Controversial Questions to Daniel Haqiqatjou (MH Podcast #5) (2020-06-29) #

0:00:00 [Music]
0:00:07 welcome to the fifth episode of the mh
0:00:10 podcast i'm having a job podcast and i'm
0:00:12 joined with
0:00:13 a man who needs no introduction um
0:00:16 daniel
0:00:17 is a person who synthesizes islamic
0:00:19 knowledge
0:00:20 with his studies in philosophy he's got
0:00:22 a background in
0:00:23 philosophy he's done a degree in harvard
0:00:25 university and of course graduate
0:00:27 as well in philosophy is that correct
0:00:29 everything that's fit
0:00:30 physics and philosophy yeah and so um
0:00:33 what he does
0:00:34 quite effectively is he synthesizes his
0:00:37 secular knowledge and um with a
0:00:40 classical islamic knowledge that he's
0:00:41 also acquired through
0:00:42 uh training and to make robust arguments
0:00:46 against people who
0:00:47 are against islam and muslims and the
0:00:50 first thing we need to
0:00:51 probably talk about because it's quite
0:00:53 hot now in terms of social media
0:00:55 is your debate with this the apostate
0:00:58 rizwan
0:00:59 which went quite viral and um you know
0:01:02 was quite a destruction even by the
0:01:05 admission of some of his
0:01:06 uh fans and um and this debate really
0:01:09 was a mismatch of uh
0:01:11 you know tremendous proportions first
0:01:13 question is
0:01:14 um what made you uh want to debate
0:01:17 someone who is
0:01:18 in his own words because i did ask him
0:01:20 on twitter uh not qualified and trained
0:01:22 in any of the fields
0:01:24 that uh that he was talking about
0:01:28 alhamdulillah uh first of all
0:01:33 for having me on your podcast i'm very
0:01:35 happy to
0:01:36 be speaking with you brother and um as
0:01:39 for your question
0:01:40 honestly i'm not sure why i think he
0:01:43 made a mistake
0:01:44 uh and um what he did was he made a
0:01:47 video attacking me
0:01:48 and my stance on certain issues and
0:01:52 it was unprovoked because i haven't
0:01:54 really spoken anything
0:01:56 about him but he thought i was an easy
0:01:58 target so he made a video mocking me
0:02:01 and uh all of this and
0:02:04 at the end of the video he makes a kind
0:02:06 of offhand remark
0:02:08 and he says in a taunting way if you
0:02:11 know maybe i'll have
0:02:12 this extremist fundamentalist etc
0:02:15 on my program for a q a
0:02:18 something like that is it something like
0:02:20 that and
0:02:22 this was i think a mistake because you
0:02:23 usually shouldn't uh provoke or
0:02:26 challenge someone directly
0:02:27 you're not ready to actually uh
0:02:30 live up to it so i just as soon as i saw
0:02:33 that i said okay fine you want to have a
0:02:35 q a no problem let's
0:02:37 let's do it just name the time in place
0:02:40 i think he wasn't expecting me i think
0:02:42 in his own mind his criticisms of islam
0:02:46 or his
0:02:47 mockery of islam would kind of make any
0:02:50 muslim
0:02:51 cower and not want to be in the
0:02:55 hot seat against him so i think he had
0:02:57 some of his false confidence and that
0:02:59 was his mistake
0:03:02 i mean what was really apparent in that
0:03:03 there in that discussion
0:03:05 was that he was really and truly well
0:03:08 out
0:03:09 uh obviously he was he was dealing with
0:03:11 someone that was
0:03:13 basically his teacher for intents and
0:03:15 purposes someone who you were educating
0:03:17 him
0:03:18 and making making it seem as if there
0:03:19 was some kind of equality in that kind
0:03:21 of interaction
0:03:22 um but it was a humiliating experience
0:03:25 because i saw afterwards he brought
0:03:28 some of the um kind of excuses
0:03:31 that he was making and even in the midst
0:03:33 of it he was having an anxiety attack i
0:03:35 mean
0:03:36 he couldn't handle even uh speaking
0:03:39 about it with confidence
0:03:40 i think it was one of his worst moments
0:03:42 and he's trying his best to do damage
0:03:44 control
0:03:45 but um what's your advice on dealing
0:03:47 with people like this i mean
0:03:49 uh some people say let's let's employ
0:03:52 maybe a more civilized approach
0:03:53 a more calm approach but it seems like
0:03:55 he went straight for the jugular with
0:03:57 him
0:03:58 and and taught me lessons straight away
0:04:00 so what do you what do you say to people
0:04:01 who
0:04:02 um advocate this kind of compassionate
0:04:04 approach to enemies of the slam
0:04:05 languages
0:04:08 so i'd like to get your uh views on that
0:04:11 personally but you know my
0:04:15 perspective is that practical advice
0:04:18 whenever
0:04:19 uh confronting atheists they have this
0:04:22 false sense
0:04:22 of security because they feel that
0:04:24 they're always
0:04:26 on the attack critiquing religion and
0:04:29 religion uh has to be on the defensive
0:04:31 and
0:04:32 believers have to be on the defensive uh
0:04:35 to justify belief in god or
0:04:37 religious morality and so forth but we i
0:04:39 think
0:04:40 practically should turn the tables on
0:04:42 them and
0:04:43 even though they might think that they
0:04:45 don't have any beliefs
0:04:46 themselves in reality they have many
0:04:48 beliefs they have many commitments
0:04:50 uh they might not be religious per se
0:04:54 you know they might not believe in an
0:04:55 actual god then they might not have a
0:04:57 theology per se
0:04:59 but they have many beliefs about what is
0:05:01 right and wrong they have a belief about
0:05:03 the history of the world they have a
0:05:04 belief about
0:05:06 uh materialism and the structure of the
0:05:08 universe all of these can be very
0:05:10 um explicitly attacked and i know that
0:05:13 you also use this method
0:05:15 in your own debates to put them on the
0:05:17 defensive
0:05:18 uh so that they have to justify instead
0:05:22 of presenting themselves as the judge
0:05:23 jury and
0:05:24 executioner sitting there and evaluating
0:05:27 other
0:05:27 beliefs like islam or what have you no
0:05:30 they need to do
0:05:32 application they need to show how why
0:05:35 are they so much more rational
0:05:37 supposedly than everyone else and with a
0:05:40 little bit of probing
0:05:41 and asking some pointed questions
0:05:44 then it's over it's pretty much over
0:05:47 because they haven't
0:05:48 because of the false sense of security
0:05:50 they haven't actually thought through
0:05:52 some of their own beliefs they've only
0:05:53 adopted them because that's the status
0:05:56 quo around them they have the advantage
0:05:59 of playing on the home field because
0:06:01 they're surrounded by a world that
0:06:03 uh some of you know liberalism for
0:06:05 example secularism this is in the air
0:06:08 this is in the water this is what people
0:06:09 breathe and is
0:06:10 common sense to people so this is a home
0:06:13 field advantage
0:06:14 that they are operating under and
0:06:17 they're using that
0:06:18 to attack others in a sense of false
0:06:21 security so we just turn the tables on
0:06:23 that
0:06:23 we show them that actually these
0:06:25 assumptions that you believe
0:06:27 are so rational they are nothing uh
0:06:30 there's nothing
0:06:31 rational about them at all
0:06:34 well yeah i think that's a brilliant uh
0:06:36 that's a brilliant way of dealing with
0:06:37 them
0:06:38 and um the way you dealt with the
0:06:40 squirming
0:06:41 apostate as we we might want one minute
0:06:48 was maybe a good demonstrative way to
0:06:50 see how that's all done in practice
0:06:53 but talking about uh controversy i i
0:06:55 think one of the main things now that
0:06:57 has been attached to your name
0:06:58 um doing a bit research yesterday uh
0:07:01 after you sent me some articles and
0:07:03 done some reading is about some of the
0:07:05 controversial opinions
0:07:07 that you've uh had especially with the
0:07:09 japanese institute and your responses to
0:07:11 them
0:07:12 um so maybe to put this in a blunt way
0:07:15 what's the beef what's
0:07:16 going on we'll see what's the issue that
0:07:17 you guys have
0:07:20 are you a disgruntled yes
0:07:22 [Laughter]
0:07:24 some have said yeah this is something
0:07:26 that uh
0:07:27 the athena itself seems to be spreading
0:07:30 but
0:07:31 the issue is not with japan institute
0:07:35 you know i was their director of
0:07:38 research when they first began
0:07:40 and you know for various reasons
0:07:44 me not believing in the direction that
0:07:48 organization was go
0:07:49 because of some of these issues that i
0:07:51 criticized now publicly
0:07:53 um you know there was a split in
0:07:56 approach
0:07:56 and it's not a problem with eurpin
0:07:59 institute there are many unfortunately
0:08:01 of these types of organizations and
0:08:05 um even duat or imams that preach
0:08:08 a kind of apologetic apologetic in a
0:08:12 negative way
0:08:13 uh approach to addressing uh some of
0:08:16 these issues like jihad
0:08:18 uh like evolution uh the conflict
0:08:21 between islam and evolution
0:08:23 the conflict between islam and feminism
0:08:27 and this kind of modern women's rights
0:08:30 and what i find
0:08:31 from uh not just me but many have noted
0:08:34 this that what
0:08:35 you see from these institutes and from
0:08:38 these figures is that
0:08:39 they claim we have to sugarcoat we have
0:08:42 to water down
0:08:43 i mean they don't use that for those
0:08:45 words but that's essentially the message
0:08:47 we have to on a subject like ho dude
0:08:51 uh that is very clear uh in islam
0:08:55 we have to minimize this or we have to
0:08:57 say that no this is not really
0:08:59 applicable or this is not really
0:09:00 relevant for our time or
0:09:02 there was uh they were never applied all
0:09:05 these kinds of apologetic means to
0:09:08 minimize and sugar coat and water down
0:09:11 and this has a very negative impact on
0:09:14 the faith
0:09:15 of muslims today who are looking to
0:09:18 these
0:09:18 institutes and these religious
0:09:20 authorities for
0:09:21 guidance on how do we think how do we
0:09:24 feel about what we find in our deen
0:09:28 that contradicts the status quo this
0:09:31 liberal secular feminist materialist
0:09:34 status quo my approach and i believe
0:09:36 this is your approach as well
0:09:38 is we want to challenge that status quo
0:09:42 we want to say that no islam is
0:09:45 islam is clear the truth is clear from
0:09:47 falsehood
0:09:48 and yes islam is true we have no qualms
0:09:51 no hesitation and
0:09:53 stating it in no uncertain terms
0:09:56 and we're not going to compromise we're
0:09:58 not going to water down in fact we are
0:09:59 going to engage
0:10:00 in debate we're going to engage in
0:10:04 conversation intellectual academic and
0:10:07 we're going to show and bring evidence
0:10:10 how islam is superior is the truth
0:10:13 is bringing guidance on these matters of
0:10:17 life and governance and everything
0:10:21 so this is the approach that i uh very
0:10:23 strongly
0:10:24 believe in and i know that yourself and
0:10:27 many other
0:10:28 uh believe in this method but you have
0:10:31 who are
0:10:31 countering this with a watered-down kind
0:10:34 of no we have to accommodate let's try
0:10:36 to make islam
0:10:37 fit into this liberal secular box so
0:10:40 that
0:10:41 we can live comfortably and we can fight
0:10:43 islamophobia
0:10:45 so let me tell you how i see i like in
0:10:47 terms of jaclyn
0:10:49 um some of the research material is very
0:10:51 good i don't i don't see like i think
0:10:52 you're all right to say that they're not
0:10:54 all the same
0:10:55 uh this is not all the same right some
0:10:58 research material is very good i don't
0:10:59 haven't
0:11:00 got a problem myself with with the
0:11:03 organization good job however
0:11:05 i do share some of the concerns that you
0:11:06 have with some
0:11:08 of the research papers especially two
0:11:10 things which i saw your response to
0:11:13 which i think were were worth outlining
0:11:16 and worth
0:11:16 responding to and worth refuting even
0:11:19 namely the
0:11:20 um the confusion on lgbt uh
0:11:23 the the confusion on uh when we say lgbt
0:11:27 here we're talking not just about
0:11:28 the sexual acts of a man having sex with
0:11:31 another man
0:11:32 we're talking about all of the other
0:11:33 issues like same-sex marriage
0:11:35 and advocating that or you know the
0:11:37 racial approach of
0:11:39 jonathan brown which i think you've
0:11:40 you've written something on
0:11:42 and also shared it mostly on on the
0:11:44 actual
0:11:45 you know clean website itself has a
0:11:47 response to um and the second thing
0:11:49 which i found was most problematic as
0:11:51 well
0:11:52 um was the evolution article uh
0:11:55 of allegorizing who adam was um
0:11:58 almost creating some kind of ideology of
0:12:01 him
0:12:02 mythological approach that a lot of the
0:12:05 christians are forced
0:12:06 uh to do so these two things suck out
0:12:10 to me as points of concern like real
0:12:12 concern because
0:12:13 uh there's no self for that and there's
0:12:15 no precedent for those things that have
0:12:16 been said
0:12:17 in in those articles at all so i in
0:12:20 terms of refuting those particular two
0:12:22 articles
0:12:23 i'm aware of obviously all the articles
0:12:25 that they've written but those
0:12:25 particular two i think
0:12:26 they're obviously prioritized um
0:12:29 so let's talk about those two first um
0:12:32 let's talk about those two uh
0:12:33 articles first the lgbt article and the
0:12:36 and the evolution article
0:12:38 and why do you think that this approach
0:12:41 is now being allowed
0:12:43 and um you know in a mainstream
0:12:46 traditionalist organization like
0:12:47 european and
0:12:49 how can we influence the organization to
0:12:52 try and
0:12:54 limit that kind of discourse which is
0:12:56 clearly almost i would say outside of
0:12:58 the paradigm obviously
0:13:00 well i tried to influence them from the
0:13:03 inside
0:13:04 and clearly that didn't have any effect
0:13:08 um you know i knew many of the people
0:13:10 working there
0:13:12 at the high level of the organization
0:13:14 and i know what their mentality is and i
0:13:17 know what they've said and what they
0:13:18 actually think about
0:13:20 these issues on the actual article the
0:13:23 public material that they have
0:13:25 i think it's absolutely unacceptable to
0:13:28 preach this idea as religiously
0:13:31 acceptable that muslims their claim
0:13:33 is and this is in in the article of
0:13:35 jonathan brown
0:13:36 that muslims should support many lgbt
0:13:40 rights
0:13:40 including same-sex marriage including
0:13:44 what they are did you mention yes yes
0:13:47 mentions in the art he mentions same-sex
0:13:48 marriage explicitly
0:13:50 he mentions for example uh transgender
0:13:52 bathrooms
0:13:53 uh and transgen those kinds of
0:13:55 transgender issues so it's not
0:13:57 when we say lgbt it's not just
0:13:59 homosexual behavior and homosexual
0:14:01 rights lesbian
0:14:02 bisexual also trans gender this is all
0:14:05 included in
0:14:06 in their statement muslims must support
0:14:08 or should support
0:14:09 many lgbt rights so and who is jonathan
0:14:13 brown to make this kind of claim
0:14:15 is he a mufti is he a kind of religious
0:14:18 scholar does he claim that for himself
0:14:20 then why is he if they are traditional
0:14:23 as they might
0:14:23 want to claim orthodox then who how do
0:14:27 they give a platform
0:14:28 to such a article and to such a claim to
0:14:31 be made
0:14:33 and then promote it through videos and
0:14:34 infographics and so forth
0:14:36 this is something very shocking and i
0:14:38 think muslims
0:14:40 the muslim community has in the u.s
0:14:43 and maybe even overseas have this idea
0:14:45 that well lgbt is just this other issue
0:14:48 it's not going to affect us so let's
0:14:50 just put our head down
0:14:51 and ignore we don't have to condemn we
0:14:54 don't have to
0:14:54 say anything about this kind of
0:14:56 political wheeling and dealing that's
0:14:58 going on with lgbt
0:14:59 and we'll be fine but this is the wrong
0:15:01 mentality for many reasons he had this
0:15:03 parable of
0:15:04 um if you're in a boat and there's one
0:15:06 person rowing
0:15:08 and the other person's uh you know you
0:15:09 have to i can't remember exactly the
0:15:10 technology used but
0:15:12 it's basically an argument from the it's
0:15:14 an argument from necessity almost it
0:15:16 seems like this is an argument from
0:15:17 necessity
0:15:19 uh which for me doesn't make i mean for
0:15:21 me looking at that
0:15:22 it made no sense to me an argument
0:15:30 um all of these things and and even
0:15:33 reference to like the the mistake which
0:15:34 was made which is completely different
0:15:36 it's question
0:15:37 you know it's a false analogy because
0:15:40 i mean the idea that a vimy state would
0:15:42 allow certain minorities to practice
0:15:44 certain things which was not like
0:15:45 for example uh drinking alcohol and all
0:15:48 these things were allowed in
0:15:49 non-muslim spaces within a muslim land
0:15:51 that's a thin me
0:15:54 allowance right for in a muslim land
0:15:56 these things are there
0:15:57 but it's quest now to say that so an
0:15:59 akaliya
0:16:00 as a minority group in in for example
0:16:03 the west
0:16:04 have to not only acquiesce to the issue
0:16:08 or to allow the issue but now to to to
0:16:11 to to
0:16:11 to argue for the issue now i have to
0:16:13 actually go and say gay
0:16:15 uh marriage i have to go and say gay
0:16:17 marriage is
0:16:18 uh should be done i mean that seems to
0:16:21 me such an aberration
0:16:23 from the quranic message that is its
0:16:26 biggest belief
0:16:28 that this could be said and i was
0:16:29 actually quite shocked because
0:16:31 i respect jonathan brown you know i i've
0:16:33 read i read a lot of his articles i read
0:16:34 a lot of his stuff and
0:16:35 he's done good great work for the ummah
0:16:37 and i'd love to have him on the show and
0:16:39 i'd love to speak to him about this this
0:16:40 matter
0:16:41 but this is such an aberration from that
0:16:43 which is you cannot find self for this
0:16:46 i'm not talking about them and that yeah
0:16:48 i'm not talking about muslims
0:16:50 uh allowing vietnamese to practice
0:16:51 certain things because that's piasma
0:16:53 we're talking about a minority muslims
0:16:56 arguing for the rights of
0:17:00 the non-muslim uh majority and doing so
0:17:03 like um this is basically the opposite
0:17:06 of what luke
0:17:07 is the opposite was he not a minority
0:17:11 exactly yeah it's the opposite yeah
0:17:14 but even the analogy yeah the analogy
0:17:22 he is specifically addressing this issue
0:17:25 because
0:17:25 uh within that work is talking about
0:17:29 how uh we might allow
0:17:33 uh for example incest marriage
0:17:36 mother-son
0:17:36 marriage syrians
0:17:41 that might be permitted but he makes a
0:17:44 distinction he says
0:17:45 yet we would not allow even if it is
0:17:47 halal
0:17:48 in their deen uh we would not allow
0:17:51 same-sex uh luat basically
0:17:54 man on man penetrative acts he said we
0:17:58 would not allow that why
0:17:59 he makes a distinction because incest is
0:18:01 something that is
0:18:02 rejected people naturally they are
0:18:05 rejecting this
0:18:07 but the shahwah that comes with the
0:18:10 behavior of
0:18:11 that has a danger of spreading so it
0:18:14 could spread to the muslims
0:18:16 it could spread and corrupt muslims so
0:18:18 that's why even if it's
0:18:19 halal according to the or permissible
0:18:22 according to the dean
0:18:23 of this minority uh the vimys
0:18:27 the muslim authorities still still would
0:18:29 not uh endorse that or
0:18:31 allow that or in any way promote it does
0:18:34 that mean
0:18:35 if he had made the argument from muslim
0:18:36 if there was a muslim majority in the
0:18:38 vietnamese
0:18:39 i can see him making a more robust
0:18:40 robust argument you could do
0:18:42 is to share it somewhere i haven't done
0:18:43 it i don't know exactly what all daruma
0:18:45 said
0:18:46 but that's a different one what i'm
0:18:47 trying to propose is that that's a
0:18:48 completely different case because
0:18:50 we're talking about a minority who are
0:18:51 not who are not the lawmakers
0:18:53 who are not in power they are uh they
0:18:56 are kalia they are the minority and
0:18:58 they are actively according to this view
0:19:01 should be uh promoting uh gay rights in
0:19:04 order to ally with the
0:19:06 left wing as if i agree with you this is
0:19:09 the only option here
0:19:10 this is which is a false analogy like
0:19:13 you know the idea that he's
0:19:14 one person's throwing the bow and i
0:19:16 can't remember exactly the language he
0:19:18 used but
0:19:18 it's it made it seem as if this is
0:19:22 almost life or death based on the line
0:19:25 now you hear many of these kind of
0:19:27 pro-lg
0:19:28 figures they will appeal to torora and
0:19:30 they'll say that this is
0:19:32 if we do not accept lgbt will literally
0:19:34 be rounded up
0:19:35 and put into concentration camps they
0:19:38 appeal to this type
0:19:39 of emotionalism and fear tactics
0:19:44 where is the evidence for this where how
0:19:46 are you determining that this is
0:19:48 actually the case
0:19:49 or are you just fear-mongering because
0:19:51 on that basis you can fear monger
0:19:52 forever
0:19:53 if it's true that for example we're
0:19:55 going to be rounded up
0:19:56 what about the issue of zionism for
0:19:58 example should muslims start supporting
0:20:01 israel because we're worried that
0:20:03 because of the influence of zionism and
0:20:06 the israeli lobby so forth
0:20:07 can be rounded up because of our stance
0:20:09 on philistine
0:20:11 on any issue you can appeal to this kind
0:20:13 of
0:20:14 if you have the specter of oh this
0:20:17 imminent
0:20:18 genocide this eminent concentration camp
0:20:20 you can justify anything so you have to
0:20:22 be very
0:20:23 careful and circumspect when you make
0:20:25 such claims
0:20:26 and not just you know make these kinds
0:20:28 of sloppy analogies with uh people in
0:20:30 boats as you mentioned in this yepteen
0:20:32 article yeah
0:20:34 um and i wanted to also ask you about
0:20:36 the evolution article i mean you've
0:20:37 written some evolution articles which i
0:20:39 think were subsequently removed from the
0:20:41 website uh and unfortunately
0:20:44 um what's been put in its place or
0:20:47 i'm not sure if it was already there was
0:20:49 uh this article
0:20:50 which argued for the fact that
0:20:54 if i'm not mistaken it is is an allegory
0:20:58 is not actually the historical figure is
0:21:00 that the extent of the
0:21:01 claim yeah i mean there's some details
0:21:04 but this article on european site is
0:21:06 saying that there's no
0:21:07 um problem with muslims accepting
0:21:10 evolution
0:21:11 in whole uh and including the evolution
0:21:14 of human beings and
0:21:16 to reconcile this as muslims we have to
0:21:18 recognize that
0:21:19 adam ayasam is mythology this is akin to
0:21:22 mythology and there's nothing wrong with
0:21:24 myths
0:21:25 these are things that we can accept as
0:21:27 myth
0:21:28 and that's how we accept darwinian
0:21:32 evolution of human beings
0:21:33 while still being quote unquote orthodox
0:21:36 muslims
0:21:36 this is the argument that the paper
0:21:38 makes and i'm shocked
0:21:40 that a institute can claim to be
0:21:43 traditional and orthodox and
0:21:44 host such a paper on their website yeah
0:21:47 i would agree that
0:21:48 that's that's taking it to like we don't
0:21:50 have anything like that
0:21:52 in our literature if you if you look at
0:21:54 the christian literature
0:21:55 i think you can make that argument
0:21:57 because they have the alexandrian school
0:21:58 you have the origin of alexandria
0:22:00 you have this they can they can they can
0:22:02 mythology they can mytholog
0:22:03 allegorize all these things and say this
0:22:05 is a myth and this and that
0:22:07 they will have their own problem if they
0:22:09 do that then the question is to what
0:22:11 extent
0:22:11 i mean this is a big problem if you say
0:22:13 that adam is a myth then what's up
0:22:15 stop us from saying that musa is and
0:22:17 that is
0:22:19 and even that muhammad sallallahu azam i
0:22:21 mean we can't wait right
0:22:23 um so it's when you have a hermeneutical
0:22:26 principle which is faith which is
0:22:27 totally
0:22:28 uh corrupt and has no essence uh has no
0:22:31 salaf has no precedence then you can
0:22:34 start doing things with it
0:22:36 which are going to break down the
0:22:37 religion of islam so this is i would
0:22:39 even go as far as to say this is called
0:22:40 kufri this is a disbelieving
0:22:44 statement i'm not saying that we're
0:22:46 going to make the feel of the person
0:22:47 who's written
0:22:48 oh i'm not advocating that because
0:22:50 there's all kinds of
0:22:51 all kinds of but it is kind of i have to
0:22:54 be honest
0:22:55 uh surprising to see that this is on uh
0:22:58 the same website same uh forum where you
0:23:01 have
0:23:02 great articles being written by people
0:23:04 that i think we both respect we both
0:23:06 love and respect uh that including all
0:23:08 muslims
0:23:09 people like you know jonathan brown i do
0:23:11 love and respect them i i have good
0:23:12 opinion of them i don't i don't
0:23:14 disrespect them
0:23:16 however when you see them making these
0:23:18 in the case of brown making the stress
0:23:20 your claim and then this other
0:23:21 uh of uh lgbt uh pushing the rights or
0:23:24 lgbt
0:23:25 marriage or whatever it was that he said
0:23:27 and then you have this claim now with
0:23:28 evolution just kind of to be honest with
0:23:30 you
0:23:30 it weakens the position and you can even
0:23:32 argue because we knew that
0:23:33 really and truly this is what creates
0:23:35 radicalism because if people go to
0:23:38 um and see these
0:23:41 these kind of diluted opinions
0:23:45 they will know that the paradigm or the
0:23:47 language or the the the vernacular
0:23:50 that's being used
0:23:50 is outside the scope of islam and so
0:23:53 they'll want to
0:23:54 seek something more islamic and many
0:23:56 times that will come
0:23:58 in the case of some cult group or some
0:24:00 radical group or something like that
0:24:02 and then so it really does not do
0:24:04 muslims any favor when you have
0:24:06 people operating outside of the paradigm
0:24:08 as if they're working within the
0:24:09 paradigm
0:24:10 yeah of course i agree with you and i
0:24:12 mean we're just talking about these two
0:24:14 articles but they have
0:24:15 many that are problematic and i wrote
0:24:18 myself and some other scholars and
0:24:20 students of knowledge
0:24:22 uh collaborated to review about
0:24:25 you know over a dozen of their articles
0:24:28 um and provide peer review peer review
0:24:30 and critique which any
0:24:33 academic institution or any academic
0:24:35 person should
0:24:36 welcome and invite and we evaluate
0:24:39 uh these dozen or so articles it's on
0:24:43 muslimskeptic.com
0:24:44 which is my website um and it's a
0:24:46 japanese review
0:24:48 and we found some very shocking things
0:24:50 like this is not even the most shocking
0:24:52 in my opinion the evolution is not the
0:24:53 most shocking the
0:24:54 lgbt is not the most shocking there's
0:24:56 things that were even more shocking that
0:24:58 we
0:24:58 uh discovered in this in this kind of
0:25:00 review
0:25:01 uh what the other big problem that uh
0:25:04 we raised with japin is that they are
0:25:07 involved
0:25:08 with counter-extremism uh officials
0:25:11 and they have board members who have
0:25:14 worked with
0:25:15 and were actually architects of a cve
0:25:18 countering violent extremism which was
0:25:21 the obama administration
0:25:24 program to control the muslim narrative
0:25:27 and
0:25:27 to basically police muslims and make
0:25:30 sure that muslims aren't thinking
0:25:32 in the wrong ways so the analog or the
0:25:34 descendant of
0:25:35 cve in the uk is prevent and
0:25:38 one of their board members was one of
0:25:40 the architects
0:25:42 of cve and their director of research
0:25:45 operations is a former counter-extremism
0:25:49 specialist who worked with the us
0:25:50 army in syria and in the middle east
0:25:54 so they have people like this who are
0:25:56 influencing and directing
0:25:57 their research this should raise many
0:26:00 red flags
0:26:01 for the community that you have a
0:26:03 organization
0:26:04 claiming to be authoritatively islamic
0:26:06 and orthodox traditional
0:26:08 and yet they have such people who can
0:26:10 influence
0:26:11 their uh output can influence what they
0:26:14 are presenting to the community
0:26:17 so these are the kinds of uh everything
0:26:20 is based on
0:26:21 not my personal private experience i
0:26:23 have in the organization
0:26:24 all of the review that we have is
0:26:26 evidenced by public material
0:26:28 we're not spying on them we're just
0:26:30 looking at public material that they
0:26:32 have put out
0:26:33 and they are advertising as an
0:26:36 organization we just
0:26:37 put a spotlight on it and we ask
0:26:39 questions that's the only
0:26:41 i think that's legitimate what's wrong
0:26:42 with asking questions okay no i
0:26:45 so far we agree but let me just give you
0:26:46 some let's play devil's advocate for a
0:26:48 bit because otherwise it's going to be
0:26:49 just me and you agreeing for
0:26:50 an hour and a half um let's let's talk
0:26:53 about
0:26:54 let's talk about shaytan's advocate
0:26:56 [Laughter]
0:27:00 um what i was going to say is that okay
0:27:02 so far these concerns i think
0:27:04 especially in britain i think i have a
0:27:07 reason to believe
0:27:08 uh though i'm not sociologically certain
0:27:11 that
0:27:11 the if you want to call it this this way
0:27:13 the islamic community is more
0:27:14 conservative
0:27:15 conservative in britain than it is in
0:27:17 the us i mean i've been to both
0:27:18 countries i've been to different parts
0:27:19 of the u.s and
0:27:20 compared to the u.s and
0:27:24 north america it seems like the uk has
0:27:27 more of a strong and solid stance on
0:27:29 some of the key issues especially on
0:27:31 um on the stuff that we've been talking
0:27:33 about
0:27:34 um but having said this i mean uh some
0:27:37 would say
0:27:37 that some of your attitudes towards
0:27:40 people like jonathan brown and people
0:27:41 like uma soleiman
0:27:43 that actually has become personal now
0:27:45 between you and them
0:27:46 uh to the extent whereby you say things
0:27:48 like you know jonathan brown
0:27:50 is a liberal muslim now i'll be honest i
0:27:53 think i when i read that one
0:27:54 when i heard you say that uh in one of
0:27:56 the videos that you put up
0:27:58 in preparation for this podcast i was
0:28:00 thinking to myself
0:28:02 when i when i think about liberal
0:28:03 muslims i think of people like anime
0:28:06 or people like um uh amina wadud
0:28:09 people that on almost all matters
0:28:12 explicitly operate outside of the
0:28:15 paradigm
0:28:16 they justify it from them to themselves
0:28:19 to
0:28:19 operate outside of the islamic paradigm
0:28:22 i thought that was a bit harsh to put
0:28:24 jonathan brown in that category i don't
0:28:26 think he does operate without the
0:28:27 paradigm
0:28:28 i think this lgbt uh should i
0:28:31 specifically say
0:28:32 did i specifically say he's a liberal
0:28:34 muslim
0:28:35 i i think you did yes i'm not i'm not
0:28:37 sure what you
0:28:38 what do you consider him as do you think
0:28:40 he's a liberal muslim i don't think we
0:28:42 have to put these labels
0:28:44 unnecessarily i i agree with you like we
0:28:47 don't need to
0:28:48 uh say that this person is x or y
0:28:51 okay uh we just need to look at what
0:28:53 they have said
0:28:54 what they have said and what they have
0:28:56 written and do they stand by what they
0:28:58 have said and what they have written
0:29:00 and if they do then people can come to
0:29:03 their own conclusions
0:29:05 i think that the amina no
0:29:08 muslim hamdulillah or very few
0:29:11 especially in the uk
0:29:12 are going to be affected by someone who
0:29:13 is clearly you know making these kinds
0:29:16 of deviant statements
0:29:17 kuffer statements calling deadbeat dad
0:29:20 and all this garbage
0:29:22 i was saying that conscientious gap and
0:29:24 uh you know what
0:29:25 um when the 434 she had a conscientious
0:29:28 gap and
0:29:29 almost as if she's rejecting uh yeah of
0:29:31 course she says no in her book
0:29:33 she says we have to say no to the quran
0:29:35 wherever in that case
0:29:36 the question is is she muslim or not
0:29:38 really that's that's the yeah of course
0:29:40 but but she's not influencing uh the
0:29:43 community
0:29:44 because she's seen as clearly outside of
0:29:46 it but it is
0:29:47 more problematic uh in my opinion
0:29:50 when you have those individuals who are
0:29:52 seen as orthodox they wear the cloak of
0:29:55 orthodoxy and traditionalism yet they
0:29:56 preach
0:29:57 a message that is very heterodox when
0:30:00 you have an article from jonathan brown
0:30:02 we mentioned that
0:30:03 muslims should support lgbt rights the
0:30:06 article that says that a non-believer
0:30:08 mushrik who has been reached by islam
0:30:11 they know about the message of islam and
0:30:13 they reject it
0:30:15 and they reject it knowingly this person
0:30:17 allah can
0:30:18 the mushrik can forgive allah may
0:30:21 forgive this person
0:30:22 writing an article like this onyappin
0:30:24 and publishing it
0:30:26 does this show you that does he mean
0:30:27 it's destroyed or something i haven't
0:30:29 seen this
0:30:29 no no even if it is reached
0:30:33 fully the message of islam and he
0:30:35 rejects it then it is within allah's
0:30:37 mercy
0:30:38 to forgive this person and i mean this
0:30:41 is clearly
0:30:42 contrary to what is gathering in the
0:30:44 quran obviously
0:30:46 i would love to have jonathan brown and
0:30:47 actually bring him on the show and ask
0:30:49 him about that because maybe he does
0:30:50 the benefit of whatever you know maybe
0:30:53 he does have to wheel for this
0:30:54 um i mean the thing about racio i read
0:30:57 it like so i know
0:30:58 exactly um what he said on that so i
0:31:01 on this one here i haven't read exactly
0:31:02 so you could you could send it to me i
0:31:04 could
0:31:05 try and get in contact with him because
0:31:07 he's not here to represent himself i
0:31:08 don't want to
0:31:09 you know um that's fine maybe you can go
0:31:12 and look and read the quotes
0:31:14 in that review and you can see what they
0:31:16 had published
0:31:17 and judge for yourself uh so don't take
0:31:20 my word for it actually look at what
0:31:21 they are written
0:31:24 like here's a question um so you have
0:31:26 all these criticisms of people like
0:31:28 man and then uh i think this guy called
0:31:30 justin parrott as well who's
0:31:32 he's also written um i've not read too
0:31:34 many of his articles but i think i've
0:31:35 read a few of them
0:31:36 um and um i'm also a man and
0:31:39 jonathan brown i think these are the
0:31:40 three main ones that you you kind of uh
0:31:43 covered their stuff on your
0:31:45 your your article my question is um
0:31:49 do you label them after that so do you
0:31:50 say okay they've they have
0:31:52 now uh did you straightforward question
0:31:54 do you consider them
0:31:56 for example do you consider them
0:31:57 deviants
0:31:59 i don't feel the need to go to that
0:32:01 extent uh
0:32:02 and i'm not in a position i don't
0:32:04 consider myself
0:32:05 as a scholar i'm just a student of
0:32:08 knowledge
0:32:09 uh i don't consider myself in a the
0:32:11 position of authority to make those
0:32:13 kinds of declarations
0:32:14 okay all i want to do is and it's not
0:32:17 just me by the way because this article
0:32:18 was written by me and other scholars
0:32:20 and we cite other criticisms other
0:32:24 uh actual scholars who have uh
0:32:27 critiqued japin so for example this
0:32:29 jonathan brown article about the
0:32:31 forgiveness of mushukeen
0:32:32 we cited articles from
0:32:36 mateen khan for example of the us osten
0:32:39 will be invade of the us
0:32:40 who also critiqued his article and and
0:32:43 condemned the article for along the
0:32:45 same lines so it's not just me uh
0:32:48 as a disgruntled and ex-employee of
0:32:51 japin
0:32:52 many others are waking up the problem is
0:32:54 that their articles are very long
0:32:56 so many people don't actually read them
0:32:58 in depth and you yourself said you
0:32:59 hadn't
0:33:00 read them before you you kind of just
0:33:02 read them in preparation for this
0:33:03 podcast
0:33:04 but uh it's shocking some of the things
0:33:06 that you'll you'll find but we don't
0:33:08 need to go to the extent
0:33:10 i think if we go to the extent of just
0:33:12 throwing labels
0:33:13 uh then we want we want isla right we
0:33:16 want them to
0:33:18 admit that you have made a serious
0:33:20 mistake
0:33:21 here and uh not only correct it
0:33:24 but own up to it say we did make a
0:33:26 mistake this was a problem
0:33:28 because if they just go back and they
0:33:30 scrub all of their articles
0:33:32 then what about all of the people over
0:33:34 the years because this institute has
0:33:35 been around for four years now
0:33:37 who read these articles and their
0:33:39 understanding of islam was corrupted
0:33:41 because of what they read
0:33:42 so japin has a duty to not only scrub
0:33:46 the errors correct the errors but also
0:33:48 correct the doubts and the problems the
0:33:51 wrong understanding that they created in
0:33:53 the community
0:33:54 through these articles i'll be honest
0:33:57 when i was looking at your
0:33:58 kind of refutational um article like it
0:34:01 was
0:34:02 uh an article that was dealing with
0:34:05 all the kind of um you compartmentalized
0:34:08 into okay
0:34:09 women's rights uh you know evolution
0:34:11 whatever was i can't know the exact
0:34:12 categories
0:34:14 when i was looking through it i i had to
0:34:15 say some of it i thought you could have
0:34:17 done hostile fun for
0:34:18 like some of it yeah i agree with you
0:34:19 totally like for example the ratio thing
0:34:21 totally in agreement
0:34:22 um the um the evolution thing totally in
0:34:25 agreement
0:34:25 but there were some things i was
0:34:26 thinking okay this is not as they're not
0:34:28 on the same level right so
0:34:31 do you not think it would be more
0:34:32 effective if we just focus on the top
0:34:35 three two or three
0:34:36 main uh problems that they have and
0:34:40 for probably the ratio thing is one of
0:34:41 them right the evolution thing for me is
0:34:43 another one
0:34:44 uh maybe the counter extremism thing
0:34:45 that you just mentioned is a third one
0:34:47 but instead of having like 20 things
0:34:50 that you're
0:34:50 criticizing that maybe hone in on three
0:34:53 or f two or three things
0:34:55 which are the priorities for you because
0:34:58 when you when you talk about other
0:34:59 things like for example the criticism
0:35:01 that you had on the doubt study that was
0:35:02 done i mean
0:35:04 you could argue it's immaterial either
0:35:06 way it's inconsequential whether you're
0:35:07 whether there was bias there or not
0:35:09 there or they had an agenda there
0:35:11 i mean this is a sociological thing
0:35:13 sometimes when you mix
0:35:14 something like as important as
0:35:19 something like that kind of maybe
0:35:21 weakens the case a little bit
0:35:22 so do you think that maybe because
0:35:24 nowadays people find it very difficult
0:35:25 to read i mean
0:35:26 let's be honest people find it very
0:35:28 difficult to read um maybe uh
0:35:30 five or seven or ten thousand words i'm
0:35:31 not sure how many words that would have
0:35:33 been
0:35:34 so to to to abbreviate it and to just
0:35:36 focus on the
0:35:37 main uh contentions that almost everyone
0:35:41 would agree with
0:35:42 the raxiom thing the evolution thing
0:35:44 maybe the counter extremism thing
0:35:46 and then a slow and gentle pressure you
0:35:48 know on on the akin institute to
0:35:50 to rethink their position on those
0:35:52 things um what do you think of that as a
0:35:54 strategy
0:35:56 well uh two things i'll say one we
0:35:59 wanted it to be a comprehensive review
0:36:02 as much as we could manage with our
0:36:04 limited time and resources
0:36:06 we wanted to be comprehensive so that it
0:36:08 wouldn't be
0:36:09 said that oh you're cherry picking and
0:36:12 you're not fully appreciating
0:36:14 uh this work that we're doing you're
0:36:16 only focusing on one or two articles
0:36:18 and you're missing the forest for the
0:36:21 trees so we want to avoid
0:36:23 that accusation by being comprehensive
0:36:26 uh second of all i would say that yes it
0:36:29 is a long review this
0:36:30 but um you know when you're
0:36:32 comprehensive it will require
0:36:34 a lot of words it will require a lot of
0:36:36 work and research to
0:36:37 put everything in front of the reader
0:36:39 but our audience
0:36:40 is mainly the um
0:36:44 scholars and the academics and the
0:36:47 the love of the students of knowledge
0:36:49 who are used to reading more
0:36:52 they will appreciate uh the depth of
0:36:54 analysis
0:36:55 and research inshallah that they can be
0:36:58 aware
0:36:58 okay they can be aware because those are
0:37:00 the people those imams
0:37:03 they're the ones who are going to refer
0:37:05 to yepin's work
0:37:07 to their peers to their communities so
0:37:10 we want to make sure that
0:37:11 those uh that class of intellectual
0:37:14 within the muslim community
0:37:16 is aware and has a full picture
0:37:19 the third point is that i don't actually
0:37:21 agree with you on this
0:37:22 uh that uh it's just a matter of one or
0:37:25 two articles that are major and then
0:37:27 everything else we can do
0:37:28 fun i think that there are many articles
0:37:31 that have serious problems and it
0:37:34 represents an entire ideology
0:37:36 that japan represents and abides by
0:37:38 lives by
0:37:39 does their work by their vision for how
0:37:41 to address these issues which talked
0:37:43 about a few minutes ago their entire
0:37:45 vision is what is the problem that is
0:37:47 and these articles are the symptom of
0:37:49 the bigger
0:37:50 problem uh so to to argue that and to
0:37:53 substantiate that you have to
0:37:55 present this this larger uh analysis
0:37:59 and a comprehensive review so that's why
0:38:02 it's
0:38:03 we took the route that we did
0:38:05 acknowledging that some people won't
0:38:06 have time to read
0:38:07 everything but we made it as simple as
0:38:09 possible with links and with
0:38:10 um you know a table of contents and so
0:38:13 forth
0:38:13 so that people can okay i want to read
0:38:15 what japin has to say about women's
0:38:17 rights
0:38:18 and how they say that certain aspects of
0:38:20 the sharia
0:38:21 are myths or certain aspects of what
0:38:24 scholars have said
0:38:26 are erroneous for example the study that
0:38:29 we brought up that you mentioned
0:38:31 their study is saying that the biggest
0:38:33 challenge
0:38:34 okay look at this the biggest challenge
0:38:37 facing
0:38:38 muslims in terms of their iman what's
0:38:40 affecting their iman
0:38:41 in this day and age is what
0:38:45 religious muslims religious muslims
0:38:48 quote unquote
0:38:49 are causing the is the biggest source of
0:38:51 doubt
0:38:53 for the muslim community but this is
0:38:56 this is shocking
0:38:57 but this is shocking this is essentially
0:38:59 saying oh the bearded muslim
0:39:00 the bearded muslim is causing
0:39:04 doubts we have to so if that's the uh
0:39:07 you've identified the source then all of
0:39:09 your material is going to be
0:39:10 against fighting those religious muslims
0:39:13 as opposed to what do you think is the
0:39:14 biggest source of doubt
0:39:16 to be honest i i've done a few surveys
0:39:18 myself i'll actually read the monthly if
0:39:19 you like you know um
0:39:20 these servers are done on them on my
0:39:22 youtube channel yeah
0:39:24 on the community page and um in these uh
0:39:28 questions i asked i asked them different
0:39:31 questions
0:39:32 um it came i'll be honest it came with
0:39:34 very similar results so for example
0:39:37 i said which group of men are the
0:39:38 biggest threat to uh which group of
0:39:40 people are the biggest threat to your
0:39:41 imam i've had of other questions in the
0:39:43 past
0:39:43 from the following right so i put
0:39:46 muslims
0:39:47 for example uh you know madagascar
0:39:50 isis extreme shiites or extreme sufis
0:39:54 for example i'm just giving
0:39:55 example example or new atheists second
0:39:58 category
0:39:58 like dawkins harris et cetera apostates
0:40:01 eeg apostate is one let's see how cruz
0:40:05 uh christian apologists like david will
0:40:07 etc or none of the above
0:40:09 so this got 16 000 votes okay and
0:40:12 uh which is quite good i mean it's quite
0:40:14 good in terms of a sample it's anonymous
0:40:18 so in terms of the biggest people
0:40:21 number of people fringe muslims i.e the
0:40:24 um s pubs and the takfiris the isis and
0:40:29 the extremists from different uh sri
0:40:32 groups and different sufi groups
0:40:33 they were 30 the new atheists were 11
0:40:36 percent
0:40:37 the apostates like ruslan only six
0:40:39 percent unfortunately
0:40:40 um david wood surprisingly christian
0:40:43 apologies five percent
0:40:45 um which is quite surprising because i
0:40:47 thought they would win those school
0:40:48 build
0:40:48 a bit higher than the apostates none of
0:40:50 the above 50 percent
0:40:52 so in terms of yanni the the the group
0:40:56 of people that are causing most doubts
0:40:59 i mean i think you could make an
0:41:00 argument that for irreligious people
0:41:03 um the people who are creating the most
0:41:06 doubt
0:41:07 for muslims are actually some religious
0:41:10 uh people uh but not when you call them
0:41:12 fringe
0:41:13 you're yeah those guys french they're
0:41:15 calling them religious
0:41:17 they're calling them religious people i
0:41:19 i remember that reading that
0:41:20 that particular article to be fair and i
0:41:22 i remembered um actually referencing it
0:41:24 as well in one of my other
0:41:26 because i think it's one of the only
0:41:27 doubt studies i'm not sure if you know
0:41:28 any other ones
0:41:29 that was done on muslims um like studies
0:41:32 on muslim doubts with the cross section
0:41:34 of uh community in the in the west and
0:41:36 um
0:41:37 to be fair to yusuf i forget his surname
0:41:39 whoever
0:41:41 done this study
0:41:44 um he he says that he defines religious
0:41:48 muslims
0:41:49 they say that muslims who have one only
0:41:51 one particular understanding of islam
0:41:54 so if you have multiple uh do you have
0:41:57 multiple people
0:41:59 religious dogmatism so someone who who
0:42:01 thinks that
0:42:02 what does that mean my are you dogmatic
0:42:05 am i dogmatic no no within islam so we
0:42:09 would say
0:42:10 for example like if he's praying a
0:42:12 certain way or
0:42:13 you know a sheriff unless we want to
0:42:17 impose there's only one opinion on these
0:42:19 maps right
0:42:21 it's difficult to to so this is this is
0:42:23 your gloss of it
0:42:25 right but this is not in his definition
0:42:27 and it's
0:42:28 how do we know what the people who are
0:42:31 taking the survey what they have in
0:42:32 their mind when they read
0:42:34 religious muslim do they have this kind
0:42:37 of nuanced understanding that yourself
0:42:38 have
0:42:39 as a knowledge of someone who is well
0:42:41 versed in these issues
0:42:42 or do they have the idea that the
0:42:44 religious muslim is the bearded the one
0:42:46 who
0:42:47 is going to say that no in islam
0:42:50 uh let's say or taking off the hijab is
0:42:54 wrong
0:42:54 okay no this is dogmatic you're done
0:42:58 you're insisting on not drinking and
0:43:00 you're insisting on not having a
0:43:02 homosexual
0:43:03 uh best friend you're being dogmatic
0:43:06 you're being this and that
0:43:07 so we have to understand like yeah these
0:43:09 are the i think these are legitimate
0:43:11 interrogations here
0:43:12 um that the end user or the the
0:43:15 participant might not know exactly it's
0:43:17 not very strictly defined
0:43:19 what do we mean by uh religious or
0:43:22 dogmatic muslims
0:43:23 there's still scope there's a big scope
0:43:25 of interpretation there
0:43:26 obviously that's going to be a
0:43:27 methodological kind of barrier to any
0:43:29 kind of
0:43:30 um survey that you're going to do and
0:43:31 then that's fair enough but
0:43:33 i think to go one step further and say
0:43:34 it's an agenda-based thing
0:43:38 could we not say there's hospital done
0:43:39 there that maybe i mean you did make it
0:43:41 a compelling case that they had certain
0:43:43 questions and then they changed those
0:43:44 questions
0:43:45 uh afterwards when i was reading the
0:43:46 article they had certain questions and
0:43:48 they changed it
0:43:49 but um what i fear is that there's
0:43:52 contrivance here and now you're
0:43:53 you've got your own agenda yeah you did
0:43:55 you see the point uh against
0:43:57 and you're trying to force the narrative
0:43:58 that they are you know the
0:44:01 the antagonist that we must repel rather
0:44:03 than okay this is an organization
0:44:05 which i think is more of a nuance of
0:44:07 organization which has different kind of
0:44:09 writers different kind of
0:44:10 um academics that are writing on
0:44:13 different issues
0:44:14 many of them are operating fully within
0:44:16 the paradigm
0:44:17 you know not saying anything wrong some
0:44:19 of them are saying things which are
0:44:22 wrong which can be corrected and other
0:44:24 things are being said which is
0:44:27 which is the like the russia the russia
0:44:29 and the
0:44:30 um the evolution and so on and so forth
0:44:33 and it's that third category yeah this
0:44:36 is how i would put it it's that third
0:44:37 category that we need to kind of
0:44:39 really focus on and the other two
0:44:41 categories i think we can have a more
0:44:44 calm approach to would you what do you
0:44:46 think of this
0:44:49 yeah i think that you know i
0:44:52 in the article and the review we make
0:44:54 the case
0:44:55 for why this is a more comprehensive
0:44:57 issue
0:44:58 and you know people can judge they can
0:45:01 read it
0:45:02 and they can judge for themselves it's a
0:45:03 lot to read but since allah in the
0:45:05 future will have more bite-sized
0:45:07 uh points but like i said at the
0:45:10 beginning this is not an
0:45:11 issue of one organization this is a more
0:45:14 systematic
0:45:15 problem that is affecting dawa uh in the
0:45:18 west and now it's even creeping
0:45:20 into the east so i mean i think that
0:45:24 we have to recognize what is going on
0:45:27 and i mean the way that you describe it
0:45:29 is like oh you have this organization
0:45:31 that they have good articles and then
0:45:32 they have also coffer
0:45:37 so it's a very casual way to put it
0:45:41 i think it's very eye-opening
0:45:45 yeah but the question that we have to
0:45:47 ask ourselves is why like how can you
0:45:48 trust
0:45:49 someone or an organization that has
0:45:52 hosted this kufrin
0:45:54 on their site for years yeah how can you
0:45:57 trust like
0:45:58 i think there should be a stronger vein
0:46:00 process especially and and also by the
0:46:02 way
0:46:02 you yourself masha allah recognize and
0:46:04 can make these distinctions
0:46:06 of this is uh this is this and this and
0:46:09 this
0:46:10 but the average reader who is they're
0:46:12 looking to jakeem to learn
0:46:14 about the dean that's my concern
0:46:17 i agree because i want to go to america
0:46:19 i'll be honest with you there were some
0:46:20 young people
0:46:21 and in canada as well which i visited i
0:46:24 don't know how many times in the last x
0:46:25 amount of years
0:46:26 but the the problem i find is with the
0:46:28 youth when the young people come to me
0:46:30 and say well
0:46:30 what what is our stance on on these or
0:46:33 gay marriages
0:46:34 i mean should we really be having a
0:46:36 discussion on that
0:46:37 i mean isn't that is that one of the
0:46:39 most
0:46:40 things in religion it's like saying to a
0:46:42 muslim what is your stance on
0:46:44 one god what do you believe in one for
0:46:46 sure
0:46:48 from the prophethood or prophet muhammad
0:46:50 that he's a final prophet
0:46:51 you know something like that is it
0:46:53 really made me think
0:46:55 that conversation i was having in north
0:46:56 america is very unlikely to have been
0:46:58 had in britain if that makes sense
0:47:02 and i do fear that the the religion is
0:47:05 going to
0:47:06 start being it's going to dilute it it's
0:47:08 going to become uh
0:47:10 it's going to go in the direction of
0:47:11 progressive islam it's going to be
0:47:13 capitulatory it's going to look weak
0:47:15 it's good that's what it looks like and
0:47:16 it looks weak
0:47:17 and then it opens the doors for
0:47:20 outsiders non-muslims say you're doing
0:47:22 you're doing nothing
0:47:27 that is my real concern with it but i do
0:47:30 think that these
0:47:31 um people these and these students of
0:47:33 knowledge and these academics
0:47:36 i do think that on our side in the sense
0:47:38 that they're trying to do the same work
0:47:39 as we are
0:47:40 yeah i do believe that they're trying to
0:47:41 do the same work and like for example um
0:47:43 jonathan brown's book on slavery
0:47:45 is very good i think it was his work on
0:47:47 slavery is very good and his
0:47:48 even his article on apostasy i didn't
0:47:50 see anything aberrational coffee there
0:47:52 at all i thought he was engaging with
0:47:54 the literature he mentioned salah
0:47:56 mentioned this person absolutely
0:47:57 mentioned that
0:47:58 it's clearly that he's operating within
0:48:00 the within the paradigm
0:48:01 you could argue whether he was saying
0:48:03 was accurate or not or whether it was
0:48:04 the correct opinion or not
0:48:05 but all of that i think is still
0:48:07 happening within the paradigm and
0:48:09 like for example your approach with um
0:48:11 with apostate uh
0:48:12 apostate the apostate um when he was who
0:48:16 was asking you about the hodu then you
0:48:17 gave him
0:48:18 straightforward answers like cutthroat
0:48:20 answers
0:48:21 um jonathan brown's on the other side of
0:48:23 the the spectrum
0:48:24 so he'll give you an answer which is uh
0:48:26 maybe
0:48:27 uh maybe it's possibly terry like giving
0:48:30 you one you want to hear
0:48:33 and and actually not being in fully in
0:48:36 line this process
0:48:37 two sides of the the the uh the spectrum
0:48:41 but is in there somewhere in the middle
0:48:42 where we can say we can give an answer
0:48:44 which is a little bit more nuanced than
0:48:46 the answer you give
0:48:47 like is cutthroat for example on the
0:48:49 issue of um
0:48:51 uh homosexual punishment like when he
0:48:53 asks you what's the punishment of
0:48:55 homosexual sex in islam i mean we know
0:48:57 this
0:48:58 among the four schools there is
0:49:02 see that there's no punishment at all
0:49:04 that's that's the that's the official
0:49:05 position and
0:49:06 i don't know there is a punishment oh
0:49:08 yeah sorry there's no death penalty
0:49:10 right as far as i know of the hanafi
0:49:13 school there's no
0:49:14 that's irrelevant you see that that is
0:49:16 there
0:49:17 like those nuances if we are studying uh
0:49:20 the tradition
0:49:21 uh we're studying our deen yeah um we
0:49:25 take note of this but does that if that
0:49:28 actually
0:49:28 functionally make a difference to the
0:49:30 mortad or
0:49:31 to the non-muslim audience or some of
0:49:33 these uh muslim youth who are confused
0:49:36 they find it very problematic to punish
0:49:39 this behavior if love is love it's just
0:49:42 two people consensually agreeing
0:49:44 why should they even be uh why should
0:49:46 that even be seen as immoral they don't
0:49:49 they're not even agreeing on the fact
0:49:50 that it's immoral
0:49:51 let alone that it's criminalized let
0:49:53 alone that it's being punished yeah
0:49:54 that's i agree i agree with that
0:49:56 sentiment
0:49:56 it's clearly um homosexual sex
0:49:59 penetrative sex is
0:50:00 uh is is the most one of the most
0:50:02 clearly immoral things or aberrational
0:50:04 or haram things in the quran forget
0:50:06 about the hadith
0:50:07 it's very clear but now the question of
0:50:10 the punishment
0:50:11 i mean the punishments that some of them
0:50:14 have nuanced discussion on them
0:50:15 and and the issue is when i when i speak
0:50:18 to for example
0:50:19 um people i wouldn't want to put my neck
0:50:21 on the
0:50:22 chopping board if you like and say okay
0:50:23 well this is the because 1 400 years to
0:50:26 be honest
0:50:27 let's be honest like you know the hanafi
0:50:28 school of thought has a completely
0:50:29 different opinion on
0:50:30 the homosexual for example the the
0:50:33 question of uh i wrote a small
0:50:35 treatise on riddha it's a small book
0:50:37 that i wrote was actually a dissertation
0:50:38 i'm not sure if you've come across it or
0:50:40 anything like that um
0:50:42 and what i found when i was doing my
0:50:43 research on it like
0:50:45 there are more nuances it's not just
0:50:47 okay the the punishment of the apostate
0:50:50 is death i wouldn't put it that way like
0:50:52 the reason why i wouldn't put it that
0:50:54 way
0:50:54 is because the prophet muhammed in in
0:50:59 when he was asked to um
0:51:02 when he was asked about the uh
0:51:06 uh i'm sorry when he was doing a merfolk
0:51:09 with him or
0:51:10 um discussions with him and he
0:51:12 stipulated in
0:51:13 in in this that are you if you have an
0:51:17 apostate
0:51:18 bring them back bring them back to our
0:51:21 land
0:51:22 so in other words they're not they're
0:51:23 not killed yeah um
0:51:25 that now i was reading even jose and he
0:51:27 said in my head as far as i'm aware this
0:51:29 is where he wrote
0:51:30 the references
0:51:33 he says first of all it's not
0:51:36 abrogated which means it's within the
0:51:38 state right
0:51:39 if it sees it within the muslim have
0:51:41 that state to not have a capital
0:51:43 punishment
0:51:44 for apostasy that does he say that or is
0:51:48 this
0:51:48 your yes
0:51:52 he said that because he uh because of
0:51:55 the
0:51:55 fact that um this uh
0:51:59 this agreement was done with uh
0:52:03 he did he did this agreement with the
0:52:06 the
0:52:06 with the disbelievers and it was a
0:52:08 condition that any mutant goes to
0:52:10 them he said there's only one exception
0:52:13 that you can't bring back a muslim woman
0:52:14 to them
0:52:16 he gave only one exception based on the
0:52:17 verses
0:52:20 but the point is is that is it out of
0:52:22 the scope of islam
0:52:23 is it against the hadith is against the
0:52:26 tradition
0:52:27 to say that in a muslim state so long as
0:52:30 there is a contractual agreement between
0:52:32 a muslim country and a non-muslim
0:52:33 country to do so
0:52:35 that uh the mortens or the apostates are
0:52:38 then
0:52:39 uh strategically relocated to
0:52:43 a non-muslim land based on agreement so
0:52:45 ibrahim would say you know it's this is
0:52:47 permissible based on the research i
0:52:49 spoke to somebody like proper
0:52:51 on this and they agreed with that so the
0:52:53 point is
0:52:54 since that is there in the tradition
0:52:55 right i would
0:52:57 what i would fear to do is to remove
0:52:59 that nuance
0:53:00 from the discussion because if i remove
0:53:02 that nuance from the discussion
0:53:04 sometimes when i speak to muslims who
0:53:07 have doubts
0:53:09 that nuance can make the difference
0:53:10 between them staying and leaving
0:53:12 the religion you know i mean if if they
0:53:15 knew about that nuance that could say
0:53:16 well
0:53:17 actually it's not a one-size-fits-all
0:53:18 policy etc
0:53:20 so that they they can see that there's
0:53:21 there's a degree of malleability in the
0:53:23 islamic conjunction
0:53:25 not only with the the homosexual
0:53:26 punishment as we said there is and you
0:53:28 mentioned the lesbian
0:53:29 thing which there is you're aware
0:53:30 there's no there's no pun there's no
0:53:32 there's no capital punishment for that
0:53:33 they say
0:53:35 some discretionary punishment but this
0:53:37 is also with apostasy
0:53:39 which we just discussed now um and
0:53:42 obviously things
0:53:43 simple things that people don't know
0:53:44 like people don't realize that we're
0:53:46 talking about islamic governance
0:53:48 and that we're talking about the fact
0:53:50 that if there was an islamic state
0:53:51 and even cutting the hands
0:53:54 if there's a state of war there's no
0:53:56 such thing as horrible things like that
0:53:58 which i'm sure yeah
0:53:59 i'm 100 sure you're aware of but it's
0:54:01 those little nuances that can
0:54:03 um i fear that if we don't introduce
0:54:07 those nuances and put those nuances it
0:54:08 just seems like the evidentiary bar is
0:54:10 way less
0:54:11 or that the um threshold is much less
0:54:14 than
0:54:16 than it actually is and the nuances are
0:54:18 not there and that is like you know it
0:54:19 kind of
0:54:20 confirms some of the biases that these
0:54:22 individuals have that's the only
0:54:24 fear i have and also the fact that these
0:54:26 musta dean whatever they'll compile
0:54:29 your little sound bites and make it
0:54:30 sound like this is this is what islam is
0:54:32 for you right you know
0:54:33 if you want a religion which uh xyz then
0:54:36 creates a mental image so
0:54:40 the approach where you're using a bit of
0:54:41 nuance and islamic
0:54:43 inquiry i think it's required i do
0:54:45 really i do really believe it's required
0:54:47 because
0:54:48 masha'allah me and you if you say to me
0:54:50 the weirdest
0:54:51 opinion or the opinion that goes against
0:54:52 the status quo or whatever
0:54:54 i it's not going to shake me it's not
0:54:55 going to shake you i know that for a
0:54:56 fact if i say to you you know it says
0:54:58 this it says that
0:54:59 xyz and there's this opinion that says
0:55:01 listen you're not it's not gonna it's
0:55:03 not gonna face
0:55:04 you but there are some youth out there
0:55:05 that one thing like that can actually
0:55:08 completely throw them off track now
0:55:11 jonathan brown is attractive to those
0:55:12 people
0:55:13 because he won't speak in the
0:55:14 straightforward language but then
0:55:17 those people are going to be sometimes i
0:55:19 fear jonathan brown or
0:55:21 almost will be attracted to that but
0:55:23 then they may fear that this person's
0:55:25 not being honest
0:55:26 right so then then they go to someone
0:55:28 like yourself
0:55:29 and it's like complete from going from
0:55:31 next there's somewhere like
0:55:33 where we can both okay we can employ and
0:55:35 we can all both learn from each other in
0:55:36 a sense like yeah
0:55:37 needs to learn from you like i'm not
0:55:39 you're keen but those
0:55:40 people don't approach that we're not
0:55:42 scared we're not scared we're here to
0:55:43 challenge like you said
0:55:45 sometimes there's more nuance so can we
0:55:48 say there's
0:55:48 something to be done by way of
0:55:51 approach nuancing the approach a little
0:55:53 bit more
0:55:55 so i think that nuance can sometimes be
0:55:59 used
0:56:00 as a shield uh blocking
0:56:03 the actual core moral problem that
0:56:06 people have
0:56:07 the reason why these or any aspect of
0:56:10 the sharia islam
0:56:12 that people have a problem with the
0:56:14 reason that they have a problem with it
0:56:16 is a deeper issue they are operating
0:56:19 their world view their understanding of
0:56:22 right and wrong
0:56:22 is based on a liberal secular
0:56:26 western hegemonic philosophy
0:56:29 that they don't put it in those terms
0:56:30 but that's the reality that's where
0:56:32 their doubts that's the source of their
0:56:35 doubts
0:56:36 yeah so if you want to address these
0:56:38 doubts it's not
0:56:39 like you can bring okay this nuance with
0:56:41 this masala this nuance with this
0:56:43 messella
0:56:44 and you can go day and night just
0:56:47 addressing these kinds of issues through
0:56:49 nuance and and but the problem is you're
0:56:52 not addressing the core
0:56:53 source you will not address the core
0:56:55 source so you're not providing a
0:56:57 comprehensive
0:56:58 solution and you mentioned yourself like
0:57:00 the person
0:57:01 like on this these nuances of uh on um
0:57:06 so you will mention you'll mention
0:57:10 others but the majority view is
0:57:13 what it is and then furthermore they
0:57:16 will read the hadith
0:57:18 that the head is based on where the
0:57:20 prophet sallallahu
0:57:21 alaihi salla makes it very clear whoever
0:57:23 changes his religion
0:57:24 so that hadith okay that's what they
0:57:27 will read and
0:57:28 the moral problem there is how could
0:57:31 the best of creation the final messenger
0:57:35 from allah
0:57:36 sallallahu alaihi salam make such a
0:57:39 statement
0:57:40 say such a thing that is so clearly
0:57:41 contrary to everything that i
0:57:44 feel is the truth everything that i feel
0:57:46 is moral
0:57:48 that is the core source yeah so that's
0:57:51 what i like about your approach i like
0:57:52 about your approach that you deal with
0:57:54 the roots of the issue is
0:57:55 in clear issues and it's islam issues
0:57:57 the fact that you do
0:57:58 actually believe that this man was a
0:58:01 prophet this is the
0:58:02 question do you believe that his what he
0:58:04 came with was the haqq from
0:58:06 the haleem and that's that's one thing
0:58:08 that
0:58:09 you know i think that you do really well
0:58:11 another thing i wanted to speak to you
0:58:12 about which i think
0:58:13 i picked up a lot from in terms of um
0:58:16 that debate you had with
0:58:17 rizvan well let me finish my point
0:58:20 before we move on to another point
0:58:21 yeah so by giving these nuances i agree
0:58:24 completely with you that we have to have
0:58:27 a nuanced discussion
0:58:28 and be nuanced about how we represent
0:58:30 our scholarly tradition
0:58:33 but we have to also uh not postpone
0:58:36 the problem let's not postpone the
0:58:38 discussion
0:58:39 the this fundamental issue is or even
0:58:42 with the issue of slavery for example
0:58:45 you can give all these kinds of nuances
0:58:48 about the history of slavery
0:58:50 and what is the treatment of slaves in
0:58:53 islam
0:58:54 but all the person who has a problem
0:58:56 with slavery needs to know
0:58:58 is that the prophet sallallahu alaihi
0:59:00 wasallam owned slaves
0:59:03 even if he owned them for one day even
0:59:05 if he owned them for one hour
0:59:08 that is a considered a major moral
0:59:10 failing
0:59:11 in according to the modern mind right so
0:59:14 you have to be able to address
0:59:15 that with directly you have to address
0:59:18 the issue of slavery directly so
0:59:20 i mean i from what i've seen what i like
0:59:22 about someone like to be fair
0:59:24 jonathan brown's approach is that he he
0:59:26 will tell you like what what is slavery
0:59:28 defined as and he'll
0:59:29 like in the beginning of his book he'll
0:59:30 tell you this is the definition of
0:59:32 slavery you have this guy i think you
0:59:34 mentioned this as well actually you
0:59:35 mentioned the same kind of thing
0:59:37 in the other way you you mentioned that
0:59:39 you know you've got
0:59:41 this kind of is this referred to as
0:59:42 slavery now as this kind of labor
0:59:44 referred to as prostitution referred to
0:59:46 our human trafficking is that slavery so
0:59:49 so
0:59:49 unpacking what the concepts mean right
0:59:52 in a sense
0:59:53 and that explanation that you gave uh
0:59:56 which actually funny enough
0:59:57 uh the apostate agreed with you on one
0:59:59 of the at the point where he agreed with
1:00:01 me said that
1:00:02 i think it was historically justified
1:00:04 even though in another video he said
1:00:06 it's not historically just i think farid
1:00:08 had a uh
1:00:09 a good video on this he says it's not
1:00:11 historically justified another video and
1:00:12 then he said it is
1:00:13 historically or something to that effect
1:00:15 um
1:00:17 that i i believe you me i swear it has
1:00:20 such an impact
1:00:21 because it rationalizes it for them like
1:00:24 when you were doing that
1:00:26 i just saw him kind of sink into his
1:00:28 chair thinking what the hell did i get
1:00:29 myself into
1:00:30 it's like a quicksand thinking this guy
1:00:32 i have no response for him
1:00:34 and to accept we have to agree i mean on
1:00:36 this point on slavery
1:00:37 he thought the only way i'm going to get
1:00:38 out of this is agreement you know
1:00:40 so so so it's it's that discussion there
1:00:43 that what do we mean by the terms
1:00:44 let's unpack this all slavery you know
1:00:47 this that the other
1:00:48 and also the fact i mean there's one
1:00:50 thing one new ones i think that you
1:00:52 might have
1:00:52 added to the discussion with ridwan is
1:00:55 that when you were saying that
1:00:56 um um if if this happened now right
1:01:01 ten zlam because i think it's very
1:01:02 important to differentiate between
1:01:04 tutsil and tanzito see obviously the
1:01:06 hokum accent the the the the um
1:01:09 the ruling on what is the ruling and
1:01:12 then how its implement is tanzini
1:01:15 one thing i would have put in terms of
1:01:17 nuance because i've had discussions with
1:01:19 many scholars about this question
1:01:21 uh the question being if there was an
1:01:23 islamic state
1:01:24 again today would they do uh
1:01:27 would they take basically slave war
1:01:30 slaves
1:01:30 and and that from genuinely seems like
1:01:33 there's two opinions
1:01:34 it genuinely seems like there's two
1:01:36 opinions on this one opinion is that yes
1:01:38 because of the
1:01:39 injunctions and the other one seems as
1:01:42 if it's not something that is out there
1:01:44 and that sharia came to uh slowly do
1:01:47 away with it
1:01:48 then it's not something you'd like to
1:01:50 introduce
1:01:51 but once again that nuance there could
1:01:53 make all the difference
1:01:54 to someone who's thinking okay well
1:01:57 islam only operates in one way
1:01:59 so i think that uh so long as it's
1:02:02 within the tradition and there's this
1:02:03 calamone and there's actually based on
1:02:06 us it's based on some kind of evidence
1:02:07 and scholars are talking about it
1:02:09 i mean my job is not to give you raja
1:02:12 the what this the
1:02:13 opinion the battle is the the job of the
1:02:16 muslim
1:02:17 the the person who is able to reach such
1:02:20 conclusions and now be his opinion
1:02:21 or her opinion but for me my job is just
1:02:24 to present
1:02:25 what the life is so long as within the
1:02:28 bounds of
1:02:29 sharia okay this is what the hanafi's
1:02:31 have said this is what the chefs have
1:02:32 said
1:02:33 and i have to have some awareness of
1:02:34 that and sometimes doing that
1:02:38 from my experience i genuinely feel like
1:02:40 it can save someone's email
1:02:41 i know it's a sad state of affairs and i
1:02:43 agree with you it's not tackling the
1:02:44 rule of the problem
1:02:45 but sometimes we need to deal with
1:02:47 something put some kind of bandage on
1:02:49 the bleeding moon quickly
1:02:51 before we do the surgical operation if
1:02:53 that makes sense because if we
1:02:55 if we just do it if we leave it to bleed
1:02:57 out it will literally bleed out
1:02:59 to the point where the person dies and
1:03:01 the the man is lost
1:03:03 so i just fear that i fear that a little
1:03:05 bit that if we're too cutthroat with
1:03:07 people and not
1:03:08 giving them those nuances which are
1:03:10 within the tradition
1:03:11 that they will um eventually leave the
1:03:14 dean
1:03:15 and obviously there's lots of athar and
1:03:18 um
1:03:23 speak to people uh on their level and
1:03:25 you would you like them
1:03:27 would you like them to leave the
1:03:28 religion and so being careful here
1:03:32 not to say something which could trigger
1:03:34 um
1:03:35 a theologically emotional response which
1:03:38 for for someone who's already on the
1:03:42 edge
1:03:42 which could mean that they would leave
1:03:43 the dean i i fear that so
1:03:46 even though i might believe that this is
1:03:48 the actual punishment for this this is
1:03:50 the actual punishment for that
1:03:51 it's not for me to kind of say okay this
1:03:53 is one thing i said
1:03:54 this is a spectrum of opinions xyz
1:03:58 that existed within a thousand 400 years
1:03:59 all of them have backing the backing of
1:04:01 the scholars
1:04:02 the classical scholars before liberalism
1:04:04 even existed before liberalism was even
1:04:06 a thing
1:04:06 this this was the conversations that
1:04:08 were being had so what happens
1:04:10 what happens on those issues where there
1:04:12 is no effila
1:04:13 and there is no noise in that case it's
1:04:15 mass so that's part of the dean isn't it
1:04:16 so if they're on the edge
1:04:18 okay so if they're on the edge and one
1:04:20 more word is going to throw them off the
1:04:22 edge
1:04:23 then what's going to happen if your
1:04:25 approach
1:04:26 is just going to the left going to the
1:04:29 nuance
1:04:30 then on those issues yeah now
1:04:33 i think it's like my approach is not
1:04:35 just that i think that what you said is
1:04:37 right i think you have to deal with the
1:04:38 the root of the issue so we always say
1:04:40 like deal with the rule
1:04:41 which is belief in god believe in the
1:04:43 prophet you know we call it the go rap
1:04:45 we have a
1:04:45 thing called um which is
1:04:49 you know god oneness revelation and the
1:04:51 prophets so this
1:04:52 this is the call the the some of those
1:04:54 if if someone doesn't believe in god or
1:04:56 the oneness of god or hasn't got yakin
1:04:58 in that
1:04:59 not to use the term i mean uh or the
1:05:02 revelation
1:05:03 or why is the quran from allah and the
1:05:05 prophets
1:05:07 if they don't have that as something
1:05:09 which is established
1:05:10 then it can then there's going to be
1:05:12 issues so we obviously deal with that
1:05:14 but when someone has a persisting
1:05:18 doubt that they just can't overcome
1:05:22 this i won't give them only one opinion
1:05:26 so you're are you talking about a
1:05:28 one-on-one
1:05:30 conversation because i agree in a
1:05:32 one-on-one conversation you have to be
1:05:34 very careful about how you speak what
1:05:37 you say
1:05:38 what are you presenting but we can't
1:05:41 take that one-on-one
1:05:42 context and mass produce it
1:05:45 because if we mass-produce it it's going
1:05:47 to create all these problems that you're
1:05:49 speaking of in terms of lack of
1:05:51 confidence
1:05:53 uh just being confused on very basic
1:05:56 issues within the dean
1:05:59 when we i i think that there needs to be
1:06:01 a systematic approach
1:06:04 and a systematic project that we are
1:06:07 presenting
1:06:08 on these kinds of issues that go to the
1:06:10 root
1:06:11 and there will be nuances in that as
1:06:13 well but it has to
1:06:14 keep in mind that the conversation that
1:06:16 you have on a one-on-one
1:06:18 individual basis you can't mass produce
1:06:20 it
1:06:21 right for example if i talk to you about
1:06:22 the issue of
1:06:24 um lgbt again in a one-on-one
1:06:27 conversation that might have with
1:06:29 someone this
1:06:30 brother maybe he is suffering from these
1:06:32 uh
1:06:33 lusts for other men and he has fallen
1:06:37 into the sin and i'm not going to go and
1:06:40 the first thing i say to him is that
1:06:42 okay there's a hat for this or there is
1:06:44 tazir or what what it may be
1:06:46 no i'll have a different approach where
1:06:48 i'm trying to understand his state
1:06:50 of iman and then work on the
1:06:52 fundamentals
1:06:53 and then have the kind of gradual uh
1:06:57 in that one-on-one context but i don't
1:06:59 take that
1:07:00 and this is what i teach from the mimba
1:07:02 this is what i teach
1:07:03 to muslim masses that they're not on the
1:07:05 brink of apostasy
1:07:07 they're not falling into major sins
1:07:10 they're just the average muslim
1:07:12 community
1:07:13 that needs to know about the higher
1:07:14 ideals and principles
1:07:16 of the dean so i teach will teach them
1:07:19 on that level
1:07:21 otherwise if i appeal to the lowest
1:07:23 common denominator based on my
1:07:24 one-on-one interactions
1:07:26 then i'm lowering the disc the discourse
1:07:28 the discussion i'm lowering the level of
1:07:30 knowledge
1:07:31 uh for the rest of the community this is
1:07:34 a huge harm that would be caused
1:07:36 i see that i see the point you're making
1:07:38 and i think there's a lot of truth in
1:07:39 that
1:07:40 i think you just have to pitch it in
1:07:42 such a way
1:07:44 as that and this is the i think the
1:07:46 difficulty uh that it doesn't compromise
1:07:48 the religion at all
1:07:49 so you're not forced to do tauria and
1:07:51 you're not forced to be
1:07:52 because that's the worst i think that's
1:07:54 the most ugly thing of it to be honest
1:07:56 when it seems like you're being
1:07:58 pressured and you've been weakened by
1:07:59 the enemy
1:08:00 i think we both agree on this i just
1:08:02 feel sick even thinking about
1:08:03 having to uh to change
1:08:06 yanny fundamentals because the enemy is
1:08:09 telling me
1:08:10 or the the dominant uh culture is
1:08:12 telling me that you know
1:08:13 this is something unacceptable to us so
1:08:15 i have to have to appease them or
1:08:17 make them happy that's out of the
1:08:18 question but at the same time the other
1:08:20 side of it which is
1:08:21 the cutthroat approach this is you know
1:08:23 this is one line is
1:08:24 the one-liners on issues which could
1:08:27 potentially for let's say even if it's
1:08:28 five percent or ten percent of the
1:08:29 muslim population
1:08:30 cause serious doubt i would say that's a
1:08:33 dangerous approach as well
1:08:34 from from you know a dow
1:08:37 uh and so just i i would definitely
1:08:40 prefer that approach i mean i would
1:08:41 definitely
1:08:41 agree with that over over that one all
1:08:44 day long
1:08:44 but still coming to the middle a little
1:08:47 bit and introducing a little bit more
1:08:48 nuance
1:08:49 uh not giving those sound bites because
1:08:51 they just want those soundbites
1:08:53 and to be honest you know having those
1:08:55 sound bites for someone who
1:08:57 um is not going to watch for example a
1:09:00 four and a half hour debate
1:09:03 those sound bites will be effective
1:09:04 enough to put someone off completely
1:09:07 you know of your doubt for example right
1:09:10 so those sound bites might be
1:09:11 and it's not what you mean because you
1:09:12 had a clarification aspect of it but
1:09:14 those little sound but i try to keep
1:09:16 every single sentence
1:09:17 water tight so there's no sound bite
1:09:19 that can be taken out there's basically
1:09:20 no one line you could just take out
1:09:22 yeah i think that when you have a recent
1:09:26 experience with this
1:09:27 [Laughter]
1:09:30 christians using certain sound fights
1:09:33 they take that they take not from you
1:09:34 but someone else
1:09:35 no they do it with me as well oh yes of
1:09:37 uh uh
1:09:39 yeah so i think that that's um that's
1:09:40 another issue as well
1:09:42 you know which we had to kind of talk
1:09:45 about because
1:09:47 especially nowadays we're dealing with
1:09:48 the enemy you know we're dealing with
1:09:50 people that are just looking for
1:09:52 any reason or any way
1:09:55 the unfortunate truth is pr is a very
1:09:57 strong thing right
1:09:58 marketing if you market someone as an
1:10:00 extremist or this this is like a
1:10:03 peculiar we do have to try and limit
1:10:05 that to some extent i remember reading
1:10:07 one
1:10:08 uh one bad of uh
1:10:13 which is i cannot remember the exact
1:10:16 phrasing but something like
1:10:19 something like this which is that you
1:10:21 don't want to kill the hawaii
1:10:23 who at that time were the relegates or i
1:10:25 don't know how they refer to
1:10:26 carriage those individuals not killing
1:10:30 them
1:10:30 uh in order to create ta'alf unity or
1:10:33 something like that
1:10:34 but also that the enemy as the hadith
1:10:37 says
1:10:38 does not um say that muhammad kills his
1:10:42 friends right so so
1:10:46 clearly concerned of the pr
1:10:50 aspect of of the deen because he knows
1:10:52 that people can be put off
1:10:54 the whole religion if it because imagery
1:10:56 is more powerful than arguments
1:10:58 like and i think you realize that when
1:10:59 you're doing your at one point you were
1:11:01 talking about something like um
1:11:03 like you're caricaturing the the west
1:11:05 saying that you know you've got this and
1:11:06 then the person dies
1:11:08 but i come in the in the elf so
1:11:11 i can't remember but i like the way you
1:11:13 put it because it's probably not even a
1:11:14 caricature it's probably
1:11:16 the case for about 30 or 40 percent of
1:11:18 the population that's what happens to uh
1:11:20 a lot of people in the world but when
1:11:22 you're doing that that image
1:11:23 sticks in they'll forget everything you
1:11:25 say
1:11:27 maybe all the arguments you make but
1:11:28 that image they'll go to sleep that
1:11:31 night
1:11:31 and think of themselves when they're 75
1:11:33 years old in an old folks home dying and
1:11:36 no one knows
1:11:37 as you said no one knows where they are
1:11:38 who they are that image is powerful
1:11:40 but the image also of the barbarian
1:11:42 muslim or orientalist type images stuff
1:11:44 like that that's also a very powerful
1:11:46 image
1:11:46 and it's sometimes it's like an ugly
1:11:48 smell you don't want to be near it
1:11:50 you know um and so having that connected
1:11:53 to islam is also problematic
1:11:56 so it's all about it's all about trying
1:11:57 our best i know it's difficult but
1:11:59 um that's the only thing i would
1:12:01 recommend because what i think
1:12:02 you should do is my recommendation is to
1:12:04 start doing formal debates
1:12:06 and you've had your fun with this
1:12:09 unworthy opponent
1:12:10 [Laughter]
1:12:12 this unworthy opponent this aspiring
1:12:14 partner
1:12:15 uh uh who doesn't have any
1:12:17 qualifications or training
1:12:18 but i i genuinely feel like because you
1:12:21 have harvard education
1:12:22 because you you know you put
1:12:24 postgraduate level you've done the
1:12:25 islamic training
1:12:27 you know the next step for you should be
1:12:29 formal debate have you considered that
1:12:31 yourself doing like formal debates
1:12:32 you know on the stage doing these kinds
1:12:34 of things yeah
1:12:36 uh definitely consider it the thing
1:12:37 about the us is that it's not the
1:12:40 um it's not really popular in the us
1:12:43 oh really uh we're not as manly uh
1:12:46 martial as uh in the uk
1:12:47 so uh
1:12:54 but yeah it's a cultural difference in
1:12:56 the us this is not like
1:12:57 it's not the only debate that's in the
1:12:59 public consciousness generally is like a
1:13:01 presidential debate
1:13:03 uh for presidential candidates but other
1:13:06 than that
1:13:06 it's kind of seen it's even frowned upon
1:13:09 like well why do you need to debate
1:13:10 let's just have a
1:13:11 friendly conversation and that's so
1:13:14 this kind of confrontational or
1:13:16 oppositional even just oppositional is
1:13:18 kind of frowned upon
1:13:20 in here so i haven't been able to
1:13:23 get many debates actually but i agree
1:13:25 with your advice and
1:13:26 i'm not trying to say that i have the my
1:13:30 approach can't be improved so i
1:13:32 appreciate your nasiha and i really
1:13:34 appreciate
1:13:34 um what you are uh advising to bring you
1:13:37 know i i
1:13:38 i'm only saying it because i i think
1:13:39 that you are one of the intellectuals of
1:13:41 the muslim world
1:13:42 that can cause the most if you like
1:13:45 intellectual damage to the opponents
1:13:47 and going forward um i think you know
1:13:50 what you're doing i i don't
1:13:51 you don't need me i'm only telling you
1:13:53 from my experience with
1:13:54 with more like youtube and social media
1:13:56 what people are going to do like on a
1:13:58 marketing level pr level that's what
1:13:59 they're gonna do they're gonna try and
1:14:00 just talk you as a character
1:14:02 you're gonna try and uh you really use
1:14:03 them and they're gonna try and do ad
1:14:05 hominems they're gonna lie about it
1:14:06 they'll do that anyway right yeah if
1:14:08 they're going to do that anyway then why
1:14:10 should i
1:14:11 uh you know yeah they'll do it anyway
1:14:14 just
1:14:15 give them less to chew on basically okay
1:14:18 that's a fair point but let me give you
1:14:19 a
1:14:19 uh small counter point just small
1:14:23 uh you know about how the kuffar came
1:14:26 to one of the sahaba and and were
1:14:29 mocking and ridiculing and saying look
1:14:31 at this religion
1:14:32 that even uh you are being taught how to
1:14:36 uh wash yourself yeah and they were
1:14:42 using this as ridicule and mockery
1:14:44 and what did samantha say to that he
1:14:47 said yes
1:14:48 you know he was very upfront yes our
1:14:51 dean does teach this
1:14:52 and this is how and he went and
1:14:53 proceeded to explain so
1:14:55 i think there is a value in certain
1:14:57 circumstances
1:14:58 because they will ch they want to
1:15:00 challenge you and they want to
1:15:02 they're waiting for you to start
1:15:04 waffling
1:15:06 yeah yeah yeah yeah and they want to put
1:15:08 you on the back foot because they want
1:15:09 you to continue to
1:15:11 not say it don't say it right so this is
1:15:14 a kind of a bullying tactic
1:15:16 and sometimes for the bully someone like
1:15:19 rid von
1:15:20 like this mortal you just have to say
1:15:22 yes yes that is true
1:15:24 whatever it is yeah when you did that it
1:15:25 completely to be honest and neutralized
1:15:27 it disarmed him like he could see his
1:15:29 the deflation in his now you finished
1:15:31 him there's no doubt about that like
1:15:33 you know he was out of his uh depth he
1:15:36 had no idea what he was doing
1:15:38 he was deflated he was psychologically
1:15:40 disturbed he had a panic attack
1:15:42 afterwards
1:15:42 he was sickened by his performance he
1:15:44 was disappointed to the core
1:15:46 he had no business being in the same
1:15:48 conversation as you in that capacity
1:15:50 only he should have said the only thing
1:15:52 you should have been honest about is
1:15:53 saying
1:15:53 you know i'm your student you know i'm
1:15:56 here to learn from you that's
1:15:57 how it should have been someone on that
1:15:59 level you should have come and said look
1:16:01 i'm here to learn if he came at that
1:16:03 humble level then maybe
1:16:04 he would have spared himself the uh
1:16:07 humiliation which i'm sure is
1:16:09 encroaching his
1:16:10 every thought every minute he's probably
1:16:12 eating food now and thinking about oh
1:16:14 damn you know this and that and
1:16:15 with his wife and driving in the street
1:16:17 and having a panic attack red light
1:16:21 i believe believe me you've that you've
1:16:22 really damaged his confidence i can see
1:16:24 it
1:16:25 you know and and i called him to islam
1:16:26 you know i know he's listening to this
1:16:28 and we both call you to islam i'm sure
1:16:31 come to the haka you've been all of your
1:16:34 your arguments your main arguments
1:16:35 have fallen straight on their face and
1:16:38 you've
1:16:39 had it all explained to you in very uh
1:16:42 academic terms which are not just
1:16:45 referencing the tradition itself but
1:16:47 things
1:16:47 outside so i i think with red one
1:16:49 there's no there's no discussion there
1:16:50 that
1:16:51 even his uh a monster a fair person from
1:16:54 his own
1:16:55 supporters will say this guy was
1:16:57 destroyed this guy
1:16:59 she has no business debating you know
1:17:01 and i i do think people are going to
1:17:02 lose interest in him now because when a
1:17:04 fighter gets knocked out
1:17:05 you know people don't want to see him
1:17:06 fight again even his own i see on
1:17:08 twitter
1:17:09 twitter and stuff like that you know
1:17:11 just leave it you know don't debate
1:17:12 these guys
1:17:13 you know i see his own fans kind of like
1:17:15 putting them off just stick to the kind
1:17:16 of content videos that you're doing
1:17:18 where you have no challenge immediate
1:17:20 challenge so
1:17:21 that way i i think you basically
1:17:23 finished him you've practically finished
1:17:26 but um yeah i don't know i went on this
1:17:29 long rant about
1:17:30 him but um despite this what i was going
1:17:32 to say now is
1:17:33 what i found really really interesting
1:17:35 in that discussion and i i learned from
1:17:36 my actually took notes
1:17:38 on as well and i like this is your
1:17:41 concentration on the family
1:17:43 about the stable family it's something
1:17:45 which we don't really do as much in the
1:17:47 tower here
1:17:48 and it's something which i thought was a
1:17:49 gaping hole in what we what we do and
1:17:51 say
1:17:53 in terms of the family now the argument
1:17:54 that you are making is that islam
1:17:56 basically prioritizes the health and
1:17:58 functionality of
1:18:00 the the nuclear family if you want to
1:18:01 call it that but the the
1:18:03 family unit and anything that is counter
1:18:06 to that
1:18:06 to that is something which islam rejects
1:18:09 so which is why a lot of the homosexual
1:18:11 acts that we talked about
1:18:12 this and that all of this that he has a
1:18:14 problem with
1:18:15 makes more sense when you see it through
1:18:17 that prison from that paradigm
1:18:18 the centrality of the family the
1:18:20 stability of the family
1:18:22 what research did you come across and
1:18:24 have you seen which
1:18:26 sticks out to you in this regard in
1:18:28 terms of the family unit and the
1:18:30 priority and happiness
1:18:31 this really key aspect of how having a
1:18:34 stable and united family
1:18:36 connects with human happiness
1:18:40 so there are different angles to
1:18:41 approach it you can take a historical
1:18:43 approach you can take an anthropological
1:18:45 approach you can take a psychological
1:18:47 approach
1:18:47 yes this is really interdisciplinary
1:18:50 because as
1:18:51 uh people are finding out within
1:18:53 academia non-muslims
1:18:55 is that the liberal idea of happiness
1:18:58 that we just need to maximize personal
1:19:00 autonomy
1:19:01 personal choice personal freedom as an
1:19:03 individual that this
1:19:05 is really the key to happiness and
1:19:06 utopia this is a lie
1:19:08 this is a complete lie and a myth and it
1:19:10 shows in every aspect
1:19:12 of their research so if you look at
1:19:14 historically
1:19:15 why is it the fact that so many
1:19:17 societies
1:19:18 historically had this kind of model
1:19:20 where
1:19:21 family the extended family or you know
1:19:24 the kinship unit
1:19:26 this is the uh this is the building
1:19:28 block
1:19:29 of their societies why is this the case
1:19:32 why when we look at
1:19:34 supposedly the evolutionary even the
1:19:36 hardcore atheist evolutionists
1:19:38 they're looking at why is this
1:19:41 evolutionarily adaptive
1:19:43 why is this uh being selected for in the
1:19:46 darwinian terms
1:19:47 these family structures that we find
1:19:50 even amongst
1:19:50 chimps that are supposedly quote our
1:19:52 closest common ancestor
1:19:54 uh they have this same kind of family
1:19:57 unit they have patriarchy they have
1:19:59 uh polygamy they have all of these kinds
1:20:01 of things why
1:20:02 if you are an evolutionist then you
1:20:04 believe that
1:20:05 this is selected because it is the best
1:20:08 uh in material terms
1:20:10 uh for your species so then the liberal
1:20:13 has a challenge here
1:20:15 that you want to accept this atheistic
1:20:17 evolution on the one hand but it is
1:20:19 speaking completely against
1:20:20 your political philosophy your moral
1:20:23 philosophy
1:20:24 that you're preaching on the other hand
1:20:26 this is a very easy conflict to exploit
1:20:29 and then when we look at the
1:20:30 psychological literature um
1:20:32 same story what is actually leading to
1:20:35 people's happiness
1:20:36 uh in in purely material terms because
1:20:39 they don't have this idea of
1:20:41 and they don't know the full depth of
1:20:43 the soul and what is actually going to
1:20:45 bring peace
1:20:46 to the soul in terms of love of allah
1:20:49 and radwana
1:20:50 but they recognize that there's a big
1:20:52 component
1:20:54 of happiness that comes through this
1:20:56 family unit
1:20:57 i mean not only family another big
1:20:59 component is community
1:21:01 uh having a in group is the technical
1:21:04 term that they use
1:21:06 the in-group that humans naturally they
1:21:08 want to associate with those who are
1:21:10 similar to them
1:21:12 unfortunately because of the loss of
1:21:15 faith
1:21:16 you have people that are aligning on the
1:21:19 basis of
1:21:20 uh culture or nationality
1:21:24 this kind of patriotism or they're
1:21:26 aligning with uh even football teams
1:21:29 you know they're they're forming groups
1:21:31 and they they are deriving
1:21:33 happiness and pleasure from being part
1:21:35 of a group
1:21:36 and men especially feel this that you
1:21:38 have the feeling of
1:21:40 uh being a part of a group and willing
1:21:42 to fight with your brothers for your
1:21:44 cause
1:21:45 being uh able to sacrifice for your
1:21:47 group
1:21:49 uh even your own self sacrificing your
1:21:51 own self for your group this is a major
1:21:52 source of
1:21:54 uh contentment and sense of purpose and
1:21:57 happiness that human beings
1:21:58 uh feel but it's contrary to individual
1:22:02 happiness like individual autonomy
1:22:04 that oh no me first forget about the
1:22:07 group me first forget about the
1:22:08 community me first forget about the
1:22:10 family
1:22:11 this is contrary to individualism but
1:22:13 the psychological studies are showing
1:22:15 that
1:22:16 uh do you have any mind like the ones
1:22:18 that
1:22:19 the top studies that you've read that
1:22:22 show this it's i mean it's there's so
1:22:25 many it's not just one just
1:22:26 google search in group versus out group
1:22:30 in super group um but the point being
1:22:33 that what do we have in islam we have
1:22:36 don't we we have this kind of sentiment
1:22:39 in
1:22:39 inscribed in our deen that yeah as
1:22:42 believers we have to have an ummah first
1:22:45 mentality that we care about each other
1:22:47 we're sacrificing for each other we're
1:22:49 working
1:22:49 that is a huge source of societal
1:22:53 stability
1:22:54 peace of mind psychological
1:22:57 uh happiness and all of these kinds of
1:23:00 benefits
1:23:01 from the concept of yet
1:23:04 we see this de-emphasized unfortunately
1:23:07 by some
1:23:07 modernists correct so many different uh
1:23:10 when we look at this literature
1:23:13 uh and i'm telling you it's not just one
1:23:15 or two papers there are many
1:23:17 uh and inshallah you know i'm bringing
1:23:19 some of this uh
1:23:20 onto my website and social media but the
1:23:23 point is that
1:23:24 we can appeal to their own sources okay
1:23:27 it's not contradictory for us okay
1:23:30 they're the ones that claim
1:23:31 they want science and they want research
1:23:35 okay you want science and research then
1:23:37 your own
1:23:38 books are saying this your own books we
1:23:41 know it's the truth we know it's
1:23:42 because it's coming from allah and his
1:23:44 messenger that's all we need to know
1:23:47 but you are not convinced you uh
1:23:51 murtadin or modernist or non-muslims
1:23:53 you're not convinced your own books
1:23:55 are uh showing you the truth of islam
1:23:59 i found quite interested according to
1:24:01 this discussion
1:24:03 um uh the subsequent discussion had with
1:24:06 uh
1:24:06 the the on um polygamy as well and you
1:24:11 referenced hypergamy and uh and you know
1:24:14 how
1:24:14 psychologically how some women maybe
1:24:17 would
1:24:18 would prefer to be in these kind of
1:24:20 relationships what kind of research did
1:24:22 you
1:24:22 [Laughter]
1:24:26 what kind of research did you come
1:24:28 across with that
1:24:30 okay my wife is gonna watch this please
1:24:32 [Laughter]
1:24:35 brother we need it for the tower
1:24:37 [Laughter]
1:24:41 no i the only textual research
1:24:45 [Laughter]
1:24:53 so yeah this is uh i mean i think
1:24:56 polygamy uh is also one of the
1:24:59 clear signs of the that this is from
1:25:02 allah this deen is from allah
1:25:05 that um you know there are when we have
1:25:08 politician as society my dad always used
1:25:11 to say that as well
1:25:14 how many wives did he have no no to be
1:25:17 honest
1:25:18 he actually was monogamous for the
1:25:19 majority of his life i think he was only
1:25:21 putting us once or something how can you
1:25:26 be polygamous once
1:25:29 oh no no like he had two eyes at one
1:25:30 time then after the whole okay
1:25:32 okay so then he was practicing it that's
1:25:34 what that was
1:25:35 wonderful yeah my own my grandfather had
1:25:39 two wives
1:25:40 at the same time so he had and he had 20
1:25:42 children
1:25:44 so that's how they were practicing it
1:25:47 in the previous generation but
1:25:50 uh yeah i mean this is something that uh
1:25:54 many women themselves like if you claim
1:25:57 if to be a feminist and you want to
1:25:59 maximize women's
1:26:00 choice then we can even concede that
1:26:03 point and say fine you want to maximize
1:26:05 choice then some women prefer
1:26:07 to be a second or third wife it's a
1:26:09 source of social mobility
1:26:11 you're coming from a poor background or
1:26:13 a less well-to-do background
1:26:14 and you want to move up your family
1:26:16 wants to move up
1:26:18 and be connected to stronger more
1:26:20 wealthy family than you do it
1:26:22 [Laughter]
1:26:28 yes now you're using all the
1:26:31 justifications right
1:26:33 [Laughter]
1:26:42 [Laughter]
1:26:45 people say that you know this is not
1:26:46 islam is not misogynistic it's pro-woman
1:26:50 every in every aspect obviously a
1:26:53 feminist would argue that you know if
1:26:54 it's happening for men that
1:26:56 should happen for women it should be
1:26:57 equal right no the women actually
1:26:59 wouldn't want to be
1:27:01 no no the woman actually looks down on a
1:27:05 man
1:27:05 who is going to be a essentially
1:27:08 cuckolded where she is
1:27:11 the matriarch and there are several men
1:27:14 that
1:27:15 are you know equal as in status
1:27:18 as her spouse this is actually
1:27:21 disgusting it's disgusting
1:27:22 uh is there any is there any
1:27:24 psychological evidence for that claim
1:27:26 yeah there are there's plenty of
1:27:28 psychological evidence for this
1:27:30 and evolutionary evidence and all of
1:27:32 these kinds of
1:27:33 non-muslim sources and science can be
1:27:35 brought to bear but
1:27:36 uh when we look throughout human history
1:27:40 the majority of societies were
1:27:42 polygamous
1:27:43 and that means that polygamist means
1:27:45 only maybe
1:27:46 three or to five percent of the men are
1:27:49 actually practicing
1:27:50 polygamy most men are monogamous even in
1:27:53 polygamous societies even
1:27:55 in the muslim community we know uh maybe
1:27:57 not your family but
1:27:58 for the most most families are
1:28:01 monogamous
1:28:02 but uh why is it the case why in every
1:28:05 society
1:28:07 separated by geographic region and time
1:28:10 are the majority
1:28:12 polygamists explain this explain they
1:28:15 should explain why this is the case i
1:28:16 mean i would imagine the majority of
1:28:18 politicians because
1:28:18 they can come count our arguments say
1:28:20 well hold on in india you have these
1:28:22 kind of
1:28:23 uh women that have multiple sexual
1:28:25 partners and
1:28:27 you can find counter evidence it's very
1:28:29 those kinds of societies are extremely
1:28:31 rare
1:28:32 they're extreme they exist i acknowledge
1:28:34 that uh there are some
1:28:36 societies that are matriarchal but
1:28:38 you'll notice that there are very small
1:28:40 groups and they're always on the brink
1:28:43 of extinction
1:28:44 they're always on the brink of
1:28:45 extinction and being dominated by other
1:28:47 groups
1:28:48 it's because it's it's very uh contrary
1:28:51 to the interests of your group and the
1:28:53 the existence of your group to have a
1:28:56 matriarchy
1:28:57 patriarchy is much more stable uh it's
1:29:00 much more safe
1:29:01 this is what allows a flourishing
1:29:03 civilization
1:29:04 and all of the most powerful
1:29:06 civilizations have been polygamous
1:29:08 in his in history and it's only uh
1:29:11 this modern western uh civilization that
1:29:15 is
1:29:15 monogamous but it's also suffering from
1:29:17 all kinds of diseases and problems and
1:29:19 it's on its way to collapse
1:29:21 but i mean this is many arguments that
1:29:23 you can bring to defend
1:29:25 the morality and the wisdom of polygamy
1:29:30 and another thing i found quite
1:29:32 interesting in the discussion was
1:29:34 your discourse on flogging
1:29:37 and you actually i i was not aware of
1:29:39 this book in defense of uh
1:29:41 vlogging that you that you mentioned
1:29:44 what's the guy called peter maslow is
1:29:45 his name
1:29:47 moscow yeah i was really not aware of it
1:29:51 what's the gist of the argument with uh
1:29:53 with vlogging obviously
1:29:55 just for the for the end user who might
1:29:57 not understand what we're talking about
1:29:59 we're talking about whipping
1:30:00 but also we're not talking about
1:30:01 something which is we're going to
1:30:03 implement it
1:30:06 these people we just talk about polygamy
1:30:09 so you know put them together we're not
1:30:11 talking about anything we're planning on
1:30:12 doing on a physical level these are just
1:30:14 abstract
1:30:15 classical discussions uh no no no we are
1:30:18 i mean maybe not you but i
1:30:20 it in the ideal sense in the ideal sense
1:30:22 if we were
1:30:23 had any authority which we don't yeah
1:30:27 yeah we would implement this of course i
1:30:30 mean governmental or sorry government
1:30:32 authority is different too
1:30:33 oh i thought you meant like going
1:30:35 outside right now
1:30:38 people think this people think that
1:30:39 people think that one of the
1:30:41 misconceptions for example you're
1:30:42 talking about i think that you're
1:30:44 actually gonna
1:30:45 you know implement that you've got to be
1:30:46 judged next uh executioner
1:30:48 so anyways just to caveat but um
1:30:52 that what what what is the argument
1:30:54 there in terms of the vlogging argument
1:30:55 that you were making i think you were
1:30:56 cut off a few times so i wanted to kind
1:30:58 of
1:30:58 give you a chance to expand that so
1:31:02 the author his book in defense of
1:31:04 vlogging he starts
1:31:05 with a very simple question is it really
1:31:09 uh barbaric to induce corporal
1:31:12 punishment
1:31:13 is it what what makes it uh barbaric or
1:31:16 what makes it immoral
1:31:19 and if we just reflect on it for a few
1:31:21 moments
1:31:22 uh we realize that there's not no real
1:31:24 rational reason
1:31:25 why uh actually inducing corporal
1:31:28 punishment
1:31:29 is more of a harm or is more
1:31:32 brutal or barbaric than caging someone
1:31:35 locking them up for a portion of their
1:31:38 lives
1:31:39 in fact if you gave people the choice
1:31:41 between
1:31:42 a momentary uh physical pain through
1:31:45 a whip versus being locked up for years
1:31:49 of their life
1:31:50 most people would actually just pray
1:31:52 from their families separated from their
1:31:53 children separated from
1:31:55 everything they have in their life yeah
1:31:56 their entire life is going to be
1:31:58 derailed and separating from their
1:32:00 family and all of this harm that comes
1:32:03 that seems much more brutal and tortuous
1:32:07 so that's it's a simple argument but
1:32:09 then he elaborates
1:32:11 and shows that corporal punishment was a
1:32:14 part of western culture
1:32:16 but in the 20th century uh i mean
1:32:19 the it was completely banned within the
1:32:22 20th century
1:32:23 but the beginnings of this opposition to
1:32:26 poor
1:32:26 punishment is from the enlightenment so
1:32:28 from the 19th century basically
1:32:30 philosophers
1:32:31 who on the basis of their own musings
1:32:34 and their own philosophy
1:32:36 atheistic philosophies they decided that
1:32:38 this is barbaric and we shouldn't
1:32:40 uh punish rather we should rehabilitate
1:32:42 or reform
1:32:43 but you can't rehabilitate and reform
1:32:45 someone without
1:32:47 holding them against their will and
1:32:49 caging them against their will so really
1:32:50 what is
1:32:51 the what is more uh or less barbaric or
1:32:55 brutal about that in fact it's more
1:32:56 brutal
1:32:58 so his he gives a historical analysis
1:33:00 and says that
1:33:01 we should actually bring back flogging
1:33:04 this should be an option
1:33:05 a penal punishment instead of
1:33:08 stuffing people into prisons uh
1:33:11 and cages and ruining their lives giving
1:33:14 this
1:33:15 them this label of being convicts rather
1:33:18 they taste the whip for the punishment
1:33:20 and actually it's more of a deterrent
1:33:22 when there's a physical
1:33:24 pain to something it is very effective
1:33:27 at deterring future crime or future
1:33:30 especially if it's done in the community
1:33:31 setting where people can see of course
1:33:33 of course and that's exactly what i
1:33:35 remember emil durkheim
1:33:37 was talking about his discourse on um
1:33:40 deterrence uh uh in punishment i think
1:33:43 this was one of the guiding
1:33:45 rationales he had in terms of that but
1:33:48 what
1:33:49 if you have to summarize the differences
1:33:50 i mean it seemed from the discussion
1:33:53 that you were saying that basically
1:33:54 islamic penis is law system the
1:33:56 evidentiary bar is very high
1:33:57 but the punishment is also very high as
1:33:59 well so both of those things are higher
1:34:01 at the same time whereas in in many
1:34:04 western states
1:34:05 the evidentiary bar is much lower so an
1:34:07 accusation can
1:34:08 get you in serious trouble even just a
1:34:09 mere accusation
1:34:11 and the punishment is lower than the
1:34:13 islamic punishment in many cases but
1:34:15 still quite high comparative to where
1:34:17 the evidential bar is um
1:34:20 this being one thing that i thought
1:34:22 about as a general
1:34:23 difference between like maybe a liberal
1:34:27 government punitive system what other
1:34:30 main differences are there in terms of
1:34:32 uh people who want to understand and why
1:34:34 do those differences exist i mean
1:34:36 why is it that these punishments which
1:34:38 now seem like a caricature or seem like
1:34:40 an
1:34:40 orientalist um trope
1:34:44 why are those things um rejected so
1:34:47 vehemently by the liberal mind and how
1:34:49 can we bring people that
1:34:51 are secularists and liberal a bit closer
1:34:52 to understanding
1:34:54 uh the rationale behind the punishments
1:34:56 generally speaking
1:34:58 well the liberal mind has a problem with
1:35:00 all punishment
1:35:02 because the liberal mind is utilitarian
1:35:05 utilitarian meaning
1:35:06 utilitarianism meaning they want to
1:35:08 maximize
1:35:10 overall pleasure and for the most number
1:35:12 of people and reduced
1:35:14 the greatest good for the greatest
1:35:16 number so punishment
1:35:18 inherently is counter utilitarian
1:35:21 punishment is counter to the logic
1:35:23 why because the crime has been committed
1:35:25 the harm has been committed
1:35:27 if you punish the person you're going to
1:35:29 cause more harm
1:35:30 you're going to add to the total sum of
1:35:33 harm because the crime
1:35:35 is not going to be resolved like the
1:35:37 harm that was caused is not going to go
1:35:39 away
1:35:39 just because you punished a person so is
1:35:42 there a way to
1:35:44 rehabilitate so that you're not causing
1:35:48 harm you're not increasing the level of
1:35:50 pain in society
1:35:52 but you get the benefit of deterrence or
1:35:55 reducing crime the problem is that this
1:35:57 is fundamentally incoherent
1:36:00 for what i said the reason i mentioned
1:36:02 before is that you're putting someone
1:36:03 against their will
1:36:04 into a cage and derailing their entire
1:36:08 life
1:36:08 that is a serious uh harm that's a
1:36:11 serious pain that's caused
1:36:13 and there i think there's a place for uh
1:36:17 imprisonment and that's found in the
1:36:18 sharia and sometimes for tajir
1:36:20 punishments the audi might say okay you
1:36:22 have to be
1:36:22 imprisoned nothing wrong with that but
1:36:24 the point is against
1:36:26 contrary to the liberal contrary to the
1:36:28 utilitarian
1:36:29 there is still a great amount of harm
1:36:32 caused and in fact
1:36:33 the punishment from the whip
1:36:36 is going to be less severe and more
1:36:39 effective
1:36:40 it's going to be less uh damaging to the
1:36:42 individual and more effective in
1:36:44 deterring their misbehavior than just
1:36:47 pure
1:36:47 uh prison punishment
1:36:51 but this is a kind of argument that the
1:36:52 liberal enlightenment thinker could not
1:36:54 anticipate
1:36:55 okay because he is using his uh logic
1:36:59 or what he thinks is his logic and he's
1:37:01 think reflecting on this and coming up
1:37:03 with his philosophy
1:37:05 but when the actual data is compiled
1:37:08 using millions of data points and the
1:37:11 reality is seen we find that
1:37:13 the wisdom of islam shines through the
1:37:16 wisdom
1:37:16 of the sharia shines very clearly
1:37:20 so where is that from did the prophet
1:37:22 sallallahu alaihi if
1:37:24 he was a false prophet as they claim and
1:37:26 he is just
1:37:27 making this religion up how did he know
1:37:30 how did he know that this is a much more
1:37:32 effective punishment
1:37:34 than mass imprisonment or rehabilitation
1:37:37 or all this
1:37:38 enlightenment nonsense how did he know
1:37:40 that no he didn't
1:37:41 know it it was revealed from the creator
1:37:44 of human beings who
1:37:45 who has all knowledge and knows what is
1:37:47 going to be more effective
1:37:48 what is going to be more beneficial what
1:37:50 is going to be so this is uh
1:37:52 clear signs in the even the the thing
1:37:54 that they are attacking us for
1:37:56 hadood and punishment even in those
1:37:58 things the clear
1:37:59 evidence and sign of the superiority of
1:38:01 islam is found
1:38:05 it's been a pleasure having you on this
1:38:06 podcast before we end i just wanted to
1:38:08 ask you
1:38:09 uh to inform some of the listeners about
1:38:12 some of the
1:38:13 um courses that you do some of the um
1:38:16 blogs that you have or some of the
1:38:17 articles that you've posted where can we
1:38:19 find these things and you've got a
1:38:21 youtube channel as well
1:38:22 what's that called and how can someone
1:38:24 access more of your
1:38:25 material yes they can um just search my
1:38:29 last name very difficult
1:38:34 spelling is very difficult but uh they
1:38:37 can look at muslimskeptic.com spelled
1:38:40 with a k
1:38:40 the american way muslimskeptic.com i
1:38:43 also have an institute where i teach
1:38:45 a lot of material on these subjects
1:38:49 org institute it comes from a lesnar
1:38:53 island
1:38:54 are we not on the truth which is the
1:38:55 same one of um
1:38:58 so we want to imbibe that kind of
1:39:00 attitude of are we not on the truth
1:39:03 this is we are on the hub and we have to
1:39:05 be confident we speak with confidence
1:39:08 and we show when we invite the world to
1:39:11 islam for their own benefit and for the
1:39:14 benefit of all of humanity
1:39:15 so a lesnar institute muslimskeptic.com
1:39:18 and then the youtube channel is muslim
1:39:20 skeptic the muslim skeptic
1:39:23 it's on youtube well
1:39:26 it's been a pleasure having you on and
1:39:28 i'm sure many of us um
1:39:30 have benefited all of us have benefited
1:39:32 including me
1:39:33 and uh if you're gonna be probably
1:39:34 called to the show
1:39:36 again for the time being the brothers
1:39:39 and sisters
1:39:40 can go to the links and to the websites
1:39:43 that he's provided
1:40:00 you