Yasir Qadhi – Traversing Traditions From Medina to Yale

			But can tiny banca tiny but can tiny Ana them be women coming to me in Kirby
		

			Lee
		

			jelly either call up the aromas, the hatin da Seanie. Luna does mean a lot to me.
		

			Thank you very much for having me. So I was asked to give some reflections about the two different
paradigms that I've studied from. And so my talk today is going to be somewhat more of a discussion
or narrative rather than a deep academic paper. I'll begin with an anecdote. My master's
dissertation theorist of Edina was entitled, in Arabic, obviously John Gibbons of one and his
effects on the theological groups, and it was an 800 Page dissertation in Arabic That was awarded
the highest honors. And I felt after four years of research in Medina, about Jehovah, so one, Surely
nobody in the world would know more than I did about Jonathan so fun. And so I, as soon as I arrived
		

			at Yale University, the first thing I did the first week is I walked into Sterling library, and I
researched who else had written about Jim, in the Western tradition. And I came across an article
written by Richard and Frank before I was born, actually, entitled The Neo Platonism of John Gibbons
of one. And I rushed eagerly to go and read the article on the sixth floor where the Arabic
selections were. And I remember I read that article, and I reread it and I reread it three times I
read it. And it was my one of my first exposures to the two different worlds that we are now
discussing today. The article of Richard and Frank hardly referenced most of the material that I had
		

			put in my dissertation, it really seemed to ignore many of the sources that I was using. And yet,
what he was talking about, really seemed completely foreign to my entire dissertation. Faculty that
matters. And I don't mind confessing this at the time, this was almost 20 years ago, I really didn't
understand Richard and Frank's article or his thesis or the entire like the the point of the the
article itself, I had never studied Neo Platonism in Medina, and it didn't quite grasp what he was
trying to convey. So the talk that I wanted to begin with this anecdote, because to me, it really,
it really illustrates that's the two paradigms are operating from a time such different presumptions
		

			and says different worldviews. And I want to of course, begin with the disclaimer that much of what
I'm saying is anecdotal, and therefore there must always be exceptions to the rule. And also things
have changed. I mean, I studied in Medina in the 90s. And I got accepted a deal in the early 2000s.
And so I'm sure much has changed there were not that many Muslims in the academy back then. But I
think that itself is changing. And along with that more madrasa students are coming so much of my
talk might be hopefully outdated, I do hope so. But I'll begin with the most obvious paradigmatic
difference, and then I'll mention three positives of the madrasa and then three positives with the
		

			academy, and then mentioned some concluding thoughts. The obvious paradigmatic difference is that
religious seminaries are faith based, whereas the academic study of Islam isn't. And of course, this
need leads to an entirely different worldview, there are clear red lines that each of the two
disciplines will not cross. And there are a set of assumptions that are tested amongst both
seminaries begin with the very basic presumption in the truthfulness of the faith that they study,
and the fact that this is a genuine path to come closer to God. Hence, the type of students that are
attracted to seminaries are generally speaking, religiously motivated individuals who wish to live a
		

			better life a morally superior life, a spiritually fulfilled life by drawing closer to God. Because
of this, obviously, there is an extremely high reverence for what is perceived to be the revelation
of God, the Quran, the persona of the Prophet, the teachings of the Prophet, and of course, it will
be anathema to to challenge any of that from within the madrasa system. Not just that, not just the
Quran and the traditions of the Prophet, every single Seminary in the world, every single Seminary
is coming from a particular paradigm from within the faith. And the goal of that Seminary is to
therefore produce
		

			intellectuals or to produce researchers or to produce religious clerics that will further convey and
support that particular understanding of Islam. And so if I talk about the University of Medina, it
is understood by the
		

			When I was studying there, I don't know what has happened since then, I think changes are going on.
But when I was studying there in the 90s, it was understood and it was quite clear that you needed
to subscribe to the theological underpinnings of that entire system, which of course means the
doctrines of had been Tamia, Bahamas or the Wahab have the overall, you know, set a fee paradigm.
And I remember clearly that a student was actually expelled when it was discovered that he was about
to add, and that he wasn't sympathetic to, you know, the authority paradigm. And the goal, of
course, is quite clear that this seminary wants to produce religious leadership that embodies its
		

			values, and that exudes its version of orthopraxy and orthodoxy, and it will only achieve that goal
by having this type of mindset. The Academy, on the other hand, has no such pretentious about
itself, it has no concern regarding your personal beliefs, or your commitment or lack thereof to any
faith. Rather, it aims to produce what it views are unbiased researchers. Hence, there is no claim
of reverence for the text or the subject study. And generally speaking, one is much more freer to
posit a wide variety of questions in a very different genre compared to the madrasa, the academy as
an unspoken rule shiz away from asking questions that are deemed to be beyond the scope of study,
		

			does God exist? Has he actually sent an Arabian Prophet is the Quran a divine revelation? These are
questions that are viewed to be questions of faith, not academic research, and hence not in the
purview of the academy. One small point though, can be pushed back here, and that is that while the
assertion might be true, that the academy never discussed this explicitly, one must wonder the
underlying presumptions that exists in the mind of the researchers as they talk about Near Eastern
legends and Quranic passages and how much overlap there is the the the underlying understood notions
of human influence and the sources of Quranic authorship are quite clearly being indicated, even if
		

			they're not generally expressed in such explicit terms. So this is the obvious paradigmatic
difference between the Madras and the Academy. Three strengths of the madrasa system that I
personally think are definitely some of the strengths that we need to think about, number one, the
encyclopedic in depth study that any madrasa training will give you. And it is both encyclopedic in
its scope, and in depth in the covering of the material. You cannot graduate from any reputable
madrasa without studying each and every discipline of the Islamic sciences to a level of familiarity
that would allow you to read further on your own. Typically, you would even specialize in at least
		

			one or two sub disciplines in my time in the University of Medina, before they made changes. Again,
I got the old curriculum, thank God for that I didn't get the modern curriculum, I got the old
curriculum that was based in the 70s. And I was the last batch. To get that, we took the equivalent
of 25 credit hours every single semester for four years, we typically had between 13 to 15 different
professors every semester to juggle at any given time. And even though my college at the
undergraduate level was the College of Hadith, just because I studied Hadith, it had very little
impact on 60% of their curriculum, which was across all colleges. We studied Arabic grammar, we
		

			studied the Alfia turbidimetric cover to cover we studied sort of we studied the science of Tafseer
of theology, I graduated from Hadith, and yet I had probably just as many hours in fifth as the
College of Sharia did as well. And we studied these books cover to cover which is another positive
of the madrasa. We actually read source books in Arabic, written 1000 or 800 years ago, and we went
over them line by line in class to understand that particular science through the lens of a
reputable authority. And I must say with pride, that I still have all of my worn out books, you
know, much annotated and, you know, pages missing and whatnot, you know, from that from that period.
		

			There is simply no equivalent of this training that any modern academic institution offers, it is
neither the goal of the academy nor is it even feasible. Hence, it is extremely rare to find the
breadth of understanding of all of the major sciences of Islam that one finds in a Madras graduate.
And because of this, it is far easier for a researcher in the academy to make a very simple mistake,
or an egregious mistake if they go beyond their particular area of expertise. The second strength of
the madrasa system is the memorization of source material and much of the primary source data. The
madrasa student is expected to know the material, at least the basics of it really from the top of
		

			his head without opening up any books, quotations from the Quran. Definitely
		

			They do not need to be looked up because the norm is to be a Hatfield of the entire Quran,
traditions of the Prophet that deal with your discipline are expected to be memorized in the
original. And you should know, you know, where the sources are the opinions of the legal schools and
the famous scholars, they should be known to you at the tips of your finger without even looking
them up. And I remember last week, actually, I was discussing with a researcher, modern academic
research and the Tara. And I kind of like, you know, expressed, I felt sorry for him, that he had to
look up every single verse and Jessie and Danny and what the authors say about the tenkara rod,
		

			because I know for a fact my colleagues in the College of Quran would know the template from the top
of their head, and they've memorized the shot tibia and the dura. And so the notion of knowing your
material and having it, you know, memorized is something that the madrasa emphasis, I think it was
self evident, is the level of grasp of the Arabic language. I, myself am not an Arab.
		

			Ethnically speaking, I had to learn Arabic. But obviously, you cannot go to a madrasa without
mastering the language to a level that I was actually shocked to discover it doesn't exist anywhere
near as much as it should in the in the western Academy, an anecdote that I'll never forget him and
I won't mention the professor's name. But he is a world renowned professor, world renowned. We were
sitting in class and a passage comes in he's reading the passage. And
		

			there's a phrase in Atlanta who who sing a tune while I know. And of course, even a child would know
this is it, Corsi, and how to translate it. But this particular professor
		

			Read It Later who do who soon tune what I known, and he translated it that neither does any habitual
habit overtake God, nor does God go to sleep. And I said, Professor, no, actually, it's Siena, which
means to fall asleep or to be sleepy or whatnot. But it to me, it was just shocking. To be honest,
that's such a world renowned person. This is not even aware of the primary text and makes an error
that would frankly be unforgivable at an even undergraduate level, but it is what it is the level of
Arabic and familiarity of Arabic is obviously very different in the western Academy. So these are
the three strengths that I feel every madrasa student would be able to exemplify. When you look at
		

			the Academy, the academy definitely has its strengths as well, strength, number one, bringing in the
political and social factors and the overall the context of the individuals that you're studying.
situating the author in a greater narrative, linking the author to factors that might be relevant to
understanding the text, or even the Ufa, or, or even the theology I mean,
		

			even Taymiyah, for example, there's a common there's a common notion there that a number of people
have expressed that the it was the invasion of the Mongols and the the the impeding defeat and the
the fact that the the Muslims felt under attack that some what caused it and Tamia to become the
figure that he was and to, if you'd like to take that anger out, or or maybe a better term would be
to defend the faith against other sects, and what do you believe to be heresies? But of course, you
know, with that also comes the caveat that how much psychoanalysis are we doing of our medieval
authors based upon our understandings, our biases and inclinations, maybe how we would have reacted
		

			in particular context is not necessarily how they would react. But nonetheless, it is the strength
to bring in the political and social context. I remember again, when I first got accepted,
		

			reading a paper with with the title, a Mum, look, the origins response to epicenter, maybe even
Tamia is response. And I thought to myself at the time, who cares if he's under the mum loops? I
mean, why would you refer to event EMEA as a mum, Luke theologian? And again, that's a mindset
difference where we're looking at the because in Medina, frankly, we had never ever, it was never a
factor. What era was he living in, you know, who was living under? What were the things going on at
the time you look at the author in his book as if it's independent of anything going on. And I think
that is definitely not a very nice thing to do a very positive thing to do. The western Academy
		

			situates, the author and the political and social circumstances which is very relevant, but again,
with the caveat, how relevant is something every person has to decide. A second strength of the
academy is the
		

			cross cultural and multilingual references. And I personally greatly appreciated this when I began
my studies at Yale. So for example, for Richard and Frank to bring in the Neoplatonic influence on
Jehovah himself one, I mean, again, most mantra says, and I know for a fact Medina is definitely
like this. Would they're going to begin with the Arabic and end with the Arabic and they're going to
begin with Islamic civilization and with Islamic civilization, even at the graduate level, there is
no
		

			Oh concern there is no care to worry about, you know, pre Islam and Neoplatonic thoughts and source
material in Arabic And sorry, in in Latin or Greek or Hebrew or anything of this nature, you will
concentrate on one culture as the Arab culture on one era, that is Islamic era. And the rest of it
is really not relevant. Of course, the Academy will not allow you to do that. And you are expected
to be aware of different, you know, civilizational impacts on Islam, different understandings of the
same idea in different regions. And also to add to this as well, the academy emphasizes secondary
source material, whereas the madrasa emphasizes primary source material. And so in the madrasa we
		

			study a specialty, we study, Ibn Taymiyyah, we study and nowhere, we, we study these authors who
are, you know, the movers and shakers of whatever tradition they're doing. And frankly, there's not
much concern about the rest of the how modern authors have interpreted and no way for example, of
course, in the academy, if you write anything, you must demonstrate that you are aware of how other
people have interpreted your subject and your figure. And what that does and it's helped me do as
well is to help shape my own worldviews by understanding how others have viewed the same matter. And
so I think this is definitely a great positive of the academy as well. A third positive of the
		

			academy is obviously source criticism. We in Medina would approach the texts even if they're not
divine we know CLT is not divine we studied his book cover to cover line by line I mean, here of
course, his book on masala have Hadith. We know, Iraq is not divine, he wrote a vat of demotic, and
the shahada sorry of it, we know he's not divine, and yet we will approach it with a sense of
reverence that okay, this is the this is the subjects master, and who are we and except minor
disciples. So who are we to question the master. So there's a very, very market level of reference
to the texts that we study, even as we acknowledge that, you know, the, the, the authors that we're
		

			sending are not divinely inspired. Obviously, that is completely thrown out the window in the
academy, perhaps too much. So but it is completely irrelevant who the author is, because you're
looking at ideas and not personas. And so there's a much higher level of source criticism, being far
more skeptical of something just because someone says it. And again, I remember this to my own my
own personal anecdote here. And my first paper that I wrote at Yale,
		

			it was about the alleged Morteza ism, but has no velocity. Right. And, you know, as you're probably
aware, if you study theology issues in this regard, that the notion is has settled last year, there
was an ocean now, it's been kind of debunked by modern researchers. But there was a notion as an
imbecile, he was perhaps a NEO Morteza light. And of course, internally, I was fuming My God, how
can they possibly say this? Right? There's my first year at Yale, obviously. So cut me some slack
there. So I wrote an entire, you know, 20 page paper. And, you know, my professor at the time great
friend of mine, Frank riffle, he simply quickly goes over it and it goes, this entire paper is
		

			frankly worthless, I say, What do you mean, why? Because all of your references are eighth century
Sunni scholars seventh century. So new scholars, of course, they're going to back project their
ideas onto celibacy. You know, I thought I wrote a very good paper, very erudite paper, his basic
point was, which is course valid, your sources, how can you trust sources written 500 600 800 years
after, and not really go back to at least contemporaries or whatever else we can do. And of course,
this caused me to think and research and the whole notion of source criticism, being more skeptical
of the material that you read, of course, there's a healthy dosage of that in the western Academy.
		

			So these are three positives of both the Western Academy and the madrasa. Before I finish off and
conclude, I want to mention the elephant in the room, which really does need to be addressed head
on. And that is the mutual suspicion that exists from each side against the other. The fact of the
matter is that from the seminarian side from the, from the madrasa side, there is really an almost
hostile view of the academy. Most students in Madras says, dare I say, most Muslims around the
globe, they find it and I'm just telling you as it is, I mean, I'm not endorsing the different guys
it is, they find it incomprehensible that someone can master the Arabic language and study the faith
		

			and read the Quran in the original and read the life of the prophet in such an intensive manner,
without seeing the veracity of the faith that they're studying without embracing the faith, I still
get asked to this day, is that your professors actually knew all this and they learn Arabic and
they're not Muslim. This is a type of presumption that most students and mothers would have that it
boggles their mind. Why would these people want to study a faith that they don't believe in and
study it in such an intimate manner?
		

			And yet still not be personally committed to it. And the fact that there have they haven't embraced
the faith in the eyes of these madrasa students, frankly, many Muslims, it automatically implies
therefore, that they must have recognized the truth and willfully and arrogantly rejected it. That
being the case in their eyes, the only option to conclude is that they must have an evil or sinister
agenda. And that agenda is to create doubts and to spread the seeds of corruption. Shewhart is the
Arabic term in the minds of the Muslims. Now, to be fair, the Academy also has to own up
historically to its own roots and to the linkage of proselytizing Christian missionaries, or even
		

			colonialist movements, or even in our times the Neo cons. So to be fair, there are certain segments
of the academy that other segments have to dissociate from, but still, in the eyes of many
conservative Muslims or many madrasa students. All that one needs to do in the mainstream Muslim
circles to discredit a work, or an idea or an author is to simply point out that it comes and
originates from the academy, you know, one of the cheapest ad homonyms constantly employed against
me by my critics is the fact that they say my faith has been corrupted, because I've been to yield.
That's it. If they don't agree with something I say all they need to do without engaging the idea.
		

			Without critiquing what I've said, is to simply say, Oh, well, you know, he'll corrupted him. That's
it QED, end of story. And so there is this notion there. And the reason why it's effective is really
because it is inconceivable for many, many Muslims to actually believe there might be researchers
who are not spiritually committed, nor are they arrogant, they just want to research the faith. It's
not, it's not something they quite understand. And so because of this, it is easy to dismiss
anything that comes out of the academy that is not from within our own tradition. Now, that having
been said, I have to also be honest and point out the flip side, it's a two way street here. It is
		

			all too common for research that is done by a Muslim academic, who happens to be a faithful Muslim,
a research that might overall be in line with, let's say, mainstream values or mainstream
understanding, but simply because it is done by a Muslim, it might be dismissed as apologetics as
not worthy of genuine respect. And remember, I've studied also with the great mm as me, the one who
wrote studies in early Hadith literature back in the 60s is basically from Cambridge. And I remember
he remarked, this, as well as that. He felt that his research was not given the respect that he felt
this way that it was not given the respect that it that it was due, even though he was academic
		

			throughout his dissertation. But it was just dismissed as apologetics as Oh, he's simply proving
that, you know, Hadith has been preserved. Now, when Matsui comes along and does something similar,
even though in a very different manner, it is given far more credit. And to this day, I'm a Muslim
whose work is really not considered to be a mainstream reference, even though it is a scalded dog,
obviously, I don't agree with everything. But it is an interesting work here. But I have to say that
I have faced this sentiment in the academy, right. And because I'm a cleric, and I'm a preacher, and
because it's obvious that I am, you know, a faith based Muslim. It is, it is quite easy for people
		

			in the academy to dismiss much of what I do or say, and point out that oh, well, he's basically a
faith based cleric. And I have heard such sentiments multiple times over the last 20 years. And,
frankly, on a personal note, it's also one of the reasons why I've really decided to spend more time
in a seminary environment rather than the Academy because I felt it wasn't really conducive to to a
long term goal. But anyway, that's my personal. That's my personal belief. Before I finish off, I
want to finish off the anecdote of Richard M. Frank in his Neo Platonism article. So one of my last
weeks at Yale, I decided, You know what, let me let me reread that article that I had read when I
		

			was accepted. So many years ago, it was ideal for eight years. And so on a whim, I decided to go
read the article Neoplatonism one more time. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was I was
enjoying reading the article. I understood everything Richard and Frank was saying, At this time, I
actually appreciated where he was coming from. And at the same time, I felt that there were many
other things that he left out that could have been added. He was being simplistic at various places,
but overall, I agreed with with his thesis and actually my dissertation at Yale, incorporate some of
those ideas in chapter one and develops upon them. And so I've always wanted to go back to the topic
		

			of Jehovah one, and write an article entitled The Neoplatonism of Jehovah one, part two by so called
the and maybe one day, I'll do that. And with that, I hand the mic back to the host and thank you
once again for having me.
		

			either
		

			me, Ms. Dahiya. Doll Seanie What does she mean a lot of we went to fifth
		

			Sunday. What
		

			feels cool we took my journey
		

			down