorry. I need to keep them then. So
then,
existence,
what we have.
And death. And be careful here. Tell me
what you think about death. I will know
your concept of life and even your concept
of human being. The concept of death here
is, is, critical
as well.
And then,
and then derived from normative reading of an
understanding of the scriptural sources. Normative means that
when you have text, you have to come
to the normative,
framework. It has to do with semantics, with
grammar, with the very understanding of, language
and,
its,
historicity. Because what is also important is that
the Quran was revealed over 23 years. So
you need to come to this understanding
of the steps and the evolution. Now, coming
from the two sources, we have Sharia and
coming from here, we have two main sciences,
Ulu al Quran Wa'olu al Hadith.
So you had sciences that are explaining how
do we deal with these 2 scriptural sources
and they are quite independent
and they have their own
logic and their own frame of reference.
From this you have a central
science. And in fact
I want you to go to the at
the bottom of the page where you have
firq.
Firq
is in fact the first
Islamic science.
And even if in some, in his last
book about, misquoting Mohammed,
Jonathan Brown is saying that the first Islamic
science is
grammar.
And I would say, no. That's not we
came to grammar because we had to deal
with
FELP. We had to deal with practical answers.
So to come to understand so how are
we going to translate this? You came to
the language because you needed to understand how
to implement. So, in fact, the first scholars,
the first companions, were very much dealing with
the context to try to find the legal
answer to the new
challenges.
And then they came to the language and
tried to understand how do we extract from
the text so we need semantic morphology
and understanding the language.
So this is why we had something which
was
a codification
of the grammar
and the rules.
Now, firq was the first. And what is
firq?
In the great majority of the books that
you are reading,
you have felt as jurisprudence,
and I disagree with this. Once again, these
are things that I have been saying and
repeating. You may disagree.
And please, if you are disagreeing and you
have other thoughts, just when we come to
the discussion, just express this. Explain to me
why do you disagree. It has to be
augmented
as I'm trying to explain why I'm saying
this. In fact, firq,
it's about law and jurisprudence. It's not only
jurisprudence,
because the people who are talking about jurisprudence
were saying,
firq is jurisprudence and Sharia is law.
What I'm saying is different.
'Firk' is law and jurisprudence and Sharia' is
wider than that.
'Sharia'
is wider than the legal.
It's the path
within which the legal
is
using the means to be faithful to the
path.
Get my my my point here? That's very
important because orientalists, when they were translating sharia,
wanted to say Sharia for the Muslims is
absolute and not open to discussion. But they
were saying the law.
While the scholars never said that, when they
have to deal with the implementation of the
law, of course, there is human agency. It's
not absolute in the way it was in
the Christian tradition, for example.
You understand here? And some of the scholars,
Muslims, were taking this and sometimes saying exactly
the same.
I was myself trained by people who are
saying, no, Sharia, it's absolute. Yes. What is
absolute in Sharia?
Is it God's law or the path
and what we are trying to achieve through
Sharia? Meaning, for example, what could be absolute
is manqasse des Sharia is the high objective
of Sharia, is what we want to achieve.
This is absolute. For example, no discussion about
the fact that we need to achieve justice
on Earth. No discussion.
So now the way you are going to
implement the law to achieve this, this has
to do with human agency. The law could
be clear, but its implementation
means human beings should be involved.
So, 3 things that are important here in
our discussion is:
first, Islamic law and jurisprudence, because there is
a legal framework, And with the legal framework,
with ishtihad, you try to find new answers
for new challenges. So it's jurisprudence,
but you have the legal framework that should
be here. No jurisprudence if you don't have
the legal framework. So Foucaha
are dealing with arkham. Arkam is the legal
framework. And they are dealing with fatawa, legal
opinions, which is jurisprudence.
But el arkam are based on the legal
framework. El arkam are the rulings.
But this is the first signs, and then
this was the first signs,
and the scholars,
and especially,
Jean Faris Sadegh, who was the teacher of
Hanbal and
Shafiri
and Shafiri,
they came to
a point that when they were travelling, and
especially Shafiri in the Sunni, sorry,
In the Sunni tradition, very often we say
the first book of Hosul Lefebvre is a
resala from a Shafi'i.
By the way, this is disputed by the
the the shirees saying no. His teacher was
the first.
That doesn't matter. The point is that
traveling around and seeing people dealing with the
scriptural sources with no frame.
So they decided, and you have it in
the middle here,
but it came after is also al Firk,
the fundamentals of
Islamic law and jurisprudence.
In fact, it's a science which is central,
but came after
FIRC. FIRC was the practical way, and then
they decided, oh, no. We need to have
a framework to deal with the source in
order to extract the rules. It's the bat
el acham mean
this is how we are going to extract
this.
So, Osull e Fert came later.
It was necessary
in in a specific period of time, meaning
that you have to remember this, that sometimes
you had Islamic sciences coming from
the necessity of the time and coming from
human questions. Do we need this science or
not?
So it might be that in this frame
today things are missing as to what we
need today.
And it might be that
what was useful in a very specific period
of time could be problematic now.
And this is my point. My point is
that Usul al Firk was necessary,
but if you go now to Usul al
Firk, the way it was put to help
the Muslim to be consistent
is now narrowing the way we deal with
Al Quran, Wa sunnah. It was necessary, but
it is giving us a frame that you
may consider it might be that it's a
problem. For example, when the people are telling
you, and this is in radical reform, are
telling you the source of faq
are full. Al Quran was sunnah and then
Alad,
things that have to do with Al Ishtihad,
Al Ishma wal Qiyyas.
Okay.
So it means that the source of law
are in the books, in the- in the-
what about, for example, what is coming from
the universe?
Implicitly, when they are saying, for example,
in, in our tradition that,
customs or traditional elorf,
it's part, it means that if you are
serious about el orf, it means that the
context, the universe is producing also a frame
from which you can take ethical values and
sometimes legal opinions. How is it that we
reduced
the source of the legal to the way
we deal with the scriptural sources and not
to the universe? Who said that?
Implicitly,
the scholars were dealing with the the universe
to the point that the Quran is telling
you, if you don't know what is good,
or if you have to deal with what
is good, the known the the name that
you have
in the Koran telling you it's good is
what?
In ma'aruf.
So translate in ma'aruf.
Ma'aruf is not is what? Known by the
people as being good. Maruf?
Known as being good. By whom? By the
people. With the revelation? No, even before the
revelation, so there was something which was known
as good by the people before the text
came. Is it a source of the legal?
Of course, yes.
It means that there is something which is
beyond the text that is in our nature,
which is positive, neutral, innocent, however.
Okay?
You get this? That's very essential in our
understanding here. So,
osulefers was necessary,
and we might have sometimes to question the
frame,
why it was put, and how it was
put. And the one who did this,
Taha ibn Assur, at the beginning of 20th
century, was very critical towards Oso Lofe. And
coming to the Macasset from another angle by
saying the Macasset
de Soslofe, it's in itself
to be questioned as to the only frame
that we have, even in the source, which
is what I also did in radical reform
in the the the second part. So now
you have osu lul firk, which was a
science. And
at the same level of Usul al Firk,
you have 4 other,
sciences that are important.
The the the one, it's Elmerkalem.
Almer Kalam, and also known as Usul ad
Din. You have to know this why, because
Almer Kalam also here, a question of translation.
Almost 95 percent
of
the books that are translating Al Mulkallam are
saying el mutakal lemoun, theologians.
Okay. That's a problem.
Why? Because even theology,
theology you know, by the way, we think
that it's coming from the Christian tradition, it's
coming from the Greek tradition
theology.
Theology is theos, logos is the discourse on
God.
In the Islamic tradition, you can say about
God only what he's saying about himself, So
the very essence of theology is problematic in
the Islamic tradition.
Adding to this, that if you say, al
mutakal limun,
are theologian, you are reducing the scope of
what they were doing to a discourse on
God, which is wrong. The Mutakal Limun are
talking about many other things, which is the
relationship between faith and reason,
between,
freedom and, predestination.
All the things are mainly about,
how much reason and how do we deal
with our reason, how do we deal with
the scriptural sources.
In fact, they are, yes, talking about God,
but also within the field of philosophy.
So they are theologian
philosophers,
and not only theologians.
There is a philosophy here. By the way,
in the time when he was rejecting elmuta
kalemim,
he was saying, in fact, they were very
much influenced by the Greek tradition because all
what they are doing has to do with
rationality and faith.
So he was rejecting by saying something which
was quite interesting. This is why very often
he's demonized
in, in in the West, because he has
he had an intuition that was quite interesting.
He was saying and I'm saying this
knowing that many
people who are quoting him, Netanyahu, haven't read
anything about him, and the Salafi that are
using him in such a way are reducing
his thought to their own intellectual
limitation
in the way they deal with him. He
was wider and bigger and deeper than that.
Very deep. And he was saying there is
behind
elmul kalam there is something which is coming
from the Greek logic which is not our
logic. We have to come back from within
with our logic,
saying the problem is not the result, the
problem is the paradigm.
What you call in English
today, you call epistemology:
how and from where do you get your
knowledge?
How and from where?
How is the methodology,
and from where do you get your knowledge?
Because this has an impact on the very
structure of knowledge. You get that? Epistemology.
So he's questioning the very epistemology
of Almend Calam, but still, it's very interesting,
very important, and we might have to come
back to this today to understand also
how do we reconcile ourselves with an Islamic
methodology
or a a paradigm
or an epist
a theory of knowledge which is important. So
Al Melkala
is theology and philosophy at the same time,
which is to be distinguished and still connected
to what we call El Falasifa.
El Falasifa, Falsefa,
This is the realm where within this field,
or separate from this field, you had
people who are very much influenced by the,
Greek tradition, and mainly,
Aristotelian
and past Aristotelian
Greek tradition
They called philosopher El Kindi, El Farabi, all
this tradition, which is very important, very close
to the Greek tradition
up to, El Miskaway and and the Sufi
tradition was also close to this. So this
is where you have the science, Almelkala.
You have another science here, which is Al
Aqidah. Al Aqidah,
it's, essential.
We have some trends that are insisting
on el aridah is everything.
El aridah is in fact a field and
this is also
a question. I don't have time to tackle
this now, but
how do we organize
these signs? From where does it come? Some
were saying it's coming from the scriptural sources
themselves,
meaning Hadith Jibril, alayhis salaam, when he's asking
the three questions, what is Islam, what is
iman, or what is Islam, what is iman,
and what is irsan,
these three questions. In fact, these are three
sciences.
1 is what is Islam is.
And what is,
Il Iman is Al Aqeda, the 6 philosophies.
And what is Ihsan is Tasawwuf, is the
mystical or,
Tasquiet and Nebs.
So here you have Al Ma'l Aqedah is
the study of the 6 Pillar philosophies, meaning
'Al Aqidah' has to do with
what is
unseen,
the invisible,
everything that you believe in without seeing. It
starts with Ilhaman and then with all the
the, you know, the the the belief in,
angels,
books,
prophets, and, the day of judgment and destiny.
On the other side, you have 2 other
sides, is something which was there at the
beginning and disappeared almost completely is almel akhlaq,
which
we translate Ahlak as ethics, and be careful,
Ahlak
is not
very,
it's not exactly ethics coming from the Greek
tradition. By the way, if you want the
definition, I don't have time here to come
now to the,
ethics and morality. In the book, The Quest
for Meaning, I I allocated one chapter on
ethics and trying to explain the difference in
the Greek tradition, in the Western tradition, as
well as in the Islamic tradition. Akhlaq
is not exactly the theoretical reference to ethics.
It has also to do with a saluk,
with the behavior. Al Aqlaq is the way
you behave.
This is why it's central
in, all the tradition that are
focusing on the way you behave and the
way you deal with yourself. Al Aqla is
not only how do you define what is
good and what is bad,
but also the way you behave in the
light of the good and the bad. So
it's
the theoretical reference and the practical translation. This
is akhlaq when we speak about Allah Khalaq.
For example, the prophet, peace be upon him,
said, inna maboreitu l'utam me ma'alakarim al akhlaq,
I was sent to beautify or to complete
the noble character, he is talking about knowing
the principles and translating them into your behavior.
So Islam is all about this.
So
in the Payam al Jawdiyyah was saying, in
fact, il iman al akhlaq, il Islam al
akhlaq, meaning everything in Islam has to do
with akhlaq, to the point that the prophet
trans peace be upon him, translating his mission
and saying, I came for that. The final
goal of my mission is to transform and
to change and to reform the human behavior.
The behavior. So akhlaq is the values, the
system of values, and the behavior.
So a saluk is the way you are
going to translate that. And then you have
Etasawuf,
and as it is said
here, is the study,
the study, the the of the mystic's path
and the respective stages and and states, in
order to release God, as you know,
and,
al marateb, al
maqamat.
These are these are this is a terminology
that you find in the Sufi tradition.
It's also known as,
the science of the hearts,
which is there is a science which has
to do with your
heart.
In all this,
winning it or not and I explain this
in the book through history,
not only we had a categorization
of knowledges,
but we have a
hierarchy
of
knowledge.
In fact, what now if you are asked,
if you go and you very often, except
for those who are in,
some circles,
who is the sheikh?
Who is the alim?
He is the fari.
The fari is the reference.
So we now come to Islamic Sciences
as the mother of all the sciences,
or the sciences, are, is
alfecr,
so knowing what is right and knowing what
is wrong.
Which in history,
it's interesting because this was not the same.
In el Mustafar,
Abuhamid al Ghazali is saying that the mother
of all sciences is El Kalam,
in fact,
theology
and philosophy.
Because from this,
you understand
usool al firk, and from usool al firk,
you understand firk. And from all this you
understand the whole philosophy
of Islam.
Because there is a philosophy, as philosophy is
what? It's a structured system of values and
goals,
Knowing about the means, this is what we
are talking about.
So
in our tradition,
we have been so scared of anything which
has to do with philosophy so even about
me, if someone
So even about me, if someone to
the salafi once invited me to a a
discussion and say, this is the shirk,
and Tariq is a philosopher.
Sorry.
He's talking.
So he they wanted and, you know, the
way they were presenting the one to whom
I was talking was very clear. This is
el alem,
wal
fa'ilasuf,
meaning it's it's the one who is. And
in our mindset, in this like tradition, the
fa la or the philosophers,
don't have the same religious authority, by definition.
The sheikh is the one who is dealing
with al Hakam, halal, haram, and referring to
this.
But this is interesting in our society. I'm
not saying
that firq, it's not important.
I'm saying when,
in a spiritual
journey,
in a frame of reference, a universe of
reference,
the legal side of everything becomes the central
science,
It's revealing something.
It's revealing something.
So
it's not new what I'm saying.
Intuition, not the impression, has the intuition that
we need a philosophy of law,
which is deeper than only the structure of
law. A philosophy is, what do we want
with this means? This is the philosophy of
law. And Sharia, it's about the philosophy of
law, not about only implementing the law. You
get this? This is changing your
perception of the whole system.
But in our and why it was like
this? Because very often for the Muslims
the perception was
let me just give you an example.
You live
in Britain
and in the West.
If you are perceived by some of your
fellow citizens and by governments
as a threat?
Because you are suspicious,
not clear.
Muslims
or friends of Muslims.
What is going to be the first way
to protect the society from your presence?
It could be a discourse,
but at the end you will see that
in every Western society
the legal
is the first to protect us from the
potential threat.
It's the legal.
All this business about security and prevent,
these are the visible or the extreme. But
in the daily, thing, if you look at
what is happening in France or what is
happening in the United States now, for example,
it's all about let us protect ourselves legally
from their potential
threat or their potential freedom.
So we look at this now,
and for example, for years I was told
as
a
scholar working in the West, you want to
change
the
our legal system. I said, no, I don't
want to change the legal system. I want
you to implement the legal system as it
should be in equal terms. And at the
end, who changed the law? In my country
in Switzerland, I said, you want to change
the legal? I said, I don't want. But
at the end, who changed the constitution in
Switzerland saying that the minarets were forbidden? They
changed.
Not us. Why? Because the legal framework was
not against the minerates. So they had to
change the constitution exactly with the headscarf in
France exactly the same: changing the law when
you perceive a threat.
So we now are facing this real
natural reaction
from societies
that are perceiving
that there is an element that is putting
us in danger.
So we have to go through a legal
struggle to ask for equality,
equal dignity, equal freedom.
Now if you look at our history in
the Islamic,
history and the Islamic sciences, we did exactly
the same,
thinking that the way Muslims are going to
protect themselves from the dominant is going through
the legal.
Halal, haram, protective.
So the same mindset was in our tradition
where you are
open to creativity. You open up. It's fine.
When you are under threat,
Humaya is protection.
So the mindset change
we had in history what we are witnessing
in our daily life in the west, protection
through the legal framework.
But you can understand
that is
natural,
but it's problematic, if you end up
reducing the whole
tradition to a legal structure,
and not understanding the goals and putting the
legal structure the way it should be put,
as a means.
So in fact, here,
al firk
should be the means to achieve everything else.
Eskiyat enafs,
clear understanding of how we are with God,
serving him, changing, understanding the Aqidah. These are
the central
dimensions. It has to be so I don't
want
to come again
a hierarchy,
but to question the centrality,
not dismissing because some, when they are listening
to me, say, oh, he doesn't want to
talk too much about halal haram.'
No, I never said that.
I said, to speak only about halal haram
is my problem.
And to to change
the means, halal haram, to the goal of
everything in our,
religious authority, that's the problem.
That's the problem.
And to the point that in everything, we
need a fatwa now.
So give me a fatwa. I want a
legal opinion. And now there is a touristic
way of dealing with fatwa.
So you you try to find the the
right scholar.
How many came to me asking me for
fatwa because they think, oh, he's nice. He's
a bit liberal. So give me a fatwa.
This is the way it is. That's the
reality.
So we need a fatwa and and and
in some situations
to the point that you are saying, Look,
you have to be very cautious. I said
this once when we are talking about AIDS
in in South Africa and say, We need
a fatwa about everything. Can I stay with
my wife and my husband if I know
that he,
has
AIDS? And say, What's that? You want a
fatwa for everything? There is no common sense
here? There is no something that you have
to take? And I propose that we may
need a fatwa
for not having fatahuas and everything.
Just to to to return the whole logic
of it. No. You are laughing, but it's
it's serious. It's a very serious matter,
because it means that when you are critical
the way I am, I'm not undermining
the whole thing. I just want it to
be at the right place in the whole
and to be very serious about it. Halal
halal halal haram haram haram.
So I'm not playing with this. And I'm
very tough on some issue, for example.
You know, if you want to ask me,
for example, about smoking,
so I'm one of those who say, it's
haram haram.
That's my position.
I don't think it's macru.
And
the opinion of you only say haram when
it's in the Koran. No, there are things
that you pay money to buy things, distorting,
destroying your health, while people are starving and
say, macrut.
Okay. Go ahead. I think that's serious.
It's as bad as drinking alcohol and the
way you are destroying your health in the
name of just some pleasure,
knowing the economic system that's exploiting so many
people to make you smoke and to let
people die,
I think they cannot defend us, in ethical
terms.
So I have, you know, so be careful.
My positions are tough sometimes.
Not only on that one. This is just
the one that can
okay. You get that?
Here, this categorization
of knowledge, it's important with the
hierarchy
of knowledges that we have here because this
had an impact in the way. There are
3 fields
where
ethics, akhlaq,
was studied.
3.
The first is infirk.
Infirk,
why? Because
this is the relationship between values and rules.
I will come to this. The second field
is
the theology
and philosophy,
field. Almelkala.
They were very much dealing with this. And
then the 3rd field is Tosa'wuf,
is the mystical,
tradition.
We are all concerned
with Al Aqlaq,
primarily concerned with Al Aqlaq, and very deeply
concerned with the topic,
is ethics.
And we will try to understand why.
And in fact,
at the very beginning, when you come to
the Hadith of the prophet
saying, Inaba'atul i'thame ma'amakaalim al akhlaq that I
quoted before,
And even
when Aisha
was asked about the prophet,
'ayhi salatu wasalam,
what was her answer?
Who was he? Kanahulukuhulqur'a,
meaning
his
way of behaving, his character, was the embodiment,
the personalization
of the Islamic and the Quranic principles.
So he was translating this. Meaning, in fact,
that at the end, the final goal and
everything that we got, being with Allah, la
ilaha illahu,
is to find the right means
to follow the ethical path in order to
come close to God. This is the translation.
It has to do with the principles, it
has to do with the means, and it
has to do with the objectives, what I
said just before. You get
that?
This has to be understood,
from the very beginning.
When you come to this, it's very interesting,
you will see that the 3 main fields
that I was just referring to are in
fact
dealing with
every
level.
As to the sources
as to the sources,
El Mu'takkal Limun
were asking,
how do you know
that what is good is good,
and what is wrong or bad is bad?
Which is what was in the clip,
which was supposed to attract you to come
to the seminar.
How do you know what is good and
what is bad?
So, 3 main opinions
coming from scholars.
But because you, from where you are, you
can ask yourself, it could come from is
it coming naturally from within? You can say,
my fitra,
my innocent neutral fitra
is,
you will have it for 2 days.
As long as you smile, that's fine. There
is hasanat
that you will get with that. Anyway, what
was the point?
It's out of your mouth. Do you do
you get it out of your is it
is it,
coming from your inner,
being that it's there?
So,
you can it's part it's
constitutional
of real being.
Is it coming from
nurtured
or being from education and from the society
acquired from your
own
relationship to the environment,
how do you get the moral qualification? Is
it natural?
So for example, is there something on which
we can agree
if you don't have revelations,
and it's morally bad for everybody.
So for example, the very fact that you
speak
and human beings
speak,
Normally, you are expected to say the truth
or to say at least what is there.
So your language,
your words, should translate the reality.
By definition, you would say,
if you speak and you don't say the
reality, you are lying,
and we all agree that lying is bad
in all the cultures and all the religions.
There is an agreement.
There is no society where you are taught
lie, that's good, go ahead.
There is something that could be
intrinsically in our constitution because we speak
to lie, so not to say what is
the reality, or to translate the reality
in a wrong way could be perceived as
bad. So this could be a universal definition
of bad
coming from our constitution.
Some would say no, this is also coming
from culture.
We may agree with this, but this is
cultural.
In the Islamic tradition, you will have three
trends, and the first
one, which in fact started the discussion,
is in El
Mutakal Lemun, in El Mutakal Lemun, in El
Mel Kalam,
they were the Mu'athazeelah.
The Mu'athazeelah.
And the Mu'athazeelah,
Ahl Tawhiel Wal'al.
All this is in the book, by the
way. You can come back to the to
to
reading the the this, and I I'm summarizing
this. But the Martazila so I this is
why I'm not taking too much time. You
can read this. The Martazila
was saying, in fact,
our rationality
is able
to get
the good and the bad out of its
own independent
construction
or way of thinking.
So in fact,
if god
sent a book
telling us what is good and what is
bad,
he
is relying on the human intellect
which knows by definition and can identify
by itself what is good and what is
bad. So it could be rational.
So our definition of what is good and
what is bad,
it's the common rationality
that we have that god put in human
beings in order for them to understand the
text, because without human intellect, there is no
text. So
a rizela, the message, cannot be sent but
to intellects that could understand it. But the
intellect
should be equipped
to know what is good and what is
bad.
Okay?
So rationally,
you can get what is good and what
is bad, even without the revelation. In fact,
the revelation is just going to confirm
what was in your, or what could come
from your intellect.
This is an understanding of the universal. This
is something which is important in the discussion
today. How do you define the universal? And
once again, in the book,
The Quest for Meaning, I allocated also one
chapter on the universal by saying, is it
a top down construction
or a bottom a bottom up construction or
a top down construction? A bottom up means
our
collective
common rationality.
It's coming to an agreement on what is
good and what is bad, and constructing
the universal
thing. So the universal, it's common
to our rationality.
This is El Mu'takele Limon. This is El
Mu'tazila.
To the point that they were saying, it
is impossible
for God
to decide that something is good while my
intellect cannot get it as good. If he
was to do this, he would have been
injust, and God is just, so we have
to rely on our intellect.
This is why they are called aahlil,
elaq,
wala'al.
Has to give us the means of our
own ethical independence.
Ethical, rational independence.
One of them
was,
Al Ashari,
and,
who responded to this and used
the dialectical process, because in fact the people
who were saying this, El Moerd, were very
much influenced by the Greek tradition, using the
Greek logic about, you know, rationality. At the
end,
if and and they were adding to this
discussion about how do you get the good
and the bad. Adding to this that I
should be free
in in in order to to to follow
the the ethical path. Without freedom, god would
be unjust
to ask me to do something while I'm
not free to do it, and it's, my
predestination
is putting me in this. So how can
I be judged if I am not free
to do it?
So it's a logic based on rationality.
This is why we call them the rationalists
of Islam.
It doesn't mean that they were more liberal
in in history, because when they were in
charge, it was very also tough for the
people of the other schools.
So no one has the monopoly of repression
or the liberal
structure of the society.
Al Ashari was responding with their means by
saying no.
In fact,
the final word
on what is good and what is bad
is the Koran.
If the Koran is telling you it's good,
so it's good. It's not for your intellect
to decide what is good and what is
bad. Your intellect has to follow the revelation.
So, the final word, the final source, the
final
reference
ident identifying
what is good is in the Quran.
So this is Al Ashari.
So very often you have, still up to
now,
people who are very tough with Al Ashari.
So in
the majority
of the,
Sunni tradition,
afterward, after this tension,
very often, the people were presenting themselves from
Ash'ari,
understanding
or defining Muertazila as being dangerous because 2
rationalists
questioning the very essence of God's justice through
their rationality, and this was perceived as arrogant
by the
legal tradition. The legal tradition
and the the the the scholars were mainly
Ashali. So if you go I remember once
I was in Morocco discussing
an issue, and someone was very upset with
the way I was introducing this. He said,
look,
here you are in the country,
nahnu muslimoon,
merliqi yoon, asha ary yoon.
So stop talking,
meaning that this is the fray.
And in fact, he was not exactly right
because
Ashari was a way to resist tomorrow,
but there was another trend that came later,
which is an in between, el maturidiyah.
The
maturidiyah was, in fact, the middle path,
which is, yes,
it's coming from the Koran, but it doesn't
mean that it's mutually exclusive, that the human
intellect can't produce.
So, for example, to protect himself, Abu Hamid
al Ghazali
was saying that he was Ashari.
So it's coming from this tradition. But in
fact or he's perceived as being in this
frame of reference.
But what is
important here is to understand
that, in fact, if you read carefully, the
way he is putting this relationship between text
and reason is much more a maturidi.
But this was not to be presented because
it was a way of protecting your credential
as a scholar,
Because he is saying,
in fact, a very important statement about the
way we deal with
El El Risaletu
wahyun kharejhi. So the message,
the text,
is an outward revelation.
My intellect is an inward revelation, meaning that
things can come from my reason.
And in the Islamic tradition, it's true that
reason was trusted
not to the point to reject the revelation,
but to the point of being, or complementing
the revelation, to the point that you need
the intellect to understand.
So these are three trends that you have
within the Islamic tradition, and the point was
what?
In fact,
Rhehim al Kaleb
were questioning
what is the source
of the ethical qualification:
God, Allah,
or reason,
or anything else. It could be culture.
As I told you, al Marouf is known
as being good, so
et tayebat, as good, what is perceived as
neutral.
So all this, it's a discussion about the
source.
There is another science, al FERC,
that is going to question
about the means.
In fact,
FERC,
jurisprudence,
is very much questioning something which is important.
I don't have to normally, you know, normally
my teaching is never like what I'm doing
now.
I I don't teach like this. I teach
through my questions. So I sit,
but you are too many and we don't
have time.
So I I have to take the the
format is the only one. It's just to
have 1 hour lecture and then the discussion.
But the way I proceed normally is through
the question. So I don't have time to
ask you
the difference
between values and rules,
which is essential.
What is a value and what are what
are the rules?
So norms
are very much the way we translate
into rules
a specific value.
Okay? The value could be justice, and then
you have going to have a legal framework,
a translation
of the
value of justice into a very specific legal
structure or legal system.
So you go from the value and you
make it to norms, because it's structured in
the way you implement this in a specific
environment. Get that?
That's critical why, because ethics has to do
with value,
ethical values.
And then you have to reconcile the ethical
values with the specific rules.
Okay? You have to translate this, which is
known as, as I told you at Tanzil
Alawakha.
It's how do we going to so in
fact,
in the Quran
you have many
relations between,
in fact,
rules and the ethical
thing, the ethical side.
For example,
the rules you pray,
it's
preventing you from
corruption and perversity.
Perversion and perversity is what?
It's
moral values.
The rules are here to protect you.
So why are you
fasting?
These are rules to protect you from
the negative
moral values and to nurture the moral values.
So there is a connection between
the ethical values, and normally
not all
the values
are norms,
but all the norms should be based on
values.
You get me?
All the norms that you have, it has
to be ethical.
Why? Because
the norms and the legal framework
are means
to translate the very essence of the principle,
the value.
Okay? Normally it's this.
The problem, as I told you,
in the legal tradition, where the scholars were
trying to deal with aladin am and wamilu
solihad.
So they are doing good, deeds
and then the legal framework is here to
help you
to translate this into the good behavior.
So, in fact, the
legal,
al fiqh
as a legal system,
should
have, as a goal,
to help you to reconcile
your behavior with the ethical behavior,
with ethics.
This is why you have the rules. This
is why you pray.
So
the fuqaha were dealing with the means. How
do you translate?
The
mutakalemun
while dealing with the source.
And mutasa wifun
are dealing with the goals
at the end.
What do you want?
What is your final goal on earth? What
is your
okay, are you in a journey?
Yes, it's a journey.
The quest for meaning and the quest for
truth and the quest for God is a
journey. You are in a journey.
You might not
be aware of it,
but this is the reality. Where are you
heading?
What do you want to achieve?
Do you want to achieve
or to understand your journey as,
obeying?
So it could be that what you heard
from the Quran,
So
my journey is about obedience.
And then you can translate Islam as submission.
Obedience, and that's
it. If I obey, that's fine.
Some of the
people who are dealing with the signs of
the heart say, 'Be careful.
The way you obeyed the rules,
you have to check your intention.
Why?
What is what are your intentions?
And by the way, this is true spirituality.
True spirituality is not to pray during the
night.
True spirituality is when you enter through this
door is to ask what are your intentions?
What are you doing? What are you doing
here, by the way?
Just spending
a weekend to get more knowledge?
More knowledge to say you are more knowledgeable,
or more knowledge to become a better human
being.
Because this is what we have in our
communities today is this worship of
al.
So al is a means
to worship him.
It's not a goal in itself.
This
confusion between the means and the goal
are exactly
where at Tassar Wolf, the mestice,
the mystical
circles are questioning what do you want to
achieve. And in fact,
if you love god
and if your final
goal is
to love him, and kuntum tuhiboon Allah, if
you love him, fata be'uni,
follow the prophet, means what?
Change your behavior
and show
through your behavior
that the final goal of your journey it's
him.
Are you going to prove this? Not by
sitting here on a Saturday morning where I
say,
I'm doing it that's my job. No, your
behavior.
In fact, a soluc.
You reform your being through the ethical implementation
of these values that are helping you to
come close to him. Why? Because there is
only one way to be close to him
is to reform yourself
and to reform the world, and mainly yourself,
this purification of the self.
Desgiat enafs
is the final goal of everything.
So if
you have a family, and at the end
in the name of this family you forget
das guiete nafs, you are lost.
Be
careful.
Are you having a family to help you
to purify
or are you having a family
distracting you for purifying yourself?
So it might be that something
good ends to be bad in your spiritual
journey. The Sufi and the mystical tradition is
saying the final goal
has to be questioned every time. Why? Because
the final goal is reform yourself,
to purify
the self, and to reach this love that
is going to help you to come close
to God.
'Aylmelkalam'
the sources.
Ferk, the means
Tasawwuf,
the objectives.
And these are the three fields within which
ethics is essential.
As much
as ethics was everywhere
I have to finish at 1. Is it
right? Yes.
I'm very good.
I think that's let me just be sure
that I'm not missing something here.
Yes. As much as
you have ethics everywhere,
at the end, alm alahlah,
which was a science in itself,
and in fact it couldn't be a science
in itself isolated from everything else.
By definition, ethics is a transdisciplinary
approach,
as I am just showing you now.
And in fact, ethics is essential because it
questions three things:
epistemology
from where and how do you get the
knowledge?
The source.
Putting the means at the right place.
FERC is about the means, and it's not
the goal.
2nd, always question your intentions and your goals,
your objectives,
by assessing
in which way you translate the values into
your behavior.
Consistency.
So ethics is reconciling
the 3,
signs in a way, but at the same
time it was in the three sciences and
it ended up being nowhere.
Why?
Because in all the philosophical discussion, we ended
up being very technical about, is it coming
from reason? Is it coming from God? But
that's not the point. At the end, what
is very important is not the source in
itself.
If you believe it's coming only from God,
that's fine. If you think that it's both,
that's fine. But at the end, the most
important thing is not to ask about the
source, it's to show how instrumental
and necessary
ethics is in the whole,
in the whole system. That's essential.
We ended up being very technical
as to the source,
and not understanding
the importance of the topic itself.
So we are lost in useless
philosophical discussion about the mind and the intellect
and and and and not getting with something
which is ethics has to do with this.
And in fact, we had in the Islamic
tradition exactly what we had in the Greek
tradition and up to now the Western philosophical
tradition.
Remember, that was was very critical and important
in Socrates and even Plato in the Greek
tradition.
Why? You know, we talk about philosophy. Philosophy
is the love for wisdom. Okay? It's, loving
wisdom.
What was specific with Socrates is that he
was a philosopher
by the way he was implementing
what he was preaching.
He was a wise man, so it was
not only talking about philosophy, he was translating
this, so at one point in the history
of philosophy,
we were talking about ideas
which had no impact on behavior,
which was not the starting point of philosophy.
This is exactly what happened with we have
people very sophisticated in philosophical discussion, but at
the end, it has no impact on their
daily life.
It doesn't mean that we have to reject
philosophy. We have to reconcile
ourselves with the very essence of these discussions
and say how this has to do with
our life. This is one.
In fact, exactly the same,
this divorce
between the rules and the ethical reference
to the point, as I told you, that
sometimes we can be very strict with the
rules
with no ethical
reference. I give you an example that we'll
talk about tomorrow. In the book Radical Reform,
I use it as a point which is
very deep in this, is for example, the
way we are eating halal meat.
Halal meat,
technically,
from a firqi perspective,
is Bismillah Allahu Akbar,
You Allah. Okay? You do this, and you
can't eat. It has to be a Muslim
and you know the the reference.
The ethical discussion
on how do you treat the animals is
not about the way you kill
the animal, it's the way you treat the
animals alive. So there is an ethical take
on the way you treat the universe and
the animals and the species,
which we are very quick to say when
people are coming and say, the way you
treat animals
is very bad, to say, no, no, no,
we have so many hadiths
and verses telling us that we have to
respect that's fine. The hadiths
and the verses are telling you to respect
nature. What are you doing in your life?
Straight with, is it halal? When you go
in
a restaurant and if you eat halal,
the only thing that you are asking today
is what is slaughtered the right way?
But the ethical question about the way we
treat animals, you don't care.
Divorce between the ethical and the legal.
That's a catastrophe,
because it's every you can do it is
exactly an economy
Islamizing the means, not questioning the objective.
What is your intention when it comes to
the legal framework?
Okay? So it's very, very vicious,
this divorce.
I took this example because it's an obvious
one, but you can multiply it in so
many
other fields.
Now, at Tassauwuf,
exactly the same, ethics was everywhere. It ended
up with people saying:
you don't see any.' They are saying, you
know what? It's the purification
of the heart. It's this inward journey. And
at the end
you see some trends and some who are
obsessed
with
this purifying the heart, talking about, you know,
a vicar and everything,
and when you see the way they behave
there is no specific
distinction.
It's as if
my inward journey
should not be visible.
And then some are saying, you know what,
I'm a Sufi,
I'm apolitical,
which once again says,
such a silly statement.
Who can be apolitical?
Apolitical is political.
You are playing for somebody.
So
this,
coming to the Sufi tradition, seeing now that
what was
the inner journey to try to reform yourself
through the true behavior,
we end up talking only about reforming the
heart and love and nothing about the behavior.
So you have people coming to you and
say, you know what, I'm a Sufi.
And you say, I'm sorry, it's not visible.
In the way you behave, in the way
you speak, in the way you are arrogant,
Everything about Sufis is about struggling against your
ego. And the first thing that you say
as a Sufi, I'm a Sufi, is too
much ego in the way you are saying
it.
But that's true. That's true. The ethical dimension
here is lost for something which is once
again
not getting the very deep. So you have
in 3 fields,
and in 3 fields we can say there
is a crisis as to the ethical reference:
the source, the means, and the goals. This
is why I told you in the first
session you have to keep this in mind:
principles,
means, and objectives.
Okay? So this is it for this 2nd
session. The floor is open for your questions.
I will do the same, take
5 questions, and then
Okay.
No. I I don't I don't I what
is exactly your question? Which role religion
has played?
To play.
Has to play. In what? In making decisions
concerning values
and norms
without
Okay.
What is important exactly? How do we deal
with authority? Who has who has the final
authority?
Yeah. Good question. Yeah. The second is,
related to that is,
generally, you talked about the
You can you can see this. It's different
in from one Mazhar to another, from some
scholars to others.
Be careful.
I mean, I'm not I'm not qualified to
be trained. Okay. No. So But from my
readings,
is another person's oppression.
So in in Islamic tradition, you have this
issue
of Maharsid or values
confirm the rules
by referring to the values which are really
undefined.
That's 1.
The the the values
are coming from the norms here when it
comes to animals.
Sorry?
The val the norm the values are coming
from the norms in the way we treat
animals?
Yes. What I'm saying is No. No. But
I'm I'm connecting the second question to the
first.
I'm saying our behavior Yeah. Towards animals are
coming from also coming from the same rules.
No. No. But I was just trying our
bleak I I got you, but, I I
I was just trying to connect your second
question with the first one.
But it might be that the second question
is
is prioritizing
the first one. But that's fine. I will
come to this.
I can't hear you. I'm sorry.
Right wing.
Okay.
I'm sorry. I was writing. I'm sorry. No.
It's, Ursala.
There is a satellite about Jeffrey.
I will tell people, please. And
Okay.
It's okay.
You
Okay. The first question is
how science is playing a role in defining
that's a critical question here, because,
in fact, depending on the discussion that you
had in the field of Al Mir Kalam,
for example, saying it's coming from the text
or it's coming from human,
intellect,
Of course,
what,
could be produced by scientific minds are
human rationality
or sciences,
as it were.
This is also,
a dimension where it's connected to the first
question that, yes, from
the knowledge that you have,
it could produce
an ethical framework or at least an ethical
reference.
The question here is
exactly what was the second question. It's about
who has the authority
and which type of authority you have.
So,
for example, you have coming from the fauxqaha,
the legal framework,
these 5 categorizations. The
5 categorizations.
This is what is preferred, what is detested,
what is open for you, and what is
an obligation and what is
prohibited.
All these are in fact
ethical,
legal
categorization.
It's ethical and legal.
But who at the end has the final
word to say that this is possible and
it is not?
This is where the great majority of the
scholars, the Foucaud, would say the
scholars of the text. They have the final
authority.
Now, it's quite clear that
if you don't know the field,
if you don't know how it's heading and
what are going to be the ultimate goals
of a science moving that way, you might
think that a specific detail or a specific
decision is good in itself. But you know
that it's part of something which is a
bigger trend that could be bad. So the
moral qualification is not the thing in itself,
it's also
within a very specific,
universe of reference. If you don't get this,
that's the problem.
So very often you have scholars of the
text. They are taking position in
sciences where they don't have the knowledge of
the complexity or the complexification
of the world and they come and say,
because we know the text, we have the
final authority. But the final authority should be
the shared knowledge of the 2, it's the
text and the context or the science in
itself.
Now, science per se producing
ethics, it could happen
when it comes to, for example,
moral rationality that you can see that it's
harming
human dignity. It could have an impact. Yes,
it's good. It could come, and this is
where it's going to be shared, and it
could be shared with the religious reference.
Now, this is a disputed
space because we are talking about authority. Who
has the final word? And then
I will come this is the third question,
but
your question about,
where are you? About
the the the atheists and which,
role the religion have to play.
You know, for
people from within religion,
that is not even a question. This could
be a question for atheists saying we have
a moral,
rationality
or a rational morality,
or a secular morality, that it's enough for
us to go ahead.
For people from within the religious tradition, that's
that's,
that is understandable,
but it's not going to,
satisfy
their way of dealing with their religion. By
definition, if you believe in God, you think
that your religion is going to play a
role in setting the moral or the ethical
framework. So, for example, at the European level,
what I was when I was in the
European Committee Ethical Committee, we are dealing with
people coming from different
religions and spiritualities
and people who are atheists and agnostic coming
together.
But there is some one thing which is
essential we should all acknowledge from the very
beginning, that everyone around the table could add
something to the discussion.
So you may disagree, but at the end,
acknowledging that
everyone has
a legitimacy
to propose something in moral terms and in
ethical terms. So, for
me, I would say, for example,
that instead of what we have now with
this wrong
assertion or wrong understanding that, for example, in
a secular society,
religions should disappear from any kind of public
debate,
I think it's
wrong.
But it's very important to have a voice
which is not only coming
from religions by setting the legal framework,
but questioning
the ethical dimension. For example, as someone who
is working from within the religious tradition
in the book Western Muslims and the Future
of Islam, I'm questioning the very notion of
citizenship by by saying we need an ethics
of citizenship.
So I want to be part of the
discussion as a citizen, but at the same
time as a citizen relying or referring to
a universal reference which is as legitimate
as any rationalistic
or atheist reference.
So instead of disappearing
in the name of the secular, the secular
should make visible the pluralism
that is now constituting
our society,
which is the other way around.
But it means a new this is what
I call an ethical distinctive visibility.
Ethical.
And not only by the way we,
we dress or by the way we distinguish
ourselves from the other, but this ethical distinction
is, I think, something which is essential in
the debate.
And I think that this is where
the citizens,
and among them the Muslim citizens,
would
come to something which is to stop
thinking about being integrated
by the common norms, but to be the
added value by the ethical contribution.
So that could be a complete
different
approach. This is why I'm talking about, contribution.
Your question is critical about authority, and this
is exactly where we are. In the book
Radical Reform, I'm exactly talking about this. The
shift of the center of gravity of authority
in Islam is to question who has the
final word. So in fact, in every field
that I was mentioning,
there is a discussion, and in fact, the
essence sometimes of the discussion is about the
authority.
If, for example, you say
between the Mu'tazil and Ashari and the Matoridi,
to say, for example, that the final authority
is the book. It means that your rationality
has no say and no authority to produce
ethical norms or ethical values.
So you are talking about authority,
which in fact was also translated in political
terms with al Hakimi yanillah. It's the final
authority in everything is God, so you don't
have any authority.
While when you are saying there is a
human agency factor,
you are saying humans and human beings, they
have authority in producing. So you are shifting
here by saying it's a two way process.
The final authority is the text, but there
is no text
without my mind and my intellect, so there
is a shared responsibility.
It's
acknowledging God's authority through the human agency that
is going to translate this. Meaning here that
you have this was a big discussion, a
great discussion, to the point that it has
to do with how do you define God's
justice with human beings if you define who
has the final authority.
Exactly the same with the
in the FERC.
Mainly, the authority
in the FERC, in the legal framework, is
perceived by the great majority of us here
and with and among the Hakam the the
the forqa
as al Farhi has the final say. He's
the authority. He's the moral authority.
And this is what I was saying. Sometimes,
you see that when it comes to specific
fields,
they don't know, so they are going to
produce
norms
or legal opinions
that you are asking yourself What do they
know about the the reality? Do they have
the author the the
knowledge that is giving them the credibility?
And when I was bringing together the scholars
of the text and the scholars of the
context,
some were asking me, are you expecting from
them to produce fatawa? Them means the scholars
of the context.
They should not be producing fatawa because these
are the scholars of the text.
I think today,
with the complexification
of the world, the process of producing legal
opinions should come from both together.
It is a shared responsibility
and shared authority. Of course, the text is
critical because the text is from where we
are
extracting
the values and the norms, but at the
end if you don't understand
the world, what are the 2 main features
of postmodernism?
2 things: there is no truth and there
is no real.
The real is completely constructed.
So the real is not there.
So you come with
a religion saying exactly the opposite.
There is one truth, and the real is
the real.
So you have to deal with it.
So I'm going to deal with this.
If you don't understand that,
and sometimes in the way this, the constructivist
approach is questioning the very essence of the
way you deal with the truth, and it
has to do with the intellectual
authority, the spiritual authority, and the authority the
ethical authority in the whole discussion.
What I'm saying here is that in the
role of authority, it's
and once again, I'm always saying this.
In what I was saying, I you will
find this in the book, but what I
was saying about the the
the chart of the,
Islamic sciences,
we really have to understand that it has
to do with power struggle and authority questions.
Who has the authority? It's not coming from
a void. It's very much like this. And
today, one of the things that I am
facing the more with all what I'm doing
here with scholars is that they think that
I'm challenging the very essence of their authority,
and especially the furqara.
For example, when it comes to the the
the tasawwuf, very often,
the authority is playing a very important role.
It's the sheikh and morshed
has the final authority, not even and not
only in defining what is right and what
is wrong for you, but even your own
journey to the point that there is a
a way of sacralizing
the role of the sheikh.
So when
to liberate yourself from your own ego you
end up sacralizing
the teacher that is helping you to do
this, there is a problem. And it has
to do with power.
So all the people who are coming and
say, in Sufis there is no power struggle,
rubbish.
Of course there is,
and some are very much
centered. So I think that in many ways,
in all these discussions, the the notion of
authority and power is something that we don't
like to talk about, but it's everywhere in
all what I'm saying. In fact, as much
as knowledge is power, there is no discussion
about knowledge without dealing with power
distribution and authorities distribution.
And I think that this is
a question here.
So I know that I can push further
your question, but it's just
to
echo what you are saying is that it's
a critical question in every field and between
the different fields
when it comes to science.
So, in your question about values and rules,
that's a very interesting question.
And in fact,
if in your mind,
in our mind as human beings, we read
the Koran,
and what we find in the Koran is
a set of Hakam, rules.
Yes?
And then what we have to do is
to extract from the rules
what
is el a'la
are the objectives.
El makzad or el ayla, which is the
raison d'etre, the Rasulagus.
In the way you go from rules
to
norm, to to values, it's true that in
your mind it comes later.
But in the reality, the rules is the
translation of the value. So values come first.
And this is what Eschatebi is saying. Eschatebi
is saying that in fact, look at this,
very deep, very important, and even for now,
saying, look,
if we are serious about the the evolution
of the
the revelation,
Elahid al Mekki
was coming with
the values
and the general principles.
El Ahid al Makki,
the translation into rules. But you cannot get
the rules if you don't understand
the values. Now, if you come as a
faqih with the rules, you are trying to
come back to the values. In fact, the
values were first,
not after.
When you're in fear, of course, you will
get them after, but in fact you are
getting after what was before,
To the point that everything that has to
do with,
al hokhmah, there are 4 principles that you
have when you are trying to understand al
hokhmah. For example
is, El Alla, the raison d'etre. Or,
El Hikma, which is the wisdom. It could
be El Alla, but sometimes it's quite different.
And it could be,
al maslaha, which is the public interest of
the rule, or it could be al maqzid,
which is the objectors.
There is also something which is different, which
is,
meaning that sometimes
with some rules you don't have the raison
d'etre. You don't know why. Why, for example,
you have to pray 5 times a day?
Why do you have to turn 7 times?
Why do you,
the the the gestures that we have when
we are praying? Why? You don't have an
answer. And in fact,
the reason
not to have
an answer to these questions is the reason
itself.
Why? Because it's teaching you intellectual humility.
Because you don't know.
So some rules have reason and some are
like this.
So the value of
hokum
bidoon
allah
or visible allah
is
intellectual humility.
Is it il al obudeya, that you are
doing this because you believe in samyanawatana?
So all this means that, in fact, yes,
in the process of getting the values,
you can get them from the rules,
but it is exactly what I was saying:
the values come first, and the rules are
the translation.
And in any way,
whatever comes first at the end,
it's not
the essence of the question. The question is:
they have to come together.
They have to come together. This is what
the Chartibille is saying, and this is why
the philosophy
they have to come together, because the ethical
question is always asking you Parib
nasur, when
Tarib n Ashur, when he was critical towards
the the sol al feur
was putting something which was interesting. By the
way, this book is translated
at a very high level in English.
The book from Arabic, it's triple I t.
They translated the book.
He's critical, but he's one of the first,
not the only one, in fact the first,
who question
the way you are getting the maqasid
through the understanding of el akam et teklifiya
and el akam as such.
He's saying, in fact,
it's true what you are saying.
And the one who also is putting us
this in a very simple way for for
you to read now in English is, Mohammed
Kemali
from,
Malaysia,
in his book on, sharia, Maqaseh de sharia.
It's very interesting because he's summarizing all this
in a in a nice way.
It's, in fact, realized that all the Maqasid
came from understanding specific rules of prohibition and
translating this into the Maksid.
So you cannot change your religion, so din
has to be protected. You cannot drink alcohol,
so your intellect has to be protected.
The one who had a problem with this,
and sometimes the people don't get that
because, they have a very, as I said,
a simplistic understanding of 'emnetaimia'
or saying, no, the objectives are not only
these five objectives, there are objectives that are
spiritual objectives that has to do with
your purification. So there are objectives that has
to do with your heart,
meaning here that it's not only through the
legal that is to get the higher objectives.
Because once again, the Macasset being built from
the legal are putting the legal as the
center of the Macasset. No. So this is
why a philosophy of law is putting law
as a means to something which is bigger.
And,
Taher ibn Hashoor is doing exactly the same,
starting all all his discussion about fitra
and reason and freedom as part of the
whole construction, meaning the Maqaseh should not be
relying only on rules,
but the whole the understanding of the whole
message, which was not al Jewene, it was
not Abuhamid al Ghazali, and not completely,
but
not so far from a Shatiibi because Shatiibi
has some intuitions about this and then more
for Qad.
Do you get my point? So here,
it's a discussion that it's important.
And by the way,
you are right.
What is katai
for you?
For the olema, katai means
rules that are clear cut in the Koran,
not subject to any interpretation.
It's katai iddalala,
so it's clear cut as to the meaning,
whereas to boot as to the origin.
And say this is khatay.
That's fine. And they are going as far
as to say, la isti adam aan nos.
So when you are facing a text which
is clear cut as to the ruling, it's
clear.
No interpretation.
No room for ishdihad.
No room for personal interpretation.
That's all fine.
But if you read the Koran and you
come to, the
the
the
the women and men who are stealing this,
thieves
cut their hands,
the verse is clear, isn't it? No discussion.
No room for interpretation.
The thieves, you just cut their hand.
Yet
Omar ibn al Khattab
didn't implement it in a very specific period
of time.
It might
be that there is no interpretation
on the text, but you need an interpretation
on the context to know how you are
going to get the meaning of the text
in a specific context. So there is an
issue here on the context, not on the
text.
But in fact, it ends up being an
issue here on the text, in the way
you are going to implement
the text on the context.
Based on what?
Based on something which is more katai than
natai.
Is
what? Justice as a goal.
I can't, in the name of a literal
interpretation of a verse, implementing it, if at
the end I'm not going to
respect the katai
goal of justice.
So, the goal is katai,
even though
it's extracted from your understanding
of the text.
So justice
God commands justice.
Can I,
in the name of a literal interpretation of
a text,
undermine the fact that I need to get
a clear understanding of the objective in the
way I'm going to implement the text, I
can't do that?
Of course. And and not and it those
actions not falling within the definition of,
what is effect.
Okay, we can now
question all that. But the point is
that in this
situation,
whatever are the other references,
at the end,
the text of the Koran
is katay.
In application there's always room for us to
have food. That's
exactly So it's tihad in the name of
what?
You're not changing the hope of why actually
you're changing It's simply it's Tanzil Alalwaka. It's
simply hey, in the name of what?
In the name of other
Referring to what? You don't want to say
it?
In the name of the goal that you
want to achieve. You can call it justice.
You can call it necessity.
But that's Necessity?
Post
the event.
Okay.
We may disagree on that. But I think
that
no. No. But I think that this question
about Tanzil Al Al Wakre
is always a question of ishtihad, always,
but always in the name of what you
think the text has as an objective.
If not, there is no way.
So this is my point. So I would
say and this is not me, by the
way.
I have to finish.
But it's a good discussion. Let us discuss.
I would say here
that I'm not the first. It's just in
and more for in and more cost the
in approach, the macassid.
The marcasedi approach is thinking about the objective.
They are saying implicitly, it's quite clear that
the objectives are the kata in the whole
thing.
Well, I agree with you, we have to
be very careful, is not in the name
of the kata'i at al Maqzad,
just to dismiss or to underestimate al haqq.
That's the point.
And this is what I'm seeing now.
Some there are so much about everything is
about Macassid.
So in the name of the Macassid you
want
to be at peace with your this is
what I heard from some scholars here. They
were saying, because there is such a pressure
against Islam
in UK,
and you should not be visible. So as
our goal is peaceful coexistence,
remove anything which is your visibility,
No headscarf,
no just make it
what's that? This is not Macassay, this is
distraction
because distracting the rules in the name of
the Macase. So it's a balanced approach I
agree with you on that. Very quickly about
value and norms. So this is ethical
yes,
you were talking about animals and all things.
It's true. You are right. Everything is coming.
We're relying on the scriptural sources. Anything is
everything is there.
The problem is not this. The problem is,
today,
listen to the fuqaha.
Listen to what is said.
There is no clear you know, I put
it once
in a clear way in radical reform. I
was asking.
I'm I was questioning,
you know, in a very diplomatic way,
what is more halal,
the way we treat the animal with
respect in all this bio, you know, this,
ethical and ecological way, what is more
Islamic and halal? This way or just
killing in halal way the instril, the industrialized
production?
And people are saying, look at this.
Look at what he's saying.
This guy who is a philosopher,
start with this. Is just saying that there
is a new way of defining what is
halal and what is haram.
They didn't want
to consider
that the ethical reference should be part of
the legal norm,
which is my position.
Now we have a legal norm, and ethics
we refer to it,
but in a very, very secondary way. It's
not the essence of everything. And you just
look at what is happening.
Look at what is happening today in the
way we are dealing with it, and all
the people who are obsessed with the halal
are obsessed with the technicality. They are not
obsessed with the other dimension.
This is my experience.
How do we can we reclaim
Islam?
This was your question.
I don't know who you are referring to
by the far right, but
I think that what we have to do,
all of us,
and this is why we are here in
fact, is to go for a deeper deepening
our knowledge of Islam,
trying to get
the knowledge which is necessary for us to
be intellectually independent,
humanly
confident,
and also,
civically
in a civic way
active.
But my problem is that,
you have people who are going to talk
on TV and the media.
Let me tell you something.
With all the discourses that you have,
some are used by the governments and some
others are completely lost in the way they
are
representing
or playing a so called representation of Islam.
We have to stop being the silent majority.
The problem with the silent majority is its
silence.
Exactly the same with the problem that we
have with charismatic leaders,
The problem is their charisma.
We have to stop with this. We have
a problem with the authority, and we have
the problem with putting ourselves as followers and
we are the victims. And how are we
going
to do? Stand up.
Stand up. Be visible
and use your knowledge. It's exactly what we
are talking about. All what we are doing
here, I'm not coming here just to give
you a transfer of some knowledge. What I
want from such a seminar is useful knowledge.
Useful knowledge means how are you going to
use this knowledge to do something out of
it and to be visible in your society?
That's the point. So now
it's political game to use so called
representative of Muslims that are going to say
exactly what they want.
Don't care about that.
These are
media
games. What is going to change the society
is local commitment,
ongoing presence,
and to change the people around you.
This is what I call the national movements
of local initiatives.
We have to be very humble but very
committed.
And to stop being completely,
misled by
media coverage and discourse, These these are games.
They are not going the media are not
making history.
But we have to do where we are
in the whole thing.
And and and and what I'm saying is
just
I keep on repeating
being equipped
and being courageous.
It means that you have to face. You
are going to face criticism. You are going
to face
people who are saying that, whatever.
So consistency and and and courage, it's important.
Very quickly now, ethical values from the world.
Yes.
Your question, once again, a tough one,
but a necessary one,
because this is what,
the scholars were saying,
Okay, from the world we can have a
model, if we have customs and tradition and
model, if it's producing an ethical framework.
So, and you have coming from the scriptural
sources exactly the same.
The problem that we have to start with
is something that it's important in the way
we are
you know, there is an epistemological
question at the beginning is,
how much
culture
was
in the first interpretations
of the scriptural sources?
And anyone who is telling me, no, no,
it has no role. For example,
within my centre, I have tense discussions with
some in my center that say, no. No.
The patriarchal culture had no say on the
the text.
That's not true. Of course, it has.
So
to be able now,
for us,
to look at
cultures
in the past as well as now
and to be able
and to do the job, to do the
work
at 3 different levels
is: what do the texts say,
how they were interpreted from within a specific
culture,
and who was reading them.
Because, you know, it's as if we are
talking with people, the scholars are not coming
from a very special social class. They are
not in a very specific,
arena, not close from the the power, not
or close from the people, or being a
man or being a woman.
I I said in radical reform that I'm
quite sure that if we have a reading
of the scriptural sources, a a women's reading
of the scriptural sources, it could be a
bit different as to the priorities, as to
the centrality of some notions.
Not women versus men, but coming together and
to say where
culture is playing.
So I would say that the final
say,
it's also going to be,
coming from,
our reading of the scriptural sources and there
is no final answer. We should acknowledge and
this is why we have the prophet, peace
be upon him, saying that you have 2
reward if you are right and 1 if
you are trying your best as a party
because there is no final answer to everything.
We are trying our best. But,
I would say that the critical discussion
about this confusion between culture and
religion
is important
and also acknowledging that the cultures are producing
positive
ethical framework that we can take.
So it's very important to know
how much cultures could be negative
in the way you read
and how much they can be positive in
the way they produce a framework that it's
not against.
So it's always checking and checking and checking
again,
the the the the things and and it's,
you know,
there is
no line that is,
like this, you know, set once for all.
It's an ongoing process.
But this is why you have to question
and to have this dialectical,
discussion between text and context, between scholars and
time and environment.
This is very important.
But this is not to under
mind the very essence of the Quranic authority,
and this is also something which is important.
And it comes to something that I forgot
to say in the point that you were
making is that very you know, about rebar,
for example,
I don't agree with you that the the
the definitions are different.
I think that there are common
clear ground. It's the way you can use
a not reba depending on the context that
could be different. And some of the scholars
even now, for example, Judea, Sheheryl Judea here
in the UK, did he doesn't think that
riba, the way we under was traditionally understood,
is the true definition.
That's fine.
But at the end,
it might be
that we do not agree on a very
specific understanding of the rule or its implementation.
But you will find that,
if you go further,
at least on the basic value behind the
rule, we may agree there is more agreement
on values
than on the understanding of its translation
in reality.
So that's also a very important point. There
is much more.
And in fact you can see in ethical
terms that you can put together, bring together
and we talk about this this afternoon
scholars from different fields much easier. It's not
easy, but in an
easiest way when it comes to values than
it comes to understanding
the rules, but we'll come to this. And
the last thing that I wanted to
the last question is,
no. I think that, it's different. What came
afterward from the Maliki and the Abu Hanifa,
if I understood your question,
well, it's still firh.
It's still firh. But what was interesting is
that when
Shafiri,
produced this on this,
this work
on the framework,
in the the the Abu Hanifa,
they were trying to get the same framework
but inductively. This is what is the inductive
way I'm talking about this in the book,
radical reform. As to the others, they had
both. They had this
understanding the framework,
how
could you extract from the scriptural sources
some principle, and in which way
you are going to implement this? So both
were working
from
a better understanding of usul al firk, the
fundamentals, and at the same time
the implementations of the rule as
FERC
as it was the rule of the FERC
approach to do that.
Now, we are finishing.
I just want you just to get
this clear, because this afternoon we are going
to speak about
the different methodologies and connecting the source and
all this. It's a discussion about a next
step.
In the morning, if I remember well, twelve
notions that at least you need to get
all this.
It's important to understand,
what I was talking about in the hierarchy
of the the scriptural sources as well in
which way they were working when it comes
also to differentiate between
principles,
means, and objective.
And thus, in the understanding of the concept
of man,
the philosophy and how much the philosophy of
law and and all and all these references,
were set in the morning. And then we
came this second session on speaking about 3
main fields. And what I want you to
keep in mind,
one field dealing with the sources, with the
other one
on the means and on the objective.
And in this
discussion here,
it's important to get this understanding because at
the end,
we are facing a fragmented,
reality when it comes to sciences. The deep
question is, is there a way to reconcile
this? And I would like, while you are
going to eat and to pray, not during
your prayer, but when you are eating, to
think about the way of reconciling the field.
I said it, when you eat, not when
you pray. Thank you.