Tom Facchine – Medina Stories #14 – None of The Students Wanted to Answer This Question

			One of my favorite stories from Medina was this particular professor that we had. I studied with him
for two semesters. And he taught us my cost of the city and the first day of class he asked us are
allows actions occasioned by causes, right do causes? Or is there a rationale behind his actions?
Subhana. And in any place, and especially in Medina, sometimes there's a little bit of groupthink
that goes on, right? Everybody kind of, you know, you have to wait, though, when you got the pen in
the pocket. And everybody's, you know, many people are dressing very similarly. And everybody knows
the right answer, right? That's the whole thing. You know what the right answer is? And as long as
		

			the shakes like, you know, what are the three categories of toe hate? And what's this? And that,
like the lollipop answers are the softball answers everybody? Because like, Yes, we all know that,
you know, and that's kind of, it can become a little bit.
		

			It can, it can teeter towards group to think, at times. And so he asked us this question, and
everyone was afraid to answer it, because it was so far afield from what we were used to thinking
about and how we were used to thinking like the actions of Allah have causes behind them, like what
does that even mean? And so no one wanted to answer, and he was very patient, and he wasn't going to
let us off the hook that easily. And so he, like, waited and waited. And then finally, somebody
ventures kind of a wishy washy answer. Well, now his attention is on him. And yeah, follow up
questions. What What do you mean by that? Well, what about this scenario? What about that scenario?
		

			Are you saying it's not possible for all and he will be provocative? And that's what I liked about
it. I mean, like, Are you saying that a law cannot act unless there's a cause driving him? You know,
and so it's, you know, belief lately, like, oh, that sounds really bad. I don't want to say that.
And so he was playing with us the whole class. Right, this basic thing, and that data that none of
us knew, despite having studied, we, that was like our fifth semester, I think. And at the end of
the day, the whole point in that was to, to, first to humble us, but also to draw our attention to
one of the most important issues in our Arpita in our theology as Muslims is that
		

			Allah is a is a rational deities a rational God. Right. Now, that doesn't mean what some people
might think it means.
		

			We don't box a lot in according to our conceptions of rationality, maybe we think we mean something
by rationality that is not
		

			accurate or does not describe the things but maybe a better way to put it is that a law does not act
arbitrarily. Right? A laws commandments has shitty is not arbitrary. We're not just jumping through
hoops. Okay, there is most of the hype behind it, there's benefit in it towards us, because
everything in our, in our tradition, or a revelation can be divided into two categories. There's
aqidah, which is Hubbard is basically information about the reality. So there's nothing else to talk
about. That's the reality, right? It's when you die, this is going to happen to your soul.
		

			You know, this is this prophet was an actual profit, all these sorts of things just about reality.
And the city, or the insha, the commands they have to do with Muslims, they have to do with what's
in our best interest. And so Allah subhanaw, taala, the entire world turns upon this idea of reason,
or rationality, or if we're not comfortable with those terms. It's not arbitrary. And that is
something that should provide us with a tremendous amount of comfort, and also, inspiration to
learn. Because when I was growing up, and I was a Christian, we were always told to not ask
questions, right? Well, you just got to have faith, you just gotta believe. Why this well, why this
		

			is why we do it this way. Why don't you just got up. And if your starting point is that Allah is not
arbitrary. And the Sharia is not arbitrary. And that all of the guidance that we have is not
arbitrary. There is reason behind it, then that is an entirely different orientation towards your
faith. Let's ask the questions. Let's dig through the books. Let's find the answers. There's
questions I still have. From that I keep in a notebook that I haven't found the answer yet to. But
I'm going to ask all these different people I come across in one day, I'm going to find the answer.
And then some of those questions. That notebook I've crossed off after years, I'd be like, yes, he
		

			Yes, he gave that he, he hit it on the head. Right. And so this is what our religion This is what
Islam encourages us to do. Right? the regret of the people of the hellfire and sorts of smoke. We'll
call it a lacuna and that smell oh, nasty, though, if only we had either listened or had used our
reason. Right. So all of these sorts of things. If there's something that doesn't make sense to you
about the Sharia. Why do you know if there's a brother and sister and the brother inherits twice as
much? Why Why does that happen? Or if you know this common one, why can't women marry more than one
spouse? Or why polygamy or why this or why? Ask the questions, ask the questions, find the answers,
		

			and don't expect that okay, be reasonable, because not everybody is going to have the answers. You
don't just ask one person the question and be like, well, he didn't know and so
		

			This whole religion is trashed. No, you have to put in the work, even us in Medina as students, we
would ask, some of them share questions and we could tell when they didn't know the answer, or they
kind of gave us a stock answer or standard answer. It's like, okay, thank you. Like, I'm going to
ask somebody else, you know, like, be mature, be mature, but also don't stop asking your questions
because on the other side of those questions, as long as you're sincere, as long as your questions
are sincere, on the other side of that work of asking the questions and trying to figure it out, is
an increased level of certainty and with an increased level of certainty comes and increased
		

			experience and faith.