Minute with a Muslim #286 – Allah Doesn’t Insult Our Intellect

If you look on the Koran, you'll realize that Allah appeals to us through various avenues and using various tools or keys to be able to understand a certain type of appeal or argument. Oh, one of those things is our intellect. He doesn't insult our intelligence in the Quran, he doesn't tell us in the Quran, you just have to believe don't ask questions, he actually says, you know, like, reflect, you know, think all these sorts of things, use your your intellect, but the signs that a loss of how to add a draws our attention to and upon which he he bids us to use our intellect are almost always related to the natural world, the way that Allah subhanaw taala created it, he talks

about the sun and the moon and the stars talks about the heavens and the earth. He talks about the animals, talks about bees, the trees, the rain, fruit and different grains and different things like that. And the arguments that he's making hinge upon these creative things, right. He's using them as devices in order to prove certain metaphysical truths to us, and relying upon our intelligence and logic to make the connections that he's making. Okay? Well, people up until very recently in human history had intimate proximity to these sorts of things that allows referring to when Allah mentioned a bee, they knew about bees, and they knew exactly about bees, what he was talking about

when he was mentioning the earth, and the seasons. And this and that, they knew exactly what he was talking about. So what happens in our modern era, if our entire lives are living inside of four walls, with climate control, and air conditioning, and heat, artificial light, then we shuffle to our cars, fire up the car, drive it to work, we're in an office building all day, okay? Go out to a restaurant, that's also indoors, come back, spend the night, okay. Our whole existence now has become very artificial and very manmade, we're not rubbing our toes in the grass, or in the dirt or grass, our feet are on the carpet and on the hardwood, right or on the vinyl tiles or whatever,

right? We're not smelling the flowers, and we're not hearing the breeze, the trees or the birds, we're hearing the hum of the air conditioner. And we're hearing, you know, like all these other sorts of things machine, right basically, machines, manmade materials, manmade technologies, and whatever it is what it is, I mean, we were here, okay, the, there's probably not any way to undo that. But there's a certain poverty that has come along with that, and a certain deafness that I believe that people are subjected to, if a law is arguing certain metaphysical truths, and using these signs as proof, and as objects of reflection, what if those signs don't mean anything to us

anymore? What if we can't comprehend what Allah means when he's talking about the bees, or the trees or the Earth? Doesn't that affect our ability to accept a lot of signs, or at least to realize the truths that he's trying to get us to see? So I'm a big advocate. And there's lots of studies that indicate how good it is for you know, I don't know hormone levels and you know, kids and development, all these sorts of things. Those are worldly benefits. But I'm more interested in the metaphysical benefit, the spiritual benefit of putting yourself in nature, as much as possible, re familiarizing yourself with the signs that a lot talks about all that's on every basically every

page of the Koran to the point where when Allah brings it up, you know exactly what he's talking about. You can smell it, you can feel it, you can hear it, you can taste it. And I believe that if you get to that point that the signs of Allah and Allah as arguments using those signs is going to be much more impactful and have a much more bigger and have a much larger impact on your spiritual development.