Jordan Peterson: "Mohammed was a Warlord" (2021-11-05) ​

0:00:00 [Music]
0:00:07 how are you guys doing
0:00:09 this is insha allah the first of a
0:00:11 series of correction videos which we'll
0:00:14 be putting forward insha'allah about dr
0:00:16 jordan peterson's content especially in
0:00:18 relation to islam now for those who know
0:00:20 we were meant to be having me and dr
0:00:22 jordan peterson a discussion
0:00:24 and this discussion was meant to happen
0:00:26 actually three times and it was
0:00:27 cancelled unfortunately that many times
0:00:29 in a span of six months
0:00:32 now
0:00:33 for whatever reason in fact the third
0:00:34 reason was or the third time he gave me
0:00:36 the reason that
0:00:37 it was because he had other guests and
0:00:38 other topics that he wanted to kind of
0:00:41 speak about but no problem i know that
0:00:42 dr jordan peterson may be watching this
0:00:43 now since he we've had such
0:00:45 communication for
0:00:46 with his team and with himself for over
0:00:49 a long span of time so this is the first
0:00:52 and probably one of the most important
0:00:53 videos about some of the wording that dr
0:00:56 jordan peterson has decided to use
0:00:59 about the prophet
0:01:00 muhammad in
0:01:03 his public output this is probably the
0:01:04 most developed speech he has on the
0:01:06 topic so let's see what he has to say
0:01:09 and come back and commentate on it if
0:01:11 you look at the figure of christ and i
0:01:14 don't care if you're religious or not
0:01:15 and i don't even care if christ existed
0:01:17 or not and i certainly don't care at the
0:01:19 moment about
0:01:21 claims to divinity or the lack thereof
0:01:23 i'm just speaking as let's say i'm
0:01:25 speaking as a secular intellectual
0:01:27 i mean as a figure
0:01:29 he's a figure of peace i don't think
0:01:32 that that's
0:01:33 disputable
0:01:34 i mean he certainly he wasn't a warlord
0:01:37 that's that's one thing that's for
0:01:39 certain he never led armies
0:01:41 you know whereas that's not the case
0:01:43 with muhammad at all muhammad was
0:01:45 clearly and indisputably a warlord
0:01:48 and so it isn't obvious to me what to
0:01:51 make of that
0:01:52 except that it's bloody complicated well
0:01:55 i think the first thing we have to do is
0:01:56 define what a warlord is now this is a
0:01:59 definition from collins
0:02:01 if you describe a leader of a country or
0:02:03 an organization as a warlord collins
0:02:06 tells us you are critical of them
0:02:08 because they have achieved power by
0:02:10 behaving in an aggressive and violent
0:02:12 way
0:02:14 kimberly martin in
0:02:17 a
0:02:17 piece that she wrote called warlordism
0:02:19 in comparative perspective this is in
0:02:21 political science literature she
0:02:23 actually defines warlord in four
0:02:25 different ways
0:02:26 she says number one that they are they
0:02:28 trained army uh armed men to take
0:02:31 advantage of the disintegration of a
0:02:33 central authority to seize control over
0:02:35 relatively small slices of territory
0:02:37 number two she says that their actions
0:02:39 are based on self-interest not ideology
0:02:42 number three their authority is based on
0:02:44 charisma and patronage
0:02:46 ties to their followers and number four
0:02:49 this personalistic rule leads to the
0:02:51 fragmentation of political and economic
0:02:53 arrangements across the country
0:02:56 so these are if we look at this now
0:02:57 we've got one dictionary definition
0:02:59 obviously you can look at other
0:03:00 dictionaries but we have one if you want
0:03:02 to call it that terminological
0:03:03 definition from the literature from the
0:03:05 political science
0:03:07 literature now jordan peterson is famous
0:03:09 for saying you have to be precise in
0:03:11 speech i want to say to jordan peterson
0:03:14 that unfortunately according to these
0:03:16 two definitions using the term warlord
0:03:20 is not precise because in fact
0:03:23 the prophet would be disqualified from
0:03:25 being a warlord as per those definitions
0:03:28 why so because the prophet muhammad
0:03:31 how did he achieve power
0:03:33 now we have to look at obviously you
0:03:34 have the meccan period and the medinan
0:03:36 period this is the
0:03:37 kind of categorization the biographical
0:03:40 categorization of the prophet's life you
0:03:42 had two major or his premiership as a
0:03:44 prophet
0:03:45 his time as a prophet he had the meccan
0:03:47 period 13 years and then 10 years in the
0:03:49 medina period
0:03:50 when the prophet was migrating or when
0:03:53 he was being boycotted and persecuted
0:03:55 and this we know in the seerah in the
0:03:57 biography of the prophet
0:03:58 was he was being persecuted his friends
0:04:00 and followers were being persecuted in
0:04:02 in mecca for 13 years
0:04:05 there was then a transition period where
0:04:07 the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
0:04:09 peace and blessings be upon him
0:04:11 try to religiously incentivize groups
0:04:15 and tribes outside of mecca in order to
0:04:17 move away and to move his followers away
0:04:19 from such boycott and persecution that
0:04:22 they were facing for a very long span of
0:04:24 time so he went to taif which is
0:04:27 a place outside of mecca and he was he
0:04:30 was he was rejected fiercely
0:04:33 i mean this is the thing about the
0:04:34 prophet muhammad you have to humanize
0:04:36 him because he was a man
0:04:40 who was an orphan okay think about this
0:04:42 for a second he was a man who was an
0:04:43 orphan he was a man who buried all of
0:04:46 his children except for one
0:04:48 he was a man
0:04:49 who
0:04:50 who his wife died khadija
0:04:52 who
0:04:53 his uncle died
0:04:55 talib who was one of the most
0:04:57 protective and actually the central
0:04:59 protective figure in his life and this
0:05:02 was in the meccan period and he wasn't
0:05:03 even a muslim by the way and when that
0:05:05 protection went away he had to then seek
0:05:08 it from other places so he went to
0:05:10 tariff
0:05:11 and taif was
0:05:13 a neighboring city
0:05:15 and they rejected him fiercely and if
0:05:17 you look at the the reports of that they
0:05:19 threw stones at him they taunted him he
0:05:22 was bleeding
0:05:24 so much so that his sandals were filled
0:05:26 with blood
0:05:28 this is the person you're talking about
0:05:29 as being a warlord and then after that
0:05:32 when he was rejected from that
0:05:33 particular city he went to
0:05:35 another place which was then called
0:05:37 yathrib
0:05:38 which would then be called medina where
0:05:40 two tribes or clans called
0:05:45 now these two tribes they accepted the
0:05:47 message of islam
0:05:49 and then they decided to put the prophet
0:05:51 as the leader of the polity of yathrib
0:05:54 so he was made into the leader of the
0:05:56 polity of yathrib
0:05:58 not through aggression or violence but
0:06:00 through popular support and this
0:06:02 disqualifies him from being
0:06:04 according to the dictionary definition
0:06:05 that we've just seen and in fact
0:06:07 according to the terminological
0:06:08 definition that we've also just seen as
0:06:10 well so this is in fact jordan peterson
0:06:13 and this is very important for you
0:06:14 because it's one of your rules in your
0:06:15 book
0:06:16 this is imprecise speech
0:06:19 it is imprecise imprecise speech in
0:06:22 accurate speech
0:06:23 and what is really
0:06:25 incumbent upon you i think from an
0:06:27 intellectual perspective
0:06:28 is for you to make a formal retraction
0:06:31 about this to say actually i used in
0:06:33 precise speech because i used one aspect
0:06:37 of this man's life inaccurately to
0:06:40 typify his whole character
0:06:43 and by the way
0:06:44 warlords and i've looked at a lot of
0:06:46 your videos because remember we were
0:06:47 meant to be speaking to each other for a
0:06:48 span of six months and i've seen the
0:06:50 majority of your videos i've seen the
0:06:51 majority i've read the majority of what
0:06:54 you've have you've written even even
0:06:56 peer-reviewed stuff by the way the word
0:06:58 warlord interestingly you have not used
0:06:59 it with any to my knowledge any other
0:07:02 person except for the prophet muhammad
0:07:04 so if it was about leading armies then
0:07:06 why not use that with harry truman who
0:07:08 detonated bombs
0:07:09 uh on on japan hiroshima and nagasaki
0:07:13 why not use it with winston churchill
0:07:15 who led campaigns in dresden and hamburg
0:07:18 in world war ii
0:07:20 okay and which which was targeting
0:07:22 civilians the prophet muhammad
0:07:24 unequivocally
0:07:26 denied the targeting of civilians so why
0:07:29 only use it
0:07:31 with the prophet muhammad why have you
0:07:33 never used it on your public output on
0:07:35 your books
0:07:36 with any other figure except for the
0:07:38 prophet muhammad
0:07:40 what kind of
0:07:41 exceptionalism is this
0:07:43 what kind of
0:07:45 fetishization is this what kind of
0:07:47 exoticism is this
0:07:50 what kind of western gays is this
0:07:54 orientalizing the narrative is this
0:07:57 you gotta think about this because if it
0:07:59 was about leading armies
0:08:01 then all of these other figures also led
0:08:04 armies
0:08:05 more so the biblical figures joshua
0:08:08 moses they led armies but when you
0:08:10 mentioned their name you don't
0:08:12 automatically it doesn't spew off your
0:08:14 tongue the term warlord so why is it the
0:08:17 case
0:08:18 that you've made this exception for the
0:08:21 prophet muhammad
0:08:23 you are a clinical psychologist
0:08:26 you're a clinical psychologist jordan
0:08:28 peterson and you also profess
0:08:30 self-professed ignorance on the religion
0:08:32 of islam
0:08:33 the fact that you've used the term
0:08:35 warlord
0:08:37 to define the prophet muhammad as an
0:08:39 adjective as a primary adjective when it
0:08:41 comes to the prophet muhammad is almost
0:08:44 equivalent to you with a limited data
0:08:46 set of information as a clinical
0:08:48 psychologist labeling a client or a
0:08:51 patient of yours
0:08:53 that is the equivalent now what would
0:08:55 happen if you did that in practice you
0:08:57 would be shunned
0:08:58 you would be not except how can you how
0:09:00 can you label someone after or only
0:09:04 gathering very limited information about
0:09:06 them so is this a cognitive bias that
0:09:09 exists within you
0:09:10 and you have to ask yourself this
0:09:11 question because it's some kind of a
0:09:13 projection or a scapegoating of the
0:09:16 prophet muhammad and islam
0:09:18 or is it because you're trying to
0:09:19 energize your base
0:09:22 which is an alt-right base or is it
0:09:24 because you're trying to perpetuate a
0:09:26 clash of civilization's narrative or is
0:09:29 it because of genuine ignorance in
0:09:31 either or any of these situations what
0:09:33 is once again incumbent upon you jordan
0:09:35 peters and i say this
0:09:37 through or out of genuinity
0:09:40 honestly and authenticity
0:09:42 i think what is incumbent upon you and i
0:09:44 know you're watching this i know you're
0:09:46 listening to this
0:09:48 is that you make an official retraction
0:09:50 of this statement
0:09:53 otherwise you're going to have so many
0:09:55 variables which we've just mentioned
0:09:57 that you will not be able to explain
0:09:59 that you've used this term with the
0:10:01 prophet and you've not used it with any
0:10:03 other
0:10:04 political leader
0:10:06 this is
0:10:07 unjustifiable to say the least you've
0:10:10 not used it even with biblical prophets
0:10:13 which led armies so once again it's
0:10:15 unjustifiable
0:10:17 now let's move on to the second part of
0:10:18 this which is your comparison your false
0:10:20 comparison with all jew respect
0:10:23 your false comparison of the prophet
0:10:25 muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam and
0:10:28 jesus christ
0:10:29 now the first thing is you said that
0:10:31 jesus was a figure of peace now we agree
0:10:33 with that we love jesus christ as
0:10:35 muslims
0:10:36 because we must believe that jesus
0:10:38 christ was a prophet a messenger and the
0:10:40 messiah we must believe in all of that
0:10:43 however
0:10:45 the question of him being a figure of
0:10:47 peace really depends upon your
0:10:49 interpretation
0:10:50 and if one was going to have a segmented
0:10:54 decontextualized and uncharitable
0:10:57 reading of jesus christ
0:11:00 in the christian tradition okay then one
0:11:03 could come to the conclusion that he was
0:11:04 not a figure of peace i'll tell you how
0:11:07 point number one
0:11:08 jesus christ as christologically or
0:11:11 understood
0:11:12 christologically in this in the sense
0:11:14 that protestants and catholics
0:11:16 understand him to be
0:11:17 is inseparable from the rest of the
0:11:19 trinity
0:11:20 as such all of those massacres that you
0:11:22 see in the old testament
0:11:24 of the canaanites and the amalekites and
0:11:26 so on
0:11:27 are or would be commanded by jesus
0:11:30 christ according to this christiological
0:11:32 understanding now let me give you one
0:11:34 example a very famous verse i'll read it
0:11:36 word for word so once again i'm not
0:11:37 misquoting anything
0:11:39 now first time it was 15 3 okay
0:11:42 very famous uh commandment in the old
0:11:44 testament
0:11:46 now go attack the amalekites
0:11:48 and totally destroy all that belongs to
0:11:50 them do not spare them put to death men
0:11:53 and women children and infants cattle
0:11:56 and sheep camels and donkeys
0:11:59 i would love for anybody to be able to
0:12:02 find a single hadith or a single verse
0:12:05 of the quran
0:12:06 which states
0:12:07 these categories of people to be killed
0:12:09 in fact the opposite is there
0:12:11 the opposite is in the hadith you are
0:12:13 not allowed to kill children you are not
0:12:14 allowed to kill non-combatant
0:12:16 disbelievers as the prophet muhammad
0:12:22 whoever kills a non-combatant not
0:12:24 disbeliever he will not smell the
0:12:26 fragrance of heaven
0:12:27 this is so these categories of people
0:12:30 it's there in the old testament and
0:12:32 according to the christological
0:12:33 understanding jesus is not to be
0:12:36 separated from the rest of the trinity
0:12:38 so that's the first thing you must say
0:12:39 that's the old testament and this is one
0:12:40 of many verses i can pull out you know
0:12:43 you can go on google and see how many
0:12:45 verses there are like this
0:12:47 of genocide and massacring
0:12:50 that's the first thing the second thing
0:12:51 is well look at jesus himself once again
0:12:53 we're being uncharitable here if one is
0:12:55 being uncharitable and decontextual one
0:12:58 may pull out something from john chapter
0:12:59 2 verse 15
0:13:01 where it states so he made a whip out of
0:13:03 courts and drove them from the temple
0:13:05 courts both sheep and cattle he
0:13:08 scattered the coins of of the money uh
0:13:11 changes and overturned their tables this
0:13:13 is violent behavior someone can say
0:13:16 a skeptic can say this look at him he's
0:13:18 whipping people in the temple or he's
0:13:20 turning the table jesus is being very
0:13:22 violent
0:13:23 according to the new testament
0:13:25 and this is in his own life
0:13:27 so once again is this a figure of peace
0:13:29 once again if we had an uncharitable
0:13:32 decontextualized segmented understanding
0:13:34 one can say this is not a figure of
0:13:35 peace actually because this is qualifies
0:13:37 him of being a figure what doesn't
0:13:40 what it what are the limits to this term
0:13:42 figure of peace do you have to be a
0:13:43 pacifist well does one have to be a
0:13:45 pacifist to be a figure of peace what if
0:13:47 someone engages more does that
0:13:48 disqualify them for being a figure of
0:13:50 peace that's another thing third thing
0:13:51 is book of revelation now in the
0:13:53 eschaton
0:13:55 eschatologically when jesus christ comes
0:13:57 back
0:13:58 he will
0:13:59 he will let's see what he does coming
0:14:02 out of his mouth is a sharp sword with
0:14:04 which to strike down the nations he will
0:14:06 rule them with an i inceptor
0:14:09 he treads
0:14:10 the wine press of the fury of the wrath
0:14:13 of god almighty
0:14:15 so he's going to come back and be
0:14:16 violent now
0:14:17 these these are things you may say well
0:14:19 i don't these are just interpretations
0:14:20 of the bible i i know that you have a
0:14:22 spiritual kind of metaphorizing approach
0:14:25 to the biblical text i'm very aware of
0:14:27 that and you may say that that's not the
0:14:28 way the historical jesus which
0:14:31 i look at or that how i interpret jesus
0:14:33 christ but then i have to say to you
0:14:34 john prism
0:14:36 with all due respect your interpretation
0:14:38 of jesus christ
0:14:40 is irrelevant in the grand scheme of the
0:14:42 christological understanding in for 2000
0:14:45 years of history
0:14:46 church fathers up until present-day
0:14:48 people
0:14:48 um scholars of christianity interpret
0:14:51 these things as literal okay
0:14:53 scholars of christianity almost
0:14:57 as a consensus a matter of consensus
0:14:59 agree
0:15:00 that jesus is inseparable from the
0:15:02 trinity so he would be implicated in uh
0:15:05 telling people to to to genocide people
0:15:07 in the village
0:15:09 people uh christians from the church
0:15:11 fathers until this present day believe
0:15:14 that jesus is going to have a second
0:15:15 coming and it will be a physically
0:15:17 violent second coming and if you want
0:15:19 resources or references of this they are
0:15:22 very easy to come by so once again this
0:15:24 fake dualism with all due respect all
0:15:27 due respect this didactic representation
0:15:30 this um
0:15:31 dichotomy that you've created figure of
0:15:33 peace versus warlord
0:15:35 it's like a deck of cards if you just
0:15:37 pull one card out falls over it's a
0:15:40 false comparison and it relies upon
0:15:44 uncharitable cherry-picked examples of
0:15:47 the text and this requires a retraction
0:15:50 as well in order for with all due
0:15:52 respect one's
0:15:54 intellectual integrity to be maintained
0:15:56 i think at least you should say i
0:15:58 suspend judgment until i've done more
0:16:00 investigation this is the second point
0:16:03 the third point i must say is and this
0:16:05 is the last point i will be making why
0:16:08 compare
0:16:09 what muslims consider as a prophet with
0:16:12 what christians consider as a god
0:16:15 let me say that one more time muslims
0:16:17 believe that prophet muhammad sallallahu
0:16:18 alaihi wasallam is the final prophet
0:16:21 they believe that he is the final
0:16:22 prophet of a long list of prophets
0:16:24 abraham moses jesus yes as well jesus
0:16:27 yes the messiah and the prophet muhammad
0:16:30 we believe that he is um
0:16:33 he was sent for all of humanity as the
0:16:35 quran states we have not sent you except
0:16:37 for all of humanity
0:16:38 but christians believe on the other hand
0:16:40 and this by christians i mean here the
0:16:43 vast majority of them across time and in
0:16:46 today's demography
0:16:47 believe that jesus is god
0:16:49 so why are you comparing a prophet
0:16:52 to a god
0:16:54 these are it's not like for like
0:16:55 comparison unless what and this ironic
0:16:58 one has to come into what would at least
0:17:00 be more commensurate with an islamic
0:17:03 understanding of who jesus was which is
0:17:04 a man not a god
0:17:06 in order for you to make that comparison
0:17:08 see subconsciously you're thinking i'm
0:17:10 doing a man-to-man comparison or
0:17:12 unconsciously let's use exactly
0:17:14 the psychoanalytic freudian terms
0:17:17 subconsciously is a vernacular term
0:17:18 right
0:17:19 um speaking to a psychologist so i have
0:17:21 to keep everything tight but what i'm
0:17:23 saying is maybe unconsciously you've
0:17:25 understood that this is a man and this
0:17:27 is a man and we can make a comparison
0:17:29 like for like but according to the
0:17:31 christological understanding
0:17:32 he is a man prophet muhammad sorry yes
0:17:36 prophet muhammad and jesus is a god
0:17:38 what you should be doing if you're being
0:17:41 theologically consistent is comparing
0:17:43 allah to jesus
0:17:45 allah
0:17:46 and the quran is the god of the creator
0:17:48 of the heavens and the earth which we
0:17:49 don't believe can be divided into father
0:17:51 son and holy spirit this is our major
0:17:53 quarrel with christians theological
0:17:55 quarrel this is a bone of contention
0:17:58 we believe that allah
0:18:00 is the creator of all things
0:18:02 that it's not conceivable or
0:18:05 intelligible or pardonable that anybody
0:18:08 with a date of birth can be called god
0:18:10 and that jesus is therefore disqualified
0:18:12 from being god and by the way i think
0:18:14 many christians listening to me right
0:18:16 now resonate with what i'm saying and
0:18:18 you know it and you even resonate with
0:18:19 it they resonate with the fact that
0:18:21 calling a man god god man
0:18:24 this is something which is
0:18:25 unintelligible in the mind of human
0:18:27 beings
0:18:30 and this is the real bone of contention
0:18:32 so why make this false comparison
0:18:34 between christ
0:18:35 who is according to the christian
0:18:37 tradition a god and muhammad who is
0:18:39 according to the islamic tradition a man
0:18:40 in the first place may it be because you
0:18:43 have already accepted the islamic
0:18:45 premise that both of them are men
0:18:47 and if so you're a step closer to islam
0:18:50 and therefore i'm going to end with this
0:18:51 really i invite you to really think
0:18:53 about
0:18:54 islam as a true system
0:18:56 as a true system as a paradigm
0:18:58 replacement
0:19:00 to the christian
0:19:01 system because that might be what you're
0:19:03 looking for
0:19:04 it in fact might be what you need jordan
0:19:06 peterson but at the very least
0:19:09 at the very least jordan peterson do me
0:19:11 one favor
0:19:14 do the right thing and make a retraction
0:19:17 on this point
0:19:19 that
0:19:20 the point of warlord this comparison
0:19:23 say that this is a hasty generalization
0:19:25 it was in your words and you said this
0:19:27 in your book by the way
0:19:29 your newest book 12 rules
0:19:31 it's a low resolution blanket statement
0:19:34 a hyper simplification
0:19:37 you this is your this is your words not
0:19:38 mine a hyper simplification
0:19:44 think about it
0:19:58 you