Londoniyyah - Part 31 - Hinduism | Mohammed Hijab (2022-04-26) ​

0:00:08 welcome to another episode in the series
0:00:11 londoner today in sha'allah we're going
0:00:13 to be exploring hinduism one of the if
0:00:15 not the most
0:00:17 the
0:00:18 oldest indic religion in the
0:00:20 subcontinent
0:00:21 and the religion that is the third
0:00:23 most followed religion
0:00:25 in the world
0:00:26 and this is going to be a
0:00:28 participant-led type of seminar where
0:00:30 i'll be acting more of a facilitator
0:00:33 than
0:00:34 a lecturer in that sense and we've got
0:00:37 some
0:00:38 obviously our usual
0:00:40 colleagues today from sapiens uk
0:00:43 and some guests from the us as well in
0:00:45 fact we've got
0:00:46 a guest uh
0:00:48 from zaytuna college who's going to be
0:00:50 also contributing
0:00:52 rather ahmed khan
0:00:54 and so what we're going to do
0:00:55 insha'allah in this session we are going
0:00:57 to be going through some of the major
0:00:59 compartments and categories of the hindu
0:01:02 religion
0:01:03 if it is indeed even appropriate to call
0:01:06 hinduism as a religion
0:01:08 things like the gods that hindus believe
0:01:11 in whether or not they are seen as
0:01:13 mythological even by hindus themselves
0:01:16 or whether they are seen as true gods of
0:01:18 some sorts
0:01:20 we're going to be looking at some of the
0:01:22 rituals of hinduism or some of the
0:01:24 practices
0:01:25 that hindus actually do
0:01:27 and we are going to be talking also
0:01:29 about
0:01:30 reincarnation
0:01:32 and the scriptures is another thing
0:01:34 we're going to be discussing because of
0:01:35 course
0:01:37 scriptures are important to any type of
0:01:39 religion that we discuss but before we
0:01:41 do any of that we've got a brother from
0:01:42 uh from
0:01:44 uh california who's uh he wants to start
0:01:47 off by
0:01:48 introducing some important themes before
0:01:50 we go ahead and talk about those things
0:01:53 so
0:01:55 tell us what you what you uh you've done
0:01:57 some research yourself
0:01:58 on hinduism and you're interested in the
0:02:01 area you're also a comparative
0:02:03 religionist
0:02:04 what is your take on hinduism how can we
0:02:07 conceive it best
0:02:18 so i think right from the onset
0:02:20 it's important for us to understand that
0:02:23 there's a lot of preconceived notions
0:02:25 that our community has about hinduism
0:02:28 and one reason being is because it's
0:02:30 such a difficult provision
0:02:32 for us to understand
0:02:34 and
0:02:35 one of our great scholars
0:02:38 who wrote the famous
0:02:40 end
0:02:41 stated that hinduism is a very difficult
0:02:43 religion for muslims to understand for
0:02:45 several reasons
0:02:47 particularly one the language we're here
0:02:49 and one of the fascinating things that
0:02:51 we'll find in allah about hinduism
0:02:54 that some of our grievous problems
0:02:56 like
0:02:58 such as prince muhammad
0:03:01 such as
0:03:05 it's clear that hinduism has a level of
0:03:07 monotheism within it
0:03:10 but the question arises
0:03:12 what strand of hinduism are we disputing
0:03:15 and i think it's important to understand
0:03:18 this because in in in religious studies
0:03:20 today there is this narrative that
0:03:23 monotheism is something developed
0:03:26 it was not there at the initial stages
0:03:29 but only one way what we find is when we
0:03:31 study many of these quote unquote
0:03:33 polytheistic religions including
0:03:35 hinduism
0:03:36 and when we understand hinduism
0:03:38 according to what they educated what
0:03:40 scholars believe we find that many of
0:03:43 them are advocating
0:03:45 similar version
0:03:46 of monotheism that you find everyday
0:03:49 abraham tradition and so i think
0:03:52 just to really deeply understand this um
0:03:55 if we can understand hinduism
0:03:58 we can unlock
0:04:00 all of the polytheistic
0:04:01 because they all have the same structure
0:04:04 within them whether it's the ancient
0:04:06 greeks whether it's ancient egypt or any
0:04:09 other polytheistic
0:04:11 polytheistic society as the
0:04:14 comparative religion is welcome
0:04:17 all follow the same structure
0:04:19 and he says the way
0:04:21 we'll get into this later in allah but
0:04:23 he says the way paul
0:04:25 develops is you have
0:04:27 you have several tribes come together
0:04:30 each of them have the same wall
0:04:32 but because they were fought like one
0:04:34 with different names
0:04:36 people associated with different gods
0:04:39 reality they're the same
0:04:41 it's just a difference of
0:04:43 so i think that's what we'll find in
0:04:44 hinduism as well
0:04:46 inshallah that's all i wanted to say
0:04:49 all right well i think that's important
0:04:51 because
0:04:52 we sometimes do have a problem with
0:04:55 classification
0:04:56 one where we say well this religion is a
0:04:58 polytheistic religion or it's a
0:05:00 monotheistic religion or it's a
0:05:02 pantheistic religion or or whatever it
0:05:05 is and
0:05:06 hinduism seems to
0:05:08 stand out as a religion which can be
0:05:10 interpreted in all of those ways or any
0:05:12 of those ways
0:05:14 um
0:05:15 but let's start with that i think that's
0:05:16 probably a good place to start
0:05:19 with the gods of hinduism so
0:05:22 who has done the research today
0:05:25 uh for the gods of hinduism you've done
0:05:27 it right so
0:05:28 could you uh
0:05:29 whilst i put my phone in charge so we
0:05:31 don't lose the brother from from
0:05:33 california right so let's get started
0:05:36 with the first presentation inshaallah
0:05:39 on the gods of hinduism
0:05:44 so
0:05:47 so
0:05:48 from my understanding of reading about
0:05:50 the gods of hindu gods
0:05:54 hindus believe in a single universal god
0:05:57 not like the brother mentioned known as
0:05:59 brahman
0:06:01 but they also have a god and
0:06:04 goddess uh
0:06:06 which are also called the diva and devi
0:06:10 um
0:06:12 who represent more than one aspect of
0:06:14 the brahman rahman is so like
0:06:18 like like the reality like the ultimate
0:06:19 reality i'm not able to hear
0:06:22 someone speaking
0:06:24 yeah someone's speaking um if you're not
0:06:26 able to hear him i'll summarize what he
0:06:27 said
0:06:29 okay
0:06:31 um
0:06:31 they also have some kind of
0:06:33 like kind of trinity
0:06:35 which
0:06:37 with some of the mangoes
0:06:40 shiva vishnu
0:06:42 and
0:06:43 brahma which is
0:06:46 rahman and brahma rama is the reality
0:06:48 and brahma is the god
0:06:51 and
0:06:52 some of the qualities of this
0:06:54 this course include
0:06:56 shiva is known as the destroyer
0:07:01 um
0:07:03 it's known as represent death
0:07:05 dissolution and destroy uh
0:07:06 the street destruction
0:07:09 uh
0:07:09 of the wars so it can be recreated by
0:07:13 brahman
0:07:14 so brahma can rotate this destruction
0:07:17 again
0:07:18 but it's also considered the master of
0:07:20 dance and regenerate regeneration
0:07:23 one of the
0:07:24 godheads
0:07:26 is one of the causes in hindu trinity
0:07:28 and he has many names like
0:07:31 mahadeva pashupati not
0:07:34 many many names i cannot really
0:07:35 pronounce them
0:07:38 is represented within blue skin human
0:07:41 form
0:07:42 or in as a public symbol called shiva
0:07:46 lingam
0:07:48 um
0:07:49 the other god
0:07:51 other god part of the
0:07:52 the
0:07:54 the trinity would be krishna
0:07:57 krishna is also represented krishnas
0:07:59 would be the 8th generation of
0:08:02 sorry the 8th
0:08:04 the 8th
0:08:06 incarnation of
0:08:08 of
0:08:09 vishnu
0:08:10 and so vishnu
0:08:12 rama and uh and krishna would be the
0:08:15 same god
0:08:17 um okay so
0:08:19 vishnu
0:08:20 so vishnu is a male figure
0:08:23 but
0:08:24 drama and krishna would be like more
0:08:27 female
0:08:28 figures so krishna yeah krishna is
0:08:31 female
0:08:33 that's why i understand yeah yeah yeah
0:08:36 and vishnu is what male 1
0:08:38 yeah vishnu is
0:08:40 so it's not like one just one gender
0:08:47 one
0:08:48 krishna is defined as one of the most
0:08:50 beloved hindu gods blue skin krishna is
0:08:53 the deity of love and compassion it's
0:08:55 frequently depicted with a float
0:08:58 and which is used for its seductive
0:09:01 powers
0:09:02 who's that has got the flu krishna
0:09:05 okay is that the only blue skin right
0:09:06 yeah yeah she got four arms
0:09:10 um
0:09:12 normally two arms okay
0:09:15 so i think it's really it's really
0:09:16 confusing with that yeah yeah they have
0:09:18 so many different characteristics yeah
0:09:20 you can't really
0:09:21 uh christianize the character of in the
0:09:23 hindu scriptures
0:09:28 as well as avatar of vishnu
0:09:30 the sustainer of hindu trinity
0:09:34 krishna is
0:09:35 widely repaired
0:09:37 among hindus and his followers are known
0:09:40 as
0:09:41 vaishnavas
0:09:42 okay interesting
0:09:44 rama is the god of through
0:09:47 fruit and birzu and is another avatar of
0:09:50 vishnu
0:09:52 is the seventh incarnation
0:09:54 of who who's the
0:09:56 seventh incarnation of whom of vishnu
0:09:59 so rama is the seventh incarnation of
0:10:00 vishnu seventh year yes rama yeah is the
0:10:04 seventh incarnation of vishnu yeah okay
0:10:07 and and krishna the one we mentioned
0:10:09 before is the eighth incarnation
0:10:11 incarnation so who's the first
0:10:12 incarnation of which vishnu is the first
0:10:15 well the second one
0:10:27 are they all incarnations of each other
0:10:29 yeah so it would be uh from
0:10:32 understanding it it would be the same
0:10:34 god but reincarnated in different forms
0:10:37 okay so
0:10:38 does anyone want to thank you that's
0:10:39 that was very informative actually yeah
0:10:41 i still have more oh you still have more
0:10:43 now go ahead please yeah so rama is the
0:10:45 god of through then like i mentioned
0:10:48 rama is widely believed to be part what
0:10:50 does it look like
0:10:53 blue skinned
0:10:54 two arms two arms yeah the next one is a
0:10:58 hanuman hanuman was the monkey god right
0:11:00 yeah
0:11:01 you know hanuman is the
0:11:03 monkey face human hanuman temples are
0:11:05 amongst the most common public shrines
0:11:08 found in india
0:11:11 um
0:11:12 temples yeah and we go to the next one
0:11:16 is uh vishnu which i should have started
0:11:18 by yeah
0:11:19 vishnu is defined as the peace lobbying
0:11:21 deity of the hindus chinti
0:11:24 is the preserver of the preserver or
0:11:26 sustainer of life he represents
0:11:29 the principles
0:11:30 of order righteousness and truth
0:11:34 his concern of lakshmi the goddess of
0:11:37 domesticity and prosperity
0:11:41 hindu faithful who prayed to vishnu
0:11:44 khaled
0:11:45 is called um
0:11:52 believes in times of disorder vishnu
0:11:55 will so
0:11:56 hindus believe in terms of the so that
0:11:57 vishnu will emerge from his
0:11:59 transcendence to restore peace and order
0:12:02 on earth
0:12:04 similar to what we believe
0:12:06 about
0:12:08 prophet isa for jesus
0:12:12 okay let me let me summarize that
0:12:14 sorry about that we had a bit of a
0:12:16 moment there
0:12:17 um
0:12:18 so
0:12:19 basically and please correct me if i'm
0:12:21 wrong either of you or any of you right
0:12:24 uh he was describing some of the gods
0:12:26 that the
0:12:27 hindus believe in
0:12:29 and he mentioned like three main gods
0:12:32 brahma
0:12:33 lakshmi and vishnu
0:12:50 goddess of vishnu
0:12:53 okay so the three main ones are
0:12:56 vishnu
0:12:57 brahma and and
0:12:59 shiva she was a female one yeah
0:13:03 nowadays people remember most krishna
0:13:06 krishna is more venerated nowadays okay
0:13:09 and what does what was the thing you
0:13:10 said about uh krishna again
0:13:13 is there incarnation of uh
0:13:14 is the ethics do we have any imagery of
0:13:16 krishna
0:13:17 so vishnu had ten incarnations so
0:13:19 whenever god wants to
0:13:21 sort out the world he sends an
0:13:22 incarnation a vishnu sends an
0:13:24 incarnation of himself
0:13:26 and they obtain incarnations
0:13:27 vishnu does vishnu attending
0:13:30 of vishnu in the world
0:13:31 they come into the world like human
0:13:32 beings like jesus basically
0:13:34 christian tradition so the seven and the
0:13:36 most important was the seventh and
0:13:38 eighth seventh was rahman it was uh it
0:13:40 was krishna krishna they were the main
0:13:44 incarnations of vishnu and even the
0:13:46 three god is vishnu shiva and uh brahma
0:13:49 but above them there's something called
0:13:50 the brahman which is basically
0:13:53 in some places it just says ultimate
0:13:55 reality
0:13:56 yeah so
0:13:58 so the human beings are like our uh like
0:14:01 our
0:14:02 objective in life seems to be to uh gain
0:14:04 unity with that or something like that
0:14:07 uh
0:14:08 it seems to be more a bit more complex
0:14:09 than that but i didn't look into it too
0:14:11 much
0:14:12 got you okay
0:14:13 yeah yeah anyone else don't know
0:14:16 i was uh from the research that i did to
0:14:18 what you mentioned this
0:14:19 is sort of this figure it's like the
0:14:20 vast apparently this is uh
0:14:23 everything that's like this is brahman
0:14:25 yeah so this this is the brahmana yeah
0:14:27 this is like
0:14:28 the ultimate sort of this is like
0:14:30 basically this from what i understood
0:14:32 anyways from i was being told that this
0:14:33 is basically everything
0:14:35 so yeah so so that's that thing was it
0:14:38 no so so it's it's a bit paradoxical but
0:14:40 it's kind of it's like they'll say it's
0:14:41 like everything and nothing but it's
0:14:42 like the ultimate reality
0:14:44 so everything else is like um anything
0:14:47 that's material is like a material
0:14:49 manifestation of that being so the idea
0:14:52 is that that when he creates
0:14:54 like
0:14:55 he becomes sort of part manifest in
0:14:57 those things
0:14:58 but then those things like
0:15:00 they're made to forget him
0:15:02 so then the purpose of life like say
0:15:04 example for human beings is to
0:15:06 like take on this sort of spirituality
0:15:07 so that you can
0:15:08 eventually be you get this what's it
0:15:10 like makashad or something like that
0:15:11 which is like to become reunited with
0:15:13 the
0:15:14 the ultimate reality so all these other
0:15:16 gods they're like
0:15:19 i guess uh they're just other
0:15:20 manifestations so someone told me
0:15:22 yesterday literally like they believe
0:15:24 like
0:15:25 everything is a god kind of thing which
0:15:27 is why it's legitimate to worship like
0:15:28 anything because
0:15:30 in a sense you're worshiping you're
0:15:31 worshiping god
0:15:33 i was going to say in regards to that
0:15:35 last bit so it's kind of you're talking
0:15:36 about pantheism in a sense right this is
0:15:39 account everything is good
0:15:40 so
0:15:42 as from what i saw anyways they don't
0:15:43 like they don't use the term panties
0:15:45 right okay because
0:15:51 i think anyways that they're are willing
0:15:53 to enjoy that contradiction
0:15:55 in a sense so when you're worshiping
0:15:56 these things it's you're not worshiping
0:15:59 god but you're worshiping like
0:16:01 things that
0:16:03 kind of point towards him but they are
0:16:05 him but they're not him
0:16:06 at the same time kind of thing it's
0:16:08 probably impossible as well like they're
0:16:10 sort of anti-aristotelian logic so they
0:16:13 don't think
0:16:14 that you know like the typical
0:16:16 understanding of like contradictions
0:16:18 apply
0:16:19 to this
0:16:21 higher divinity
0:16:22 and um and so they they wouldn't
0:16:25 they'd sort of throw aristotelian logic
0:16:27 out the window and say that this just
0:16:29 complicates things and makes it hard to
0:16:30 compress do they distinguish between
0:16:32 brahman and brahma yeah what sort
0:16:37 what's the distinction between the two
0:16:39 things
0:16:40 so i'll tell you something interesting
0:16:42 that um
0:16:43 prince mohammed
0:16:45 mogul prince wrote in his book um
0:16:50 he said that if you look at in islam we
0:16:52 have jibril
0:16:54 and israel
0:16:56 he says these are the three angels
0:16:58 and then he says in hinduism you have
0:17:00 the three gods of visnu shiva
0:17:04 and he says that
0:17:06 the angels in islam are almost identical
0:17:09 in their qualities and in their uh in
0:17:11 their jobs as these three so he says
0:17:14 that
0:17:15 is known as
0:17:18 he is the one who's kind of the creator
0:17:21 um
0:17:24 is like the main angel of allah
0:17:27 he says that vishnu is known as the
0:17:29 preserver
0:17:30 he's known as the sustainer of the world
0:17:33 and the one who's responsible for
0:17:34 ensuring everything is incr occurring
0:17:37 and when we look at mika il
0:17:39 he is
0:17:41 one of the greatest angels and he is
0:17:42 responsible for the pouring of rain the
0:17:45 blowing of the winds
0:17:47 natural events such as the ordering of
0:17:49 seasons and the management of
0:17:50 supplications
0:17:52 so
0:17:53 mikhail is very similar to vishnu in
0:17:55 that both of them are responsible with
0:17:57 preserving the world
0:17:58 and lastly we have shiva who is known as
0:18:01 the god of destruction
0:18:03 and we have israel
0:18:05 who is the angel of destruction
0:18:07 the one who blows the horn and destroys
0:18:09 everything
0:18:10 so
0:18:11 it seems that he's always trying to
0:18:13 indicate that the brahman the
0:18:16 rahman the priest class their
0:18:18 understanding of the three
0:18:20 quote unquote gods of
0:18:23 shiva and vishnu are very similar to
0:18:26 angels rather and so he's trying to make
0:18:28 the argument that they're not
0:18:29 necessarily god
0:18:31 but that they're they're just fulfilling
0:18:33 the jobs
0:18:35 uh of god so i think
0:18:37 in relation to that um it's an important
0:18:39 distinction
0:18:41 [Music]
0:18:46 it really depends who you ask
0:18:48 so if you ask the educated elite of the
0:18:51 hindus they will tell you that there's
0:18:53 one god and that everything else is
0:18:55 really just a manifestation of the
0:18:58 quality of god
0:18:59 so for example
0:19:01 al-biruni has his book his kitabol
0:19:04 and he has a beautiful passage uh just
0:19:07 short passes i want to read which
0:19:09 beautifully answers this uh subject he
0:19:12 says that
0:19:13 the educated among the hindus have poor
0:19:17 anthropomorphism of this kind
0:19:19 but the crowd and the members of the
0:19:21 single sect
0:19:22 use them most extensively
0:19:25 they go even beyond all we have
0:19:27 mentioned
0:19:28 so as to speak of life sun
0:19:31 water or all of these things in
0:19:33 connection with god
0:19:35 there are even so little pious
0:19:37 speaking of these things they don't even
0:19:40 abstain from silly and unbecoming
0:19:42 language
0:19:43 however
0:19:44 this is an important point he says
0:19:46 however nobody minds these classes
0:19:49 nobody pays attention to these people
0:19:50 and theories although they are rumors
0:19:53 and widespread
0:19:55 the main and most essential point of the
0:19:57 hindu world of god is that which the
0:20:00 thing so the educated
0:20:03 belief for they are specially trained
0:20:06 for preserving and maintaining their
0:20:08 religion
0:20:09 and this is what we call the belief of
0:20:12 the brahmanas
0:20:13 so what he's essentially thinking you'll
0:20:15 find among the uneducated illiterate
0:20:18 people that they will be worshipping all
0:20:21 of you
0:20:22 people think that all of these idols are
0:20:24 manifestations of god
0:20:27 but he says when you look into the
0:20:28 opening cuts if we have time inside we
0:20:31 can
0:20:31 go into the open inside look at the
0:20:33 commentaries you can see that the
0:20:35 educated elite don't believe that all of
0:20:38 these if it's just really god
0:20:40 but that all of them are really just a
0:20:42 manifestation of we can say like
0:20:45 the power of rahu
0:20:46 so i think that's an interesting uh to
0:20:49 mention
0:20:50 all right that's that that is an
0:20:51 interesting point to mention everyone
0:20:53 heard what he said yeah yeah okay
0:20:54 fantastic um
0:20:56 what i was going to say in regards to
0:20:58 this is i think these keywords need to
0:21:00 be
0:21:01 kind of delineated
0:21:03 because they're very close words and
0:21:05 sometimes we can equivocate quite easily
0:21:07 so the
0:21:09 brahman
0:21:11 is this the god yeah that they believe
0:21:13 in
0:21:14 brahma sorry brahma is the god that i
0:21:16 believe in brahman is the priestly class
0:21:19 correct
0:21:22 and it's who else
0:21:28 is it a different ending
0:21:36 is used
0:21:37 in two senses one it's used to refer to
0:21:40 the ultimate being
0:21:41 the ultimate
0:21:43 yeah brahman yeah
0:21:47 okay yeah yeah yeah
0:21:48 but another meaning of brahman is also
0:21:51 the priest class
0:21:56 that's good alright so the
0:21:58 this is where you've got the cast
0:21:59 they're the highest class right yeah
0:22:02 so brahman can either be the we're
0:22:04 talking about the ultimate reality or is
0:22:06 talking about the priestly class and
0:22:08 brahma is the creator of the universe
0:22:29 yeah one of the people i want to ask a
0:22:30 question about the priest's class if
0:22:32 anyone can
0:22:33 yeah discuss it it's the so you refer to
0:22:35 them as like the ulama
0:22:37 are they
0:22:38 can anyone become a
0:22:40 like abraham you know one of the
0:22:42 quote-unquote hindu ulama or is it an
0:22:44 ethnic class oh good so he's asking
0:22:46 whether so he's asking whether brahman
0:22:49 are an ethnic group from any from
0:22:51 anyone's readings or whether they are
0:22:54 a class which you can
0:22:56 through meritocracy becomes efforts and
0:22:59 research and learning
0:23:02 historically with uh with
0:23:04 the subcontinent
0:23:06 we're born into one of these four
0:23:08 classes whether it was
0:23:13 these are the four class you have the
0:23:15 the priest class you have the military
0:23:17 class the merch mercantile
0:23:20 the serving class um and historically
0:23:23 you were born into one of these and you
0:23:24 couldn't really move up
0:23:26 um but i think i'm not too too sure but
0:23:28 i think in a sense uh in the modern
0:23:31 world because india is starting to move
0:23:33 away from the cast
0:23:34 probably able to move up to the level of
0:23:37 brockman but uh i would need to look
0:23:39 into that
0:23:43 they had an indian gentleman on and they
0:23:45 asked him this exact question
0:23:47 and
0:23:48 he mentioned that once upon a time that
0:23:51 this was fluid that people could become
0:23:54 going to the priestly class and they
0:23:56 could become
0:23:57 um fighters you know and they could go
0:24:00 to the other but because of family
0:24:02 systems these these became rigid over
0:24:05 time
0:24:06 and now you can't go from one class to
0:24:09 the other so the lower class can't
0:24:11 progress to the priesthood okay all
0:24:13 right so uh just to let you know uh what
0:24:16 was said here one of our uh colleagues
0:24:18 here said that
0:24:20 basically
0:24:21 one individual who is kind of like an
0:24:23 advocate for hinduism who has had a
0:24:26 recent discussion with one of our
0:24:28 apologists if you want to call it that
0:24:29 in the uk
0:24:30 he basically described the opposite
0:24:32 state of affairs
0:24:34 so he was saying that it's it was the
0:24:36 opposite it was that people it was more
0:24:38 fluid before
0:24:39 but now
0:24:40 uh it's more rigid it's more difficult
0:24:49 is there anything else that anyone wants
0:24:50 to say on the on god yeah on the gods of
0:24:53 the hindus before it was closely
0:24:55 connected yeah or anything yeah closely
0:24:57 connect because i was looking a bit at
0:24:58 the stuff of like record reincarnation
0:24:59 so yeah the idea of um with like the
0:25:02 cast like where you're set into so we
0:25:04 mentioned the four class the forecast
0:25:05 that you have the deal was that
0:25:09 uh i guess this is if if what this other
0:25:11 gentleman was saying is true that that's
0:25:13 somewhere between these two periods once
0:25:15 that they developed that these classes
0:25:16 became more rigid the idea was that
0:25:19 the
0:25:20 if the way you could move up a caste was
0:25:23 to
0:25:24 serve basically well within your own
0:25:26 caste during your life just that when
0:25:28 you reincarnated you would hope that you
0:25:29 reincarnate into a higher cost so if you
0:25:31 die and you and you uh you're reborn
0:25:34 you're reborn into a higher caste so
0:25:36 it's like
0:25:36 it's technically you do get to move up
0:25:38 by just happening outside of your life i
0:25:40 see i see but this guy was kind of clear
0:25:43 about that because when the brothers
0:25:45 mansur was pressing him regarding
0:25:47 you know why is it so rigid and why
0:25:49 can't you know why do you treat
0:25:51 people in such a way he said once upon a
0:25:54 time
0:25:54 it wasn't like that but over time it's
0:25:57 become
0:25:58 that one person can't move up a class or
0:26:00 go down a class or something like that
0:26:02 i i don't know about after death but
0:26:04 this was while they were you know yeah
0:26:06 okay
0:26:07 let's move on to the next category
0:26:09 unless there's anything yep
0:26:11 just very important very important to
0:26:13 mention yeah so we talked about
0:26:17 in hindu philosophy they mean either two
0:26:19 things
0:26:20 you mean
0:26:25 these concepts are not they're not
0:26:27 mutually exclusive what they represent
0:26:30 so it's called
0:26:32 saguna rahman so
0:26:35 s-a-g-u-n-a brahman
0:26:41 so that's n-i-r-g-u-n-a
0:26:44 this is how the hindu philosophers like
0:26:47 to
0:26:47 uh kind of explicitly kind of uh
0:26:50 explain
0:26:51 what did you know can you translate
0:26:53 those for us or
0:26:55 uh well i'm gonna explain what they are
0:26:57 oh okay fine yeah yep
0:27:00 so these are very important concepts so
0:27:03 near gona brahman
0:27:04 okay
0:27:05 it refers to the concept that brahman is
0:27:09 beyond time and space
0:27:12 it's the idea that rahman has no
0:27:15 particular form
0:27:17 and he's present everywhere
0:27:19 it allows hindus to focus on
0:27:22 eternal qualities
0:27:24 rather than getting distracted by the
0:27:26 different names
0:27:27 and the forums so
0:27:31 how'd you say it again
0:27:32 sorry you want me let me repeat that
0:27:35 again no just just the pronunciation of
0:27:36 that category is it brahman
0:27:40 uh
0:27:41 yeah
0:27:43 okay
0:27:46 okay
0:27:48 so
0:27:49 um
0:27:50 in the we're going to get to the
0:27:51 scriptures later inshallah but in the
0:27:53 banishads one of the philosophical texts
0:27:56 it is that you know
0:27:57 one who knows brahman reaches the
0:28:00 highest level that truth is
0:28:04 that brahman is
0:28:06 knowledge that he is infinite
0:28:09 um
0:28:09 so
0:28:10 we can we can go down a longer
0:28:12 discussion on this but the other form of
0:28:15 rahman which which is the one which is
0:28:17 prevalent in today's discourse is called
0:28:21 okay
0:28:23 now
0:28:24 this this version of rahman means that
0:28:26 rahman has a form
0:28:28 an identity
0:28:30 a purpose and these things may vary with
0:28:33 time so
0:28:34 hindus who believe in sagun of rahman
0:28:38 they see deities as a way for people to
0:28:40 understand rahman's vast nature that
0:28:44 these deities they help hindu worshipers
0:28:47 to focus on an image or statues which
0:28:50 they also call
0:28:52 so in other words
0:28:56 people feel that god is too abstract
0:28:59 and because god is obs because we can't
0:29:01 picture him it's difficult for us to
0:29:04 worship them
0:29:05 and so the way we're working is we
0:29:07 create idols
0:29:09 which are in which the idols are a
0:29:11 representation
0:29:12 they're a manifestation of one of the
0:29:14 qualities of god
0:29:15 and so it's easier for us to worship
0:29:18 so there's
0:29:21 there's a there's a line
0:29:23 but you cannot see me meaning rahman is
0:29:26 talking
0:29:27 you cannot see me with your present eyes
0:29:30 therefore i will give you divine eyes
0:29:33 which is interpret me will allow you to
0:29:35 create these idols because
0:29:38 you don't have the capability to worship
0:29:40 me
0:29:41 so when you when you
0:29:43 speak to like the hindu education
0:29:46 a lot of them focus on
0:29:49 they know that rahman is
0:29:51 based time does not have a form does not
0:29:54 have a child
0:29:55 but for those people who have trouble
0:29:57 right the uneducated
0:29:59 they take the path of
0:30:01 mind and they create idols
0:30:04 but the educated people know that
0:30:14 so these people obviously if you believe
0:30:16 in sargonic brahman
0:30:18 you're not going to believe in the
0:30:20 brahman
0:30:32 if you believe in
0:30:33 that god has a form and not a form at
0:30:34 the same time like
0:30:36 unless you can
0:30:37 how does that work how how do they do it
0:30:39 you gotta remember that they don't
0:30:41 necessarily hold the aristotelian logic
0:30:44 so
0:30:44 it might if you if you do it comes
0:30:47 across as a contradiction and you're
0:30:48 like well you can't
0:30:50 hold one and hold the other they seem
0:30:52 mutually exclusive but if they're
0:30:54 willing to throw
0:30:56 that kind of logic out of the window
0:30:58 then it they would hold it possible is
0:31:01 that is that correct then
0:31:02 brother youssef here said that
0:31:05 they
0:31:06 they don't really take the logical greek
0:31:09 logical principles or arising logic so
0:31:12 it's conceivable
0:31:14 they do
0:31:15 yeah hinduism in hindu philosophy is
0:31:17 highly influenced by aristotelian
0:31:19 metaphysics for example they believe
0:31:22 that the the idea in hinduism is that
0:31:24 the universe is eternal
0:31:26 it's always existed and this is
0:31:28 something they really took from um
0:31:30 periscope's idea but the way they
0:31:33 explain these two how they can be not
0:31:36 everybody believes that some people
0:31:37 believe they are mutually exclusive
0:31:40 but other people believe that there can
0:31:42 be a reconciliation and
0:31:47 does not have a form
0:31:49 does not have an image
0:31:50 but that they see whenever they see an
0:31:53 object they see that god is the one who
0:31:55 is creating it and sustaining it
0:31:58 but it's not necessarily god so these
0:32:00 are not sects
0:32:01 these are understandings
0:32:04 okay okay uh i think what we should do
0:32:07 now is we should have break
0:32:09 and pray uh we're gonna pray eyeshadow
0:32:10 now just um because we go into different
0:32:13 categories and
0:32:15 other characters you can see on the line
0:32:16 ahmed if you like
0:32:19 welcome back which had a short break uh
0:32:21 but in that we had
0:32:23 some discussions actually which should
0:32:25 have been filmed one could say
0:32:27 what we're going to move on to now is a
0:32:29 very important aspect and i think to be
0:32:31 fair and i have spoken to many hindus
0:32:33 despite my lack of knowledge on the
0:32:35 subject
0:32:36 this is one of the main things that
0:32:38 comes up it's a recurring theme no pun
0:32:41 intended which is reincarnation
0:32:46 reincarnation itself right um so
0:32:49 who has the presentation
0:32:52 for reincarnation
0:32:54 oh he's not in today right
0:32:56 oh okay right right and
0:32:59 okay yeah anyone who has anything to say
0:33:01 about reincarnation
0:33:03 yeah so this is uh
0:33:06 basically first of all it's the human
0:33:07 soul
0:33:08 um hindus believe is
0:33:10 like it's a part of the brahman
0:33:13 so this is that's goes back to i was
0:33:15 talking about this process of creation
0:33:16 yeah where he becomes sort of materially
0:33:18 manifest in the world
0:33:20 so creation is a material manifestation
0:33:22 of the brahman so the human soul is that
0:33:24 which is real so for them
0:33:26 anything which is real is that which
0:33:28 doesn't like perish like it's it's
0:33:29 fundamental components don't come apart
0:33:32 the human body when it when it dies and
0:33:34 it perishes it gets eaten up by the
0:33:35 earth or like anything that you can burn
0:33:37 and it kind of decomposes or whatever
0:33:39 it's not really real reality the only
0:33:41 real reality is that which comes from
0:33:43 that which is like the brahman so that's
0:33:45 that's the human soul
0:33:46 so when you die
0:33:49 you reincarnate as a new back
0:33:51 into the world you take on a new body
0:33:53 and you live your life again
0:33:55 the purpose of life being to
0:33:57 work and work and work and and take on
0:33:59 this sort of spiritual progression as
0:34:01 you get closer to the brahman
0:34:03 and so
0:34:04 if you achieve that unity with him and
0:34:07 the moksha
0:34:08 then uh you no longer have to
0:34:11 like come back into the world that that
0:34:13 soul aspect i was talking about is they
0:34:15 call it the term
0:34:17 which is a piece of the brahman
0:34:19 and so yeah you you can ascend through
0:34:22 levels as so if you're with a lower
0:34:24 caste then you kind of have to work your
0:34:25 way up because the castes as i
0:34:27 understand it initially when they came
0:34:29 about it was like they they represent
0:34:31 different parts of of the brahman so
0:34:33 like the head
0:34:34 of the brahmanas like the priests and
0:34:36 the teachers and then the warriors and
0:34:37 rulers come from the arms
0:34:39 and then the the farmers the traders and
0:34:41 the merchants they come from the fires
0:34:43 and then the the laborers come from like
0:34:45 the feet and then there's a
0:34:47 cross there's even a cast is even lower
0:34:48 than that which are like the dallas the
0:34:50 outcasts those are like the street
0:34:52 sweepers and the tree and cleaners those
0:34:53 type of things
0:34:55 so you ascend through the casts and then
0:34:57 i guess the idea is that once you get to
0:34:59 the top of the mountain you kind of move
0:35:01 up into the the unity with the god so
0:35:04 you become like finally reunited with
0:35:06 with the uh
0:35:08 oh so is that being so what you're
0:35:09 saying is that after that you no longer
0:35:11 need to be reincarnated i is are you
0:35:13 sure they say this i mean is it because
0:35:16 uh the question of birth and rebirth
0:35:20 it's a cycle right
0:35:23 and
0:35:24 do they and i open this to the floor
0:35:28 do they have an end to that or is it
0:35:30 just a cycle it can then
0:35:33 with that sort of
0:35:34 um
0:35:36 being reunited with the the highest
0:35:38 divinity yeah um
0:35:41 but it's i don't necessarily have to i
0:35:43 guess someone could technically be just
0:35:45 stuck in that cycle forever
0:35:47 and you know if they're a bad person for
0:35:49 example they're not going to go up
0:35:50 they're going to keep
0:35:52 going to lower levels or staying on the
0:35:53 same level they might go up and then
0:35:55 down again and it could fluctuate so
0:35:57 they it can end
0:36:00 i don't know if you uh sorry uh ahmed
0:36:02 we're talking about reincarnation
0:36:05 the question i had was the cycle of
0:36:07 birth and rebirth
0:36:08 do they see that as continual
0:36:11 or is there some end point for them
0:36:13 where they see that they can it can end
0:36:15 somewhere
0:36:17 there is an end point and that end point
0:36:19 is called moksha
0:36:22 so they believe that there is this
0:36:24 spiritual journey that a person has to
0:36:26 go on
0:36:27 and until they fulfill that journey
0:36:28 they'll keep they'll be stuck in the
0:36:30 cycle of reincarnation
0:36:32 right so the idea of karma is if you
0:36:34 lived a bad life an unethical
0:36:36 unspiritual life in this world in this
0:36:38 life
0:36:39 in the next life you're you know maybe
0:36:41 your handicap or maybe you're in a
0:36:43 difficult position but once a person
0:36:45 breaks into that cycle when one reaches
0:36:48 that state of moksha what they call this
0:36:51 non-dualistic mystical union with god
0:36:54 then one becomes essentially you know
0:36:57 one with god in the cycle hands
0:37:00 okay
0:37:01 ultimate goal yeah yeah i mean just here
0:37:04 just on this point um i think we i mean
0:37:07 for my for my purposes
0:37:09 there are lots of things i've heard
0:37:11 moksha and nirvana they might sound like
0:37:13 i mean there is a there is a flesh that
0:37:15 joins uh those two concepts
0:37:17 nirvana is in a meditative state where
0:37:19 you reach
0:37:20 a certain apex of spirituality i don't
0:37:23 know like
0:37:24 so what's the difference between nirvana
0:37:26 and moksha
0:37:32 nirvana is
0:37:33 moksha's their their end goal uh nirvana
0:37:36 is it's a concept that's like largely
0:37:39 from buddhism but again it does make its
0:37:41 way into uh hinduism uh
0:37:44 it's
0:37:45 in buddhism i know that it's it's like
0:37:47 the last goal right because they're like
0:37:48 these stages that the soul goes on
0:37:51 so like in buddhism it's one of the last
0:37:52 goals but in hinduism is like when
0:37:55 you've completed the cycle so what is
0:37:58 what is the status the ontological
0:38:00 status
0:38:01 of the human soul at that point of
0:38:03 moksha is it reincarnated
0:38:06 is it uh is it
0:38:08 has it been subsumed
0:38:13 it's the raindrop that goes into the
0:38:14 ocean say that again sorry
0:38:17 it's like the raindrop that goes into
0:38:19 the ocean and it becomes one so there's
0:38:21 like this is that what you were saying
0:38:22 as well
0:38:24 oh okay so it's merged it's merged okay
0:38:26 okay
0:38:27 but what would make that how would that
0:38:29 be any different from the initial
0:38:31 fantastic conception then because
0:38:33 don't they say that
0:38:35 everything is already in
0:38:37 everything is already mixed with the
0:38:39 supreme
0:38:46 is someone speaking or not yeah no no no
0:38:48 that was the question
0:38:50 oh
0:38:50 um
0:38:52 again it really depends which hindus
0:38:54 you're speaking to right because if
0:38:56 you're speaking to the educated class
0:38:58 they will say that we are not
0:38:59 necessarily god we're not we are not
0:39:02 rahman right they don't really believe
0:39:04 in pantheism it's more of like
0:39:06 some people say monism that he has one
0:39:09 substance um but but the idea is that
0:39:12 god rahman is not within me the brahman
0:39:15 is the one sustaining me who is the one
0:39:17 creating me and nourishing me at every
0:39:19 moment but i'm not necessarily brahman
0:39:22 but when i reach the level of moksha
0:39:24 then i become onerous brahman
0:39:28 okay what were you before like i mean
0:39:32 you were one with rahman
0:39:35 that's the end goal but right now it's
0:39:37 just
0:39:38 again you will find certain strands of
0:39:39 hinduism uh largely among the uneducated
0:39:42 class that will believe that they are
0:39:44 brahman
0:39:45 that this table is brahma
0:39:47 but this is why you know hinduism again
0:39:50 it's such a diverse religion there's so
0:39:52 many different strands to it
0:39:54 some will say this others will say that
0:39:56 you know we are part of it but the idea
0:39:59 is that there's no more body anymore
0:40:01 that my entire body is submerged within
0:40:03 brahman
0:40:04 um that's what some of them believe
0:40:07 some questions then
0:40:09 it's begged some questions so like
0:40:11 because they believe in a sort of an
0:40:12 infinite universe aren't they it goes on
0:40:14 eternally
0:40:16 now
0:40:17 the question arises then
0:40:19 if like does everything
0:40:23 could there be an end
0:40:25 like could there be a point where
0:40:27 everything merges back
0:40:29 with
0:40:30 brahman
0:40:32 and if not where where does the where
0:40:34 does everyone begin because obviously if
0:40:36 there's an end to it
0:40:38 like so where does he have this sort of
0:40:40 question of where does
0:40:42 reincarnation begin
0:40:45 i mean how does it how does it begin
0:40:49 so
0:40:50 this is um it did there's a good text uh
0:40:53 it's i think it's by professor arvin
0:40:55 sharma i think it's the oxford um hindu
0:40:58 thought book on it so he he has a
0:41:00 chapter on the nergo nan saguna which
0:41:02 she tells very deeply it's very
0:41:04 philosophical
0:41:05 i wasn't able to understand all of it
0:41:07 but the idea within hinduism is that
0:41:09 there are essentially three things which
0:41:11 are eternal
0:41:13 one brahman is eternal
0:41:15 number two the universe is eternal and
0:41:18 number three atman you know the soul
0:41:21 is also eternal
0:41:23 now they do make a difference between
0:41:26 the eternality of brahman compared to
0:41:28 the eternality of the other two
0:41:31 which i'll probably have to go back and
0:41:32 revisit but it's
0:41:34 it's something that they it's a very
0:41:37 philosophical concept and i it's i
0:41:40 haven't i haven't properly understood it
0:41:41 but they believe these three are eternal
0:41:43 and they have some way of trying to
0:41:46 submerge it so when they say the soul
0:41:48 is eternal um
0:41:50 and they have a whole science on this
0:41:52 and that it becomes you know moksha
0:41:54 becomes one with mine
0:41:55 there are some debates is is the essence
0:41:58 of the soul still there or is it
0:42:00 completely gone and so does it lose its
0:42:03 eternality so that's not something uh i
0:42:06 i have the answer for
0:42:08 is that a problem um
0:42:10 i just have another question and i don't
0:42:12 know if anyone has an answer to it
0:42:14 but and this might sound like a very
0:42:16 basic question but let's let's assume
0:42:19 that reincarnation's happening
0:42:22 a human being acts in a very pathetic
0:42:24 and
0:42:25 unethical way
0:42:27 and therefore in his or her next life it
0:42:30 becomes an ant
0:42:33 or becomes uh i don't know bacteria or
0:42:35 something i don't know if bacteria is
0:42:37 part of the reincarnation thing any life
0:42:39 i guess would be okay right so it
0:42:41 becomes that
0:42:43 now what does that animal have to do
0:42:45 to get a promotion if you like
0:42:49 this is my question
0:42:51 what does that animal have to do in
0:42:52 order to get from do you know does
0:42:54 anyone know what the animal has to do i
0:42:55 guess it would have to do something
0:42:56 virtuous
0:42:58 but then like how like like what could a
0:43:00 worm do
0:43:01 for example how can a worm be
0:43:04 virtuous
0:43:05 well i don't know that's that's this is
0:43:07 my question like you know
0:43:10 every animal has animals agency as well
0:43:12 they oh they believe that right do they
0:43:14 believe that i'm not sure they have to
0:43:16 right yeah so yeah surely
0:43:18 if you're
0:43:19 demoted to the status of a worm or a
0:43:21 maggot or something
0:43:23 like
0:43:24 the only way you could really transcend
0:43:25 that would be by some form of
0:43:28 act
0:43:29 or you know that would be considered
0:43:30 virtuous in one way there's a hierarchy
0:43:32 that you go through
0:43:34 like worm slug and keep moving up until
0:43:37 you get to some kind of sentient animal
0:43:39 you know some some how they move up from
0:43:41 the non-sentient ones
0:43:43 and also what's like the lowest form
0:43:45 yeah okay these these are questions i'm
0:43:46 not sure so these the questions we have
0:43:48 now what what is the animal hierarchy
0:43:52 like if
0:43:52 if you were to get a choice and i don't
0:43:54 understand festivities here
0:43:56 like
0:43:57 who what would you choose to be a bear
0:43:59 or like or an ape or a gorilla or
0:44:02 something like you know
0:44:03 yeah it's probably that's
0:44:05 probably quite because if it was like
0:44:07 for me i'd probably rather be a bear
0:44:10 because if a bear and a and a gorilla
0:44:12 had a fight
0:44:13 the bear would win
0:44:15 but it's not just about
0:44:16 animals
0:44:18 heaven
0:44:20 you're not able to choose can i be a
0:44:22 bear or an ape no but
0:44:23 but what i'm saying is like you know
0:44:25 what makes the bear or the ape like if
0:44:28 are we looking at this in evolutionary
0:44:29 terms because the bear is much more
0:44:31 powerful than a it's not just about
0:44:32 because you can't just think of there
0:44:34 being a clear distinction between one
0:44:35 species and another because you might
0:44:37 have a bear that lives in some circus in
0:44:39 russia that lives a really crappy life
0:44:42 and you might have some
0:44:44 cat
0:44:45 that has like a really good life in some
0:44:48 way it's a good life
0:44:52 these animals in captivity live much
0:44:53 longer than they do in the wild depends
0:44:55 because obviously like
0:44:57 fair enough if they're treated well and
0:44:58 they're looked after they do they you
0:45:00 know if they're getting health care and
0:45:01 etc but they're not living that life
0:45:04 they're not living the wild life yeah
0:45:06 yeah but but
0:45:08 you know yeah no but this is going to go
0:45:09 into a tangent into something
0:45:14 the categorization is not based on
0:45:15 species but based on the quality of life
0:45:18 that you will live yeah that's what i
0:45:19 was just trying to make really good okay
0:45:21 as a an ape but you can also have a
0:45:23 really crappy life as an ape and you
0:45:25 might want to classify like for example
0:45:27 like i don't know a rat yeah you might
0:45:29 consider
0:45:31 rat is lower in the the species but
0:45:33 there might be a rat that has like a
0:45:34 really comfortable life filled with
0:45:36 pleasure
0:45:37 and it's like the king of the rats how
0:45:39 does the question what is the good life
0:45:41 for the rat i mean that's basically what
0:45:43 he's asking
0:45:44 the king of the rats it gets what it
0:45:45 wants when it wants it
0:45:47 but right acts in a very predictable way
0:45:49 and so this pleasure versus pain type of
0:45:51 thing i mean is that what you're saying
0:45:52 well well it's to do not necessarily
0:45:54 it's to do with just quality but
0:45:57 i don't know
0:45:58 what the the thing is this question of
0:46:00 whether
0:46:01 animal has more agency and sentience and
0:46:03 all these kind of things
0:46:05 but most of these animals in the wild
0:46:07 they have a very
0:46:08 predictable
0:46:10 set of behaviors
0:46:12 and what what is even considered moral
0:46:14 like for an animal would not necessarily
0:46:16 be considered more for human being
0:46:19 so is it one fixed morality that's
0:46:20 working with animals and human beings or
0:46:22 is it that for each animal there is a
0:46:25 a relative morality
0:46:28 do you see the point answer yeah i guess
0:46:30 i guess they would understand it
0:46:31 in
0:46:32 some like there has to be some sort of
0:46:36 virtue
0:46:37 which is what causes you to either go up
0:46:39 or down in this
0:46:41 hierarchy of life we'll say
0:46:43 um we don't necessarily have access to
0:46:45 that because
0:46:47 like we've just opened it up now as
0:46:48 quite a complex subject that you can't
0:46:51 necessarily just make it a distinction
0:46:53 between species and say that the rat is
0:46:56 below the monkey because the monkey
0:46:58 might live in terrible conditions
0:47:00 and the rat might
0:47:02 also live in terrible condition but it
0:47:03 could also live in a better condition so
0:47:05 i don't think the distinction is by
0:47:06 species i get you i think you know we do
0:47:09 have to be careful with hinduism i'll
0:47:11 tell you why right
0:47:13 we've covered already two categories
0:47:15 uh which have been the gods
0:47:17 and have been reincarnation
0:47:20 and a lot of it is
0:47:22 may seem
0:47:24 incredulous to many of us
0:47:27 because outside of that particular faith
0:47:28 group but to be honest reincarnation in
0:47:31 and of itself is not an irrational
0:47:34 thing
0:47:35 like for us to believe that a soul can
0:47:37 be trans trans
0:47:39 planted from one human body
0:47:42 to what sort of sword
0:47:44 transmigrated trans migrate uh
0:47:47 the solar human being to
0:47:48 and animals or whatever is the the the
0:47:51 irrational part for me
0:47:53 is uh what i've just mentioned
0:47:55 i i haven't got an answer to this yet
0:47:57 like what is
0:47:59 morality for a for a lion this is a
0:48:02 murderous animal because all lions are
0:48:04 murderous in that sense because they're
0:48:06 going to do
0:48:07 they're going they're predatorial
0:48:09 so so there's these these issues here
0:48:11 like how doesn't what what is a
0:48:13 hierarchy for an animal how does an
0:48:15 animal
0:48:17 promote itself to another animal uh how
0:48:20 does it promote itself to human beings
0:48:21 there's you know
0:48:23 and so on
0:48:25 and within human beings how does that
0:48:26 work either
0:48:28 and it can it can actually lead to
0:48:30 fatalism and
0:48:32 as well because well you've you you are
0:48:35 disabled you are
0:48:37 this or that or you are this class or
0:48:39 this cast
0:48:40 because you had a very poor
0:48:42 prior life or indeed
0:48:44 correct me if i'm wrong it could be
0:48:46 because
0:48:47 you had a bad life you're doing bad
0:48:49 things because the idea of karma and
0:48:50 reincarnation are very much connected
0:48:52 right
0:48:53 so karma is like you're do you're doing
0:48:54 bad things in this world so you get bad
0:48:56 back
0:48:57 in this world
0:48:58 and it could be in the next world but it
0:49:00 could also be in this world so what that
0:49:02 could lead to is blaming people uh
0:49:04 something happens to someone that's all
0:49:06 you're doing that happened to them
0:49:08 because they were
0:49:09 you know
0:49:10 because they they had it coming
0:49:12 basically i came across that a lot when
0:49:13 i was traveling you would see a lot of
0:49:15 people they would like be begging in
0:49:17 that because they had
0:49:18 some sort of problem
0:49:20 um and when you would when we were with
0:49:23 the locals they would often
0:49:25 explain as oh they did something bad in
0:49:27 their previous life yeah and that's for
0:49:29 us as muslims it's not once again it's
0:49:31 not always a bad explanation but it's
0:49:33 for us it's one of many explanations
0:49:35 could be that you are being punished
0:49:37 could be that you're being tested could
0:49:38 be tested it could be that your being uh
0:49:40 your sins are being alleviated
0:49:43 but if that's the only mechanism that
0:49:45 they have
0:49:46 so it's it can lead to fatalism because
0:49:48 you are being dealt with in this way
0:49:50 because you had acted this way in the
0:49:52 previous life that you lived as an ant
0:49:54 or whatever it was
0:49:55 yeah sorry go
0:49:56 ahead they also use this to justify uh
0:50:00 or to answer theodicy right the problem
0:50:02 of evil so when they say when people say
0:50:05 why you know why is this child in this
0:50:07 place being bombed and stuff they'll say
0:50:09 well it's because in the previous life
0:50:11 they were a horrible person and that's
0:50:13 why they're put in the situation all
0:50:14 right right so i would we we would then
0:50:16 have a secondary problem with that then
0:50:20 as the quran states you know that one
0:50:22 soul should not be punished for what
0:50:24 another soul
0:50:25 does and this is something which seems
0:50:27 to be concurrent with christianity and
0:50:28 hinduism then because it's like original
0:50:31 sin on steroids
0:50:33 that's basically what this is i think
0:50:34 you're saying
0:50:35 the girl is that she did in the previous
0:50:37 life yeah it's not someone else's nobody
0:50:40 all right right but it's
0:50:41 the distinction there but you are a
0:50:43 different form you're a different person
0:50:45 you're a different self and then you're
0:50:47 an ant
0:50:49 you're the same soul yeah okay so it's
0:50:51 better than the christian tradition it's
0:50:52 a bit more consistent i guess you know
0:50:55 because with the christian tradition
0:50:56 it's one person's being literally one
0:50:58 soul is being dealt with by another uh
0:51:00 soul's actions it's a good point
0:51:04 because i have noticed that it affects
0:51:06 um
0:51:08 empathy like people
0:51:09 don't have empathy for someone who's
0:51:11 suffering in this life
0:51:14 like they don't like you know for
0:51:15 example yeah so if like for example if
0:51:17 we see someone that's going through
0:51:19 something
0:51:20 um we might look at them with empathy
0:51:22 and we might have compassion and um
0:51:25 you know want to help them or something
0:51:27 but it i i did experience and it's not
0:51:29 to say that it's going to be consistent
0:51:31 throughout everyone
0:51:32 that comes from these kind of cultures
0:51:34 but they would see someone that was
0:51:36 disabled and they would um
0:51:38 they would look at them in a bad way
0:51:40 because they considered them or they
0:51:42 must have been bad people so it's not
0:51:44 just empathy it can like give rise to a
0:51:47 sort of hatred in in some ways well
0:51:50 that's that's that's these are all very
0:51:52 very good points that combined with the
0:51:53 whole cast system then you have real
0:51:55 recipe for disaster i think
0:51:57 all right so we have spoken about
0:52:00 that now i want to move on to the next
0:52:02 bit which is rituals okay unless anyone
0:52:05 has anything to say about a
0:52:06 reincarnation which you haven't covered
0:52:09 yeah yeah so
0:52:11 from what i saw they do acknowledge that
0:52:12 this is a problem because obviously
0:52:14 animals don't have more agency like that
0:52:16 oh okay they acknowledge that because
0:52:17 obviously reincarnation is a common
0:52:18 thing amongst like hinduism and buddhism
0:52:20 they both kind of have similar sort of
0:52:21 idea
0:52:22 so some of them will say that uh the
0:52:25 animal like like the way a criminal goes
0:52:27 into jail and lives out their sentence
0:52:29 and then comes out when you if like
0:52:33 depending on like the bad karma that
0:52:34 you've accumulated uh you go and you
0:52:36 become an animal and then you kind of
0:52:37 live out your sentence however many
0:52:39 times you have to be an animal until
0:52:40 you've lived out and then you get to
0:52:41 come back into
0:52:42 the human realm and try again but it's a
0:52:45 bit far-fetched and they don't all agree
0:52:46 on that so it is a problem like
0:52:49 okay good good so we're definitely on to
0:52:51 something here let's move on to rituals
0:52:53 um
0:52:54 yeah sorry go ahead ahmed
0:52:56 uh well one thing i just wanted to
0:52:58 briefly mention is in hinduism when they
0:53:01 talk about reincarnation especially with
0:53:03 these avatars
0:53:05 right like so for example krishna is a
0:53:07 good example
0:53:08 was krishna really a god or was krishna
0:53:11 a prophet
0:53:12 right because human beings as we know
0:53:14 with christianity have a tendency to
0:53:16 deify sacred you know prophets
0:53:20 so krishna for example was a shepherd
0:53:23 it was somebody who was a human being or
0:53:25 somebody who did miracles it was
0:53:27 somebody who
0:53:28 uh brought a sort of revelation so even
0:53:31 within hinduism and we know how
0:53:33 religions can be corrupt
0:53:35 so um
0:53:36 we we also have to
0:53:38 see understand that hinduism has you
0:53:41 know the idea sometimes we ask ourselves
0:53:43 did did allah send a prophet to india
0:53:46 and i think that's the wrong question i
0:53:48 think the the right question to us
0:53:50 uh which obviously we won't get an
0:53:52 answer to is how many prophets that
0:53:55 allah sent because you're looking at a
0:53:56 massive you know four or five thousand
0:53:59 year old religion um
0:54:01 so
0:54:02 some might the argument that krishna was
0:54:03 the prophet
0:54:04 argued that
0:54:06 another one was a prophet so they have
0:54:08 prophets within it so i just thought it
0:54:09 was an interesting point to mention
0:54:12 yeah i mean i can see i can see why that
0:54:14 could uh be the case and uh how the
0:54:16 religion then got corrupted
0:54:18 it should be noted you know the the
0:54:20 major anthropological
0:54:24 kind of thesis that is out there
0:54:27 is that of an emergent monotheism which
0:54:30 jordan peterson kept talking about in
0:54:31 our discussion by the way well you know
0:54:33 what he meant by that
0:54:35 he meant
0:54:36 that and this is you know the the
0:54:38 prevailing theory
0:54:40 that you have all these different gods
0:54:42 polytheistic gods and then
0:54:44 some force or some socio sociological
0:54:48 situation happens
0:54:50 where then that becomes like one god
0:54:53 so they they reverse engineer it from
0:54:55 our narrative our narrative is that it
0:54:57 started off from monotheism and then
0:55:00 polytheism emerged out of monetism but
0:55:02 the dominant theory in anthropology is
0:55:04 the opposite of that which is that
0:55:06 everything started off in uh
0:55:08 as polytheism and then
0:55:10 you needed to unify the tribes unify the
0:55:12 people so you created a monotheism
0:55:15 you see so a lot of this
0:55:17 a lot of this is yeah even within that
0:55:20 there's a stage before the polytheist
0:55:22 follow theorism which is animism right
0:55:25 the idea that everything contains spirit
0:55:27 so there's a spirit in this table
0:55:29 there's a spirit in the tree and then
0:55:31 like karen armstrong's book a history of
0:55:33 god she says then they took the souls
0:55:35 the spirits out of them and put it into
0:55:37 the idols
0:55:38 and then she said people started
0:55:39 worshiping the idols and then they
0:55:41 claimed that when ibrahim alaihissalam
0:55:43 came he was kind of the founder of
0:55:45 monotheism and as you know judaism
0:55:48 christianity and islam spread they
0:55:50 destroyed all the polytheism which is a
0:55:52 natural state and then they established
0:55:54 monotheism does she believe that abraham
0:55:56 actually existed does she does she say
0:55:58 that
0:56:00 well that that's part of their theory
0:56:02 they don't really have a proper
0:56:04 explanation they're just for example if
0:56:06 you read someone like wilhelm schmidt
0:56:08 who was a christian in the 20th century
0:56:10 and he wrote 12 volumes on this thesis
0:56:13 that
0:56:14 every civilization was monotheistic
0:56:16 originally but when the tribes got
0:56:18 together
0:56:20 each of them bringing their own gods
0:56:21 each of them saying that their gods had
0:56:23 different names that's how you get paul
0:56:25 atheism but monotheism he argued in 12
0:56:27 volumes
0:56:29 is the dominance you know that that's
0:56:31 the basis of a society and and if you do
0:56:34 any tribal society
0:56:36 right even today which has no contact
0:56:38 with any human civilization you'll find
0:56:40 what was the name of that person
0:56:46 [Music]
0:56:57 unfortunately most of his works are are
0:56:59 in german but there are some
0:57:00 translations in english excellent that's
0:57:02 a very good point thank you for for
0:57:04 mentioning it
0:57:06 yeah of course
0:57:07 so
0:57:08 this notion that the polytheism was
0:57:10 primary and then monotheism came after
0:57:12 it it's sort of the result of like you
0:57:14 know the the empirical predicament that
0:57:16 they're looking like for example we're
0:57:18 right which i think we are yeah and the
0:57:21 the original primary religion was
0:57:22 monotheistic
0:57:23 and it was anti-idol
0:57:27 what sort of empirical evidence are you
0:57:29 expecting to find
0:57:30 other than like
0:57:32 buildings of worship which are going to
0:57:33 be almost indistinguishable from just
0:57:35 places of living yeah you know you're
0:57:37 just going to have
0:57:38 like maybe some ruins of a building but
0:57:40 there's nothing to identify as a
0:57:42 anti-idol monotheistic people
0:57:45 right yeah it's a very good point yes
0:57:47 and so if they're like right what
0:57:49 evidence do we have to make an inference
0:57:51 obviously
0:57:52 when you sort of move from this
0:57:55 original primary monotheistic religion
0:57:57 which is anti-idol and you know focuses
0:58:00 on the worship of something transcendent
0:58:02 um you're not going to have empirical
0:58:04 evidence for that
0:58:06 but when they move away from that and
0:58:08 start practicing you know different
0:58:09 forms of shirk and they start producing
0:58:11 idols then of course it's at that point
0:58:13 you're going to start having empirical
0:58:16 evidence
0:58:17 and so if they're
0:58:20 you know sort of
0:58:21 epistemology is primarily epistle um
0:58:26 empirical
0:58:27 then it makes sense that they would they
0:58:29 might make this mistake yeah i see the
0:58:32 point and also the from our perspective
0:58:34 the quran comments
0:58:37 that the majority of people are mushriks
0:58:39 anyway
0:58:41 that they are
0:58:42 in that category so sometimes well it's
0:58:44 now you're looking at the wealth of
0:58:45 evidence
0:58:47 they may think well how come you have so
0:58:48 many polytheistic cultures
0:58:51 uh you have political cultures because
0:58:54 they diverted from the monotheistic
0:58:56 religion even though that might now
0:58:57 become the dominant demographic in world
0:59:00 history but
0:59:02 that might be confused and we believe it
0:59:04 has been because it's almost impossible
0:59:07 like strictly from a historical
0:59:09 perspective
0:59:10 to make a case for or against because
0:59:12 all you're looking at is correlations
0:59:14 but you ca the moment you say well it's
0:59:15 excited from this and then became that
0:59:17 it's very very very difficult
0:59:20 this touches on what we were talking
0:59:21 about before
0:59:22 um
0:59:23 where there was the mention of
0:59:25 uh that there was a there's a
0:59:27 possibility of this the seed of that
0:59:29 monotheistic religion being found in say
0:59:31 hinduism and the brother was making the
0:59:34 references to how
0:59:35 certain gods in hinduism could have been
0:59:38 originally saint like the angels
0:59:41 and
0:59:42 that
0:59:43 makes
0:59:45 i would say makes sense because we even
0:59:47 like from our perspective we do believe
0:59:49 that every
0:59:50 um people came from adam alaihissalam
0:59:53 and so that each of them should have
0:59:56 the seeds of that original
0:59:58 religion they should have the seeds of
1:00:00 their origins present in that
1:00:02 and i see i see the point i mean for
1:00:04 sure it's not it's not conceivable at
1:00:06 all to think that there's been some
1:00:07 corruption
1:00:08 that's taken place and that was
1:00:09 originally um monotheistic and we can
1:00:12 also understand why that would occur so
1:00:13 like you only need to look at like
1:00:16 accents and
1:00:17 language in england for example like how
1:00:19 we were speaking about this the other
1:00:20 day as well how much it varies over time
1:00:24 and how it can develop now if you
1:00:25 imagine a world that was completely
1:00:27 disconnected back in the day
1:00:29 where the world is vast and it's not as
1:00:31 populated
1:00:32 and you have a group of people
1:00:35 and they begin with the same religion or
1:00:37 the same culture
1:00:38 and as they get bigger tensions arise
1:00:40 and they have to they're split
1:00:41 and so one people go in one direction
1:00:43 and the other go in another
1:00:44 and as time develops
1:00:46 their original language would also
1:00:49 develop and change and so what they used
1:00:52 to share would become
1:00:54 independent or different in the way they
1:00:56 express it so they might have the same
1:00:57 word
1:00:58 when they were together for god
1:01:00 but then as they move separately
1:01:02 centuries passes multiple generations
1:01:05 have passed and people have been born
1:01:06 and died etcetera and their languages
1:01:08 have changed if they were to ever meet
1:01:10 again
1:01:12 they would have very different ways of
1:01:14 expressing
1:01:15 what would have been the same thing
1:01:17 and that might cause confusion if
1:01:19 they've not necessarily recorded that
1:01:20 history
1:01:22 perfectly or if you know there's all
1:01:23 sorts of things you know if you imagine
1:01:25 life back then it could have been quite
1:01:26 chaotic
1:01:27 you know you're just focused on survival
1:01:29 you've got all sorts of things kicking
1:01:30 off you've got tigers trying to eat your
1:01:31 face
1:01:32 and so
1:01:34 you know recording history might not
1:01:36 necessarily have been a primary concern
1:01:38 for them survival might have been
1:01:40 and so it makes sense that they would
1:01:42 maybe have this different way of
1:01:43 expressing the same thing but then upon
1:01:45 meeting each other again many centuries
1:01:47 later that they might distinguish that
1:01:49 as something separate
1:01:51 so you know if one person's referring to
1:01:54 god in one way and the other person is
1:01:57 referring to in another way and then
1:01:58 you've had sort of like additions
1:02:01 creatively as people have developed
1:02:03 independently and they've added things
1:02:04 yeah yeah yeah that adding isn't going
1:02:06 to be identical yeah and so then it when
1:02:08 they meet each other that it's going to
1:02:09 be like well no my god's the real god
1:02:11 and they're because they've sort of got
1:02:13 that from the original root right and
1:02:15 then the other people are going to say
1:02:16 the same thing and then it would make
1:02:17 sense that at some point that would
1:02:19 maybe give rise to a conflict
1:02:21 and then you have the rise of multiple
1:02:23 gods and then
1:02:24 you would see polytheism begin to
1:02:26 develop
1:02:27 from that and you know we've got
1:02:29 examples of how the romans
1:02:31 added even the hindus he mentioned
1:02:33 buddha
1:02:35 the buddhism
1:02:36 was a
1:02:37 you know the original buddha the prince
1:02:39 siddhartha whatever his name was
1:02:41 um
1:02:42 he originated in india
1:02:44 buddhism develops as a religion and then
1:02:46 the hindus added him into their pantheon
1:02:49 so the buddha became a hindu god as well
1:02:51 um and even you you find even some
1:02:53 hindus they'll add jesus
1:02:56 to their pantheon they all do that with
1:02:57 guru nanak so it's quite interesting
1:02:59 yeah but so but the point is is mainly
1:03:02 like and then the romans when they would
1:03:03 conquer people they would try to
1:03:05 incorporate their that people's gods
1:03:06 into their own religion as well so yeah
1:03:08 you can see the additions coming yeah
1:03:10 and you can see how like you can see why
1:03:12 if there was as you know what we say a
1:03:15 pure monotheistic tradition
1:03:18 how that could develop into polytheism
1:03:20 and it makes sense as well like if
1:03:21 you're gonna like if i'm gonna start a
1:03:23 story
1:03:24 or i'm gonna write something i'm gonna
1:03:26 begin with one character you have to
1:03:28 begin somewhere and you have to begin
1:03:30 with one
1:03:31 you like you can't if like if you're
1:03:33 going to create a polytheistic religion
1:03:35 you can't just start with 50 gods and if
1:03:38 you follow all of their sort of family
1:03:39 trees they all do go back
1:03:41 to
1:03:42 this sort of
1:03:43 one mysterious
1:03:45 creative force
1:03:47 and um
1:03:48 yeah and so even then you can see the
1:03:50 origins of some possible monotheism
1:03:52 within within each of the polytheistic
1:03:54 religions
1:03:55 all right um that's very very uh
1:04:00 syncretism yeah religious syncretism yes
1:04:03 i just wanted to say yes it's not
1:04:05 inconceivable from
1:04:07 a muslim perspective we have the example
1:04:09 in the quran
1:04:10 of uh musa and harun
1:04:13 where you had two messengers at the same
1:04:17 time that were sent to the jews and they
1:04:19 were worshiping a golden calf when musa
1:04:22 left for a short period of time so you
1:04:24 didn't even need like centuries of
1:04:26 development and interaction between
1:04:29 different cultures you had two
1:04:31 messengers of god peace be upon both of
1:04:33 them that were sent to a particular
1:04:35 people at the same time
1:04:37 one lefty and the other one was still
1:04:39 there and they still went astray
1:04:41 worshiping false gods so i mean from i
1:04:44 know it's from a muslim perspective but
1:04:45 from our perspective there's nothing
1:04:48 really hard to imagine about it and
1:04:50 that's really powerful a really powerful
1:04:52 example in fact and and now that you've
1:04:54 said that it makes me think of another
1:04:57 which is uh the gods that were being
1:04:59 worshipped at the time of noah
1:05:02 ali
1:05:07 these three gods that the people of noah
1:05:10 used to worship
1:05:13 some professors like they say about it
1:05:16 that is talking about they were
1:05:17 originally good men in the community
1:05:20 they did wonderful works and so on and
1:05:22 then the statues had been made up
1:05:25 in their name or in their image and then
1:05:27 people started watching them like gods
1:05:29 um so i stayed in temples in korea yeah
1:05:32 and they did that it was it was a new
1:05:33 temple it's called windsor temple and
1:05:35 they just built it in the mountain area
1:05:37 and the the person that made it he only
1:05:39 died 50 years or so years ago it's not
1:05:42 even been a century and they made a big
1:05:44 gold statue out of him and and they
1:05:46 worship funnily enough similar to how
1:05:49 the muslims like they prostrate they do
1:05:50 it five odd times a day no way and um
1:05:53 but they do it to these big gold statues
1:05:56 subhanallah well of these men that lived
1:05:58 not long ago you know it see we'll come
1:06:00 to this maybe like i said the tail end
1:06:02 of the discussion but it seems like the
1:06:04 way to do dawah to hindus is already the
1:06:06 outline and the blueprint is already
1:06:08 given in the quran like all those very
1:06:10 basic questions
1:06:12 about asking them
1:06:15 to recognize that this layadoro leia
1:06:17 and falcon this this statue does not
1:06:20 benefit you does not harm you
1:06:22 you know just going back to
1:06:24 bare bone basics but we have one thing
1:06:27 more to cover today which is rituals
1:06:41 hinduism one of the interesting things
1:06:42 that you'll find
1:06:43 is that
1:06:44 the story of the flood is something
1:06:46 which is foundational in hinduism
1:06:49 oh really yeah yeah go ahead
1:06:51 so tell us about that then the story of
1:06:53 the flood in hinduism
1:06:55 well the story of the flood is found
1:06:56 everywhere everywhere you go you'll find
1:06:59 it even here in uh california in
1:07:01 vancouver the indigenous people believe
1:07:03 in the flood they believe that's how
1:07:05 they got here so
1:07:06 the flood is very well known through you
1:07:08 know multiple multiple evidences but in
1:07:11 hinduism their calendar also has a
1:07:13 relationship with the flood
1:07:15 but um you know i once read a paper
1:07:18 somebody argued that
1:07:20 saddam was the prophet that was sent to
1:07:22 india um and so they cited some of these
1:07:24 verses but they mentioned a hadith which
1:07:26 i thought was quite interesting which is
1:07:28 that on the day of judgement
1:07:31 salaam shows up with his people
1:07:33 islam shows up
1:07:34 and
1:07:36 and i'm paraphrasing we can look into it
1:07:37 but his people don't recognize him
1:07:41 and hinduism is the only world religion
1:07:44 that i can think of
1:07:46 that does not have a founder
1:07:49 it's it's it's something which is quite
1:07:50 you look at buddhism
1:07:52 yeah well i i don't know if the hadith
1:07:55 because
1:07:56 his people
1:07:58 were the mutmans the believers and the
1:08:00 hindus are
1:08:02 clearly
1:08:03 you know mushriks
1:08:06 so i don't know if i would
1:08:07 connect the two
1:08:10 original people that he came with
1:08:12 um those people wouldn't even recognize
1:08:14 it's just an argument out there but
1:08:16 what was the link they made with like
1:08:18 the gods that i mentioned the quran at
1:08:20 the time of noah
1:08:23 uh i'm not sure
1:08:25 oh okay
1:08:26 yeah yeah oh okay okay yeah no no
1:08:28 interesting it's i do think that there
1:08:31 could be some very interesting overlap
1:08:33 um
1:08:35 another thing also you mentioned like
1:08:37 the three gods
1:08:38 um those the words given to them are
1:08:40 probably the arabic names for them
1:08:43 so i i wonder if you know
1:08:45 could those be the hindu gods of vishnu
1:08:48 but these words and these words
1:08:51 and all that they're not arabic words
1:08:53 okay yeah they're not they're not
1:08:55 records
1:08:57 i've seen i think in some of the
1:08:58 commentaries that some argue that uh
1:09:01 that the sabians were
1:09:03 a lot of them argue that they were from
1:09:04 like iraq and mesopotamia but i've read
1:09:07 some that said that uh it could possibly
1:09:09 be hinduism as well a reference to allah
1:09:12 these are very interesting things to
1:09:14 think about
1:09:18 do they hindu gods have some sort of
1:09:20 dependency upon the worship of their
1:09:22 followers like do they become stronger
1:09:25 or weaker
1:09:26 do the hindu gods become stronger
1:09:29 stronger or weaker depending on who
1:09:31 follows them
1:09:32 i mean we see this kind of like this
1:09:34 might link into richard rituals actually
1:09:36 because one thing i was exposed to when
1:09:38 i went to one of the temples in west
1:09:40 london you know i went in there one time
1:09:42 to see what they were doing
1:09:44 and you know there's one of this people
1:09:46 dancing and stuff like they actually had
1:09:47 segregation i was quite surprised
1:09:50 they had men and women segregated
1:09:52 which i was quite surprised but anyways
1:09:54 i went in and they looked at me quite
1:09:56 strangely not because of maybe it's
1:09:57 because of the sheer size
1:10:00 of
1:10:01 i was hoping that they don't jump into
1:10:04 some kind of a prostration or anything
1:10:05 like that
1:10:07 you know that some statue would be made
1:10:10 of
1:10:11 uh i don't think that was there was any
1:10:13 danger of that actually to be honest but
1:10:16 but what i did see was that they were
1:10:17 they were leaving this
1:10:20 milk i think it was milk actually
1:10:22 uh
1:10:23 it was kind of like you know the santa
1:10:25 claus uh thing with the cookies but
1:10:27 without the cookies they just had they
1:10:28 had you know the milk
1:10:30 and they were putting their you know
1:10:34 and i think what they do
1:10:36 i think i asked this guy and he they put
1:10:38 the milk there
1:10:40 and they go and they come back and
1:10:42 obviously like within two three days
1:10:44 the milk goes down a little bit
1:10:46 less it's like
1:10:48 you know less milk
1:10:51 and i think they think that that god
1:10:53 drinks it
1:10:55 but obviously they have cameras
1:10:59 i know this sounds ridiculous right so
1:11:01 why don't they just look at the cameras
1:11:03 to see what's happened because they'll
1:11:04 just see it's evaporated
1:11:06 i mean
1:11:09 am i just being facetious here or is
1:11:11 this actually what they believe or do
1:11:13 they not believe in this love i i
1:11:15 because this guy told me that that's
1:11:16 what they believe
1:11:17 they might think of it as some sort of
1:11:18 like spirit drinking it rather than like
1:11:21 the statue
1:11:23 like walks down to the milk or doing
1:11:25 this literally and then gets off like
1:11:28 you know it could be some sort of method
1:11:29 okay so what's going on with the with
1:11:30 the milk and what are these rituals
1:11:32 anyone know about the milk crucial they
1:11:34 have a similar thing with buddhism as
1:11:35 well where it's an offering
1:11:37 for the
1:11:39 the being for which it's intended
1:11:42 um and i'm not 100 percent maybe maybe
1:11:44 the brother here can
1:11:46 elaborate on it whether or not they're
1:11:48 dependent upon that and they need it's a
1:11:50 form of substance from them that helps
1:11:52 them um because i
1:11:54 and obviously it's not even
1:11:56 necessarily all
1:11:58 hindus or buddhists that believe this
1:11:59 but i have heard some people try to
1:12:02 explain that
1:12:03 the their gods need this worship and
1:12:06 they become weak and i've seen the same
1:12:09 sort of thing
1:12:10 referenced in even things like you know
1:12:12 viking
1:12:13 um mythology
1:12:15 where if the gods are not being
1:12:17 worshipped yeah they they lose power is
1:12:19 that is that what they believe i can't
1:12:21 remember i haven't heard people say that
1:12:23 but i couldn't give references okay um
1:12:25 what about this okay i'll give you some
1:12:27 controversial ones
1:12:29 um and
1:12:30 well it stopped at the time of the
1:12:32 british empire but they had this
1:12:34 practice
1:12:35 sati which was women would burn
1:12:37 themselves when you know literally kill
1:12:40 themselves through burning
1:12:42 when their husbands died
1:12:46 i'm not going to comment about you know
1:12:48 the social aspects of
1:12:50 ethical non-ethical it's their business
1:12:53 if i mean you can make a liberal
1:12:54 argument for a woman who wants to burn
1:12:56 herself it's just like euthanasia yeah
1:12:57 i'm sure you can make a really legal
1:12:59 item for
1:13:00 should the british
1:13:01 government have intervened
1:13:04 uh well in as much the same way as maybe
1:13:06 they should for euthanasia i i don't
1:13:09 know you can make an argument for these
1:13:10 things
1:13:12 or against these things you can say
1:13:13 maybe some will say no the british
1:13:14 government were right to do that because
1:13:17 this is a horrible practice
1:13:19 away from that discussion
1:13:21 does this practice of sati have any
1:13:25 precedent in the books of the hindus or
1:13:27 is it just a tradition that was passed
1:13:29 down
1:13:29 where does it have
1:13:31 its genesis what what this practice
1:13:33 where does it when
1:13:35 from whence did it come
1:13:36 yeah
1:13:38 well i know
1:13:39 there was a
1:13:40 there's a myth to the god shiva
1:13:43 so
1:13:44 uh if i'm correct i think this this is
1:13:46 this his wife basically
1:13:49 the
1:13:50 his
1:13:50 father-in-law so the wife of his
1:13:53 the father of his wife basically
1:13:55 despised him
1:13:56 uh at this say that again sorry so yeah
1:13:59 so um shiva is the god his father-in-law
1:14:04 so is it what he was a female or a male
1:14:05 she was the man okay so his
1:14:07 father-in-law but his his wife's husband
1:14:10 despised him
1:14:12 father sorry stop yes it's his wife's
1:14:14 father just buys this doesn't seem like
1:14:16 a myth at all it seems like
1:14:20 it seems like he's talking about a real
1:14:22 life story go ahead so um
1:14:25 obviously this this put the wife in a
1:14:26 very sort of tumultuous position she
1:14:28 wants her dad to like her husband but
1:14:30 that doesn't that does not get on board
1:14:32 absolutely you know yeah of course a lot
1:14:34 of maybe sisters know
1:14:36 what this is like
1:14:37 but so eventually
1:14:39 she uh just in sort of like a protest
1:14:42 she burned herself
1:14:44 wow um
1:14:46 and while she's burning herself she's
1:14:47 she prayed that
1:14:49 i guess
1:14:50 uh she comes back
1:14:52 uh as his husband if i'm correctly i had
1:14:54 it here wow wow so yes i have to say
1:14:57 with all the with all the
1:15:01 i'm against this practice we are against
1:15:03 this practice as muslims but you have to
1:15:05 say that you know
1:15:06 and this woman has really have some
1:15:09 serious loyalty for
1:15:10 the man i mean she'd we're talking about
1:15:12 polygamy here and all this kind of thing
1:15:14 it's still burning yourself to that
1:15:17 different level all together you could
1:15:19 also look at it as a disloyalty to her
1:15:21 father
1:15:23 yes yes yeah but we're talking about the
1:15:24 husband here for a second
1:15:29 yeah go ahead uh sorry bro you're in the
1:15:31 middle
1:15:32 yeah so
1:15:34 sorry so okay
1:15:36 yeah yeah so what it looks like here
1:15:39 we've got the we've got the um the
1:15:41 diagram so she
1:15:43 when she she makes this prayer she dies
1:15:45 and then she's re uh she prays to be
1:15:47 reborn as his wife again
1:15:49 uh and so she dies and she's really this
1:15:51 is uh this is chivas this is the wife no
1:15:53 i'm sorry she's his wife shiva's wife
1:15:56 so harambe uh i i've got in one place at
1:15:59 sati but there's another place that says
1:16:00 she's also goes by parvati oh wow so
1:16:04 there's where is this book do you know
1:16:05 what the source is for this so uh
1:16:07 it's one of their mythological books
1:16:09 yeah
1:16:11 i can try to pull up the source okay
1:16:13 in a second
1:16:15 oh the
1:16:17 the
1:16:18 top
1:16:20 i know the word voice yeah you can put
1:16:22 it in the group but that's interesting
1:16:24 that it actually has origins
1:16:26 because this is the mother of all
1:16:28 women's rights discussion i mean we've
1:16:30 it's almost gone under the carpet now
1:16:32 it's only because it's a historical
1:16:33 inquiry and it's been stopped
1:16:35 but still there's how many women burn
1:16:36 themselves like this yeah so obviously
1:16:39 she wasn't a widow when she did it
1:16:41 but afterwards like for some people it
1:16:43 became a sort of a sign of loyalty to
1:16:45 her person's husband wow and when your
1:16:46 husband goes you do that so that you i
1:16:49 guess reincarnate to be with him again
1:16:51 so then obviously that afterwards all
1:16:52 the social issues happen whether she's
1:16:53 being forced into or if she's not or if
1:16:55 she's doing it willing or whatever right
1:16:56 okay
1:16:57 now they've passed laws to kind of stop
1:16:59 that yeah yeah you'll still here odd
1:17:01 cases where women will actually do that
1:17:03 out of loyalty for their house really
1:17:04 when they die yeah
1:17:06 and how widespread was this historically
1:17:08 if anyone has read into that i mean
1:17:11 it was a practice that was happening
1:17:13 there for sure i mean
1:17:15 do we know where when it started i mean
1:17:16 that's a good path like it's a really
1:17:18 interesting and important research we
1:17:20 should look into that because that's
1:17:21 really important when they say well
1:17:23 islam is the only religion xyz and then
1:17:25 dot dot dot right
1:17:27 and then it talks about women's rights
1:17:28 somehow this is the mother of all
1:17:30 women's rights issues here a woman
1:17:32 burning herself to that forget about
1:17:34 stoling and decapitation this is a woman
1:17:36 burning herself to death
1:17:38 for committing no crime
1:17:40 involving herself in no trouble but only
1:17:43 because
1:17:44 her husband died it's only women's
1:17:46 rights issue if she's being forced to do
1:17:48 so
1:17:49 yes yes if she's doing it upon herself
1:17:51 then you could
1:17:53 make the liberal case that is a women's
1:17:55 right yeah yeah for sure i agree with
1:17:57 that yeah you could you could make that
1:17:58 argument and for sure you can make a
1:18:00 liberal argument for that you can make a
1:18:01 feminist language
1:18:03 just in the same ways you can do the
1:18:04 same thing for any kind of uh anything
1:18:07 that a muslim woman would do as well
1:18:08 because if you're trying to stop that
1:18:09 that could be framed as oppressive yeah
1:18:12 the man's trying to tell the woman what
1:18:14 to do yeah
1:18:16 but
1:18:16 where you stand on issues to do with
1:18:18 euthanasia and
1:18:20 whether the state should allow restrict
1:18:22 assist
1:18:23 with that kind of thing
1:18:25 because and then and then the question
1:18:26 of the social contract and is the social
1:18:29 contract of the state more these are all
1:18:31 we don't get there
1:18:32 it's beyond the scope of what we're
1:18:33 trying to but the the important thing is
1:18:36 that this is a serious
1:18:37 ritual really which only stopped
1:18:39 recently but how many women
1:18:42 uh perished in this way yeah go ahead
1:18:44 bro
1:18:45 i did some um i just did some online
1:18:47 research it wasn't something that was
1:18:49 widespread
1:18:50 it was something that was done
1:18:52 so the fact that it was done was
1:18:54 something that obviously people it
1:18:56 wasn't obviously soul acts so people
1:18:58 obviously saw this but
1:19:00 it wasn't that every woman one husband
1:19:01 died was doing it is probably certain
1:19:03 there's probably certain
1:19:05 and i think it's more like a cultural
1:19:06 taboo but it wasn't as widespread as i
1:19:09 think um
1:19:10 we think it might be because then
1:19:11 there'd be there would be like the
1:19:12 population would be so small if everyone
1:19:14 was close right
1:19:18 and then it spreads
1:19:21 the brother said that initially it was a
1:19:22 higher caste thing maybe the brahmins
1:19:24 were doing it says between 15th and 18th
1:19:26 century they said approximately 1 000
1:19:27 women okay so there's one there's one
1:19:30 estimate here we've got from from like
1:19:31 the 15th to 18th century about a
1:19:33 thousand women did it which is
1:19:34 quite significant bro like a thousand
1:19:36 women to do something like that
1:19:38 that's a thousand women that have
1:19:39 decided to burn themselves you know
1:19:41 that's
1:19:42 amazing really um
1:19:44 amazing not in the positive sense but
1:19:45 it's
1:19:47 shocking it's it's shocking that to be
1:19:49 honest it's that that people human
1:19:51 beings do that stuff
1:19:53 i find it shocking to be honest that's
1:19:55 for me the biggest uh
1:19:57 intrigue of the whole thing that human
1:19:58 beings would actually do that kind of
1:19:59 thing
1:20:00 i find it so intriguing
1:20:02 you know um anyway they're moving on
1:20:04 swiftly
1:20:05 other rituals that we see i mean in the
1:20:07 in the rivers there was a video yeah
1:20:09 yeah that was circulating where there
1:20:12 was just
1:20:12 they had they had this goat and there
1:20:14 was this big fire
1:20:16 and the goats alive or it's a sheep or
1:20:18 something it's an animal
1:20:19 and they're sort of lifting it above
1:20:21 their heads
1:20:23 and while it's still alive they just
1:20:25 sort of like cut it open
1:20:27 and then it's all its insides just start
1:20:30 falling out what's this what's this is
1:20:32 it's a hindu ritual of some sort okay
1:20:34 but it's basically they sacrifice an
1:20:36 animal while it's still alive by just
1:20:37 like oh they sacrifice animals in the
1:20:39 middle
1:20:40 and um and then they're just sort of
1:20:42 rubbing the its
1:20:43 entrails and stuff yeah and it's the
1:20:45 contents of its stomach and well we see
1:20:47 this kind of sorry to say unhygienic
1:20:49 practices
1:20:51 uh in the ganges uh rivers and it is
1:20:53 unhygienic and that is exactly sorry
1:20:55 what it is like
1:20:57 but what i'm i'm wondering here is this
1:21:00 an indian cultural thing or is this
1:21:02 something which has
1:21:04 some basis in the religion do they see
1:21:06 the river as god of some sorts the gange
1:21:09 god
1:21:10 or something
1:21:12 what's the
1:21:13 low down on that one i'm not sure do you
1:21:16 know ahmad
1:21:18 about the gandhi stuff they do
1:21:22 they do consider the river kanji as a
1:21:24 sacred river right not god though right
1:21:26 no no
1:21:29 and what do they do with uh
1:21:31 what what are they doing in there
1:21:33 so they do bathe in the river i think
1:21:36 that washer weights in their sense
1:21:38 really yeah that's one thing that they
1:21:39 do
1:21:40 when they had like a pilgrimage they go
1:21:42 to certain place it was uh near the uh a
1:21:45 certain part of the genghis river and
1:21:47 they bathed themselves in there but i'm
1:21:49 not sure about that and you've been
1:21:50 there yourself no no this is in india oh
1:21:53 okay yeah i thought it might have been
1:21:55 but it's it's very unhygienic now if you
1:21:57 look at the videos of it it's
1:21:58 undoubtedly unhygienic it's
1:22:00 yeah i don't know and they're all in the
1:22:02 same time and they're urinating and
1:22:03 defecating in there
1:22:05 uh
1:22:06 what do we know about the poo throwing
1:22:08 yeah
1:22:15 and that's the pronunciation
1:22:17 but you have like you know
1:22:19 the many people come
1:22:20 they start with like uh collecting the i
1:22:23 guess ammunition so they'll collect
1:22:26 they'll go to the houses that own cows
1:22:27 because they believe in the
1:22:28 the holiness of cows because of like the
1:22:30 cows produce milk and it's seen as like
1:22:32 a life-giving entity so you know
1:22:34 it's i guess is that why they consider
1:22:36 it a holy cow
1:22:39 okay right fine
1:22:41 it says the cow is the mother of all
1:22:42 things yeah they couldn't okay and it
1:22:44 couldn't be the reason they consider it
1:22:46 because you can get that from goats cats
1:22:48 give you milk yeah like
1:22:51 okay so why the cow in particular the
1:22:53 scriptural reason because the
1:22:54 brotherhood
1:22:55 the cow is the mother of all things and
1:22:57 also the uh it's reported that krishna
1:22:59 was very respectful to krakow so there's
1:23:02 like uh also there's two reasons because
1:23:03 krishna was respectful to cows yeah and
1:23:05 the mother is uh the cow is the mother
1:23:07 of all things according to bhagavad gita
1:23:08 yeah what does that mean the wonderful
1:23:10 thing i have no idea i'm guessing it
1:23:12 relates to some sort of origin of life
1:23:14 well maybe that's what we started
1:23:20 according to evolutionary biology and
1:23:22 you know what family the cow is in
1:23:26 it's it's in there with the whale and
1:23:27 the
1:23:30 it's in there with the whale and the sea
1:23:31 creatures
1:23:34 have you seen this
1:23:36 it's a bovine like but in terms of
1:23:40 that's to be honest that's like a
1:23:41 mythology in itself how much can you
1:23:44 think
1:23:45 how many transformation needs to happen
1:23:47 for a cow to turn into a whale or a
1:23:49 whale to turn into a clown sorry a whale
1:23:51 to turn into a cow yeah like from a
1:23:53 guild to a lung like how many
1:23:55 transformations have to continually
1:23:57 happen
1:23:58 but this is a story like this is
1:24:00 honestly it is a narrative
1:24:03 uh
1:24:04 yeah sorry by the way the the cow is the
1:24:06 mother of all things that's why they
1:24:08 it's good now i know
1:24:13 yeah sorry ahmed we'll come to you in a
1:24:14 second just uh one of our guys is just
1:24:16 saying things about the cow so
1:24:18 obviously there's scriptural basis for
1:24:20 their sort of um
1:24:21 them valuing it but then there's also
1:24:23 things about it having as i said it eats
1:24:25 simple things then it produces this milk
1:24:27 which is like salvation
1:24:30 yeah but you know so you can see that
1:24:31 they're like they're trying to they're
1:24:32 trying to maybe it's a double they're
1:24:34 trying to take hawaii i don't know so
1:24:36 then the idea is that anything that the
1:24:37 cow produces is pure and potentially
1:24:39 curing so they collect the feces of the
1:24:41 cow so then they take it to this temple
1:24:44 this is the specific festival that
1:24:45 referred to earlier the uh the the
1:24:47 priest or the some of the clergymen will
1:24:49 come and they'll say a blessing and that
1:24:51 type of thing and then there's like the
1:24:52 the the flinging aspect so they'll take
1:24:54 the feast they're frying right now so
1:24:56 they're they're for
1:24:59 all that kind of stuff like
1:25:01 i don't use yeah but that's all that
1:25:03 that process takes place and so the
1:25:04 belief is that there's also like curing
1:25:07 um
1:25:09 there's also curing uh
1:25:11 health benefits
1:25:12 so
1:25:14 does this have scriptural basis that the
1:25:15 throwing there was an amazing i know it
1:25:18 was bitter
1:25:19 but
1:25:20 maybe they're just making the inference
1:25:22 because they've already put such a high
1:25:23 status on
1:25:25 the cow maybe the cow has the most
1:25:27 ammunition
1:25:30 maybe i mean it's got a lot of milk
1:25:33 it's got a lot of feces that's what i'm
1:25:34 saying but yeah i think i think it's
1:25:36 probably just like an inference from
1:25:38 they've already put it to like a really
1:25:40 really high status
1:25:42 and so now they're valuing everything
1:25:44 that it produces
1:25:47 and
1:25:48 you're an animal that produces more milk
1:25:50 than a cow
1:25:54 maybe it's that i don't know
1:25:56 the whales produce milk they come
1:25:59 from
1:26:01 the whales produce more because they
1:26:03 do i can imagine that they produce
1:26:05 the mammals but i don't think they
1:26:06 produce milk i don't i don't think so
1:26:10 i don't know i don't think so no i don't
1:26:12 think so
1:26:13 that's one of the other things that
1:26:14 you don't know either
1:26:16 i don't think no i'm not you know this
1:26:18 is not my area
1:26:20 no no but the point is is
1:26:23 uh the point i'm making here is uh
1:26:27 a cow
1:26:29 what i'm so struggling to understand to
1:26:31 connect this to a social issue is
1:26:34 why they you know the lynchings that
1:26:36 take place when muslims in india you
1:26:38 know sacrifice a cow and eat it or
1:26:40 whatever
1:26:41 is that just with muslim people or do
1:26:43 they do that with like christians and
1:26:45 jews or anyone else yeah i can imagine
1:26:47 it's not limited to the muslims
1:26:52 something that's very interesting is
1:26:53 there's a book that this professor
1:26:55 indian professor wrote called the myth
1:26:57 of the holy cow
1:26:59 and it's an interesting book because
1:27:00 what he argues in there is that b played
1:27:03 an important role you know in the
1:27:05 cuisine of ancient india long before you
1:27:07 know islam even came
1:27:09 and he says that part of the brahman or
1:27:12 the buddhist diet was eating beef
1:27:15 and you know this is this book you know
1:27:16 they banned it in india but he made the
1:27:17 argument that you know hindus
1:27:19 historically have been eating uh cow
1:27:22 they have been eating beef so
1:27:24 the idea that muslims today because
1:27:26 they're eating it he says it's really
1:27:28 because the
1:27:29 government
1:27:30 has decided to persecute muslims
1:27:32 specifically um they began this uh this
1:27:36 persecution but that historically that
1:27:39 the hindus used to eat cows especially
1:27:41 among the roman class so it's a it's an
1:27:44 interesting it's an interesting point
1:27:47 yeah it's a very interesting point and
1:27:48 um
1:27:49 uh one that we should definitely think
1:27:51 more about because this actually have
1:27:53 has sociological impact uh with the
1:27:55 lynchings that we're seeing in indians
1:27:57 on but i wanted to ask a bit more about
1:27:59 rituals so they have diwali
1:28:02 they have these things we were aware of
1:28:04 festival of light this kind of festival
1:28:05 what other things that which are staple
1:28:08 parts of hindu ritual
1:28:10 that you guys have researched
1:28:22 yeah yeah yeah yeah so like you
1:28:24 mentioned there's like many rituals
1:28:26 because they're like multiple traditions
1:28:27 i'll just focus on maybe the main ones
1:28:29 yes so categorize them into five
1:28:30 categories is
1:28:31 the rights of rights of pastors there's
1:28:33 festivals and then there's yoga then
1:28:36 pilgrimages and then charity so the
1:28:38 rights of passage is called sanskaras
1:28:40 there's like 16
1:28:43 16
1:28:44 milestones that you reach in your life
1:28:46 and when you reach out you're supposed
1:28:48 to approach it you know uh acknowledge
1:28:50 it in a certain way
1:28:51 so it starts with marriage which is
1:28:53 called like vivah and then you do
1:28:55 certain things uh so it differs from
1:28:56 community coming to what you do on that
1:28:58 day and how you celebrate it
1:29:02 it is
1:29:03 a celebration basically marriage is a
1:29:04 celebration and then the second one is
1:29:07 on marriage they have polygamy politiony
1:29:09 what kind of thing not quite about that
1:29:11 all right right and then the second is
1:29:12 praying for the children it's like
1:29:13 basically dua
1:29:15 so that's the second son's color pray to
1:29:17 the god or whoever the god is yeah
1:29:20 whichever one they want
1:29:22 somewhere i read that like
1:29:24 separate families have like separate
1:29:25 gods
1:29:26 okay it's like a preference basically
1:29:28 right right
1:29:30 so
1:29:30 basically for
1:29:32 progeny and then the third is when the
1:29:35 woman finds out she's pregnant the man
1:29:36 has to make a dish for the uh woman for
1:29:39 the woman and then they pray for the
1:29:41 child as well so this is also like a
1:29:43 celebration and then uh
1:29:46 then the
1:29:47 fourth one is like basically the
1:29:49 equivalent of baby showers in the west
1:29:51 so this is later in the pregnancy uh
1:29:54 the family friends get together and they
1:29:56 celebrate that and then there's once
1:29:58 after the baby is born and then one when
1:29:59 the baby is like
1:30:02 the 10th 11th day of the baby and then
1:30:03 the third or fourth month there's
1:30:05 another celebration then six months of
1:30:07 the day uh when maybe six months they
1:30:09 have a celebration and then the seventh
1:30:12 month and then when is one year old and
1:30:14 then when it's five years old uh that's
1:30:16 when they're first introduced to the
1:30:17 letters to study this this is basically
1:30:19 the
1:30:20 cleric class basically
1:30:22 who who was allowed to study
1:30:24 uh
1:30:25 in the fifth year that uh that uh taught
1:30:27 the letters uh and uh they also yeah
1:30:30 they told the letters on fifth year yeah
1:30:32 and when a child is eight
1:30:34 they get that thread and then the sacred
1:30:36 said that they oh yes yeah that's when
1:30:38 in the eighth year and they also taught
1:30:40 the guy three mantra
1:30:42 and this is basically like
1:30:44 marking their form entry into their
1:30:46 entry into formal education
1:30:48 this is the eighth year
1:30:50 and then uh have a good uh educational
1:30:52 ethic
1:30:53 sorry for more education yeah yeah
1:30:55 that's right
1:30:57 yeah this is only for the particular
1:30:58 class only for the people who are
1:30:59 allowed to do it everybody's good
1:31:02 these are people who are allowed to
1:31:03 study the vedas the the scriptures yeah
1:31:06 uh
1:31:08 so yeah and then
1:31:09 there's like 16 of that uh and finally
1:31:12 is when they die uh
1:31:13 yeah i find out when they die the bodies
1:31:15 are burnt on the fire uh
1:31:17 and then it's like other like
1:31:18 celebrations when they die for like 13
1:31:20 days so that's basically the sun it's
1:31:22 called the sanskara
1:31:23 the 16 milestones in each and everyone's
1:31:26 life that should be like acknowledging
1:31:27 in a very particular manner
1:31:29 and then there's the festivals again
1:31:31 almost each garden goddess have a
1:31:34 particular festival why is so popular
1:31:36 here in the west yeah but the main ones
1:31:38 is diwali and holi because it's like
1:31:40 associated with like the most popular
1:31:41 ones diwali is associated with ram and
1:31:43 sita so there's a whole story of
1:31:46 sita was rama's wife she was kidnapped
1:31:49 by ravana and taken to the kingdom of
1:31:51 lanka which is basically sri lanka
1:31:52 no way yeah
1:31:54 there's also a place called ravenna's
1:31:55 cliff there which i've been to so
1:32:06 when he's coming back the people uh help
1:32:09 them
1:32:10 escape by lighting lamps so that's why
1:32:12 on diwali the light lamp to as i
1:32:14 remember really that's yeah okay very
1:32:16 interesting so
1:32:17 sita was kidnapped rama's wife and rama
1:32:20 went to save her when he came back
1:32:23 the people of the village lit lamps uh
1:32:26 to to help them escape so that's why
1:32:28 people like lamps
1:32:29 are members of that which one's wrong
1:32:31 again sorry rama is the seventh
1:32:32 incarnation of vishnu what does it look
1:32:34 like
1:32:36 i'm not sure
1:32:37 i'm all confused
1:32:45 [Laughter]
1:32:53 holy is known as the festival of colors
1:32:55 and celebrated during this spring
1:32:58 so this is uh done in remembrance of
1:33:01 uh somebody uh the victory
1:33:04 hindu remembers the victory of prahlada
1:33:06 over the demon girl
1:33:07 holika that's why they gave the name
1:33:09 holy from
1:33:11 holika was basically ordered by an evil
1:33:12 king to slay
1:33:14 so it was
1:33:16 prahlad there's a guy called
1:33:18 okay
1:33:20 his father wanted to kill him for some
1:33:21 reason oh my god i'm not sure why so but
1:33:24 his father got holika who's an evil
1:33:26 demon as a demon girl yeah
1:33:28 to kill his own son
1:33:30 but uh
1:33:32 uh
1:33:33 somehow prahlada managed to kill
1:33:35 himself
1:33:37 and that's why they celebrate holy i'm
1:33:38 not sure why they uh throw colored
1:33:40 powder but for some reason who killed
1:33:42 who at the end uh prahlad killed holika
1:33:44 so the sun kills her father no no the
1:33:47 sun kills
1:33:48 the the hitman basically
1:33:50 yeah okay yeah yeah yeah yeah
1:33:53 and then for some reason they throw uh
1:33:55 colored powder i'm not sure why
1:33:57 and then there's yoga which is also
1:33:59 important in
1:34:00 question tradition yeah yeah even in
1:34:03 hindu the basic idea they're trying to
1:34:05 reach brahman the thing we were talking
1:34:06 about earlier the ultimate reality
1:34:09 they
1:34:10 see yoga is a way to do that
1:34:12 and even yoga there's like many
1:34:14 different types of yoga there's actually
1:34:16 like five main type four main type sorry
1:34:18 um
1:34:20 certain uh types only like uh as a
1:34:23 particular classes do it and these are
1:34:26 different uh
1:34:27 uh kind of things that they do in each
1:34:29 uh type
1:34:30 and then there's the pilgrimages uh
1:34:32 again there's many of that as well uh
1:34:36 but uh the main one is uh so one of the
1:34:39 most sacred city is a place called
1:34:41 varanasi
1:34:44 it is believed to be the city where
1:34:46 shiva uh lived a long time ago okay
1:34:49 uh and the river ganges runs uh runs
1:34:51 through that as well
1:34:53 uh
1:34:54 and they so they go there and
1:34:57 in on pringles and bait there because
1:34:58 they
1:35:01 and then the other important pilgrimage
1:35:04 is the kum mela i think this is the
1:35:05 largest gathering of people in the world
1:35:08 uh again this is another place how many
1:35:10 people occurred there
1:35:11 i'm not sure but in the millions okay
1:35:14 and then there's another city where the
1:35:15 ganges runs through and
1:35:17 it's similar things uh so they do this
1:35:20 once every 12 years so it's not like you
1:35:22 can go every year so once every 12 years
1:35:24 but there's like
1:35:25 like a minor like a
1:35:27 lesser form of version of that
1:35:28 particular event where it's held like
1:35:30 every three or four years but the lesser
1:35:32 form that there's a form version is like
1:35:35 done in three different places
1:35:38 and they go there once every three years
1:35:41 uh
1:35:43 and this this started because of the
1:35:44 story of some uh of a person called
1:35:46 garuda
1:35:48 uh which is initially a bird okay the
1:35:51 bird picked up a
1:35:52 a jar that contained immortality nectar
1:35:56 but four drops of that nectar fell into
1:35:58 the gangas
1:36:00 so that's where the gang is basically
1:36:02 got all its magical powers from i guess
1:36:05 so yeah that particular kumbh mala
1:36:07 pilgrimage lasts for 55 days
1:36:10 yeah
1:36:12 and then they have
1:36:14 even charity is very important for them
1:36:16 they call it dhana
1:36:18 in sri lanka for some reason they call
1:36:19 it dhanam i think because they adopted
1:36:20 this singles word
1:36:22 uh uh and then yeah um
1:36:28 uh and then
1:36:30 under the uh concept of dhanak uh comes
1:36:32 another concept called ahimsa which is
1:36:35 which means not harming or killing
1:36:36 anything living i think somebody
1:36:38 mentioned that earlier because they
1:36:39 believe that the spark of the divinity
1:36:42 of the divine is is in every living
1:36:44 thing so they uh it's called himself you
1:36:47 should not harm or kill any anybody
1:36:49 and then underneath that comes the idea
1:36:51 of the cow being like one of the most
1:36:52 sacred of those living things because of
1:36:55 like i mentioned scripture reason he
1:36:57 mentioned some uh
1:36:59 rational reasons as well
1:37:01 yeah so that's about
1:37:03 what i found why they throw the
1:37:05 so how much did you mention about the
1:37:07 holy festival did you mention the fire
1:37:09 no i didn't
1:37:10 so
1:37:11 so what is the holy festival holy fest
1:37:13 was a
1:37:14 a religious and agricultural festival of
1:37:16 fertility and harvest according to the
1:37:17 bbc the centuries old festival is
1:37:19 celebrated on the day after the last
1:37:21 full moon of the hindu month uh
1:37:25 falgon
1:37:26 there are several religious stories of
1:37:27 satchel holly one of the most well known
1:37:29 is that
1:37:30 prahalad and halika
1:37:33 that off praha
1:37:35 holika prahad was the son of a demon
1:37:37 king
1:37:38 um i'm not gonna try to pronounce that
1:37:40 who
1:37:41 who unhappy with his son's devotion to
1:37:43 vishnu
1:37:44 uh attempted and failed several times to
1:37:46 murder prahlad
1:37:48 this person's sister and a fellow demon
1:37:50 holika was gifted immunity to fire and
1:37:52 therefore decided to carry prague
1:37:55 into the flames
1:37:56 as one last attempt to murder
1:37:59 but because holoka was using her powers
1:38:02 for evil the
1:38:04 gods restricted their gift and she
1:38:06 turned to ash
1:38:08 was protected from the fire by vishnu
1:38:10 and later took his father's throne um
1:38:13 the moral of the story is that god
1:38:14 always prevails over evil and the
1:38:15 goodness is what is celebrated in the
1:38:17 holly celebrants of the celebration
1:38:19 celebrants of often
1:38:21 lights huge public bonfires on the last
1:38:24 night of holly to pay homage to
1:38:26 prahlad's story according to national
1:38:28 geographic.org the powdered paint called
1:38:30 gulal
1:38:32 thrown during the festival represents
1:38:34 the bonfire from which prahalet was
1:38:36 saved and the powders used pay homage to
1:38:39 the bright colours seen during the
1:38:41 spring season
1:38:42 very interesting uh do you want to
1:38:44 continue with your
1:38:46 that's about it well there's one last
1:38:47 thing um
1:38:49 during the hollow celebrations the
1:38:50 indian caste system
1:38:52 uh the division between the different
1:38:53 social classes is put on the back burner
1:38:56 and all castes celebrate together okay
1:38:58 sharing goodwill and humor universal all
1:39:00 right um now having said that uh the
1:39:03 last thing that we have on the
1:39:05 menu is uh
1:39:09 the scriptures
1:39:10 yeah so let's let's do that now any any
1:39:13 uh let's get scriptures done first and
1:39:16 then
1:39:19 the the most important hindu scriptures
1:39:21 are the vedas which means knowledge in
1:39:23 sanskrit
1:39:25 it's believed these texts were written
1:39:26 between 1500 and 1000 bce making them
1:39:30 some of the oldest religious texts
1:39:33 they're divided into two broad
1:39:35 categories
1:39:36 the sharoti which means heard
1:39:39 and similarity which is remembered
1:39:43 the shrutis which include the vedas
1:39:46 define the truth for hindus
1:39:48 hindus believed that the laws of nature
1:39:50 and the truth of self were revealed to
1:39:52 sages who are in the ultimate state of
1:39:55 meditation
1:39:56 what they heard has been comply and
1:39:58 compiled in the vedas
1:40:01 the vedas are classified into four
1:40:03 categories
1:40:04 rigveda
1:40:06 yadavad
1:40:12 every veda was given to a specific sage
1:40:15 in order to preserve and propagate them
1:40:18 each veda is made up of four parts
1:40:21 the samakhitas which consists of hymns
1:40:24 to god
1:40:26 the brahmanas which consists of priestly
1:40:29 rituals in prayer
1:40:31 the aranyakas which concern worship and
1:40:34 meditation
1:40:36 the upanishads which concern mystical
1:40:39 and philosophical teachings of hinduism
1:40:42 and are taught under mentorship
1:40:45 the second category of hindu scriptures
1:40:48 are the sim smearities
1:40:51 or that which is remembered
1:40:53 these texts elaborate and explain the
1:40:56 shruti scripture
1:40:57 and were written by sages
1:41:00 they inclu include dharma sastras these
1:41:03 are the primary texts of hindu law and
1:41:06 codes of conduct
1:41:07 they advise on spiritual moral social
1:41:10 and material matters
1:41:15 the puranas these explain hindu legends
1:41:18 genealogy of gods and kings
1:41:20 cosmology astronomy and poetry
1:41:23 they address the social religious and
1:41:26 moral needs of men
1:41:28 the ittehas
1:41:30 comprises of the two epic poetic
1:41:33 narrations
1:41:35 the ramayana which describes the ideal
1:41:37 family society and state
1:41:40 and the mahabharata
1:41:42 which depicts the epic war between good
1:41:44 and evil justice and injustice
1:41:49 the mahabharata contains the bhagavat
1:41:51 gita which is an important dialogue
1:41:54 between krishna krishna and arjun and
1:41:58 how to do good deeds and fight injustice
1:42:01 and the darshanas are test texts which
1:42:05 expand
1:42:06 various practical sciences
1:42:09 the ved angers are six books which give
1:42:12 insight to into the meanings structure
1:42:16 and knowledge contained in the vedas
1:42:19 the agamas or tantra
1:42:21 are guides to prayer meditation
1:42:24 construction
1:42:25 and idol making
1:42:28 okay that's thank you that was very
1:42:30 comprehensive
1:42:32 um
1:42:34 so these
1:42:35 what you said the vaders were the most
1:42:36 important right and they had the
1:42:38 rigvaders and the
1:42:40 yeah you have four uh the vedas are
1:42:43 classified into four categories right
1:42:44 yeah
1:42:46 so rigvedas rigvedas yajirvade samvade
1:42:49 and atarvade and does anyone know
1:42:52 openness of the floor does anyone know
1:42:54 if this if there's a prioritization
1:42:55 between those vedas or are they all seen
1:42:57 as
1:42:58 as authoritative as one another
1:43:06 speaking yeah go ahead
1:43:12 it's what they would consider wahi and
1:43:15 they believe that you know like the
1:43:16 brothers mentioned the four different
1:43:18 vedas each one of them focuses on a
1:43:19 specific aspect so one like the algebra
1:43:22 they will focus on rituals
1:43:25 when it comes to looking at theology the
1:43:27 upanishads are kind of the philosophical
1:43:29 texts explaining their theology about
1:43:31 god
1:43:33 so i think those
1:43:34 for our interest if our interest is
1:43:36 wanting to know their understanding of
1:43:37 god
1:43:38 um the uh probably what would be the
1:43:40 best text to study and you know do
1:43:43 nicholas are filled with
1:43:44 statements that could be interpreted as
1:43:46 monotheism a lot of these ideas that god
1:43:49 does not have form that god should not
1:43:51 be made into images the idea that god is
1:43:54 one these are all the that are found
1:43:55 within the upanishad text
1:43:57 um so
1:43:59 um those are i think that's what we
1:44:01 should focus on if that's our goal but
1:44:03 like like i i couldn't hear fully what
1:44:06 the brother was saying but like each of
1:44:08 these vedas that we're talking about
1:44:09 they each have specific things that they
1:44:11 focus on so the yajja veda is
1:44:13 specifically focusing on like the ritual
1:44:15 worships
1:44:16 um the author the i think it's
1:44:19 this focuses a lot on like their magical
1:44:21 rituals um their incantations um some
1:44:25 daily practices of their life um the rig
1:44:28 veda for example deals with cosmology
1:44:31 and deity is how you know the universe
1:44:33 was created um and so forth and the sama
1:44:36 veda has a lot of their classical music
1:44:38 and their dance and their melodious
1:44:40 chants so uh all four of them focus on
1:44:44 specific different topics but all of
1:44:46 them are known as uh they're regarded as
1:44:48 authentic
1:44:49 so this might be a good point to bring
1:44:51 up what adnan rasheed was mentioning
1:44:54 yeah because he talks about the the
1:44:56 interview that happened on dawa wise
1:44:58 with the the hindu
1:45:00 and he made so this is where hinduism
1:45:03 becomes quite difficult to like pin down
1:45:05 in one particular aspect
1:45:07 um because i guess he's somewhat of an
1:45:09 authority to some degree in hinduism and
1:45:11 he was
1:45:12 sort of making the opposite claim that
1:45:15 none of these texts
1:45:17 were wahi if i remember what adnan was
1:45:19 saying
1:45:20 yeah so they just
1:45:22 to what extent
1:45:24 do hindus
1:45:25 both the laity and the scholarly classes
1:45:28 consider these books to be
1:45:30 divinely inspired
1:45:34 in much the same way as we would as
1:45:35 muslims
1:45:37 through a medium or spoken
1:45:40 as god's word
1:45:42 directly i think all of them
1:45:46 it's it's it's quite widely regarded
1:45:48 that these are the authoritative texts
1:45:49 within hinduism they all these are the
1:45:52 books that they cite from as their
1:45:54 classical sources so okay again
1:45:56 i know
1:45:59 i said we don't know who wrote them or
1:46:01 when they were revealed these are right
1:46:03 but
1:46:04 so to what extent is it effective
1:46:07 to go into these books and to use
1:46:09 quotations the like of which you've kind
1:46:11 of alluded to
1:46:13 and this goes to our fourth part of the
1:46:15 session actually or the final passage
1:46:16 which is how to do dower to these people
1:46:18 as well like how to hindus
1:46:20 um
1:46:22 to what extent is using passages from
1:46:24 the bhagavad-gita or from the brig veda
1:46:28 whatever maybe upanishads or you know
1:46:31 mahabharata
1:46:33 you know i'm not pronouncing it right
1:46:35 probably but
1:46:36 what to what extent is doing that effect
1:46:39 an effective strategy for dao
1:46:41 in your opinion
1:46:44 that this this is the form that dr zakir
1:46:46 naik followed with yes
1:46:48 he he always he always quoted from the
1:46:52 vedas because he felt these because the
1:46:54 these could not be denied
1:46:56 right with these other stories these
1:46:57 other literature they play a crucial
1:46:59 role you know in hinduism but they're
1:47:01 not considered necessarily
1:47:03 right that these are written by our
1:47:05 great scholars but they understand which
1:47:06 ones which ones
1:47:20 these are like the direct sources like
1:47:22 like their quran
1:47:23 um that they believe that their stages
1:47:25 their issues right
1:47:27 what are similar to the prophets brought
1:47:29 down with them okay
1:47:31 so what do you think of the
1:47:33 let me open it to the floor but let me
1:47:34 start with you ahmed the approach
1:47:36 because you mentioned zach and like and
1:47:37 to be fair he probably is the global
1:47:39 leader in doubt he does
1:47:41 he he is he in the last i would say 50
1:47:44 years
1:47:45 on the scale that he has been able to do
1:47:47 it it's probably been his uh most
1:47:50 notable unique contribution actually if
1:47:52 you really think about it is
1:47:55 uh his approach to dawa to hindus in
1:47:57 particular
1:47:59 and what i was going to ask was
1:48:02 yeah as you've mentioned he he does two
1:48:04 things from what i remember
1:48:05 and uh you know as i've seen his uh his
1:48:07 discussions with srishira shankarji and
1:48:10 this
1:48:11 guy's you know and the other hindu guy
1:48:13 forget his name some time ago i watched
1:48:15 them
1:48:16 and as you mentioned this was the format
1:48:18 of the discussion so that
1:48:20 it would be more like similarities i
1:48:22 think there's something obviously he
1:48:24 knows the culture more than we do he
1:48:25 lives in india he's an indian himself
1:48:27 and
1:48:29 he he seemed to want to kind of find the
1:48:31 common ground with them so similarities
1:48:33 between hinduism and islam that would be
1:48:35 a regular title that he would put
1:48:38 and then in that he would have two
1:48:41 overarching arguments one is if you look
1:48:43 at the vedas the bhagavad
1:48:46 and all these things you'll find the
1:48:48 mention of one god
1:48:50 you'll find that that god is like
1:48:54 without form as you've mentioned and so
1:48:56 on so many things that kind of coalesce
1:48:58 or otherwise coincide with the islamic
1:49:02 belief system achida creed
1:49:05 and your and this is the second part of
1:49:07 it you'll also find
1:49:09 this uh khaki figure this figure called
1:49:12 the kakio uh in the sanskrit the the
1:49:15 indian
1:49:17 is an avatar but then his his father's
1:49:19 name is the servant
1:49:21 of the
1:49:22 of of god and his mother's name is uh
1:49:26 it's like amina like you know whatever
1:49:28 the prophet muhammed's name was and
1:49:30 he'll be victorious inviting so it
1:49:32 sounds like talking about a prophetic
1:49:34 figure that's going to come at the end
1:49:35 of this and it actually sounded to me
1:49:37 growing up listening to it quite
1:49:39 convincing
1:49:40 it sounded quite convincing but to what
1:49:42 extent is it academically robust and to
1:49:45 what extent is
1:49:47 uh effective these are very two very
1:49:49 important questions
1:49:51 to what is number one to what extent is
1:49:53 using this
1:49:54 approach
1:49:56 it's not first of all to what extent is
1:49:58 it legitimate we've already kind of
1:49:59 alluded to that because we've said that
1:50:00 it's not inconceivable for us to say
1:50:02 that there was a religion that was
1:50:03 corrupted in the past and it was an
1:50:05 indict religion fine it could be
1:50:07 buddhism it could be christianity oh
1:50:08 sorry uh hinduism not sikhism in fact we
1:50:12 would we wouldn't say that
1:50:13 that was one of them because it came
1:50:15 after islam but
1:50:18 so it's legitimate to use this land of
1:50:20 argumentation now the second thing is to
1:50:22 what extent is it academically robust
1:50:25 um
1:50:27 i'll bring it to the floor to what
1:50:29 extent is it academically robust to take
1:50:31 these things from the bhagavad-gita and
1:50:33 the vedas and the punishments whatever
1:50:34 it may be and to say that they're saying
1:50:36 that god is
1:50:38 one and that he has no partners and he
1:50:40 has no form and also there's going to be
1:50:42 this figure and the akaki figure his
1:50:45 name is kakio you know avatar in the end
1:50:47 of times and that he's going to resemble
1:50:49 the prophet in his description
1:50:51 so what do you guys think
1:50:53 so
1:50:54 yeah what i would say
1:50:56 from an academic standpoint if you read
1:51:00 many of the academic literature they're
1:51:02 not citing these stories
1:51:04 they're not they're not citing these
1:51:05 stories as proof they're always citing
1:51:08 the vedas uh into bunny shots uh largely
1:51:12 these texts because these are the ones
1:51:14 that
1:51:15 all of them agree upon they're the most
1:51:17 authoritative and what they consider to
1:51:19 be
1:51:20 um and for us i think it's it's the best
1:51:23 option for us as well because these
1:51:24 texts are very clearly monotheistic when
1:51:27 one reads it um it's a very as you know
1:51:30 prince mohammed shaku said they're very
1:51:33 they're philosophical explanations of
1:51:35 doheed
1:51:37 so for us when we are going and if we
1:51:39 want to
1:51:40 speak with them you know about the
1:51:42 similarities between the two i believe
1:51:44 that quoting these two books quoting the
1:51:46 passages and also quoting the
1:51:48 commentaries of their great scholars who
1:51:51 when they comment on these verses are
1:51:53 elucidating monotheism so
1:51:56 um
1:51:57 and then i believe that the strategy
1:51:58 that dr zakir naik
1:52:00 has employed has been extremely
1:52:02 successful
1:52:03 and
1:52:04 i don't think there's necessarily a need
1:52:06 to recreate the wheel in the sense that
1:52:08 we because the more you go into this
1:52:10 other literature the more corruption
1:52:11 you'll find the more harder it will be
1:52:14 to argue that it's monotheistic or it
1:52:16 has similarities with islam but if we go
1:52:18 to the cortex
1:52:20 there we can see clear similarities and
1:52:22 i think for if if many hindus read it
1:52:26 they'll see that and they realize that
1:52:27 this is coming from their most
1:52:29 authoritative text i think many of them
1:52:31 will have to kind of
1:52:33 reconsider islam or kind of reshape it
1:52:35 so that's the first thing um the second
1:52:38 point you mentioned about the khalaki
1:52:39 avatar there's a book one hindu
1:52:41 professor wrote i think it's called
1:52:50 he mentioned some of the arguments that
1:52:51 you mentioned and he has some other
1:52:53 arguments so i think
1:52:55 i think the kalki avatar is known it is
1:52:58 known throughout the hindu tradition
1:53:00 i i think most of them have an idea of
1:53:02 it
1:53:03 also tied to that is the hindu belief of
1:53:05 the cycles of life
1:53:07 so the kali yuga for example is what
1:53:09 they call the last phase of life this is
1:53:12 where they believe that there's going to
1:53:14 be corruption people are going to leave
1:53:16 religion
1:53:17 tyrants are going to abuse their power
1:53:19 and such and such and many hindus
1:53:21 believe that we are currently in that
1:53:23 state
1:53:24 so i think if we can somehow tie
1:53:26 together the idea that because they say
1:53:27 that in the kali yuga state is when the
1:53:29 kalki avatar will come
1:53:32 when sorry
1:53:33 they say that
1:53:35 and what's that what's that state sorry
1:53:38 so that's the last state of humanity so
1:53:40 they say that
1:53:42 since the beginning humans go through
1:53:43 this cycle
1:53:45 right i forgot the earlier names but the
1:53:47 last cycle of human existence is called
1:53:49 the kali yuga
1:53:50 and this is uh this this cycle is
1:53:53 characterized by things such as atheism
1:53:55 uh people leaving religion um people of
1:53:59 uh i think i also read interesting
1:54:01 parents that children disobeying their
1:54:03 parents is that which is what about in
1:54:04 the times
1:54:06 that's what he said yeah
1:54:08 yeah that's what he said but what i was
1:54:10 going to say
1:54:11 what would be the top verses or
1:54:13 i mean what's the best arguments that
1:54:15 you've come across in that book that you
1:54:17 read
1:54:20 like it's been a while if you go on the
1:54:22 wikipedia page
1:54:23 of the book it lists out all the
1:54:25 arguments so we can uh what's the name
1:54:27 of the book again for
1:54:31 uh
1:54:32 muhammad
1:54:36 yeah okay beautiful
1:54:38 well for example some of the things they
1:54:40 say is that um and if
1:54:42 if people are interested in yousef
1:54:44 actually did a lecture just recently
1:54:46 called
1:54:47 the praiseworthy in world scriptures so
1:54:49 he looked at the prophet sallallahu
1:54:50 alaihi wasallam in all of the major
1:54:52 world religion scriptures so he also did
1:54:54 it with hinduism so he goes a little bit
1:54:57 i think more in depth here but one one
1:54:58 of the similarities is that
1:55:00 the the name for kalki avatar was a man
1:55:03 named they believe is a man named
1:55:06 and
1:55:07 the name
1:55:08 means praiseworthy
1:55:09 so he argued that the name muhammad
1:55:11 sallallahu islam was also praised
1:55:16 this next point is i think interesting
1:55:17 he says that the kalki was
1:55:19 uh was is going to be born on the 12th
1:55:22 day of their month which is called madhu
1:55:25 which is the first month in their lunar
1:55:27 canada and that the prophet sallallahu
1:55:29 alaihi wasallam was also born on the
1:55:30 12th day of rabbi al-awwal which is the
1:55:33 first month of the islamic lunatic
1:55:35 calendar
1:55:37 another thing he mentions is that the
1:55:38 kalki will be born in this village and
1:55:41 one of the descriptions of the village
1:55:43 is that it's it's a land that's filled
1:55:45 with date trees
1:55:47 and the similarities he says they don't
1:55:48 have that in india do they
1:55:51 it's i don't think it's that widespread
1:55:53 uh it's it's not every city
1:55:56 the city was known for having you know
1:55:57 day trees
1:55:59 so and mecca was the same it was filled
1:56:01 with date bombs
1:56:03 last point
1:56:04 which uh which you briefly mentioned is
1:56:06 that the kalki's father and mother
1:56:09 mother their name would be um
1:56:12 vishnuyash sumati which basically means
1:56:14 a good and a peaceful woman
1:56:16 um and that the prophet saws parents
1:56:18 name allah abdullah and amina also mean
1:56:21 the servant of god and a peaceful woman
1:56:23 so that's pretty powerful
1:56:26 that's pretty powerful
1:56:28 so i think and and the sources check out
1:56:30 for every single thing you've just
1:56:31 mentioned
1:56:32 yeah yeah it's it's it's all here all
1:56:34 the references are here
1:56:36 um so i think if we if we're able to
1:56:38 kind of combine
1:56:39 use verses from the upanishads from the
1:56:42 vedas use the commentaries from their
1:56:44 own classical scholars
1:56:46 right and they have some scholars as
1:56:48 well which are well regarded and then
1:56:50 talking about the kalki avatar talking
1:56:53 about what the kali yuga state is like
1:56:55 and then making the argument that the
1:56:57 prophet sallam meets the criteria that i
1:56:59 think that would be a very strong uh i
1:57:01 think that'll be a very robust argument
1:57:04 okay beautiful i think we should
1:57:05 definitely stick to that i would only
1:57:07 add that we should start with taheed uh
1:57:10 as well like a lot of the arguments i
1:57:12 feel are so relevant when we read the
1:57:14 quran today and we see like those
1:57:16 arguments against shirk
1:57:17 they are so relevant to hindu discourse
1:57:20 what abraham said to his people were not
1:57:22 annoying said to his people and and so
1:57:24 on they are so it's so simple and the
1:57:26 lay person will just
1:57:28 it's so it's so
1:57:30 clear to the lay person
1:57:34 allah says if you've seen those who
1:57:36 take their own desires for worship
1:57:39 and you'll often find when it comes to
1:57:41 like hindus they worship particular gods
1:57:43 based on particular desires so if they
1:57:46 desire
1:57:47 a certain thing they'll go to the god
1:57:49 which will fulfill that yes um so
1:57:51 there's a sort of link
1:57:53 there as well in terms of the um a
1:57:55 description of them and what they do
1:57:57 with the regard
1:57:58 well it's i think this is a good place
1:58:01 to stop uh
1:58:02 because we've covered so much today i
1:58:04 think we've had like a three-hour
1:58:05 session i want to thank you ahmad you
1:58:07 can send me the if you can send me the
1:58:09 recording on on my email and i'll send
1:58:11 it to the cameraman maybe we can merge
1:58:12 it or something when you speak
1:58:14 uh we'll see what happens if we can't
1:58:16 then it's fine either way is it's all
1:58:18 good
1:58:19 um but um
1:58:21 it has been
1:58:22 pretty intense but this is a major world
1:58:25 religion
1:58:26 and we have to get the at least the
1:58:28 basics right and then maybe people are
1:58:30 gonna comment and say well you guys
1:58:32 should have thought about this or
1:58:33 there's additions and subtractions and
1:58:36 for not just the muslim community but
1:58:38 people who are
1:58:39 versed in indic religions and or and or
1:58:42 believe in them would be it's an open
1:58:44 conversation and what we're trying to do
1:58:46 above all else is to understand uh this
1:58:50 religion so that we can engage with the
1:58:52 people who profess
1:58:54 uh such a religion
1:58:56 but it has been uh very informative i've
1:58:59 learned so much today and i want to
1:59:00 thank all of you for participation i
1:59:03 think it's a very uh fruitful
1:59:05 conversation
1:59:07 and um
1:59:08 until next time salaam alaikum is