Tom Facchine – Reforming the Self #38
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the concept of human language and its impact on behavior, including the ban on speech and the importance of evaluating speech as a human value. They also touch on the responsibility of skepticism and the use of "naught" in relation to actions and words. The speakers stress the importance of clarifying situations and avoiding exposure to false and verifiable events. They also discuss issues related to theology of cinema, including falsehood, evil, and falsehood, and the need for systematic learning.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim.
hamdulillahi rabbil Alameen
so that was shuffle MBA almost Selena BNF it was in the Mohamed Salah was cut asleep a llama and then that'd be my own foul now in fact nothing that I'm Tana was eaten and then the other banana mean, Sudan when they come off to LA, everybody attending in person and distance report chair
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at least certain bases here.
Okay, so we're on a new subject with the author of loss for honey recall that this particular chapter
he's zeroing in on the intellect. But he also said that there were particular faculties that human beings have that extend from the intellect or otherwise relate to them in a very, very intimate way. And one of those things that he had said from the beginning was speech and not. He said that speech was something that flows from, or results from
something particularly human,
something a certain kind of intelligence. Right. And this is not to say that other light forms don't communicate, and even don't have speech. In fact, a lot of research has been done within the last five to 10 years that have revealed how beings that we thought in our arrogance, didn't communicate actually do forests, like trees actually communicate with each other under the ground.
When there's stress to the entire forest, whether that's from a disease, such as the emerald ash borer for ash trees, or wildfire,
or
if even human involvement, such as deforestation, actually found that trees communicate to each other. birds flock across species and can actually understand some birds can understand each other across species, the chickity and the nut hatch, which both live here, right next to our machine. In Central New York.
Everybody understands the chickadees call that chickadee is kind of the sounds the alarm, and the other birds understand communication of alarm. But there's a particular type of speech or maybe we can say eloquence or use of language that is particular to human beings. And the author specifically calls this ban. Right, which ban is is a level of speech where the meanings can be extremely subtle.
And clarification of an issue is taking place in an unprecedented way. And so he justifies this, this position of his as he always does with the Koran, and the beginning of strongman, a rough man, Father, father and son,
Parliament Quran.
Allah will ban as the SR is the verse that he's that he's referring to our lemma who will ban hot or cold incense or lemma whole band. And so he says that
because Allah is found to Allah didn't say, WA our lemma who will ban?
He said, if he had said, Well, if he had put a well there was a lemma who will ban it would have been a separate clause completely unrelated to what came before it, which is colorful incense. However, since there was no Well, since there was no conjunction, then this statement or lemma will ban is tafsir is an explanation of or clarification of color called incense. Which means that it is something specific to human beings, this thing called by n, and Allah knows best that that's the to me. That's the reasoning of the author of Nagas for hanging.
And certainly when we think about
our lives as human beings, you know, there is something special that we have when it comes to speech, both outgoing and incoming, right. I mean, there's a reason why there have been societies such as the Arab society, and the Irish society is now the one English as well. They used to have national bards, right
Even in the United States, there's like the the national, kind of the poet laureate. Right? I'm sure in Pakistan, they also had something or at least you know,
about, right, like, like every nation has like a particular poet and the ability for that poet to touch people's hearts, and impact their emotions and shape their
sensibilities about things, is extremely, extremely strong. And it's extremely indicative of something that is very particularly human.
Even today, you know, we bemoan the the, the rap lyrics, right? Why can't they be more constructive and positive. And the fact that we do that isn't also a proof that the human language that humans have a special relationship to language,
special in a different sort of way than other creatures do. Right? We know that when certain
types of speech or subjects become popular in this kind of presented in a very attractive way,
through media and entertainment, etc, etc, that it has power over people, it influences people, it shapes what's normal, it can actually create the capacity for action. Right, which is why we care. That's why we care in the first place about what sort of things people are saying and what their lyrics are, and what why every type of speech is not protected, right?
Under free speech, because words have power. And the power of words is something that strikes very, very intimately to what it means to be human.
Then the author, he moves on to talk about silence a subject.
And he says, you know,
as further proof of this kind of special human relationship to speech or BI N.
He says that absolute silence is something that's considered a fault
among humans or among human culture, right, absolutely not silence meaning, either the ability or assuming the inability to speak at all.
Or the complete abstention. And refraining from speech is something that's considered blameworthy something that's considered ignorant if someone comes into the room, they give salam to people or if they even say hi, how you doing? If somebody just doesn't speak, that's considered rude. Right? So this type of absolute, stumped as to absolute silences
is considered blameworthy within almost universal human culture. And that's an indication of how much we value at the fitrah level speech or ban. But but but
we also value selective silence as human beings and this is part of our city. Yeah. And also extends beyond the city to the fifth, all right.
It's funny, because with kids, you know, they don't have that filter. So it's a lot of humorous situations arise because they just blurt something out, that they haven't learned yet. What's appropriate to say, when and where, like, my daughter, the other day made a rhyme that was very, like bathroom humor, because she loves to rhyme. And she loves poetry. And so like, sometimes we just play this game where we rhyme a couple syllables back and forth together. And we make up songs sometimes. And she made up a song. And of course, you know, she's four. And so one of the rhymes was like, you know, with something that happens in the bathroom, and she didn't even it wasn't like she
was being transgressive. Even, she just very, very knows that thing. Right? It's very natural to her. It's something that's in her experience. She knows the word for it. And so it was an eligible word for rhyming, right? Similar to the reproductive organs, right, the kids know the names of the reproductive organs, and they don't understand until they're a little bit older that, okay, there's a time and a place where it's have different audiences. And, you know, even speech has different kinds of levels of intimacy. Right. And so, we place a high value on this sort of discretion. Right? That's how refined and deep our connections are ban and speech is that we the selective like, if
somebody is very discreet, they know when to say something and they know when to not say something that is a that's a skill that is valued in universally in human culture. Right. We don't want we don't like tattle tales, we don't like bladder mounts, right. We have all these kinds of words, for these types of people, especially on the playground at school. Right? And so if someone is very discreet, and very selective and knows when to speak and knows how to speak and knows when to be silent and knows how to be silent, then this is something that is very, very
A praise worthy and it gets back to the quality rather than the quantity of speech more is not always better, sometimes less is more.
The next chapter and now he's got, you know, the author has kind of a few chapters in a row dealing with speech and issues related to speech such as truth and falsehood, because if we're talking about speech, then we know that speech can either be true
or speech can be false.
And so he sets out with the next chapter talking about praising truthfulness and blaming falsehood.
This is a very sort of the author has shown us his philosophical credentials. He's a very philosophical type of guy. But let's put it all to you all. Why is truth so important?
We know that it's a universally held human value.
We know that, obviously, like the Sunday School answers about, you know, the hadith of prophesy centum and things from the Koran, but we're talking about trying to explain to a non Muslim, or an alien. Somebody who's just a complete Motorhead like a nihilist thinks that we should just be able to say whatever we want true or false. How are we going to explain to them the importance of truth? Truthful speech?
Hmm, good, excellent. I'm not sure if our online listeners heard that. But I'll repeat it in a second after I collect your ideas. A question is, why is truthful speech important? Or why is truth important at all?
And again, we're trying to explain this concept to somebody who has no nothing in common with us, somebody, your coworker, or somebody you meet on the street, doesn't believe in the Koran doesn't believe in prophecy doesn't believe in that such? What is so important about truth? Why can't we all just lie whenever it suits us?
That would be the pinnacle of evolution, right? If If evolution were like, full stop completely 100% true, then flying would be adaptive. Right, you could ensure your survival and reproduction more efficiently if you were just able to lie, as is suited, yet.
universal human values and universal human culture
condemn it.
Okay, the sheikh family, also, you know, mirrors something that our brother asked and said here in person is that there's, there's a consequence to false speech, when it comes to a pistol Knology. Right, how we know what we know,
if we take out the speech of others, or if we, let's say if we introduce the wildcard that everything might be false that you hear
sound familiar, right? It's kind of like the conspiracy theories that, you know, we have going on now. We see the importance of true speech.
If we introduce that into the room, then there's no trust, we've basically knocked, like, if you imagine a pistol Knology, which is like how we know what we know, like having pillars, right. So like, I witnessed is like one pillar, okay. And then, you know, logic, you know, is another pillar. And then, you know, like, being able to deduce, you know, from premises or whatever. And then another pillar is Hubbard, is witness in someone else's witness, not your witness, but information that you get from other people. Testimony, we could say maybe
right, yeah, very good. Yeah. So the safe family said to, for example, in nature, meeting animals can't lie about how physical physically fit they are. Right? If they were able to lie, then it would introduce this crazy curveball on to natural selection, quote, unquote, where you have, you know, the least fit physically, but the most fit as far as lying goes, you know, cutting to the front of the line,
as it were.
Good.
So, if you, if if falsehood is widespread, it completely knocks out an entire pillar of knowledge and not just like knowledge, like study knowledge, like basic fundamental, how do we know anything? And this is why and, you know, it just came to me when we were first delving into this. We see that more than ever these days with how, you know, conspiracy theories have have gone, you know,
someone was telling me they weren't endorsing it, but they were telling me about
Some of the arguments of the Flat Earthers the other day, people who believe that the earth is flat, and I just had a very hard time not smiling, and even now I have a hard time not smiling because I've flown, you know, almost across the world, you know, between me and my wife, like we have like, actually, like, circled the Earth through flights, you know. So you have something that is observable.
But, but
people who are subject to conspiracy theories, the wrong ones, they have an exaggerated doubts, or an acute mistrust of this tip of this one type of knowledge, which is somebody else's testimony. Right. It's like we can't trust anything we hear from from anyone else. Or we can't trust what the majority have kind of concluded, right? I've never been to China. How do I know that China really exists?
It's on Google Maps. Okay, maybe Google's lying to me.
Hamilton College, they came the other week, there was a Chinese exchange student, okay, maybe that's all set up. Right? I can keep on if I really want to be a strict skeptic, I can keep on going and say, no, no, this is not. This is not affirm. This is doubtful sort of stuff. But if I were to apply that level of skepticism to everything, then life becomes impossible. Life becomes impossible.
And yes, exactly the same family took it out of my mouth, that illustrates the responsibility
to tell the truth, because people aren't stupid. They are, but they're not at the same time. And what I mean by that is that
people react to having their trust abused. And so if you have a government or if you have a for profit media, or if you have
experts that are propped up, that have lied to people, or have not been forthcoming, or have not been completely truthful, over decades and decades and decades, and the trust is eroded, then chaos ensues.
Because now we don't know what to believe. Right? It's the, it's the story of the boy who cried wolf over and over and over again, if the boy doesn't cry, Wolf time one and time two, when he's lying, then people would have believed him when it was actually true.
You know, take these wars now, you know, the United States is pulling out of Afghanistan, all of it was kind of set up due to misleading
you know, or we can either misleading information or we could even say lies, though invasion of Iraq, even more so. Right? Vietnam, similar, right, you can keep on going back in history, like the United States, you know, the FBI spies against its own citizens, it has killed American citizens, you know, we can make a whole long list of sort of the actions of the United States government against its own people, right.
And then when it really matters, right, something like a pandemic. We are in the Western Hemisphere all the way ocean away from the origin. We have all this time, a couple months to like, buy equipment and to get ready and to close off borders and all this sort of stuff.
And now
people's mistrust
costs lives. It costs lives that cost money, billions of trillions of dollars, or however much we've lost in this pandemic, etc, etc. So we're seeing and we're living through the consequences of false speech. Very, very much. So.
The author says, he says that truthfulness is the foundation
of everything praiseworthy.
He says specifically, it's the pillar of prophethood and revelation. Okay, if we're working through somebody, you know, they say if you're doing doubt with somebody, you have to first establish common ground. And this is something that we find in the Quran the prophets did the Prophet Muhammad Ali said I'm done and and Prophet Musa, he said, um, did you have to, you can't say to somebody who doesn't believe in the Quran, well, the Quran says this, and expect it to be proof. You have to go off of what they believe is true from the first place and then work from there. Right? So people who don't believe in Revelation, and prophecy, these sorts of things.
Or I should say, I'll put it the other way. If you don't believe in the true speech of other people, then you can't possibly believe in prophecy. You can't possibly believe in Revelation, it becomes a conspiracy. Right? And this is how like the Christians treat us like you know, the
Obviously Saddam had over 100,000 companions with him on his final hajj on his Farewell Pilgrimage, right the things that he said, you know, we know the chains, we know how many people are in the chains and there's mutawatir Hadith, you know, a good number of them way more than anybody else has. And yet there's this skepticism.
And this idea of conspiracy,
that we can't trust this sort of thing that everybody was kind of in collusion with each other, or, you know, things were the books were cooked. So here's why the Christians focus so much on Earth man, burning the nonconforming manuscripts of the Koran. Right.
They are fixated on that, because for them that's like their last like a Ha, see, we found it. Yes, this is the this is the point where conspiracy happens, right? There were other core ends and this book isn't really preserved. And then Earth man is the one that you know, that's why all of our ends that we find after that period, they all conform to the first ones that we're aware of. Right, which actually is a very, very rich discussion.
What exactly it was men did
famous difference of opinion between a Danny right, who's one of the probably the authority when it comes to
Rossum and Quran
talking about the actual compilation for writing of the Quran. And it's diacritical marks and all this.
And I believe a shout Levy, which, as you know, is also the authority on
Kira on the spoken part of the current. So if my memory serves me correctly.
Either a shout of your authority, and I can't remember I have to look up my notes. But one of the main authorities now I'm starting to suspect it was a public but I can't I can't remember with 100% certainty. One of the main authorities in Koranic room,
said and this is the popular opinion that we hear in the Anglosphere that what Earth man burnt were the other crops
that were not the Qureshi dialect? The other Ashraf because the Quran was revealed in seven articles.
Right? That is That was the opinion of either authority or a shout that we I can't remember. But uh, Danny, who is the Hijjah in the field said no. What are the men burnt was all of the manuscripts that had things that were mensual
that were abrogated. And this was the opinion that was favored by my Sheikh Sheikh Abdullah and PT in Medina, the son of the of Muhammad, Allah munition PT, the author of of what was banned. So that's a very, very interesting little debate. And it has some implications for people who are involved in Dawa work and people talking to Christians and kind of dealing with these sorts of doubts because Christians love them some, you know, that story of with men burning the manuscripts, they just like, you know, salivate at that sort of thing. But according to Imam Danny, it was he was burning the masala HIFF that had yachtsman suka, that had verses from the Quran that had been
revealed, but had been since abrogated. And we're talking about abrogated
there to our,
like, they're, they're being read. And they're keytab. Because as you probably know, there's different types of NASA. There's different types of obligation. There's the abrogation of the tilava, be Dune, a keytab. And there's nests of the keytab between tilava. And there's the nest of both of them. So abrogation has three types, the abrogation of the meaning, whereas the verse still stays the abrogation of the actual written verse while the meaning still stays. And the third types of abrogation of both of them together.
So the email are author and any any questions about nest by the way, and please feel free to ask because abrogation is an important theological position about a Synology matter. That's why Addison thought the Tesla heavily on issues of abrogation because the Tesla
rejected categorically the possibility of of abrogation nests in the Koran. And for somebody who doesn't understand it. It's easy for someone to come along and make it seem like this is just cooking the books, right, just like the Christians did with the Bible, where the Christians got together the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Trent and the Council of this, that and the other and they agreed upon a theological position. Then they went back to their texts and they changed
and manipulated their texts in order to agree with the position that they decided on. Right? This is the anti scientific kind of theology where you're not following the evidence, you're deciding on the outcome and then you're looking for the evidence that fits your outcome. Right, whereas Islamic epistemology hamdulillah is the true scientific method where we have what is evidence? We accept it, you know, this is authentically the Quran, this is authentically the Sunnah. And then we follow where it leads, and we let our conclusions be shaped by that.
So he says that truthfulness is the foundation of everything praiseworthy, it is the pillar of prophethood and Revelation, it is the results of piety. And without its there could be no Sharia. Right? How do we know that a law really said that? Right? How do we know the prophesy son really said that we didn't see him? Right? How do we know that the Companions you know, agreed to this sort of thing, right? This hyper skepticism, and if anybody wants, I think you have Kean Institute has an article on extreme skepticism. That's very good. And even Taymiyah Rahim, Allah Chiklis them, was one of the major theology theologians that dealt with the phenomenon of this extreme skepticism. And
extreme extreme skepticism is a disease of the heart, and disease of the mind. And it's something that is utilized selectively in our society that we live in. People don't live consistently according to this type of skepticism. But yet, when it comes to religion, and Revelation and spirituality, all of a sudden they are, you know, the most skeptic person in the world.
The author then says that since ban is something that's distinctive for human beings, and distinguishes human beings from other types of creatures, he says that if someone is untrue in their speech,
it literally dehumanizes them.
And it takes them down to a level that's worse than the animals, because the animals are true in the communication that they have with each other. So for someone to have the ability to have such subtle, precise expression of communication, and then to go on and to misuse that gift, then that is something that demeans, and dehumanizes.
Finally, a reflection, this chapter I thought found was very, very interesting. It has interesting applications. The author goes out of his way to point out that by lying, we mean actual lying. And he says that, and something that's
an exemption from this or something that this does not apply to. He says parables,
parables, and allegories, right allegorical speech. And he goes on and tells this whole story about, you know, that's very common, we can find it like Native American stories are a soft stables like, you know, a bear and
a wolf and a and a rabbit are going out. And there's some sort of moral at the end of the story. Right. I have heard though I haven't heard it very often. But I've heard some people who are fairly strict in their practice of Islam, may Allah reward them for their intentions
to be suspicious about the permissibility of this type of literature, fiction, in general, can a Muslim write fiction? Right? And if we're to take the author's words,
and his proof will get into his proof, then it would seem that yes, absolutely no problem. If it's understood as fiction, whether it's parable, or allegory or a novel or something like that, then there should be nothing wrong with the medium itself, as long as the lessons that are being communicated are permissible and true.
So some of the examples that he gives other than the story he shares,
again, as well, so he is a master of the Koran, and he almost always backs up his points with the Koran.
Like, for example, when the angels
come to Sulaiman or they use Sudan for a ruling sort of sod
in the hada, he the who notice or what's his arena,
and now after 10, while he now they're doing Wahida, right? Is this completely true speech? They're angels, they don't have sheep.
Right? They don't have anything. Are the angels lying? No, we can't call that a lie. That's what the author is saying. We can't call that a lie. It's meant to teach a lesson. Right? And so, it is something else he gives another example, can method inhabiting right. Allah subhanaw taala himself gives examples in parables cavatelli habitus and betat Sebastian Avila equally Cymbala team at submit
All
right, is a last fall to oughta. Talking about a specific ear of corn, or a specific plant of corn that has seven I have never I used to work on farms, I have never seen a corn plant with seven years. If you get three, your Hamdulillah, that's blessing, right? If you get three good years of corn per plant, that's a blessing. I've definitely never seen one with more than four.
The actual plants that Allah is found to Allah is talking about probably doesn't exist.
Right? Even if the type yes, corn exists, I have never heard of a corn plant with seven years that are edible.
But he gives the example he says that good deeds, it is like you're planting itself. He's giving an example or a parable of the type of blessing that results from good deeds.
And it's like this corn plant that would have seven years and each year has 100 kernels. Right? Does that mean a law lied?
Of course not. He's giving a parable, the meaning what he's trying to communicate is true. And anybody with half a brain cell understands that it's not to be taken literally, but it is taken for the it is taken for the example or the lesson that is trying to impart.
So according to that is to learn or that to deal
with that title that the author gives and writing fiction, writing parables, even those parables involving animals or people or whatever, even even acting.
And there's books about that, and I have some in the library and they're very interesting to go back and forth acting is it permissible or not permissible, but according to let's say the author's reasoning and his proof
another example
SR cola goes LM Tara K for BB Alana Tara Kenny, written by Eva 10 Casualty and naivety and also her therapists will follow haffi sama. That's right. That's a very good one. That's right. Photography summer, like are we talking like really? Like it's it's branches. Okay. It would be unremarkable to say that okay, this tree outside the MSG, it's a very short tree, photographer, photography Summit, literally, okay, it hanging out in the air, its branches in the air. But that's not the meaning of the parable that last time I thought I was giving saying like something that's really, really extending high. Right, trying to the point of the parable is to communicate
how the connectedness between the two between this life and the next between the other than the summit.
Right? That's a That's a good one. And this is known in the Columbia autumn, you know, and in the Koran, CF of Quran.
So according to the authors, and there's always room to dispute, of course, but according to the author's
argument, then it would seem that fiction writing parables, even acting again, as long as the truths that are being communicated, are in line with Islamic teachings, then there should be no problem with it. Well, la Jota. oughta autumn.
The next chapter, he says, the good and the bad, of truth and falsehood.
Right? And this is actually a really, really interesting little chapter we have here because it
answers a question that we mentioned in the very, very first day of this class way, way, way back. Remember that? You know, a lot of us Rouhani is concerned with the AKA, he's concerned with the intellect. Right. And we know that there were some sects, some heterodox sort of movements in Muslim history, that got carried away
with the abilities of the intellect. And so some people that came after a dogwood also Hani, our author, accused him
of being part of the sect or influenced by this kind of movement of people who got carried away with the with the powers of the intellect, right, that tells you the right to be to be specific.
And one of the beliefs that tells you that because they kind of sanctified the intellect to such degree and exaggerated its powers was something that's called taxine and tuck the right so the idea that
search certain actions or things can are inherently good or evil, and we can figure that out.
We do not need the shittier per se, to tell us what to do.
We can figure it out. And
the intellect the intellect, it's evaluation and assessment of something can actually overrule what is the apparent meaning of
Sure, yeah.
All right. So this is kind of the the Shiva. This is the doubt of the Tesla, because of their exaggeration of the powers of the intellect and wrong Ross for Hani, he poses a question here in the beginning that that is clear proof that he was not totally. And then he was not affected by Tesla thought he asked the question is true is true speech or truth?
And false speech or falsehood.
inherently bad? Or a priori? Bad? Like bad? Absolutely. With no exceptions? Absolutely.
Or, or is it bad because of what results from those things? Usually, if not always?
Right. Okay, I guess that's the that's a poll question. Right? So, choice A or choice B, choice A is that
falsehood is inherently bad, always, no exceptions. And truth is inherently good, always no exceptions.
Choice B, is that truth and falsehood are good and bad, according to the outcomes, the results, the effects? And it just so happens that the majority of time or perhaps the vast majority of the time, truth results in good? And the vast majority of time, falsehood, results and evil? Which would you choose? A or B?
We have one vote for B.
Yeah, very good. So a would be according to the theology of the Morteza. Right? They would say that all truth is good, a priori.
And all falsehood is evil, completely.
And so therefore, we can figure that out with our minds, we can, you know, like, judge and assess as we need to. Whereas the theology of cinema Jamar
is that these things depend on the results. And the outcomes.
And this goes back to a bunch of different theta issue issues that are super interesting, we don't have time to get into all of them.
You know, in our target.
But one thing I'll bring up, one thing I'll bring up is that we, as part of the stomach fight theology, and epistemology, we believe in probabilistic reasoning, okay? Something doesn't have to be true every single time in order for it to be true.
Something doesn't have to be false every single time in order for it to be generally false, right? A lot of the argumentation on issues in our society these days.
They
can be kind of resolved if we apply this sort of lesson or this sort of reasoning, right? So for example, you have abortion, right?
The left's progressives, liberals, they'll say, my body my choice,
it's women's reproductive rights.
No child mentioned, woman should be able to have an abortion at any points at all.
Up until the day of the birth.
Right. That's what the progressives belief.
What's the reasoning for that position?
You talk to anybody who holds this position, it's almost always based off of statistically very unlikely or rare cases. Right? Let's do a thought experiment where there's a particular woman who it's confirmed by medical doctors that it's her life or the babies and it happens to this information happens to come out like fairly late in the pregnancy. Okay.
Much of these sorts of things, talk about exceptions, right. But in a slam
as with other types of, you know, I guess worldviews, exceptions don't make rules, right? The predominant case makes a rule.
And then exceptions and dispensations can be had from there, right. But if you were to work off of the logic of we have to have a rule that accounts for every single circumstance and situation and possibility, then we would find that we don't have any rules at all, because there's almost always some sort of exception or circumstance that needs to be accounted for.
And this goes to apply to many many issues that that go on today.
Anyway, again, I'm running out of time, but probabilistic
reasoning like for example, like something cannot be Here's another important thing from our tradition something does not have to be pure good to be permissible.
And something does not have to be pure evil to be haram.
Right. Alcohol allows final thought it affirms in Surah Al Baqarah that there is good things and alcohol, the natural leanness however It's haram.
Right? There is harm in polygamy
as practiced by the prophesy seven, and the other prophets. And as his sanction is halal and Islam. There are harms to it. In Arabic, they call the second wife of Barbara, the harm. Right.
Right. But there's a greater harm in forbidding it, because of things, issues with war and issues with men, you know, having dangerous jobs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Right. So there's
about a half, right there is a taking on of the, like, say lesser of the two evils or the least of two harms? Within a SonicWALL. That's perfectly fine.
We're out of time, we should come back to this chapter. I think next class, but
let's just end on okay. So what are all of us for honey is getting to in this particular chapter is there are times when lying is acceptable in the city? And there are times where truth
is haram.
Can we think of examples real quick about acceptable lies?
It's
good to reconcile or to keep the peace between spouses or to please one spouse? That's the wording of a hadith.
Yes, exactly.
To please, one spouse is permissible. Yes. There's a hadith and Rohan Muslim and Sahih Muslim, where the prophesy said I mentioned three is SLAF. That's the Bane right, which is reconciliation between two disputing parties. Right? If two people two brothers are arguing, they're not speaking to each other, it's permissible for me to call up the one and say, hey, look, so and so he's really sorry. He regrets what he did. He wants to, you know, be friends again, or whatever. And he's seething mad, he doesn't care, you know, he that's completely a lie. And then call the other guy and say the same thing to him to bring them back together. That's completely permissible, pleasing one spouse. The
third example is deception in the time of war, right? We, you know,
now we have aerial surveillance, you can you know, have a whole inflatable army with, you know, the planes, think your, you know, all the sort of deception that happens in war. It's, it's permissible.
And there's examples from the Koran as well, Ibraheem Alehissalaam when he's bringing his wife, and he tells the king that it's his sister, right? This is lying. 100%, but it's permissible. Lying. Right? And so this is the author proving that it's depends on the outcomes, what makes it good or bad.
And there's other examples from a client as well.
Real quick, okay. And then the opposite scenario would be, what is an example of truth? That is not permissible. So the example that brother gave was about if it's a life or death scenario you're in, you're in a position of takia, right? You have to you have to either renounce your faith or
die, right? Is it permissible?
Is it permissible to state the truth and die as a martyr?
Do you have to take the toughy?
And the answer is that it's permissible either way. It's permissible either way. It's not like
you're good. And we have the example of Yasser and Sumaiya. And I'm off, right, we know I'm off and I asked him the Quran were revealed about this particular situation, proving the permissibility of tequila, but his parents both took the way of martyrdom. Right. So each way is permissible. The che family says when it causes hurt feelings, truth that causes harm. Yes, there's an easier one than that guys backbiting.
Backbiting, by definition of the prophesy Saddam is something that's true.
Right? Because the companion asked, he said, What if What if what I said about him is true. He said, That's Mima
assuming that's the lead, but that's backbiting
and if it were false, then it's done and it's slander.
Also exposing your sins, right, let's say, you know, you're involved in something bad and then you come to the masjid and suddenly they come how you doing? Did you know I did this today? Like that's unwelcome truth. Right. I was found to Allah wants us to conceal our own sins and the sins of others. And it yes, it applies to other people too. We should not be exposing other people's sins unless there's a very
specific men thought, a very specific, tangible, good to be had by it, let's say you know, someone's about to marry somebody and you need to explain, you know what this person is involved in or somebody's about to go into business with somebody else, and you need to clarify the situation. So that so that other people don't get harmed, right? It comes back to metadata and metadata, it comes back to harm and benefit, which backs up again, the author's point about the nature of of these things. And that's something that's foundational, fundamental in our tradition, that's theology that our feeder is based off of, how about it's based off of what is true and what is false. But should
era is based off of Mensa and Minnesota. Masala, right? Sharia is based off of benefit. Benefit and this is the athlete of Arsenal Majumdar.
I can't get into that we're we're at it. We're over time already. Anyway, any questions?
There's a really great story, one of my best educational experiences. In Medina, we had the sheikh that actually recommended this book to me who taught me for two semesters he taught me while I was a PA.
And he taught me
accosted Sharia.
And the first day of class, he was really just hitting us with
really deep philosophical questions. He was like,
a law's actions, do they have reason behind them?
And he's the kind of guy where he's not going to tip his cards. He's like, asking everyone their opinion. And then he's like, following up if you say this answer, and it's like, okay, so then then what, then what? And like teasing out the contours of the issue? And he said, Does Allah benefited at all from our obedience?
Right, and these sorts of questions. And
we were very, you know, in Saudi Arabia, you're not used to those kinds of questions.
And so everyone's very hesitant. They didn't want to say the wrong thing. They didn't want to be thrown, you know, on the bid or wagon, right. And
so people are very, very carefully treading water here, stepping on eggshells. And then by the time we get to the end, and he's kind of taken, we took up all a class time, he just asked us these questions. He gets to the end with somebody's like, Okay, interesting. What about you? What do you think, you know, what about you? What do you think? And then at the end, he said, you know, very, very interesting. Well, I hope we have a good semester, and all of you are Tesla. Because because of how we had responded to his questions, but that's something I'll have to explain later in another class. But to answer the question, no, there will not be class next week, all adult classes are
taking a break.
Some weekend, September, we're going to restart once we've got the other programs for the kids up and running. The youth group that's starting up in two weeks, insha Allah and the Sunday School in three weeks in sha Allah, we have a lot of work to do with curriculum planning, and, you know, getting everybody registered and teacher training and all this sort of stuff. So adult classes are taking a break.
The teacher trenches mind now the teacher was the teacher was brilliant. It wasn't the teacher that needed to change his mind. It's us that didn't realize the full implications of what were the Oh, yeah, I see. Yeah, no, I mean, but he taught us a valuable lesson. And that is that, you know, some of these things you have to there, they start at the foundational level, and then they have a lot of downstream kind of consequences. And it also showed us that you need a systematic way to study theology, and not just this kind of like, I don't want to say it, but I'll say it like studying kitasato Heat 70 times, you know, there's certain issues in AP data that you have to study, you get
the bird's eye view of the fen of the discipline, and you need to go through them all and you need to realize build your understanding of what you know, everybody else is saying and what are the implications that one particular issue? Yeah, Italia Allah, whether a laws actions have behind them have reasons that is one of the most fundamental Aki, the issues in our tradition, it informs the majority of the differences between the SATs and the SATs and Tesla and everything, most of it goes back to that one issue.
So it's an important one and one that up until that, and this was what semester five or six, this was fairly, you know, like into the program wasn't even on our radar. Nobody had taught us that that was an issue.
So it was a big lesson. So I hope that we made the
Teacher proud Yeah, anyway, that's all and insha Allah may Allah bless us in this gathering, and May Allah enable us to rejoin each other soon inshallah Tada. Well, aha, that was salam alaikum